Commons Sitting of 6 July 1988

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  PRIVATE BUSINESS
    BREDERO (BON ACCORD CENTRE, ABERDEEN) ORDER CONFIRMATION
    Mr. Secretary Rifkind presented a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order, under section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to Bredero (Bon Accord Centre, Aberdeen); and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be considered upon Tuesday 12 July and to be printed. [Bill 191.]
    HIGHLAND REGION (LOCHINVER HARBOUR) ORDER CONFIRMATION
    Mr. Secretary Rifkind presented a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order, under section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to Highland Region (Lochinver Harbour); and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be considered upon Tuesday 12 July and to be printed. [Bill 192.]
Oral Answers to Questions
  FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

    Commonwealth Parliamentary Association
    Mr. Couchman: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he has any plans to pay a ministerial visit to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meeting to Australia.
    The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has asked me to lead the United Kingdom branch delegation to the conference.
    Mr. Couchman: When my right hon. Friend meets members of the Australian Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, will she thank them for their warm hospitality to Members of this House when they visited them in Australia? During the Australian bicentennial, will she remind them of the close ties that we cherish between our two countries, and in that spirit of close affinity will she offer to our Australian friends a view of how the United Kingdom's economy has improved since 1979 so that our Australian friends see how they might lift their economy during the coming decade?
    Mrs. Chalker: Indeed, we thank the Australian Commonwealth Parliamentary Association for its warm hospitality to all members of the CPA groups who are to visit Australia this September. As my hon. Friend said, we
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    cherish the very close ties that have come very much more into our minds in this bicentennial year, particularly the sail training ship, which has brought so much pleasure to Australians, which was a gift from this Government.
    It is notable that after Treasurer Keating took sound corrective action inflation fell from 9·3 per cent. in February 1987 to about 7·1 per cent. in December 1987. He has also delivered an economic statement that suggests that he intends to free the dynamic forces within the economy. He has also cut corporation tax from 49 to 39 per cent., following the economic example set by this country. We hope that it will bring as much success to Australia as it has brought to this country.

    El Salvador
    Mr. Michael Welsh: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made regarding the increase in human rights violations in El Salvador.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Tim Eggar): In February this year we supported the extension of the mandate of the United Nations Special Representative on human rights in E1 Salvador. I discussed these matters with the Salvadorean Foreign Minister during his visit to London in March.
    Mr. Welsh: Is the Minister aware that during the first four months of this year 100 civilians have been killed, the vast majority of them by death squads? They had been tortured and beaten, their hands tied behind their backs and then executed. That is the way in which the death squads carry out that kind of punishment. Is the Minister also aware that in this sparsely populated country of 5 million, 10,000 children die every year through malnutrition and disease? That is also a violation of human rights. Will the Minister use his good offices and ask his friends in the EEC, who gave aid amounting to £14 million last year to El Salvador, and his other friends in America who give aid to that country, to put pressure on the Government of El Salvador so that the killing is stopped, human rights are observed and people are treated with the respect and dignity that they deserve?
    Mr. Eggar: As I have said, we have made very clear to the E1 Salvadoreans our concern about reports of the increase in human rights violations this year. We recognise the scale of the difficulties and the problems that are associated with a destructive insurgent war. The UN Special Representative found no evidence to prove that the Government connived at human rights abuses, and acknowledged the President's real efforts to curb violations of human rights. It would have been helpful to the House if at the same time the hon. Gentleman had expressed concern about the abuses committed by the guerrillas. The UN Special Representative noted that there were a number of injuries to civilians as a result of a deliberate policy by the guerrillas.
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: Does my hon. Friend agree that it does not help in the slightest to spend our time knocking the democratic President and the Government of El Salvador? They have a difficult enough time maintaining the balance between, on the one hand, Nicaragua-backed insurgents and, on the other, brutal elements in the military.
    Mr. Eggar: I note my hon. Friend's comments. There are abuses of human rights in E1 Salvador, and it is correct to express our concern about them.

    Middle East
    Mr. McTaggart: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what new plans he has to further the peace process in the middle east; and if he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Sir Geoffrey Howe): We shall continue to encourage the parties to the Arab-Israel dispute to respond positively to Mr. Shultz's initiative and to agree arrangements for an international conference.
    Mr. McTaggart: The Government have made many fine statements about this issue, but when can the House expect real action from them? Will the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs raise with his European partners the need for a positive initiative? As a first step, will he arrange for a Minister to speak to someone from the PLO?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The hon. Gentleman will know that this topic has been the subject of regular and serious discussion at meetings of European Community Foreign Ministers. It is only a short time since we had the opportunity of meeting the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr. Peres, when we took the opportunity to impress upon him our sense of urgency, and in particular our concern, about the need to ensure that the access provisions for exports from the occupied territories are being permitted and put into effect by Israel.
    We have a regular dialogue with the PLO at official level. We have made plain the extent to which it is entitled to participate in the conference, when it is held, and we shall continue to do so.
    Sir Dennis Walters: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, despite the Israelis' brutality and oppression on the West Bank and in Gaza, the PLO has maintained a very moderate position? Would it not be sensible at this stage to follow up the intentions of the Venice declaration and raise meetings with the PLO to ministerial level?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I understand the extent of my hon. Friend's knowledge of, and interest in, this subject and that particular aspect of it. The PLO is well aware of those aspects of its policy that stand in the way of renewed ministerial contact: the need for unqualified recognition of Security Council resolutions, recognition of Israel's right to a secure existence, and renunciation of violence. However, that does not stand in the way of regular dialogue with the PLO at official level; nor does it inhibit our ability to play our part in carrying the peace process forward.
    Mr. Dalyell: Ought not either the Foreign Secretary or the Defence Secretary to clarify the rules of engagement under which British ships are operating in the Gull?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: That has nothing to do with the question; nor is it a question that is answered.
    Mr. Temple-Morris: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that part of the middle east peace process
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    must relate to the major war that is going on in the Persian Gulf? Does he have any plans in the present tragic circumstances to bring Iran to the conference table at the United Nations, to give it some chance of an honourable peace?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: As my hon. Friend knows, we attach importance to the implementation of resolution 598 as the foundation upon which a negotiated settlement can be built. Iran has failed to accept that resolution. We support the work of the Secretary General in trying to secure acceptance of resolution 598 by both sides, and we shall give our full support to the authority of the Secretary General to that end.
    Mr. Kaufman: Further to the question that has just been put by the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris), will the Foreign Secretary say whether, before the Prime Minister issued her knee-jerk support for the United States over the tragic incident on Sunday, she gave a moment's thought to the effect of her comments on the British hostages being held in Beirut, whose fate is a matter of great concern to everybody in this country? As almost one year has elapsed since the passage of resolution 598 through the Security Council, without any action being taken to implement it, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman now go to the United Nations and consult its other permanent members with a view to moving a resolution for a mandatory arms embargo on any country that will not accept resolution 598, so that some action can be taken to bring to an end an appalling conflict, which has killed 1 million people and is placing the whole world at risk?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am prepared to endorse without qualification the right hon. Gentleman's description of the tragedy and horrors of this long-continuing conflict. I am not, however, prepared to go along with his own knee-jerk reaction to the carefully prepared statement put out on behalf of the Government on Sunday in the light of the tragic incident with which he started his question.
    As that statement made clear, the whole world must deeply regret the loss of life involved in that tragedy. We therefore took care to extend our sympathy to the bereaved at the outset. But, in the light of the very concern expressed by the right hon. Gentleman about the continuation of the conflict, it is equally right to accept the general right of foreign naval forces present in the Gulf upholding the freedom of navigation, under article 51 of the charter, to defend themselves. The statement clearly reaffirmed—I hope that the right hon. Gentleman does not doubt this—the legitimacy as a matter of principle of action taken in self-defence.
    As for the incident itself, obviously it is neither sensible nor proper at this stage to make further comment until there has been fuller investigation of the details, and we must await the outcome of the United States naval investigation.
    As for the last point, I need no lectures from the right hon. Gentleman to underline the need for us to take every action that we can to bring about an early end to the Iran-Iraq conflict. It was British action that secured the implementation of resolution 598 in the first place; it was British action that therefore secured the first meeting since 1972 of Foreign Ministers last September. It is Britain that is still in the chair of the five permanent members committed to promoting action to implement it. I raised

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    with the Soviet Foreign Minister in New York just three weeks ago the need for. further action, and I secured his response precisely to put teeth into resolution 598 by putting on the order paper and implementing an arms embargo resolution. We have not so far been able to secure the support of all five permanent members for that, but the House can he sure that it is not for want of trying on the part of Her Majesty's Government.
    Mr. Batiste: Given the welcome, though sudden, interest of the Iranian Government in the preservation of human rights, can my right hon. and learned Friend see any prospect either of a more immediate interest in the ending of the Iran-Iraq war or of the ending of the abnegation of human rights in that country or its sponsorship of international terrorism?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to those aspects of the conduct of Iran and the Iranian Government which continue to cause dismay, at best, and shock, at worst, to other parts of the international community. That is why it is necessary, Iraq having accepted Security Council resolution 598, for Iran to do likewise. If Iran does not do that, I repeat that the Security Council should proceed to consider a follow-up resolution to enforce compliance.
    Mr. Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the subsequent answer to the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris), why was my original question on the rules of engagement out of order?

    UNESCO
    Sir Russell Johnston: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he has any plans to meet Mr. Mayor, the Secretary General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, to discuss the possible re-entry of the United Kingdom into the organisation.
    Mr. Eggar: I met Mr. Mayor during his visit to London on 22 June.
    Sir Russell Johnston: The Minister has not replied to my question. The question is, did he take steps to begin a dialogue with a view to Britain's re-entering UNESCO? Many hon. Members on both sides of the House believe that it was a great mistake for Britain to leave that organisation, a view shared by our colleagues in the European Community. It would be a very good thing to set an example to the United States for a change.
    Mr. Eggar: During our meeting Mr. Mayor gave his impressions of the past six months, during which he had been a director-general of UNESCO. I gave him my assurance that we would continue to monitor developments at UNESCO carefully. At the same time, I made it clear that we need to see evidence that the necessary fundamental reforms at UNESCO have been achieved before we can even begin to consider our position on membership.
    Sir Peter Blaker: In contrast with what the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) said, is it not clear that it was only the departure of the United Kingdom and the United States from UNESCO that brought an end to the corrupt and costly regime of Mr. M'bow? Mr. Mayor has made a good start,
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    but is not more evidence needed of a lasting change in the actions and policies of UNESCO before we can consider rejoining?
    Mr. Eggar: I very much agree with my right hon. Friend. At the last executive board meeting in Paris there was a considerable amount of evidence that member states opposed even the fairly minor changes that Mr. Mayor has recently introduced. It does not make sense for us to decide whether we shall rejoin until after the end of the general conference of UNESCO, which will take place in 1989, because that general conference will show whether the member states are prepared to introduce necessary reforms over the subsequent five years.

    European Council, Hanover
    Mr. Anthony Coombs: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the European Council meeting at Hanover.
    Mr. Brandon-Bravo: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the European Council meeting at Hanover.
    Mr. Dykes: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the recent European Council meeting at Hanover.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said on 30 June, the outcome of this Council was very satisfactory. We have confirmed that the way forward in Europe lies in the creation of wealth and jobs. British firms will be well placed to take advantage of the opportunities that the single market in Europe offers.
    Mr. Coombs: Does my right hon. and learned Friend welcome the rapid progress that has been made in the past year by the EEC towards trade liberalisation in accordance with the Single European Act? Will he confirm, however, that physical harmonisation does not necessarily mean uniformity of taxes and that the danger of full monetary and economic union is the possible loss of economic sovereignty to this country? Therefore, will any such proposals by the Delors committee be firmly resisted as being premature?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I should like to agree with my hon. Friend about the important progress that has been made in the Community in completing the single market, to the benefit of United Kingdom industry and consumers, Under the German presidency, which has just finished, more than 50 such single market measures have been completed.
    Progress towards European monetary union has been a proclaimed objective in Community texts for many years, but any change in that direction that involved any major institutional change would require not only unanimity within the Council but ratification by national Parliaments, so the matter will be fully available for consideration over the many years ahead when it will be on the agenda.
    Mr. Brandon-Bravo: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in an upbeat statement last week on this topic, said that one third of the menu of things to be done had already been completed under the momentum of the. German presidency. I think I am right in saying that the

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    next six months will be under the presidency of Greece, a country whose priorities may be a little different. Would my right hon. and learned Friend care to comment on that?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I certainly endorse my hon. Friend's comment that the national personalities and priorities of the member states vary from half year to half year. I expect that the six months that we spend under Greek presidency will be different from the six months that we have had under the German presidency.
    My hon. Friend is also right to emphasise the large number of measures towards the single market taken in the past six months. Indeed, since June 1985 about 200 measures have been taken. For the next six months, it is important to emphasise that the Hanover European Council, with full Greek participation and endorsement, agreed four priorities for the coming months: opening up of public contracts; liberalisation of banking and other financial services; mutual recognition of standards; and progress on so-called intellectual property—trade marks and patents.
    Mr. Dykes: With this harmonious and positive summit, and the fact that since the internal market campaign was launched by the Government the Commission office in London has been inundated with many more inquiries and expressions of interest by a public who are increasingly enthusiastic about the development of the Community, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, as the member states get used to working more reciprocally in these legitimate areas with majority rule, this country would derive more benefit from that system of democratic majority rule that by insisting on a rearguard action to preserve outdated and anomalous traditions?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I must confess that I was exhilarated by the enthusiasm of my hon. Friend's question for about its first 85 per cent., but I was dismayed that a member of the Conservative party should dismiss traditions quite as brusquely as he did. We are able to achieve the proper balance between those matters. In the provisions of the Single European Act we have retained and stressed unanimity in cases where it is appropriate, but, under the British presidency, as a talisman of our willingness to make headway, more decisions were taken by majority decision that in any preceding presidency.
    Mr. Rees: Were there any formal discussions about Northern Ireland between the Taoiseach and the Prime Minister in Hanover?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The Prime Minister and the Taoiseach had a meeting at Hanover at the conclusion of the European Council meeting and a short press statement was issued thereafter.
    Mr. Tom Clarke: At its last meeting, did the Council consider the view expressed by the Iranians that, at the monthly meeting with European ambassadors, the only empty chair is that of Great Britain? Would it not be in the interests of dialogue that that chair be filled, and is not dialogue now important?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The hon. Gentleman will find that the seat that would be occupied by the British ambassador in Tehran is occupied by the Swedish ambassador, who looks after our interests there.
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    However, on the wider question, we discussed in the House last week the obvious desirability of being able to establish normal relations with a country as important historically and prospectively as Iran, but I went on to make very clear the need for Iran to recognise the number of steps that it should take—suspending the sponsorship of terrorism, according proper guaranteed rights to diplomats, treating prisoners in Iran in accordance with consular rules, and abiding by the provisions of resolution 598. Those are the steps that need to be taken if the revolutionary regime in Iran is to come to terms with the way in which it should live in company with other nations.
    Mr. Corbett: What recent discussions have taken place at the European Council to secure the territorial integrity and independence of Cyprus and the removal of Turkish troops? Will the Foreign Secretary undertake to raise that matter with President Evren when he visits London later this month?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: We have certainly discussed the Cyprus question on a number of occasions, most recently in the context of the association council proposed with Turkey on 25 April, which did not in fact then take place. Certainly we attach importance to progress in Cyprus in response to the initiative of the United Nations Secretary General. Whenever either I or the Prime Minister meet the Head of Government or the Foreign Minister of Greece or Turkey, we raise the question on that basis, and I have no doubt that it will be discussed in the course of President Evren's visit next week.
    Mr. Soames: Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that the British Government are wholeheartedly committed to examining the possibility of the creation of a European central bank?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I confirm that the Government wholeheartedly accept the commitment, in the study established at the European Council, for the consideration of concrete steps towards the objective, reaffirmed in the Single European Act, of progressive realisation of economic and monetary union. Those words have been endorsed by the House and by successive Governments for many years. How far and how fast that requires us to go towards the establishment of a central bank is one of the questions for consideration by that committee.
    Mr. Robertson: Has the Foreign Secretary noticed that the excellent Greek Government, on assuming the presidency of the Community, declared that one of their main priorities would be to press for social policies such as job creation, health and safety, retraining and sexual equality up to the completion of the internal market by 1992? Since those commendable policies were comprehensively rubbished by the Prime Minister at the Hanover summit, something which brought strong criticism from the German press, will the Government and the Foreign Secretary be supporting the Greek presidency in its objective, or will the Government yet again stand alone in ensuring that big Europe will be only for big business?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The hon. Gentleman retains one qualification—the ability to coin the odd phrase. The trouble is that the phrases that he coins have nothing to do with the real world. The European Council agreed on a programme of measures to be given priority in the months ahead. I have already identified them. They are measures

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    designed to continue the liberalisation of the market in the European Community. The Community also agreed that the promotion of economic prosperity, and of economic growth by that means, provides the best foundation for employment and social measures. The unemployment rate in the United Kingdom is below that of the European average. Our percentage rate fell by 2·5 per cent. last year—faster than any other country in the Community. In the years 1983 to 1986 we created 900,000 jobs, which was more than the rest of the European Community put together. That is the best way to achieve the social progress that is wanted by all members of the European Community.

    Sharpeville Six
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made recently to the South African Government on the case of the Sharpeville Six; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Winnick: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent representations to the South African authorities Her Majesty's Government have made regarding the Sharpeville Six.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: Further appeals on behalf of the Sharpeville Six were made by Foreign Ministers of the Twelve on 14 June, by the Security Council on 17 June, by Heads of Government at the Toronto summit on 20 June, and by the European Council on 28 June. We have also raised the issue again direct with the South African Government.
    Mr. Lloyd: I hope the Foreign Secretary will accept the fact that international moves in this direction have already had an impact in delaying execution. If he really wants to be the Prime Minister's successor, and not simply her poodle, will he go along and demand of the Prime Minister that she uses her special relationship with President Botha to make it clear publicly that Britain is insistent on clemency being granted, and that it should be granted now?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The whole House, including Her Majesty's Government and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, share the concern raised by the hon. Gentleman that clemency be exercised in respect of the Sharpeville Six. It is for that reason that we have participated in the various representations that I have already described. We have been in touch today, through our embassy in South Africa, to establish the present position. Legal moves are still taking place there. An application is still outstanding for consideration by the Chief Justice in South Africa, and the executions have been suspended at least until 19 July, and will be extended thereafter. We have already urged that all legal options should he used. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already once urged, in an appeal to President P. W. Botha, that clemency should be exercised, and that plea stands against the possibility of it being necessary at the end of the appeal process. We are all seeking, in any way that we think most effective, to procure the result that the whole House wants. We are convinced that those efforts are not likely to be any more effective if we accompany the plea for clemency by any kind of threat or menace.
    Mr. Winnick: As the Six could be executed during July, is it not essential that the Prime Minister makes a personal appeal to the President that they should not be executed? Despite what the Foreign Secretary has just told us, is he not aware that Labour Members—Conservative Members may think differently—are far from satisfied that the British Government are doing all that they can to ensure that the hangman's noose does not take the lives of the Six?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I beg the hon. Gentleman to be humble enough to accept, first, that we want as much as he does to see the exercise of clemency in this case and, secondly, that the pleas that have been made by Her Majesty's Government and the representations that have already been made once by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, which were supported by the decisions that she arrived at with the rest of the Heads of Government in Hanover last week—representations that have the authority of Her Majesty's Government and are unaccompanied by threats and menaces—are far more likely to have an effect than the sort of threat that the hon. Gentleman would put beside them.
    Mr. Neil Hamilton: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is difficult for President Botha to exercise clemency in this case, for two reasons? First, the Western world has given the South African Government no credit for the relaxations of apartheid that have taken place in recent years. Secondly, while the African National Congress pursues an indisciminate policy of terrorism and murder in South Africa, the white community especially will need the reassurance that a strong policy by the South African Government gives.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. We all wish to see apartheid brought to an end as quickly as possible, but that process is more likely to be hastened by acknowledging progress when it has been made than by pretending that it has not happened. It is equally right to say that the process of reform is more likely to be set back by violence than the reverse. For that reason, we continue to drive home the case to the ANC and the South African Government that acts of violence set back the process of reform. That said, and although it is not our normal practice in any automatic way to intervene when sentences of death are imposed—we do so only once the legal process has been concluded, and then only in exceptional circumstances—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because the great majority in the House, the Government and almost every other Government in the world, endorse the view, which I am invited to endorse, that it would advance the prospect of good government in South Africa and the end of apartheid if the South African Government were to see their way to exercise clemency in this case.
    Mr. Menzies Campbell: Does the Foreign Secretary understand that the joint measures with which the Government have been associated command the approval of at least some of us on the Opposition Benches? Does he recognise that there is considerable concern about the extent to which the Government are prepared to pursue unilateral initiatives? Does he accept that the best possible argument in this case is one that is based, not on the somewhat arcane legal principle of common criminal purpose, but upon the humanitarian considerations that necessarily apply in this unhappy and unfortunate case?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: It is on the basis of the consideration that I have described that our appeal is based. We do not make pleas of this sort on any automatic basis that is likely to be discounted. Our appeal for clemency has been considered carefully in this case. We try to make that appeal in the fashion best calculated to be effective. There is no doubt whatever—I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman will agree with me—that it is not likely to be effective if it is accompanied by threats.
    Mr. Wells: Do not the abhorrent happenings in Sharpeville, which led to this terribly difficult position in the courts in South Africa, reinforce the wisdom of the Government's policy of setting their face against further sanctions against South Africa, which would induce further economic difficulties in the townships and lead to an incipient revolutionary situation of a sort that led to the present position? Are we not able strongly to plead for mercy for the Sharpeville six because we have not supported sanctions?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am delighted to be able to agree with every word that my hon. Friend has said. It is right that sanctions would be positively directed in the wrong direction. It is our experience and judgment that punitive sanctions so far imposed by other countries have failed to hasten reform, have reduced external influence and have strengthened the hand of those who are opposed to reform. As we have set our face against sanctions, we are more likely to have more influence, rather than less.
    Mr. Kaufman: The Foreign Secretary has properly rejected the racist baying from the Conservative Benches on this issue. He says that the Government wish all legal options to be taken before making further representations, and we naturally hope that those options will result in proper clemency being shown to these six innocent people. If that were not to happen, and it became clear within the next few days that these six innocent people faced hanging by the South African regime, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman assure us that the Prime Minister will demonstrate the concern which he says she feels by personally picking up a telephone and speaking to the President of South Africa to ask for the clemency for the six innocent people?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: Again the right hon. Gentleman has a gift for reaching out for the wrong end of the stick. Far from racist baying from the Government Benches, there is powerful support from both sides of the House for measured and effective action to secure clemency in this matter. We have already done all that we can for the present. In March this year, when the matter was first being considered, the Prime Minister asked President Botha to exercise the prerogative of mercy. A stay of execution is in force until 19 July and it may be extended beyond that. If the appeal fails then, as the Prime Minister told the House on 30 June, her appeal would once again go before President P. W. Botha. I do not think that his consideration of that is likely to be enhanced by the drama of a telephone call, and still less if it were accompanied by threats and menaces. The appeal will be sustained in the manner we judge most effective to secure the objective that the right hon. Gentleman wants.

    British Ambassador (Tel Aviv)
    Mr. McKelvey: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if. in the light of the current state of United Kingdom-Israel relations, he will withdraw Her Majesty's ambassador in Tel Aviv for consultations; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Mellor: No, Sir.
    Mr. McKelvey: If the Government are not prepared to recall our ambassador, can the Minister outline to the House how he intends to focus the minds of the Israeli Government on the deteriorating conditions between us and them? Will he tell them in no uncertain manner that we will not permit their agents to spy, burgle and counterfeit their way around London? Furthermore, will he tell them that many of us are gravely concerned at the fact that they continue to gun down Palestinians on the West Bank and elsewhere?
    Mr. Mellor: It is not just the hon. Gentleman who is concerned about that. Most hon. Members are concerned. I certainly am and so are the Government. On the general conditions in the occupied territories, we continue to make clear in all the fora open to us our dissatisfaction at the fact that the Israeli Government are refusing to take any steps forward. The hon. Gentleman may recall that the final declaration at the Toronto summit reiterated the sentiment, which is now commonplace everywhere, except in certain sections of the Israeli Government, that the status quo is now unsustainable and must be changed. On the matter of present incidents involving the activities of unauthorised agents in this country, our dissatisfaction has been made clear at the highest level. As a result, one diplomat was told earlier that he would not be welcome back to the United Kingdom, and another one has been dispatched home. We hope that the message is clear.
    Sir John Biggs-Davison: As a general rule, is it not the case that when there are difficulties with foreign states, or matters arising that occasion disapproval, it is most important to have the fullest diplomatic representation?
    Mr. Mellor: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Janner: Does the Minister agree that, despite differences of opinion between the two countries, relations between Britain and Israel remain good? Further, does he agree that that is right, bearing in mind that those countries in the middle east supported by some hon. Members—[interruption.]—are either feudal oligarchies, military dictatorships or fundamentalist lunacies?
    Mr. Mellor: The hon. and learned Gentleman is aware of the House's reaction to some of his comments. Therefore, further remarks from me are redundant. Relations between Britain and Israel are good, but could be a great deal better if some of the points that I mentioned earlier were dealt with properly.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that we must continue to foster good relations with Israel and that, in the interest of both countries, we must seek peace in all the troubled parts of the middle east? Does he agree that the British and Israeli Governments could probably take a joint initiative and ask the United States and Iran for access to the black boxes from the

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    crashed airliner and the tapes, which must be in existence, of the exchanges that took place between the airliner and the warships?
    Mr. Mellor: As my hon. Friend knows, a full investigation is under way to find out how the tragic incident earlier this week took place. We must await the results of that.

    Commercial Officers
    Mr. Cran: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to ensure greater length and continuity of service among commercial officers deployed in Britain's embassies and consulates.
    Mrs. Chalker: Continuity is important, but is only one of a number of factors which determine tour lengths for United Kingdom-based officers. Commercial officers work in tandem with locally engaged staff, who offer continuity. Together they provide an effective and valued service to British exporters.
    Mr. Cran: In paying tribute to the importance that I know my right hon. Friend attaches to export promotion, which, if evidenced by nothing else, is evidenced by the size of the budget that she has contributed to it, may I ask whether she agrees that, while locally recruited staff are important, British industry places the highest possible importance on high-level commercial staff appointed by the FCO? Does she also agree that many companies feel that tours of duty, if that is the correct expression, for those staff are not long enough, and that consequently the continuity that companies expect is not there? Against that background, it is felt that an investigation should take place.
    Mrs. Chalker: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his tribute to Foreign and Commonwealth service officers, but I must say to him that long stints in certain posts can give rise to problems.
    Mr. Kaufman: Yes.
    Mrs. Chalker: That is why we have decided that four years is about the right length of time for second secretaries and above who are appointed to commercial posts abroad. Where conditions are difficult, and for certain staff, the time may have to be shorter. I can assure my hon. Friend that representatives of British industry who meet the permanent under-secretary and me on a regular basis to discuss commercial issues seem to be very satisfied with the combination of knowledgeable, locally engaged staff and commercial officers, with the emphasis on high-level staff, who normally do tours of duty of about three to four years.
    Sir Ian Lloyd: In considering the whole question of length and continuity of service, will my right hon. Friend pay special attention to the position of scientific officers in our embassies, who render such distinguished and valuable service, not only to the scientific community, but to industry in Britain as a whole?
    Mrs. Chalker: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. We hope that in the scientific field we shall get more interchanges with the private sector, because we can certainly gain from the knowledge of such people in
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    commercial and scientific posts. There are exchanges at the moment, but there are not enough and we should like to see more.

    South Africa
    Mr. Skinner: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will now consider applying economic sanctions against South Africa; and if he will make a statement.
    Mrs. Chalker: We do not believe that the application of punitive economic sanctions against South Africa would help bring about the end of apartheid, which is the objective of the hon. Member and of Her Majesty's Government alike.
    Mr. Skinner: Is the Minister aware that if there was any doubt in anybody's mind either here or outside about the ideological empathy between this Government and the South African Government, it was surely dispelled on Monday night when the Prime Minister walked through the Lobby to support a private Bill to enable the South Africans to export more coal to Britain? That coal has blood on it. Surely it is time that the British people understood more clearly that the Government's opposition to sanctions is not about some mere technicality, but because they want to give aid and succour to the hated Botha regime?
    Mrs. Chalker: The hon. Gentleman's question is almost not worth replying to. I can only say that if he continues to act as Scargill's voice in this House and to drum away at policies that will not help black people in South Africa, it will be a very poor show for him and for what he is supposed to stand for. The hon. Gentleman spoke about a decision of the House. The House is responsible for Britain's economy. There is no ban on the import of South African coal, and to have one would depend on a number of other people and not just on Britain. The hon. Gentleman does not help black people in South Africa by the way in which he approaches this issue.
    Sir Jim Spicer: Will my right hon. Friend take every possible opportunity to speak privately to the leaders of black South African trade unions to ascertain their true views relating to sanctions, as opposed to the views that they have to express publicly to avoid attacks from the ANC?
    Mrs. Chalker: I assure my hon. Friend that we have many continuing contacts with leaders of black trade union leaders in South Africa. We intend to keep in close touch with their views, and we know of surveys that have been taken of those views. They do not wish sanctions to be introduced, but it is true that they sometimes fear to speak out about the real views of their people. While we do not believe that enough progress has yet been made, we very much welcome the successful establishment of black trade unions in South Africa, and we hope that it will continue.
    Miss Lestor: I warn the right hon. Lady that when I meet her later this week to discuss Mozambique I shall not deal only with the banditry and terrorism that is being practised by the South African-funded MNR in Mozambique, but will raise with her the question of the sanctions that South Africa imposes on Mozambique; for

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    example, the slashing of the number of Mozambican miners it employs and the under-use of the port of Maputo. The Government acknowledge the damage that South Africa does to Mozambique with those sanctions by trying to compensate it through the aid programme. If South Africa——
    Mr. Dickens: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Miss Lestor: No, I will not. If South Africa can destabilise Mozambique in that way, does the right hon. Lady not realise that sanctions imposed on South Africa by Britain and other countries would have the same effect?
    Mrs. Chalker: The hon. Lady will have to sort out one or two things before she comes to see me tomorrow. Many Mozambicans have told us that it is precisely the denial of jobs in South Africa, which sanctions would cause if they were implemented, that would deny their families the income on which they depend so heavily. We shall go on aiding Mozambique in a positive way, just as we shall continue to aid black people in South Africa in a positive way, but I can tell the hon. Lady that she and I will have a lot to say to each other tomorrow.
    Mr. John M. Taylor: Is my right hon. Friend aware of any instance of sanctions achieving the objectives that they were intended to achieve?
    Mrs. Chalker: No, I am not.
    Mr. Anderson: Even if the Government reject economic sanctions, will the Minister consider sending a signal to the South African Government? First, will she instruct our ambassador in South Africa to ask for permission to visit Nelson Mandela in prison near the time of his birthday and convey to him a tribute from this House? Secondly, will she issue an ultimatum to the South African Government about Zwelakhe Sisulu, a former official guest of the Government, who is now starting his third year of detention without trial and who is now in hospital? Will she inform South Africa that unless he is released from prison we and our European partners will order the withdrawal of senior South African diplomatic personnel?
    Mrs. Chalker: The hon. Gentleman is well aware that I do not believe that ultimatums will bring about what he and I seek, which is the humane treatment of Mr. Sisulu, who, we are sad to know, is now in hospital. I assure the hon. Gentleman that Her Majesty's ambassador in South Africa will make such visits as he can to those who need our help there. The hon. Gentleman should await the continuation of our policy, which has always been to represent to the South African Government our view that Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners should be released without any conditions.

    Afghanistan
    Mr. Brazier: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps his Department is taking to monitor the actions of Soviet troops towards the indigenous population in Afghanistan during their withdrawal.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: There have been persistent allegations about violations of human rights by Soviet
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    troops. We look to the Russians to withdraw quickly and end the misery that they have inflicted on the Afghan people.
    Mr. Brazier: May I draw my right hon. and learned Friend's attention to the recent article by Bernard Levin on the massacre of Afghan children by Soviet forces in the village of Kolalgu? May I put it to him that there are two lessons in this for the West? The first is that the West must continue to support and arm the Mujahideen until their country is free? The second is that we must continue to strengthen our own armed forces, as the Soviets are strengthening theirs, at the same time as talking to the Soviet Union.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend does well to draw attention to that article, because it serves to remind us of how quickly the horrors of that kind of denial of human rights can be disregarded and overlooked. The most important text is the report from the United Nations' special rapporteur, which, for 1988, identified more than 14,000 civilian deaths last year. Even the regime admits to more than 3,000 political prisoners, and torture is still being used in interrogation. It is plainly right that the world should continue to support the heroism of the Afghan people during implementation of the agreement for the withdrawal of Soviet troops. It is important also for us to continue to monitor that process carefully.
    Mr. Cousins: Will the Secretary of State hold urgent discussions with the Government of Pakistan, in order to have an orderly run-down of refugee camps, and to prevent the Central Intelligence Agency from creating there yet another generation of well-armed extremist gangsters who will haunt the world long after the Afghan conflict is over?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I think that the hon. Gentleman has a bizarre and distorted idea of what goes on in refugee camps in Pakistan. Pakistan deserves the admiration of the world for the part that she has played in accommodating a large proportion of the 5 million people displaced by Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. From my own experience of visiting those camps, I know that the overwhelming majority of those people want only one thing—the right to return to their own country. Their willingness to do that will be the best judgment of the effectiveness of Soviet withdrawal.

    Drug Trafficking
    Mr. Barry Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what further measures he is considering to curb the international trade in narcotics.
    Mr. Eggar: We shall continue to play a leading role in promoting effective international co-operation. We are providing drugs-related assistance to more than 20 countries and expanding the vital network of drugs liaison officers. We are discussing assets and confiscation agreements with more than 40 Governments and signed the third such agreement, with the Bahamas, on 28 June.
    Mr. Field: I am sure that the whole House welcomes the success that the Government have had in curbing this

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    pernicious and evil trade. Can my hon. Friend tell us how many agreements he has with customs enforcement agencies in overseas countries?
    Mr. Eggar: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. It is only through international co-operation that we can help to defeat the internationally organised crime of drug trafficking. Co-operation between customs works differently between different countries and in different circumstances, but, as a result of co-operation, we have with the Soviet Union recently made a very significant haul of cannabis. We have also been very successful in our co-operation with Spain, which has led to more than 60 arrests of drug traffickers.
    Mr. Tony Banks: Does the Minister accept that the real problem arises from the demand and the criminal activities surrounding the supply of illegal drugs? Are any discussions taking place within the British Government and, indeed, internationally, on the possibility of legalising soft drugs to eliminate the criminal activity associated with the trade?
    Mr. Eggar: No, Sir. I imagine that the hon. Gentleman is alone in the House if he really believes that that is the way to send the correct signal to drug traffickers and abusers. Drugs pose a major threat throughout the developed and developing world. The only way to hope to defeat that threat is by a combination of international co-operation and tough measures against drug producers and traffickers.

    Toronto Summit
    Mr. Favell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the Toronto summit.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I refer my hon. Friend to the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 23 June.
    Mr. Favell: Can my right hon. and learned Friend say something about the discussions that must have taken place about how best to react to recent remarkable
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    developments in Russia? Does he agree with the view expressed in today's leader in The Times that Western leaders have a hard job ahead when deciding how best to applaud Mr. Gorbachev's efforts?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: There was certainly a good deal of discussion of the events that have been taking place in the Soviet Union. In the concluding declaration the Heads of Government stated:
    "In the Soviet Union greater freedom and openness will offer opportunities to reduce mistrust and build confidence. Each of us will respond positively to any such developments."

    Chile
    Mr. Maxton: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made regarding the presence of foreign observers to monitor the impending plebiscite in Chile.
    Mr. Eggar: We suggested to the Chilean authorities earlier this year that they might consider inviting foreign observers. The Chilean Government have since made it clear that, while foreigners may visit Chile at the time of the plebiscite, and be present during voting and scrutiny, they will not recognise such foreign visitors as having the status of "observers". I understand, however, that the democratic opposition parties will be able to appoint their own observers at polling stations. I am also aware that a number of hon. Members have received invitations to visit Chile at the time of the plebiscite, from the organisers of the Parliamentary Assembly for Democracy.
    Mr. Maxton: In view of the appalling civil rights record of the Pinochet regime in Chile, surely the Minister must do much more to ensure that there are foreign observers to make sure that the plebiscite is carried out fairly by a Government whom the whole world distrusts on that issue?
    Mr. Eggar: We have already asked the Chilean Government, who have given us their response. At the same time, they stated that foreign observers in art unofficial capacity will be welcome to attend the arrangements for the plebiscite. I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman wanted to go he could arrange an invitation.

Child Abuse (Cleveland)
3.31 pm
The Minister for Health (Mr. Tony Newton): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the report by Lord Justice Butler-Sloss on the findings of her inquiry into the handling of suspected child abuse cases in Cleveland in the early part of last year. Her report, and her own short version of it, are available in the Vote Office, as is a statement that she is making in Middlesbrough this afternoon.
The whole House will be united in its condemnation of sexual or other abuse of children, and in its support for proper action to protect children from it, but it will be no less united in insisting that this must be achieved in a way that does not trample on the rights of parents and inflict unnecessary distress on the very children we wish to be helped.
It is clear from the report that this balance was not achieved in Cleveland during the period in question, even though many children received the protection they needed. The House would wish me to express the deep regret of all of us to those who have suffered as a result. It is perhaps hard to imagine the shattering effect on those parents who were innocent and on the children.
The report contains substantial criticism both of individuals, including the consultant paediatricians, Dr. Higgs and Dr. Wyatt, the police surgeon, Dr. Irvine, and the child abuse consultant, Mrs. Richardson, and of important aspects of the managerial response to the situation as it developed. It confirms that there was an overall failure to achieve essential communication and co-operation between police, health and social services.
It is for the authorities involved in the first instance to address those criticisms and take the necessary action. The Government expect that action to be thorough, speedy and effective. The help of the Government's medical advisers, of the Social Services Inspectorate and of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary will, of course, be made available to assist those authorities.
At the same time, the Government are taking immediate action to ensure that the more general lessons of the report are applied not only to prevent a recurrence of similar events but to improve the handling of child abuse throughout the country.
First, as I have already said, the report confirms the fundamental importance of the professional people and agencies concerned with child abuse working closely together within agreed guidelines. It underlines the need for a balanced assessment of different strands of evidence, and for action to be judged in the light of all the circumstances of the family as a whole. It stresses the need to listen carefully to what the children have to say and to take it seriously, and it re-emphasises the need for parents to be kept informed, consulted, and given reasonable access to their children unless that would be against the best interests of the child.
Those lessons, including the report's recommendations for the creation of special assessment teams, are reflected in comprehensive guidance that is being issued today by my Department and the Welsh Office. Guidance circulars are also being issued today to the police by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and to the education service by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for
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Education and Science. Detailed professional guidance on social work practice is now being tested in the field and will be issued shortly.
On the specific point of ensuring effective co-operation between different agencies, I am also publishing today a survey by the Social Services Inspectorate of current arrangements. I am glad to say that it shows a generally satisfactory picture. In the few cases where this cannot be said, we are asking the inspectorate to monitor the position closely and see that it is improved.
Secondly, the report indicates that medical examination is only one aspect of assessment, and in particular that the test of reflex anal dilatation should not on its own be taken as conclusive evidence of sexual abuse. That view is confirmed by the report of a sub-committee of my right hon. Friend's Standing Medical Advisory Committee, which we asked to consider these matters in parallel with the inquiry. Its guidance for doctors on the diagnosis of child sexual abuse is being published today and sent to every practising doctor. We are also publishing today, and distributing to the nursing profession, guidance for senior nurses on the management of child abuse work from my right hon. Friend's Standing Nursing and Midwifery Advisory Committee. Copies of all the reports and guidance to which I have referred have been placed in the Library.
Thirdly, the report shows a clear need for better training for those who handle child abuse work. We have already included in the Health and Medicines Bill new powers to cover specific grants for social work training in this field. We intend to make available in 1989–90 a grant of 70 per cent. in support of expenditure of £ 10 million. We shall ensure that this major new programme means not merely more training but better training which takes account of all the lessons learnt from the report.
Lastly, I am glad to say that the report gives general support to the proposals for reforming the law contained in the White Paper on the law on child care and family services, published last year. The aim of the proposals is to make the law simpler and clearer and to strengthen the rights of parents and children. They include the replacement of place of safety orders by a new emergency protection order with stricter criteria and more limited duration. In addition, where an emergency protection order is obtained without the parents being involved, they will have a new opportunity to challenge the order after 72 hours. The Government are firmly committed to a Bill to implement the White Paper proposals, modified as may be agreed in the light of the report. That Bill will be brought before Parliament at the earliest practicable opportunity.
What I have announced covers the great majority of the report's recommendations. Others are being examined urgently. In particular, my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor intends to issue a consultation paper before the House rises on the report's suggestion for an Office of Child Protection, with powers which could include scrutiny of local authority applications in care proceedings and calling for additional investigation or reports.
We are extremely grateful to Lord Justice Butler-Sloss for the thorough and comprehensive work that she has done, and to her three assessors—Professor Hull, Mr. Chant and Mr. Soper—who have supported her in her conclusions and recommendations. The issues with which they have had to deal are immensely complex, and the report reflects the inescapable fact that there is no single

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simple answer. In acknowledging that, it is right also to balance the picture that has emerged from Cleveland with recognition of how much valuable and successful work is done in this difficult field by doctors, nurses, social workers and police throughout the country. But the plain fact is that what happened in Cleveland should not have happened, and must not he allowed to happen again. The measures announced today are designed to see that it does not.
Mr. Robin Cook: I begin by joining the Minister in expressing the gratitude of the whole House to Lord Justice Butler-Sloss for her exhaustive and authoritative report. Her objectivity and skill in conducting the inquiry are confirmed by the fact that, in a situation marked by strong hostilities, she managed to command the respect of all parties to the dispute.
The full report commands more thorough debate than it can receive in the next half hour, and perhaps more careful study than it will receive in tomorrow's instant headlines. Those who study the report will find it a balanced report, which presents on the one hand a vivid and candid account of the nature of child sexual abuse, and on the other an account of the harrowing experience of those families when no abuse has been confirmed but who were set apart for months by the allegation of abuse.
Given the severe trauma caused by sexual abuse and by the false accusation of abuse, all parties in the House must regret the evidence in the report of the collapse of communication between those agencies with statutory responsibility for detecting abuse, and the inadequate communication within those agencies between middle and senior management.
The most effective way in which we can show appreciation of Lord Justice Butler-Sloss's work is to act on her recommendations. I draw the Minister's attention to five heads of recommendation. I appreciate that some of these issues go beyond his departmental responsibility, and in view of the gravity of the matter I shall be happy if he wishes to reflect on his response and write to me afterwards.
First, may I pick up the Minister's point about the White Paper on child care, which is strongly endorsed in the recommendations? As the Minister will be aware, Lord Justice Butler-Sloss stresses that, in her opinion, it is urgent that the White Paper is turned into legislation. The Minister said that legislation would be brought forward at the earliest practicable opportunity. He will recall that the White Paper, in its foreword, contains the commitment of the then Secretary of State that it would be implemented
"as soon as the Parliamentary timetable allows".
That was in January 1987.
I understand that it was not possible to legislate this Session while the inquiry was in train, but we now have the report of the inquiry. It stresses the urgency of legislation, and, while I understand that convention prevents the Minister committing himself to legislation this year, I note that he has on one side of him the Leader of the House and on the other the Prime Minister. I am sure that he will recognise that the public would not understand it if another Session were to pass without the House legislating on that White Paper.
Secondly, in preparing that legislation, will the Minister note the judge's support for family courts? Is it not clear that one factor in the Cleveland crisis was the rapid way in which it generated a bottleneck in court procedures?
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Therefore, will the Minister reconsider the Government's decision to amend the law first, and only then tackle the structure by which it is enforced? Would it not be more sensible to act on both fronts together?
Thirdly, will the Minister reflect on the stress placed in the recommendations on avoiding the necessity of removing the child from the home? Will he therefore consider whether it might be more in the interests of the child, and less disruptive to the family, to bar the suspected perpetrator of abuse from the family home, rather than always removing the suspected victim of abuse—a power that is now frequently available to states in America?
Fourthly, I was disappointed to learn that only £7 million is to be made available for additional training. That is doubly disappointing, as it is only two months since the Minister failed to find £40 million to extend the social work training period from two to three years. As a result, in 1992 Britain will be the only European country with a two-year period of training for social services. Lord Justice Butler-Sloss places particular stress on the importance, in basic training, of training to deal with child sexual abuse. It is difficult to see how yet another topic can be covered adequately in basic training when the Government have already resolved not to extend the period of that training. It would be regrettable if child sexual abuse were to become another example of local authorities being given extra responsibility, with no extra resources and no additional training to deal with it.
Finally, may I put it to the Minister that, with the passage of time, the real significance of Lord Justice Butler-Sloss's report, the real point for which it will be remembered, is the way in which it has documented the reality of child sexual abuse within our society? Her most important recommendation may remain her very first recommendation, which is the need to recognise arid measure the extent of that abuse. We must not let our revulsion at the practices that she describes find refuge in the belief that they do not exist; nor must we let the fact that grievous mistakes were made in Cleveland discourage us from finding and protecting the victims of real abuse.
I draw the Minister's attention to the conclusion of Lord Justice Butler-Sloss, that one of the dangers of the Cleveland experience is that it may demoralise the very people whose duty it is to detect abuse. I invite the Minister to associate himself with her observation, which is of particular significance to those who write about our proceedings this afternoon:
"Social workers need the support of the public to continue in the job the public needs them to do."
It is time that the public and the press gave it to them.
Mr. Newton: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) for the way in which he introduced his questions and for the spirit in which he has approached the subject, and I associate myself with his concluding remarks. That is one reason why I recognised at the end of my statement that a great deal of valuable and successful work is being done around the country by all the people who are involved.
To answer the hon. Gentleman's questions in reverse order, I accept that it is desirable to have a clearer understanding of the scale of he problem. He will perhaps recall that when I announced the establishment of the inquiry I also announced our intention to make use of the experience of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in running child abuse registers,

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covering about 9 per cent. of the country's children, to generalise the system for collecting statistics and to build up a national picture. That work is proceeding. We are now receiving the returns for 31 March 1988, and we shall be putting them together with a view to having a clear national statistical return in place as soon as possible, which I hope will be helpful.
When I responded to the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work's proposals only a month ago, I made it clear that one of the reasons why we were unable to accept them in that form was that we believed that the first priority was to bring about a number of improvements—I think I used the phrase "a balanced package of improvements"—covering some of the most obvious and immediate problems. Training was one of the problems that I had in mind. The expenditure that I have announced today will bring about immediate improvements in social work training, including that for existing social workers as well as future ones. I also made it clear that we wished to make improvements in social work training generally, including the crucial gap of inadequate practice placements. We shall provide additional resources for that purpose.
The guidance that we have published today makes it clear that the removal of the child is not the first and only resort in every case. That, I hope, will be clear to all from this experience. I shall also reflect on the other suggestion that the hon. Gentleman made.
My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor is hoping to make an announcement about the Government's approach to family courts later in the year. The Cleveland report considers that family courts could help in some respects, but it did not cover all the issues relating to family courts. However, the report recommended that there should be an Office of Child Protection, to which I referred in my statement. There is no doubt that such an office, together with the reform of child law, would be an important step towards the establishment of such a court. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor intends to issue a consultation document before the summer recess.
The hon. Member for Livingston kindly recognised the constitutional conventions surrounding the translation of the White Paper into legislation. I have to tell him, especially with my right hon. Friends the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister sitting on either side of me, that I could hardly go further without falling over the edge of the constitutional conventions, but I am sure that they heard what he said.
Mr. Stuart Bell: I associate myself with the remarks of both the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), and congratulate Lord Justice Butler-Sloss on her work and on her report. She spent five months in my constituency of Cleveland and thereabouts, and a further five months preparing her report. We all welcome its recommendations, and the unanimity of the House indicates that Lord Justice Butler-Sloss has an opportunity, linked with last year's child care law reform White Paper, to mould our child care legislation into the next century.
I welcome the Minister's remarks and his expression of deep regret on behalf of the Government to those innocent Cleveland families who, through no fault of their own,
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were caught up in a horrible vortex, which swept them all down and almost destroyed their lives. For months those families have said, "No one has listened and no one has said sorry." Today, the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston, with the Prime Minister in attendance, have indicated that the House associates itself with the agony and plight of those families and expresses to them its deep regret.
My final statement to the House is that all the people of Cleveland wish to put this sad tale behind them. The steady, effective and thorough action to which the Minister referred will, I hope, be welcomed by the agencies concerned, so that we may all learn the lessons of Cleveland and learn to live with the future.
Mr. Newton: I welcome very much the hon. Gentleman's remarks and the welcome that he expressed both for my comments today and for the action that we have put in hand. In return, perhaps I may say that the hon. Gentleman has earned the respect, and will receive the thanks, of those of his constituents who feel that they suffered so much injustice.
Mr. Richard Holt: I, too, thank my right hon. Friend and associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell). Those of us in Cleveland who have lived through the situation there for the past year know how much sorrow it has brought. We are grateful to the Government for their statement today. We also ought to place on record our thanks to the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette reporter who first brought this issue to light, and to acknowledge that the press has played a powerful and meaningful part in the whole saga.
We now look forward to the implementation of the Government's proposals. However, over the years we have seen the publication of the Jasmine Beckford and other reports, all of which caught the emotion of the day, but then died away. Now that Lord Justice Butler-Sloss's report has been published, and once the Government's legislation has been enacted, my right hon. Friend ought seriously to consider some form of continuous monitoring at a Butler-Sloss level so that never again will we find ourselves in the situation that Cleveland has over the past year.
Mr. Newton: I associate myself with my hon. Friend's remarks about the responsible way in which certain newspapers and other sections of the media helped to expose the injustice, and I thank my hon. Friend for the responsible approach that he has adopted throughout in seeking to resolve the problem.
I hope that my hon. Friend does not feel that the results of the Jasmine Beckford and Tyra Henry cases have been in any way ignored. On the contrary, they have helped to shape and inform the actions and proposals that I put before the House today and the guidance that we have issued, and in other ways.
As to future inquiries, I am not sure that I would wish to ask Lord Justice Butler-Sloss to sit in permanent session, and I am not certain that she would wish to do so. We have included in the guidance issued today arrangements relating to proper inquiry procedures within and among the agencies concerned in the first instance. I am considering what further guidance we can issue about independent and external inquiries where those are needed.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: I should like to be associated with the congratulations to Lord Justice Butler-Sloss. I say to the Minister and to my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) that today's approach can do nothing but good for those of us who face a similar problem in Leeds. One police station in my area and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) has received reports of 400 children, involving 150 alleged abuses. The stories are horrific, and we are only glad that we have not hit the headlines as Cleveland has. All the authorities there, led by the social services department—a much maligned department in other parts of the country—have done extremely well, and the balanced approach shown there ought to be taken into account in other parts of the country.
Let us consider the legislation that the Government will require, and the White Paper, which is a year old. In my time in the House I have known both sides to get together to get constitutional legislation through quickly. There is an urgent need for this legislation, and I hope that something can be done through the normal channels. Occasionally, a Special Standing Committee has also been set up to look at special issues such as these circulars because knowledge is spread throughout the House on the problems that arise. Could that also be considered?
My last point concerns both my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central and myself. I find it difficult to advise parents who come to see me, because I am not trained to help. It is my job to stand up for the parents and write to people, but parents need much better advice. Many are terrified. They are frightened of authority. Perhaps some voluntary organisations could be funded to help and we could guide parents to them. It is very sad for us that when people leave our advice surgeries we wonder, "Have I said or done the right thing on this traumatic occasion?".
Mr. Newton: I am grateful for the way in which the right hon. Gentleman has spoken. He will know that a study of events in Leeds is being undertaken locally at the appropriate level. I have asked to see a copy of the report and will consider whether there is anything that I can do to assist.
The right hon. Gentleman's offer about the way in which the legislation might be dealt with will have been heard by those with responsibilities for the management of the business of the House, and I note it in the spirit in which it was offered.
I agree that advice to parents is important. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that, among the training initiatives that we have already set in hand—quite apart from what I have announced this afternoon—one is with a voluntary organisation called the Family Rights Group, which I think will be familiar to a number of hon. Members. We are helping the group to prepare a guide to child protection procedures. It is now at draft stage, and we hope that it will be possible to press ahead with it. We are anxious to help responsible voluntary organisations, among others, to help parents with problems of this kind.
Mr. Roger Sims: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the NSPCC welcomes the report, in that it shows, alas, that the extent of child abuse is considerable and that it affects children of all ages? Is he also aware that the society will warmly welcome the emphasis that the
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report places on the recognition of the needs and views of the children themselves—those who are most affected? Does he accept that, while the society will support the provision of enhanced services in child care and will be pleased to play its part, it is essential that adequate resources are made available for such services?
I welcome my right hon. Friend's reference to the provision of guidelines for the various professional services to be issued on a national basis. Does he agree that the fact that those guidelines have been issued—coupled with what is said in the report—emphasises the need for a national child abuse register and the desirability of co-ordinating child care services on a national as well as a local basis?
Mr. Newton: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's work with the NSPCC and, indeed, to the work of the NSPCC in this respect, which is reflected in the fact that we have used its expertise and experience in trying to build up such a register. I also welcome what he said about the NSPCC's response to some of what I have said this afternoon. We in our turn will try to respond by ensuring that we continue to use the invaluable experience and work of the NSPCC in every possible way.
Mr. Frank Cook: I record my sincere gratitude to the Minister for the great courtesy that he displayed to my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) and me when we visited him to make representations on behalf of our hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter) and ourselves. I thank him for his prompt response to our request for the establishment of an inquiry of this kind. That response was so comprehensive, and was executed so capably, sensitively and responsibly by Lord Justice Butler-Sloss that we all commend her and her team.
I remind the Minister of the point that I made when we saw him. No matter what we do about these issues in Cleveland, we are lifting only one veil from the stages of childhood. These practices are being established in society and are lasting into further stages of life. What legislation will the Minister introduce to deal with the Grieveson brothers? They are three adult males, all articulate and intelligent, all willing to submit to cross-examination, who discovered in adulthood that in childhood they had been systematically buggered by their father, or so they allege. The social services, the police, the medical profession and the churches, and everyone else in Cleveland, know of the allegations, but there is no mechanism to deal with that sort of case.
Richard Johnson of Incest Crisis Line tells of cases such as that of the 58-year-old woman who is visited three times a week by her 82-year-old father. That may be funny in music hall, but it is not funny in real life.
These things are important—the recommendations are crucial and we welcome them wholeheartedly—but we must go further. We cannot stop here. I ask the Minister to give us the assurance that the House needs and to heed the pleas of the others out there in society who are waiting for some sort of lifeline.
Mr. Newton: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, both for the way in which he sought to help at the outset, when the inquiry was being set up, and for what he said today.
I cannot respond in the same way to the second part of what he said, for reasons that I hope will seem reasonable. He appeared to be alleging possible offences that might be

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going on now, in which case there are proper ways of investigating them. He also seemed to be alleging offences that have come to light only after an enormous lapse of time. Such cases would have to be subject to proper standards of proof, which would be difficult to achieve after such a long time. I am more than happy to look further into what he said in the latter part of his remarks, but I cannot go further than that this afternoon.
Mr. Michael Fallon: I thank my right hon. Friend for the prompt and sensible way in which he has dealt with the entire affair. He has been a model Minister in that respect.
Although my right hon. Friend has praised the majority of social workers and announced further improvements in training, and so on, would he be prepared to reflect further on the way in which social work is organised and the apparent absence of accountability and performance criteria?
Mr. Newton: Yes, I would. One of the problems that we have considered is that there is relatively little authoritatively blessed guidance for social workers of the sort that we are preparing in this area. I said that it was being tested at the moment. In that context, I shall consider the points that my hon. Friend has raised.
Ms. Marjorie Mowlam: I begin my associating myself with hon. Members who have thanked Lord Justice Butler-Sloss for the fair-minded and humanitarian way in which she has dealt with the problem. The conclusion that she reached is important, given what some of the media have said:
"In Cleveland an honest attempt was made to address these problems by the agencies."
It is important to put that on record.
I associate myself with the Minister's comment that there is no single, simple answer to the problem. It follows from that that there is no case for making scapegoats of individuals or groups of individuals in response to the problem.
The Minister's concluding comment was that we must work so that this will never happen again, but the nature of the problem is such that, whatever we do about inter-agency co-operation and case conferences, mistakes will be made. Parents will be hurt again and children will again be left with abusers. Unless we face the fact that we shall make errors, however hard we try to change things, we shall find ourselves in difficulty in the future.
Finally, will the Minister think about the implications for families of what he said today? In today's Britain families feel lonely and are suffering alone. Will the Minister consider the impact of this problem on other legislation, and think particularly about unfreezing child benefit, which relates mums directly to their children?
Mr. Newton: Of course I shall think about the impact on families. One of the reasons why I made some of my remarks, to which the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) kindly referred, was to assure some of the parents who are involved that we are aware of what they have suffered and want to acknowledge that firmly on the record.
I acknowledge that this is not an area in which it is possible to guarantee that every decision and action will be 100 per cent. right. I hope the hon. Lady will acknowledge
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in turn that mistakes on the scale that the report shows happened in Cleveland, without being properly tackled by management for too long a period, should not, and must not, be allowed to happen again.
Mr. Tim Devlin: I thank the learned judge on behalf of my constituents who were bound up in this problem. If the result of the inquiry is that doctors are criticised for poor record keeping, and social services are criticised for weak management and for not following agreed procedures, could not the crisis happen again? I therefore congratulate my right hon. Friend on the commitment to bring in a Bill, and I say, on behalf of my constituents, that we regard it as high time the Government introduced legislation going beyond the White Paper, giving parents effective rights over their children, and social workers a range of alternatives to breaking up families, thus reversing the current unpleasant situation in which an over-zealous local authority that suspends disbelief finds it easier in law to take away a man's children than to freeze his bank account.
Mr. Newton: If errors of the kind that occurred in Cleveland, some of which my hon. Friend referred to, were not corrected, there would be a risk of comparable events elsewhere, although it would also depend on particular combinations of personalities coming together—one of the factors in this case. It was precisely to make sure that that does not happen, and that we do everything reasonably possible in that direction, that I made my announcement and issued the guidelines today.
As for my hon. Friend's proposals about legislation, if he studies the proposals in the White Paper together with my remarks today about further strengthening, for example, appeal rights in cases in which the parents have not been involved when an emergency protection order is granted, and the emphasis throughout the White Paper on reasonable rights of access, he will find that they go a long way towards achieving what he wants.
Rev. Martin Smyth: I ask the Minister to accept our appreciation of the empathy that he has shown and of the report of Lord Justice Butler-Sloss. Will he assure me that the guidelines will go to doctors in Northern Ireland, too? There does not seem to be a Minister with responsibility for Northern Ireland on the Government Front Bench. One should bear in mind that only two weeks ago a young girl was brutally murdered in Rathcoole by an uncle.
Does the Minister accept that about three years ago the Northern Ireland Assembly recommended family courts, yet we are still being told that we must wait to see what happens in Great Britain?
Mr. Newton: I understand that the guidelines for doctors on the diagnosis of child sexual abuse, for example, would not, on the basis of what I have said today, go to doctors in Northern Ireland. I undertake to look immediately into doing that.
Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: This is a distinguished parliamentary occasion. The whole House, in complete harmony, has been discussing child protection in a civilised way. Of course the mistakes of Cleveland should not have happened, and my right hon. Friend has said that he will do all in his power to minimise the chances of their happening again.

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Over the years, the Prime Minister has made quite an input. The Criminal Justice Bill, which had its Third Reading last week, includes provisions to listen more to children. Corroboration rules are being relaxed so that children can he heard in the same way as adults, and video links are proposed so that they do not have to face the accused in courtrooms. We need to consider family courts so that parents can be represented. We need to consider changes in child care and services law, and these things will be done.
This is a big occasion for Parliament and I am grateful to everyone concerned, not least Lord Justice Butler-Sloss for her marvellous report, whose lessons I hope we will learn. I am grateful for having seen the day when the whole House has considered child protection, together and in harmony.
Mr. Newton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, in view of his interest in these matters over a long period. Perhaps I might join with him in acknowledging the close interest that our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has consistently taken in these matters, and not least in this case.
Ms. Hilary Armstrong: I am sure that all of us recognise that, at the heart of the matter, lies the fact that the majority of those children in Cleveland were abused and that——
Mr. Holt: They were not.
Ms. Armstrong: I am interpreting what I understand from the report.
Our main concern must be to ensure that fewer and fewer children are abused and that we are able to deal with the situation. I used to be a social worker, and I know what it means to make a place of safety order. Everyone concerned is making a judgment. It is our responsibility, and that of the Government, to ensure that in making those judgments the people concerned have the best possible back-up and support. That includes the best possible training, and I urge the Minister to think again about initial training, not just about in-service training. That is important, but unless the bedrock, the basic initial training, is of the right calibre, the social workers going into that work, and, indeed, the public, will not have the confidence that they will be able to perform and make those judgments in the way that, tragically, they frequently have to do.
Mr. Newton: I am not quite sure on what the hon. Lady based the first part of her remarks. The short version of the report states:
"We understand that out of the 121 children,"—
diagnosed by Dr. Higgs and Dr. Wyatt——
"98 are now at home."
Some of those children remain wards of court. It is simply not possible to make absolutely clear-cut judgments, but, just as I am not seeking to do, I hope that the hon. Lady will not make judgments as clear-cut as the one that she implied in her remarks.
In general—my statement sought to reflect this—I accept our responsibility to ensure that social workers have proper support. If I differ from the hon. Lady on the issue of training, it is because I think that there are better ways of spending additional sums of money on social work than on the specific proposals put forward by the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work.
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The lack of practice placements is a weakness and we wish to put more resources into that and to improve basic training in other ways. To say that we were not prepared to accept the specific CCETSW proposals for three-year training is not the same as saying that we are not interested in improving it.
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: I congratulate my right hon. Friend, as other hon. Members have done, on responding so swiftly to what seems to be a new and growing problem, but I remind him that there is nothing new about the need for child protection. Over the past two decades there have been more than 30 inquiries into cases of children who have lost their lives, ironically, in situations where the authorities acted too slowly, rather than being over-zealous, as in this case.
The lessons to be learnt are always the same better co-ordination, better training, particularly in child care law, and greater co-operation with the different professions. It is welcome that my right hon. Friend is moving forward on all those fronts, but does he agree that the child must always come first? When he comes to the proposals for legislation, will he consider the specific requirement that there should be a medical examination order, which would not give the authority the power to remove the child at that stage, but would simply ensure that the child was seen?
Mr. Newton: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's well-known, long-standing and extremely well-informed interest in these matters and express my gratitude for what she has said. When she has had an opportunity to study what is admittedly a voluminous report, she will find that Lord Justice Butler-Sloss has made some comments on her proposal and that it does not find favour with her in exactly that form. Nevertheless, I will, of course, consider whether there is some way of combining what we have in mind with the useful thought reflected in my hon. Friend's suggestion.
Mr. Charles Kennedy: I wish to associate my right hon. and hon. Friends with the entirety of both the Minister's welcome and the House's welcome for the report, and particularly for the tone and substance of the Government's excellent response to it. I also wish to echo the plea for legislation at the earliest opportunity and, in that context, I stress to the Minister the broad cross-party support for the family court set-up. I hope that, given the Lord Chancellor's Scottish legal background, he will be able to exert the appropriate influence with the Government.
Finally, will the Minister say what implications, if any, today's statement and subsequent legislation will have within the Scottish legislative context?
Mr. Newton: Once again I am grateful for, in this case, the extension of all-party unanimity on this subject and for the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
The legal position in Scotland is of course different from that in England and Wales. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has recently issued guidance for authorities there on the handling of child abuse cases and is considering whether the report calls for any further action in Scotland.
Sir Peter Emery: Will my right hon. Friend allow me to add my praise to my constituent, Mrs.

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Butler-Sloss, for having given up a year of her private life and career to preparing her report, which is so excellent because of its comprehension and balance?
Obviously, any parents who have a court or safety order served on them are greatly concerned when they believe that it is unjustified. Therefore, my right hon. Friend's statement that that can be challenged in a court within 72 hours is of great importance and I am sure will be welcomed by all hon. Members. How quickly can my right hon. Friend bring that about? Does it really need legislation? Is it not possible for the practice to be introduced and accepted by magistrates before we have to go through the whole procedure of passing legislation through the House?
Mr. Newton: The nature of the present legislation, including the fact that it is currently place of safety orders that run for 28 days, rather than the emergency protection orders that we have in mind, which would normally run for a maximum of eight days, is such that it would require legislation to do what my hon. Friend has asked. Clearly, we hope that, among other things, the practice of local authorities and others concerned with place of safety orders under the legislation will be affected in the interim period by the report's recommendations and the experiences of Cleveland.
Mr. Derek Fatchett: Does the Minister accept that the strength of the report is that it tries to strike a balance between the rights of parents and of children, but does he recognise that, in striking that balance, a child has an inalienable right not to be sexually abused and that our concern should always be in that primary direction?
Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that it is crucial to maintain the high morale of the staff dealing with these extremely difficult issues? Does he also accept from those who have been working in the field, and who have told me, that the constant hysterical, malevolent and often ill-founded reporting by certain newspapers undermines staff morale and makes it much more difficult for them to deal with these difficult issues?
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that in Leeds there is the sort of co-ordination between the police, the health authorities and social services that is recommended in the Cleveland report? Does he also accept that there is widespread support from the public for the work of the paediatricians Dr. Hobbs and Dr. Wynne? They have my support and they have made a tremendous contribution in bringing the important question of child sex abuse to the public's attention.
Mr. Newton: I do not think that it would be right for me to add anything to what I said earlier about Leeds to the right hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees), but I recognise the force of what the hon. Gentleman has said. As to morale and the media, I hope that those to whom what he has said applies will study carefully the words of the report about the role of the media in some respects. We all agree about the inalienable right of the child not to be abused, but against that children have an inalienable right not to be snatched from their parents without proper evidence and due process. We are simply revealing the difficulty of the balance that has to be struck.
Several Hon. Members rose ——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I realise the importance of this statement to the House, but, today we have two important Supply debates for the minority parties. I shall allow questions to go on for a further 10 minutes, and I hope that most hon. Members will be called. However, I ask them not to repeat questions that have already been answered.
Dr. Michael Clark: Both my children were born in Cleveland and I know how I would have felt if, 25 years go, they had been removed from us. Is it right that children should, so suddenly and so completely, be taken from their parents? Will there be any measures in the steps that my right hon. Friend has announced today to ensure that children are not taken away without co-ordinated deliberation by a variety of interested parties? Bearing in mind that many of the children were not abused, and that the parents were therefore innocent, is it not appropriate that there should be some form of speedy appeal whereby parents can apply to have their children back? Will he take steps in that direction?
Finally, will my right hon. Friend undertake to ensure that Doctors Higgs and Wyatt are never again allowed to have independent responsibility and authority so that this cannot happen again?
Mr. Newton: The first two points are interrelated. Our proposals for an emergency protection order are designed at one and the same time to make it considerably less likely that children can suddenly be taken away from their parents without proper cause, in the way that my hon. Friend implied, and that where that happens—it will sometimes be necessary in a genuine emergency and the need is to confine it to that—parents will have early rights of appeal. I referred to the 72-hour point earlier.
I should not want to go beyond what I said in my statement about the doctors and others. I am not the employer of the doctors—the Northern regional health authority is—and in certain circumstance they would have the right of appeal to my right hon. Friend on any decisions that the health authority might take. In those circumstances, my hon. Friend will understand that it would not be right for me to comment.
Mr. David Hinchliffe: I am somewhat lonely today, as I find the Minister's statement complacent and disappointing. Perhaps the reason for that is that I spent 20 years in social work at local authority level before I came to the House. It surprises me that the Minister has failed to recognise why social services departments have been pushed on to the defensive on this issue. The difficulties that they face because of increased demands are the direct result of Government policy, while at the same time resources, through the rate support grant, have been slashed.
I am surprised that the focus of the statement was on the management of the cases. The right hon. Gentleman did not give his views on the causes of sexual abuse—sexual roles, sexual attitudes in society, the treatment of women and girls and the role of men. Those are the issues about which we should be talking. It surprises me, although perhaps it says something about the Government's priorities, that parliamentary time was found to legislate for all-day drinking and for the import of South African coal, but not for the urgently needed reform of child care law.
Mr. Newton: If the hon. Gentleman studies the report he will find that I have not emphasised a number of the points that he has raised because it is clear that in Cleveland the principal problem was one not of resources but of management and the way in which cases were handled. The crisis caused some pressure on resources, but that is not the same as saying that a lack of resources created the crisis.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent): Speaking as the chairman of the parliamentary panel for health and social services, I can say how much social workers will welcome the support that my right hon. Friend has given them and his recognition that a great deal of the work that they do is very good, particularly given the enormous dilemma that they face of the need to be partly an authority figure and partly a friend. It is manifest that thousands of young people are entering adult life with no model for, or understanding of, how to be parents. Will my right hon. Friend consult Ministers in the Department of Education and Science to find ways in which we can break that vicious circle by preparing people to be parents?
Mr. Newton: The latter issue is one to which Ministers collectively have been giving some consideration, and it is a subject that is likely to be further discussed in a group chaired by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office. I acknowledge its importance. We have also sought to finance, with the National Children's Bureau, some important and useful projects in this sector.
As to social workers and their morale, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he said in his role as chairman of the panel. I hope that what I have said this afternoon will go some way to redress the disappointment that I know some social workers felt over my statement on social work training a few weeks ago. I hope that what I have in mind for the way forward is now clearer.
Mrs. Rosie Barnes: Where it is considered necessary to remove children from their home to assess whether physical or sexual abuse has taken place, would it not be better to provide facilities so that mothers can accompany their children into temporary care while they are being assessed? This would avoid the trauma of suddenly removing children from their families. Would it not be better for treatment to be given to whole families, to overcome difficulties that can be better tackled within the family, rather than removing the child permanently from its natural parents?
Mr. Newton: Essentially the answer to those questions is yes, but with the obvious proviso that it entails a judgment about what is the right way to deal with the matter in each and every case.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: As one who worked in the education service for many years and has experience of facing the dilemma of dealing with such accusations and getting the right balance, I congratulate my right hon. Friend. His statement has got it right. In view of the accusations that were made in Cleveland last year, could not proper monitoring be carried out to ensure that we notice these blips in the graph and take action straight away, because something is going on? Secondly, can we ensure that an independent second medical opinion is available to parents and that they have some help in makeing appeals if they are not able to make them themselves?
Mr. Newton: Monitoring of the kind that my hon. Friend suggests should be part and parcel of the day-to-day work of any properly run social services department, and if that is not taking place I am sure that it will be instituted as a result of the experience in Cleveland. As to second opinions, my hon. Friend will know of the arrangements made in the specific circumstances of Cleveland. I do not know whether they would be right in all cases, but I note his suggestion.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: On behalf of the Nationalist parties, I associate myself with the welcome that has been given to this report and to the Government's response, but I wish to make a point about funding.
Is the additional money for 1988–89 new money rather than recycled money that is being taken from other social care sectors that are also under severe pressures? Will that funding continue beyond 1989, because we want, not a piecemeal approach, but continual funding to ensure that our services can respond to needs in society? The Minister said that there is to be legislation, but does not legislation impose pressure on those who work within agencies, and does this not re-emphasise the need to review the training policies that the Government are looking at?
Mr. Newton: With some hesitation, I think that the answer to the last question is yes. The answer to the second question is also yes. It is intended that this should be a continuing programme, although, with our concern to improve social work training generally, I would not propose no further change in the programme as a whole over a long period.
I should make it clear that the money that I have announced is related to 1989–90, not to the current year. At the moment we do not have the legal power to make a specific grant in this sector. That is why the grants have been included in the Health and Medicines Bill, which is in the other place. It is our intention that this should bring about an increase in social work training, although clearly the form of the grant that I have announced means that the judgment that the hon. Lady wishes to make will have to await the Government's announcement of the rate support grant at a later stage.
Mr. Spencer Batiste: Does my hon. Friend agree that the heart of the Cleveland problem is the breaking up of innocent families without any obvious means of recourse? Will he assure the House that families in other parts of the country with similar complaints will not have to wait for his new legislation, but will be able to achieve speedy redress or review of their cases if they feel that they face the same problems as the innocent parents in Cleveland?
Mr. Newton: I cannot promise to bring about legal changes that would change the law without an Act of Parliament. I can say, or repeat—I think that I said it earlier—that I hope very much that authorities throughout the country will learn the lessons that are set out in the Cleveland report about the way in which they should handle these matters and deal with the rights of parents.
Mr. Frank Doran: Those of us who have experience of another legal system feel strongly that what happened in Cleveland could have happened in Scotland, mainly because of the existence of the children's hearing system and the independence of the report of the children's panel. Before the Minister commits himself to

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legislation along the lines that are set out in the White Paper, will he examine again the Scottish system and consider its virtues in the light of the Butler-Sloss report?
Mr. Newton: When the hon. Gentleman has had a chance to examine this thick report he will find that the judge has discussed those matters to some extent. The Office of Child Protection, on which my noble and learned Friend is to issue a consultation paper, has some strands in it that are relevant to the thought that the hon. Gentleman has put forward.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry that it has not been possible to call all those who wished to ask a question.
Mr. Roland Boyes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: No. I shall take the hon. Gentleman's point of order at the proper time.

Linda O'Callaghan
4.31 pm
Mr. Alan Williams: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the plight of Linda O'Callaghan under the new social security regulations."
First, I wish to emphasise that I lay no blame with the officials of the Department of Health and Social Security in Swansea. They want desperately to do all that they can to help Linda.
Secondly, while this is a specific case—I am glad that the Secretary of State for Social Services is present—I believe that it will become the first of many similar tragic cases if it is not acted upon.
The matter is specific because it involves 17-year-old Linda O'Callaghan. She had her 17th birthday within the past few days. Both her parents were tragically and recently murdered. She has a brother who has been charged and is awaiting trial.
In the eyes of that young woman, only the family home remains of her family life. The city council has agreed that Linda can keep the family home, despite her youth. However, because it has been deemed to be a penalty under the new social security regulations to be 16 years of age, or under 17 years of age, she may not be able to keep the home. Had the tragedy occurred before April. Linda would have received £30·40 in benefit. Under the new regulations, she will receive £11 less as a 16 to 17-year-old. She will receive £19·40, and, in addition to financing her food, clothing, heat and light, she will have to pay part of her rates and water rates. The officials cannot help because compassion has been legislated out of the social security system by the Government.
This is a special tragic case, but it is important generally because any youngster in the 16 to 17-year-old group who is orphaned could find himself or herself in the same predicament. All parents should realise that the tragedy of a car accident or a fatal illness involving them could lead to their youngsters finding themselves in this dreadful situation.
Linda realised that little could be done to help in her case, but she wanted the matter raised in the hope that even this compassionless Government will respond to public opinion.
The matter is urgent because a tragic young girl is trying to cope with an emotional trauma that would knock sideways most mature adults. She is trying to cope with it in the penury that has been imposed deliberately by the Government. She needs urgent action to save her home.
Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the plight of Linda O'Callaghan under the new social security regulations."
I have listened with great care to what the right hon. Gentleman has said, but I regret that I do not consider that the matter that he has raised meets the criteria laid down under Standing Order No. 20 and I cannot, therefore, submit his application to the House.

Child Abuse (Cleveland)
Mr. Roland Boyes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I know that you will understand when I say that it is with deep regret and full appreciation of the difficult nature of your position that I raise this point of order.
I informed you in advance, Mr. Speaker, that I was probably the only Member who had worked with Mr. Michael Bishop, the director of social services at Cleveland. Much has been made this afternoon about management. No one has had the same opportunity as I, having been the assistant director of social services with Mr. Bishop, to comment on the management at Cleveland and on his experience, qualifications and extremely caring attitude towards children. I think that it would have been appropriate for someone to speak for and defend a director who has been badly abused by the press and commented on in the most destructive way by some hon. Members. Mr. Bishop and other directors should be allowed now freely to get on with their job. Fewer comments should be made in the press—comments made by the press and by hon. Members—on what is a delicate situation. I apologise, Mr. Speaker, for having to raise these matters on a point of order.
Mr. Speaker: I thank the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he raised his point of order. Perhaps I should have included him among the hon. Members whom I called to put questions to the Minister for Health. There is a difficult balance to achieve. I do my best to include hon. Members who have Opposition Front-Bench responsibilities among those I call to ask questions following the making of a statement.
Mrs. Audrey Wise: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is, I believe, also an Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson. We cannot continue now with the questions on the statement.
Mrs. Wise rose—
Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Lady wish to raise a point of order on a different matter?
Mrs. Wise: I am not an Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson, Mr. Speaker. I wish to pursue the matter that has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes), but I shall do so from an entirely different viewpoint. I did not seek to catch your eye during the questioning of the Minister for Health.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that the hon. Lady rose during that questioning.
Mrs. Wise: No, Mr. Speaker, I did not.
Mr. Speaker: Then what is the point of order for me?
Mrs. Wise: I am raising a point of order that is a matter for you, Mr. Speaker. I am rising on behalf of all those who were not seeking to catch your eye, but who wanted certain issues pursued because of the thought that we have all had to give to the important matters that were raised by
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the statement. I rise now not because I had a personal wish to be called, but because I wanted to hear the Minister's response to the question that my hon. Friend intended to ask. The House did not have the opportunity to hear that, and I urge you——
Mr. Speaker: Order. We must all have consideration for one another in this place. I have stated already that this is a Supply Day for the minority parties. Whenever hon. Members are unable to be included in Question Time, or in questions following statements and debates, I receive letters from them saying how bitterly disappointed they are. If I were to allow questions on statements to continue until everyone who wished to ask a question had been called, I would then receive legitimate complaints from those cut out of the subsequent debate. That would be extremely unfair.

Greenham Common (Strip Searches)
4.37 pm
Mr. Tom Pendry: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to bring to your attention and to the attention of the House what I consider to be a serious breach of ministerial and parliamentary conduct. On 24 May 1984 I asked the Secretary of State for Defence
"for what purposes the Ministry of Defence police are carrying out strip searches at Greenham common; how many strip searches have taken place there; what was found; and if he will make a statement."
The answer was supplied by the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Mr. Stanley), who is now the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office. He stated:
"No such strip searches have been carried out at RAF Greenham common."—[Official Report, 24 May 1084; Vol. 60, c.552.]
I was prompted to ask the question by a constituent of mine who alleged that six months earlier she had been strip-searched at Greenham common. As I believed that the Minister's word was honourable, I told her that I could not pursue the matter in a parliamentary sense. Fortunately for her, she persevered. Yesterday, at Newbury county court, she was awarded £2,000-plus damages and about £6,000 costs at the expense of the Ministry of Defence because she had been strip-searched at Greenham common.
I believe that the Minister should account for his misleading answer from the Dispatch Box. He should apologise to me, and, more importantly, to my constituent, Stella Mann-Cairns, and all other women who have had to put up with this indignity. Although he has moved to another Department, he should assure the House that the Government no longer pursue that policy.
I have given notice of this matter to the Minister and to the Leader of the House, and I am surprised that neither of them is present. I hope that the Minister will apologise. If he does not, he should do the honourable thing and resign.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has made an important point. I am sure that it will have been listened to with care by those present on the Government Front Bench.

Taxi-cabs (Control of Smoking)
4.39 pm
Mr. Frank Cook: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to authorise the prohibition, by notice displayed alongside the meter, of smoking in taxi-cabs.
In January 1985, Richard Carless, a cabbie from Basildon, refused to take a pipe-smoking passenger at London airport. Richard Carless suffers from acute bronchitis. The passenger was quite happy to wait for another cab but the incident was seen by a traffic warden who called the police. The police prosecuted Mr. Carless, and he appeared at Uxbridge magistrates court in May 1985. The alleged offence was that he,
"being a taxi driver at an authorised standing or in portion thereof failed to be available and willing to be hired immediately contrary to Article 9(5) of the Heathrow Airport London byelaws 1983 and Section 9 of the Airport Authority Act of 1975."
He was fined £20, which he refused to pay, and he appealed against the conviction and sentence. He appeared at Southwark Crown court where the fine was increased and he was ordered to pay costs. He refused, and in July 1986 he went to prison for seven days. He appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, but the case was ruled inadmissible. It is ironic that the passenger who wanted to smoke his pipe in the taxi wanted to do so because he had been prohibited from doing so on the airline that brought him to Heathrow.
A cabbie has as high priority the comfort, safety and security of his passenger and all future passengers. Two thirds of the adult population of this country are non-smokers who, according to the Fourth Report of Her Majesty's Government's Independent Scientific Committee on Smoking and Health, have a 30 per cent. enhanced risk of contracting lung cancer due to the effects of passive smoking. That means that it is 50 times more dangerous than exposure to asbestos in buildings. The same passive smoking unquestionably exacerbates existing health complaints, such as coronary artery disease, asthma, tuberculosis, emphysema and bronchitis, adding greatly to the consequential demands on Health Service resources and finance.
In the light of such scientific comment, the public should be able to protect their health from the increased risk of passive smoking. The cabbie has a personal right to working conditions that are free from this risk. By designating the cab as a non-smoking zone the cabbie can offer two thirds of the adult population carriage in a relatively smoke-free atmosphere. By declaring such a designation by a sign displayed openly alongside the meter, prospective passengers would be able to choose whether to enter the cab and, if boarding the vehicle, whether they would have to refrain from smoking during the journey. Such freedom of choice would bring taxicabs in line with other forms of public transport in providing an atmosphere untouched by tobacco fumes and much freer from the risk of passive smoking.
The proposals are supported by Radio Taxicabs (London) Ltd. and the publishers of the Cab Driver, who say:
"Like many of the laws appertaining to the cab trade, which were formulated as long ago as 1832 and which are still very much extant, they seem to consider the importance of the vehicle and the passenger in detriment to the health and well-being of the driver. Altering, adapting or even bringing
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in new laws, like yours, that would go some way in making the professional taxi driver's job much less stressful, are not just logical but crucial. Not only are taxi drivers subject to the continuous inhalation of toxic vehicle fumes, to be bombarded too with tobacco smoke, and without the legal redress with which to ask the passengers to refrain from smoking, is an imposition which should be removed as quickly as possible."
The Licensed Taxi Drivers Association Ltd. Supports the Bill, saying:
"Whilst not wishing to dictate to those caught up in drug-like habits of smoking, it seems reasonable to me that likewise the non-smoker should have the right, where practicable, to work in an area free from the killer nicotine."
It goes on to say:
"I pray that your fellow Parliamentarians, whatever their relationship may be with their connections outside the House, will see this Bill as one of national importance and do not oppose it for narrow motives."
The cabbie section of the Transport and General Workers Union said:
"we are 100 per cent. behind you in your endeavours to obtain for cab drivers the right to designate their own working conditions."
The British Medical Association goes further. It says:
"The BMA would like to offer its support for the principles of the Bill.
The BMA has long been aware of the potential health risks involved in passive smoking. We believe that the publication of the Frogatt Report leaves the Government no choice but to take realistic action and that means legislation which will protect the health of the non-smoker, allowing people to breathe clean air at work and in public places.
The Government must acknowledge, in the face of the evidence of its own scientific committee, the undisputed fact that passive smoking is harmful. Talks with the tobacco industry are beside the point and if consultation is needed, it should be with organisations like ours … which can discuss the health aspects of this report and how the report's recommendations can be introduced.
No smoking is the norm and non-smokers should be protected at their place of work and in public places. Protection should be made for people who need to smoke while the majority who are non-smokers should be free to breathe air unpolluted by the toxins in tobacco smoke."
This is not a non-smoking measure, any more than it is a pro-smoking measure. All I am suggesting is that cab drivers should be allowed to designate their vehicles as smoking or non-smoking vehicles and that that designation should be displayed alongside the meter. If a smoker comes to a cab designated as a non-smoking vehicle he will know that for the duration of the journey he must refrain from smoking and put his pipe in his pocket. If a non-smoker finds a cab designated as a smoking vehicle offering itself for hire, he will realise that he will have to undertake the journey in the atmosphere of a stale ashtray. The choice is there for fare and driver. There is no compulsion on anybody. In that spirit, I hope that the Bill will be supported.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Frank Cook, Ms. Harriet Harman, Mr. Roger Sims, Ms. Joan Ruddock, Mr. Sam Galbraith, Mr. Eddie McGrady, Mrs. Gillian Shephard, Mr. George Foulkes, Mr. Andrew Mitchell, Mrs. Maria Fyfe, Mr. John Home Robertson and Mr. Keith Mans.

TAXI-CABS (CONTROL OF SMOKING)
Mr. Frank Cook accordingly presented a Bill to authorise the prohibition, by notice displayed alongside the meter, of smoking in taxi-cabs: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 8 July and to be printed. [Bill 190.]
Opposition Day
[17TH ALLOTTED DAY]
Opposition Day

  Scotland (Political Situation)
  Mr. Michael Fallon: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We are about to begin a debate in Opposition time on the political situation in Scotland. I wonder whether you have noticed that only 12 of 60 Opposition Members representing Scottish seats are present.
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): That has nothing to do with the Chair. It is a waste of time on this Opposition day.
  Before we proceed, I have to inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
  4.48 pm
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing: I beg to move,
  That this House, aware of the rejection by the Scottish nation of the policies of the Conservative Party at the General Election of 1987 and the further decline of the Conservatives into third place behind both the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party at this year's district poll, believes that the Government has no mandate to continue to impose its alien values and divisive programme upon an unwilling population; notes the Government's refusal to allow the Scottish people to determine their own constitutional future by the holding of a referendum or the establishment of a constitutional convention; further notes the developments in the European Community towards a single market; and considers that it is in the overwhelming interests of the people of Scotland to seek full independent status within the European Community, rather than accepting continued colonial status within the United Kingdom.
  In the motion we have attempted to reflect what we feel is the dynamism of the political situation in Scotland. Those of us involved in politics do not believe that the political dimensions close at the end of one general election and do not reopen until there is another general election. Political life is not static. The political tides ebb and flow. There are changes in opinion and differing attitudes that occur in the electorate between elections. If we did not believe that those changes occurred, we might well argue that there was no need to hold elections. Because we believe in those changes, we hold elections to gauge the political opinion of our electorate. Between elections we have a responsibility to take account of the change of opinion in the intervening years.
  Our motion clearly reminds the House of the voting pattern in Scotland in June 1987. The Government amendment tries to deny that the last election in Scotland showed a demand for constitutional change. That seems to be a habit of the Government, who, it is worth noting, have managed to muster for this debate only 50 per cent. of Scottish Conservative Members. The Government always deny that there is a demand for constitutional change in Scotland, and their amendment clearly ignores the fact that in June last year 76 per cent. of the Scottish people voted for parties that are clearly committed to the idea of constitutional change within the United Kingdom. Sixty-two Members of this House are from parties that demand such constitutional change.
  1084
  In their amendment, the Government speak about their mandate. It will come as no surprise to the Secretary of State for Scotland to hear that we feel we have the intellectual right to challenge the issue of the mandate because as nationalists we clearly stand for an independent nation state of Scotland. What does the Secretary of State see as a mandate? Surely a moral as well as a political issue underpins a mandate. Do 10 hon. Members out of 72 constitute a mandate for the imposition of Government policies? Surely the Secretary of State recognises the fragility of the position in which his party finds itself. He must be worried about so few people in Scotland supporting his party and his policies. Our motion clearly says that the lack of a moral as well as a political mandate gives Scotland colonial status. That means that the Government are governing a country without popular support.
  If we look at what the Government have done with t he mandate that they claim, we see increasingly an acceleration of policies that were rejected at the last election. We think, for example, of the school boards legislation. In all the consultation processes that took place, there was a clear majority against the Government's legislation, but it was forced through the House by hon. Members who do not represent the Scottish people. We think also of competitive tendering. Our health boards and unions have worked closely together over the years to provide a service, and have now had imposed upon them policies that they wish to reject.
  The Government cannot even muster enough troops to set up a Select Committee in Scotland to monitor what the Scottish Office is doing in the name of the Government It is surely a condemnation of the Government's lack of mandate that they have not been able to establish such a Committee to enable us to scrutinise the work of our Ministers in the way that every other Government Department is scrutinised.
  Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Does my hon. Friend recall that, following the referendum in 1979, people who were opposed to the setting up of a Scottish assembly said that a Scottish Select Committee down here would do the work that such an assembly would have done? Does she agree that that argument is now patently without foundation, and does it now show how impossible it is for Scotland to get proper government from Westminster?
  Mrs. Ewing: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) for that clear and precise intervention. Many of us do not think that a Scottish Select Committee is an alternative to an assembly. As long as the Government claim a mandate on a minority of the Scottish vote, it is their responsibility to ensure that Scottish Office legislation is monitored as effectively as possible. That does not happen. We have seen a lack of will by the Government to try to establish such a Committee.
  It is not surprising that support for the Government in Scotland has remained virtually static since the general election. The opinion polls show very little movement. There has been no sudden swing by the Scottish people towards the Conservative party, even though the chief executive of that party, one of the many ex-Members of this House, keeps telling us that we need more Thatcherism.
  More Thatcherism is showing that there is no rising support in Scotland for the Conservatives. It is the Scottish

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  National party that has increased its share of the vote. The opinion polls show that our support has risen from 14 per cent. at the last general election to 23 per cent. Some Conservative Members smile at that, but I suspect that they would smile more if there had been a swing of nine percentage points to their party.
  The people of Scotland are seeing a crystallisation of the options that are open to them. They see that it is either more of the same or an independent Scotland. That is an honest option, and the people of Scotland are facing up to it. That is reflected in an opinion poll conducted by MORI and published in The Scotsman on 13 April. It showed that 35 per cent. of people wanted a completely independent Scotland, 42 per cent. wanted an elected Scottish assembly within the United Kingdom and 20 per cent. wanted the present system to continue. That recognition of reality is evident in Scotland, and there is growing support for the concept of independence. Not all the votes are yet coming directly to the SNP, but there is the potential in Scotland for the recognition that the SNP can deliver a Scottish Government to our nation.
  I should now like to deal with the need for a constitutional convention or a referendum in Scotland on constitutional change. These ideas are not propounded only by the Scottish National party or by other Opposition Members. That was shown by the support earlier this year for my ten-minute Bill on a referendum in Scotland. These ideas have a broad consensus of support throughout Scotland. The campaign for a Scottish assembly covers a large variety of organisations that wish Scotland to have the opportunity to discuss the future of Scotland within Scotland—a debate among ourselves about the opportunities that are open to us.
  The Government are running scared; that is shown by their amendment, which rejects the idea of a Scottish constitutional convention and a referendum. If they are as confident as they claim in their amendment and about their support for the Act of Union, why are they so afraid to put it to the constitutional test in Scotland? Why not allow the people of Scotland to cast their vote, especially as we have argued that a referendum or a Scottish constitutional convention would operate in an advisory capacity and that we would work together to try to find the best resolution? At the end of the day I am sure that the Government would accept that. Why are the Government afraid to put the issue to the test? It is not just a question of the ostriches in the Conservative party in Scotland burying their heads in the sand. They seem to be prepared to tie their necks before they can even find the sand.
  Brian Meek, a respected member of the Conservative party in Scotland, spoke about the rather desperate situation in which Scottish Conservatives now find themselves. He said that they seem to accept Thatcherism and that there was no questioning, no fight and no will power. He said that if the Prime Minister asked Scottish Conservative Members to jump into the Clyde the only question that they would ask would be whether they should take their trousers off first.
  I turn now to Scotland's future, which the SNP sees as independence within Europe. We see that as much more challenging.
  Mr. David Lambie: The hon. Lady talks about an independent Scotland within Europe.
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  I would have voted for her motion if that phrase had not been contained in it. How could an independent Scotland gain freedom and support from Brussels and Strasbourg if it cannot get it from London? Does the hon. Lady not recognise that the golden triangle stretches from the south of England into northern France, Germany and Belgium? No matter what happens, as long as the European Community is run on present rules, Scotland would always be on the periphery. Surely an independent Socialist Scotland would follow the policies of the independent countries of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria and Switzerland and not the Conservative policies which, unfortunately, have been carried out by both Conservative and Labour parties.
  Mrs. Ewing: I am interested to hear the hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Lambie) give yet another reason for not supporting the Scottish National party in the Lobby. He comes up with a different argument each time. If he listens carefully to my argument about independence within Europe, he will see why we are taking a clear stance. I realise that that is an aspect of our motion at which the Social and Liberal Democrats and the Labour party may balk. However, I ask them to consider carefully why we argue for it.
  The Labour party's proposal is for a devolved assembly with restricted powers. With the advent of the common internal market in 1992, what opportunity would a Scottish assembly have to argue the case for Scottish industry within the European Community, as the representative of a country in its own right? We should still be hanging on to the coat tails of Britain, British Ministers, the Foreign Office and all those who are sent to represent us at the moment. We would not have the right of access with a devolved assembly, but we would if we were independent.
  Our future is in the international community, not as part of the sterile backwater of the British system. I want Scotland to play her part in the international community and to face the challenges. A devolved assembly would not ensure representation at the Council of Ministers, where vital policy matters such as marginal hill farming, fishing and steel are discussed, but an independent Scotland would have that representation.
  Taxation is vital as we look forward to 1992 and beyond. How would a Scottish assembly break the stranglehold of the Treasury if the Treasury still controlled block grant? How would a Scottish assembly break the stranglehold of the Ministry of Defence with its massive expenditure programme and ensure that defence procurement contracts came to Scotland and were allocated fairly? An assembly would not give us such representation in Europe, but Scottish independence would. We need full independence if we want to be at the top table in international affairs. It is not good enough to complain that the Scottish voice is not heard and then lack the courage to look to the only method of making it heard. Only independence can make it heard.
  Scotland could become a country where ideas and skills are readily available, and it could offer opportunities to the rest of the world. Thinking of Scotland as an independent nation within Europe brings a challenge and an excitement which would not exist in further decades of sterile political debate in this Chamber. The majority of Scottish Members want constitutional change, but they are denied it by the

  1087
  very processes of this place. Let us have the courage to look forward to challenge and excitement rather than sticking with the boring status quo.
  Increasingly, decisions that affect our people are taken not here, but in Brussels and Strasbourg. The future of Scotland lies in bypassing London and going direct to Europe. In many ways, the House has become a clearing system for legislation passed elsewhere. We must be there at the top table. We do not want to spend our time rehashing arguments about legislation that has already been passed elsewhere. We want to he where the decisions are taken. We could have a place in the Council of Ministers—at the top table—and increased representation in the European Parliament.
  Our motion challenges hon. Members to think of the responsibilities of being a Scot in modern society. It challenges them to think of themselves as internationalists and not merely as British. It challenges them to accept that with that responsibility will come self-respect and dignity. It is far too easy to blame, as many do, all that is wrong on the English or on London or on somebody else. Let us have the dignity and self-respect of being able to say that if mistakes are made, it is the Scots themselves who make them. Scotland must be an independent nation to attain the responsibility and self-respect that every other nation takes for granted. Why should we be different? I trust that those who see themselves as Scots, with responsibility and self-respect, will join us in the Lobby tonight.
  5.7 pm
  The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and add instead thereof,
  'recognises the benefits to Scotland of being a free partner in the United Kingdom and the contribution which the Scottish people continue to make in many fields to the life of the United Kingdom; notes that the Government has a clear mandate to govern following a General Election fought on a United Kingdom basis, and that in the 1987 General Election more than four people out of five in Scotland voted for parties which support the Union; notes that in that election the Scottish National Party was the least popular party in Scotland and received the least support from the Scottish electorate; believes that Scotland can best meet the challenge of the single European Community market as part of the United Kingdom; acknowledges that many decisions affecting Scotland are already taken in Scotland by the Secretary of State and the Scottish Office; considers as absurd references to Scotland's alleged colonial status; rejects completely calls for a constitutional referendum and independence; and reaffirms its support for the Act of Union.'.
  I begin by complimenting the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) on the style of her speech. My hon. Friends and I find her style and approach considerably preferable to that of the infant Robespierre, her hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond), who takes a different approach to the conventions of the House and who consequently fails to impress.
  While I admire the hon. Lady's style, I hope that she will forgive me for saying that I suspect that many of us found the content of her speech sadly lacking. This is the first time that we have had a debate initiated by the Scottish National party. Apart from a few ritual rhetorical comments about the alleged desirability of breaking up the United Kingdom, there was little in the hon. Lady's speech to which one could draw specific attention. It is significant that neither the motion nor the hon. Lady's speech made
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  any reference to the Scottish economy. I feel sure that until recently the hon. Lady would not have been responsible for such an omission.
  Mr. Alex Salmond: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Rifkind: I shall certainly give way to the infant Robespierre.
  Mr. Salmond: if the Secretary of State cares to contain himself, the infant Robespierre will have a few things to say about the Scottish economy at the end of the debate.
  Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman appears to be saying that, such is the excellent state of the Scottish economy, it is sufficient for it to be referred to in the wind-up, and to have no mention either in the motion or in the main speech on behalf of the SNP. No doubt it is indicative of the rapidly falling unemployment, excellent economic growth and other economic improvements that we are enjoying in Scotland that in its single speech of this Session the SNP felt if unnecessary to make a single reference, complimentary or otherwise, to the economic issues facing Scotland.
  There were two themes in the speech of the hon. Member for Moray. One was independence and the other was the mandate.
  Mr. Norman Buchan: Does the Secretary of State agree that the most rapid growth in our economy at present is in rent arrears, as a result of the housing benefit changes?
  Mr. Rifkind: No, I do not. There will be other opportunities, particularly in the housing debate, for the hon. Gentleman to deal with rent matters if he wishes to do so.
  The hon. Member for Moray suggested that Scotland should seek independent status, but she forgot to mention that the SNP put that issue before the electorate at the last general election. The House will happily remind her that at the last general election the SNP was clearly shown once again to be the least popular party in Scotland. It received fewer votes than any other major political party, and had the fewest Members of Parliament elected. The SNP's election manifesto carried the slogan "Play the Scottish Card", and on page 2 there is a photograph of Gordon Wilson, its chairman, wearing a badge which says "Play the Scottish Card". Clearly he did play it. It turned out to be a joker, and he lost his seat. If the hon. Lady and her colleagues are concerned to speak for Scotland, she should bear that factor in mind.
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing: I said that we were talking about the dynamism of the political situation in Scotland. If we want to concentrate on the last general election, we should remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman of his loss of 10 colleagues. More importantly, will he pay attention to the results of the district elections—the most recent trial of opinion in Scotland—at which his party declined even further and the Scottish National party showed a 10 per cent. increase in votes?
  Mr. Rifkind: I am afraid that the hon. Lady has to live with the fact that, even if opinion polls suggest that her party may have made some progress during the past few months, that is only progress from fourth to third place. If that is of great comfort to her, she is easily satisfied.

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  Independence has been rejected consistently by well over 80 per cent. of the Scottish electorate at virtually every general election in the past 10 years, and the hon. Lady failed to give her reasons for believing it would be of benefit. She concentrated on Scotland having a place at the top table, but if she ever has the opportunity to attend any meetings of the Council of Ministers she will discover that the countries that determine the direction of the European Community are inevitably France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy. It is very rare—if ever—that the Republic of Ireland, Greece or Luxembourg has a decisive role to play in any of the major issues that affect the Community.
  The hon. Lady constantly refers to the benefits that independence might bring to Scotland. I am always puzzled that she and her colleagues never refer to that part of the United Kingdom that opted for independence some 60 years ago. The Republic of Ireland today has unemployment running at 19 per cent., which is substantially greater than is found in any part of the United Kingdom, and it has a gross domestic product of only two thirds of that which Scotland enjoys. The suggestion that somehow independence will be the cure-all for economic or other problems finds little support in the experience of southern Ireland, which opted for independence, which is what the hon. Lady would recommend for Scotland.
  Mrs. Ray Michie: I am sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman agrees that not all the money in China, wealth creation or the lack of it would induce the people of southern Ireland to give up their independence. Nothing would induce them to do that.
  Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Lady is right. What led to independence for southern Ireland was a deep sense of national oppression, which had existed for several centuries. Nobody in Scotland seriously suggests that that is a basis for independence or a break-up of the United Kingdom. The argument constantly used by the SNP refers to economic issues and implies that Scotland suffers somehow as a result of being part of the United Kingdom. If economic considerations are thought to be the relevant ones which justify breaking up the Union, which is the finest example of European integration during the past 250 years, we are entitled to draw attention to that part of the United Kingdom that opted for independence and does not enjoy the economic benefits which we are sometimes told flow from independence.
  Rev. Martin Smyth: Does the Secretary of State acknowledge that the former joint chairman of the Anglo-Irish Conference has the new task of preparing for the 500,000 southern Irish people who will enter the United Kingdom in the next decade?
  Mr. Rifkind: I accept that.
  Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas: It may have escaped the Secretary of State's attention that, yesterday, the Greek Foreign Minister made an important speech to the European Parliament, setting out the agenda for the Greek presidency during the next six months. Does he accept that smaller member states now play an equal role in the creation of the European Community?
  Mr. Rifkind: I invite the hon. Gentleman to compare what the Greek Foreign Minister said yesterday with what the Greek delegation may have achieved in six months' time. Making speeches is remarkably easy, but results can be achieved only if the three or four larger members of the Community are prepared to endorse the proposals.
  The motion raises the question of mandate. During the past few months the SNP has berated my party, the Labour party and others in Scotland, because it claims that only those who have a mandate from the Scottish people are entitled to put forward certain policies, to implement them and to argue certain cases.
  That is an interesting proposition, and the hon. Member for Moray argued that it must be justified on legal and moral grounds. We can use her own criteria and ask her and her colleagues to review the claim about a need for a mandate, bearing in mind the policy which the SNP has advocated during the past few months. That party now advocates that the people of Scotland should break the law on the community charge and, by pursuing a policy of non-payment, frustrate an Act of Parliament. I think that the hon. Lady will agree that, whatever one thinks of that policy, that is a fundamental change in the SNP's stance. Hers is the first party in Scotland openly and without reservation to call on people to break the law. Several members of the SNP have said that they will break the law.
  We are entitled to ask what mandate the SNP has for such a proposition. I have had the benefit of looking through the election addresses of the three SNP Members.
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing rose—
  Mr. Rifkind: I have a copy of the hon. Lady's address. I have gone through it in detail, and nowhere can I find any suggestion that, if elected, she would call upon the people of Scotland to break the law.
  I have here also the election addresses of the hon. Members for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh) and for Banff and Buchan. In neither is there the slightest suggestion that, if elected, they would encourage non-compliance with an Act of Parliament and illegal behaviour by themselves or their colleagues.
  Mrs. Ewing rose—
  Mr. Rifkind: I shall give way to the hon. Lady if she will tell me that her election address was not an accurate reflection of her views.
  Mrs. Ewing: The Scottish National party is not instructing anyone not to pay the poll tax. It is asking the people of their own free choice to consider that option. That is a moral stance for them to take. I believe that individuals have every right to question laws when they are bad, as this undoubtedly is.
  The election was fought when there was a hope that the poll tax would not be implemented. In the past year, the Government have refused to listen to the coherent arguments against the community charge, presented not just by the SNP or other opposition parties, but by a wide range of opinion in Scotland. I remind him again of the votes cast in the district elections for the Scottish National party.
  Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Lady cannot escape her responsibilities in that way. She knows that, by the last general election, the proposals for the community charge had become an Act of Parliament. She knows that in her

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  party's manifesto there was a suggestion that, if elected, the SNP would repeal the legislation. There was not the slightest suggestion in its members' election addresses that they would wish to encourage, as they are doing now, the breaking of the law and non-compliance with an Act of Parliament.
  Mr. Salmond: I know that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is interested in historical perspective—that is really all that is left for the Conservative party in Scotland. It cannot have escaped his notice that, in the district elections. far more votes were cast for non-payment—our platform—than for payment of the poll tax, which was the Conservative party's platform.
  Mr. Rifkind: We are talking about the basis on which the hon. Gentleman was elected. The hon. Gentleman invited the people of Banff and Buchan to vote for him. He has gone on regularly, and with boring monotony, about the need for a mandate to put forward certain policies. Not only is there no reference to breaking the law in the SNP's manifesto, but there is a most interesting proposal in the section on law enforcement and reform.
  The House will enjoy hearing what the policy of the Scottish National party was when it was put to the electorate. In its section on law enforcement and reform, the SNP stated:
  "The population"—
  presumably the Scottish population—
  "will be encouraged to cooperate in upholding the Law."
  [Laughter.] Yes, it is an interesting statement of policy. The mandate on which those hon. Members were elected was one of encouraging
  "the population … to cooperate in upholding the Law."
  However, once those hon. Members are elected, we find that they do not encourage the population to co-operate in upholding the law; they go out of their way to encourage the population to break the law. That the hon. Member for Moray can say, "We are not instructing them to do so," is self-evident. The hon. Lady does not have any power to instruct the population. There is a fundamental conflict between what was said in the manifesto and the policy that those hon. Members are putting forward.
  This is not a trivial matter. The fact that a political party. which is seeking power and the endorsement of the electorate, adopts a policy of illegality for the first time in contemporary Scottish politics is an important watershed. I advise the hon. Lady and her hon. Friends that in adopting that policy they are putting an albatross around their necks and that of their party as a whole. I know perfectly well that the hon. Members for Angus, East and for Moray do not really believe in that policy of illegality. I know perfectly well that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan has forced them to support a policy which they personally repudiate. They must realise that their party is now indelibly tarred with that brush.
  That policy of illegality has been adopted by those other than SNP Members of the House. The rector of Edinburgh university, Miss Muriel Gray, a prominent Scottish nationalist, recently made some worrying remarks in an interview reported in an Edinburgh monthly magazine entitled Cut when she stated:
  "If I could advise the Scottish people to do anything, I'd advise them to get down to the plant where the newspaper The Sun is printed and firebomb it. Seriously, if I had to have any terrorism in this country, I would aim it at Murdoch. I'd like
  1092
  to see journalistic terrorism where they'd just keep setting fire to his newspaper printing plants, all over the country, all the time."
  I notice that the Scottish National party has not shown any desire to repudiate that remark or to dissociate itself from what has been said on its behalf by a prominent supporter.
  I advise the hon. Member for Moray, and especially her hon. Friend the Member for Angus, East, that if they now say that they wish to support a policy of breaking the law or of non-compliance with it, such being the "unacceptability" of the community charge, all hon. Members wait with interest to hear why the one district council which is controlled by the SNP is not implementing nationalist policies. We know that the people of Scotland as a whole are being encouraged not to comply in any way with that Act of Parliament, yet we were informed on 22 January that on 21 January,
  "Angus District Council, at a specially convened emergency meeting last night, agreed to act as a collecting agent of the poll tax for Tayside Regional Council."
  Mr. Andrew Welsh: It was an emergency meeting, and I should like to make it quite clear that a gun was held to the head of Angus district council by Tayside regional council—[Interruption.] Would the Secretary of State for Scotland wish to have as a result the complete sacking of the housing staff of Angus district council? The SNP council in Angus creates employment and jobs—it does not destroy them. It was the withdrawal of support and the threats from Tayside regional council, which rushed to implement that tax, that posed the problem. I notice that the Secretary of State is quite happy to have a policy of sacking housing staff and increasing rents in Angus and in the other districts which would have been in a similar situation.
  Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman has given an awful reply. He has a legal obligation to pay the community charge, but he says that he will break that legal obligation and the law, such is his distaste for that Act. He knows that Angus district council has no legal obligation to co-operate in implementing the community charge. It could easily decline to do so, without breaching the law, yet the hon. Gentleman seeks to justify breaking the law.
  Mr. Welsh: To have done so would have led to the sacking of almost every member of the housing staff and a massive increase in rents. If that is the right hon. Gentleman's policy, I must advise him that I disagree with him. Conservatives have always said that they keep rents down and encourage employment. When people vote nationalist in Angus, which they do, they get the rewards of doing so. They do not get the reward of unemployment which they would if they voted Conservative. That is a strange turnaround for the Secretary of State for Scotland.
  Mr. Rifkind: The fact still remains that the one council controlled by the SNP is to comply with an Act of Parliament although all its councillors belong to a party which is encouraging the Scottish public as a whole to break the law and defy the Act. If that is not an example of extreme hypocrisy, it is difficult to see what is.
  Mr. John McAllion: Before the Secretary of State leaves his point about Tayside regional council and Angus district council, I should explain that Tayside regional council, as is the wont of every regional council in Scotland, pays a certain sum of money to the

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  district councils which collect rates for it. If Angus district council chose not to collect the rates or the poll tax for next year, it would not be paid by Tayside regional council because it would not have done that job. The hon. Member for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh) may refer to that as blackmail, but it is not blackmail. It is simply that the district council is not being paid for a job which it refuses to do. I think that that is a reasonable position.
  Mr. Rifkind: I rarely agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I am bound to say that he exposes yet again the absurdity, inconsistency and hypocrisy of the SNP position, of which the hon. Member for Angus, East has been unable to explain even one tiny whit.
  Mr. Bill Walker: Before my right hon. and learned Friend leaves that point, may I draw his attention to the fact that the Scottish National party provost of Perth and Kinross district council said after the election that he would advise people in Perth and Kinross to obey the law and ignore the advice of his own party?
  Mr. Rifkind: I believe that the SNP provost of Perth and Kinross district council has gone on record as saying that he believes that all Acts of Parliament should be obeyed and that those who encourage breaches of the law should be ashamed of themselves. In that respect, his comments are entirely to be supported.
  I noted that, some weeks ago, the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan was quoted as comparing the Scottish National party with the so-called National Rainbow Coalition in the United States, which is led by Senator Jesse Jackson. The hon. Gentleman is reported as saying that
  "the links between the SNP and Mr. Jackson's National Rainbow Coalition showed they had a great deal in common."
  I can entirely understand the comparison that the hon. Gentleman wants to make. The Scottish National party is a party with a coat of many colours. It seeks to——
  Mr. Salmond: I shall be interested to know why the Secretary of State finds the National Rainbow Coalition so amusing. It represents a substantial section of public opinion in the United States, with which the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his Government always claim a special relationship.
  Mr. Rifkind: I understand that it has lost the battle for the Democratic nomination, but that is another matter on which the hon. Gentleman might like to reflect. There is an obvious comparison because, as many of us have had cause to comment over the years, the SNP is a party which, apart from its desire for separatism and the break up of the United Kingdom, does have a coat of many colours. It uses a moderate voice in rural areas, anti-Socialist policies in areas where it believes that that would be popular, and a radical Left-wing Socialist policy elsewhere.
  The hon. Gentleman expresses puzzlement and points to himself, but since he has been allowed to return to the fold of the SNP he has been less noticeable for his propositions of Socialist policy than he was some years ago. Perhaps that has something to do with representing Banff and Buchan.
  Mr. Salmond: This will be my last intervention. I started the debate as Robespierre and end by being a moderate. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will have to decide in what role he wishes to place me.
  Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman has not changed in the slightest. He remains someone who wishes to put forward extremist policies and to adapt the SNP's extremist position as a party of illegality, which seeks to advance its cause by advocating ignoring or breaking Acts of Parliament——
  Dr. Lewis Moonie: Except in Banff and Buchan.
  Mr. Rifkind: Yes, perhaps except in Banff and Buchan. That is an important qualification that one should always make.
  In conclusion, hon. Members representing the Scottish National party had an opportunity today to put forward a consistent and well thought-out alternative strategy on either economic or social issues. Instead, we have had simply a ritual incantation of a nationalist policy which was rejected by 86 per cent. of the electorate at the last general election and which is almost certain to be rejected by a comparable proportion at the next.
  5.29 pm
  Mr. John Maxton: I rise with a certain reluctance to involve myself in the wrangle between two of the minority parties in Scotland which, between them, represent less than 20 per cent. of the available seats in Scotland. All that we have heard so far from both sides have been fairly cheap attacks on each other. No one has had a go at the Labour party, and perhaps we should be grateful for that. It is a bit rich for the Secretary of State to attack the SNP for failing to deal with the Government's policies in Scotland and the Scottish economy and then to indulge in cheap attacks—some of them personal—on the SNP. Apart from a brief reference at the beginning of his speech, he failed to mention anything that the Government have done in Scotland, or rather have not done.
  When the right hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind) supported devolution I had a certain respect for him—[Interruption.] Perhaps reluctant respect. Since becoming Secretary of State, the way in which he has spoken and used his office in Scotland for cheap political purposes has made himself and his office the subjects of considerable contempt. It is fairly obvious that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is prepared to cover up matters and to mislead the House, either directly or through other Departments, about what happens. He wants to mention the economy, so I shall mention what the Labour party and even some Conservative Members consider to be of most importance to the Scottish economy—the Ravenscraig——
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. If I heard the hon. Member correctly, I think he said that the Secretary of State was misleading the House. If so, I ask the hon. Member to find another form of words and withdraw that remark.
  Mr. Maxton: I withdraw the remark and I shall allow the House to draw its conclusions from my comments as to what the Secretary of State has done.
  Mr. Buchan: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Maxton: I should like to be brief, so I apologise to my hon. Friend for not giving way.
  Ravenscraig is considered to be a vital part of the Scottish economy. The Secretary of State for Scotland, his Minister of State, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and his junior Ministers have said repeatedly that there is a seven-year guarantee for Ravenscraig within the Scottish economy. In an interview on BBC radio at lunchtime today Sir Robert Scholey, chairman of the British Steel Corporation, said that he had informed the Secretary of State for Scotland, before the Government announced their plans for privatisation, that a privatised British Steel Company would probably—not possibly—close the Ravenscraig strip mill in 1989, just one year from now. I hope that the Minister of State will take the opportunity to tell the House whether that is true. It is no use the Secretary of State boasting about the Government's achievements in the Scottish economy—we dispute that—and at the same time essentially colluding in the closure of the strip mill at Ravenscraig, which would end steel production at Ravenscraig four or five years thereafter.
  I congratulate the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) and the SNP on at least giving the House the opportunity to debate this matter. I congratulate the hon. Lady also on attacking the Government. It is rather unusual these days for the SNP to do that, and I hope that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) will show the same self-discipline, as he spends all his time attacking the majority party in Scotland—the Labour party. It is to the hon. Gentleman's long-term political benefit to ensure the continuation of a Conservative Government, in the hope that at some time the SNP will thereby gain votes. The hon. Gentleman does not give a damn about what happens to the people of Scotland because of the Government's policies, provided SNP votes increase.
  We do not intend to support the motion. The Labour party is not in favour of an independent Scotland. We did not stand for election on that proposal, and it is not in any Labour party manifesto, so we cannot vote for any motion that puts it forward. Equally, it is not the policy of the people of Scotland, who clearly rejected the only party that put up independence as an option at the general election.
  Whatever happens in district elections and opinion polls, it is the general election that counts. At the last general election, 14 per cent. of the Scottish people voted for the SNP and returned only three Members of Parliament. That was a massive rejection of the idea of independence for Scotland. Even the modest increases by the SNP in the district elections—the largest part of which was due to the modest number of candidates put up and had little to do with an increase in the number of votes—and in recent opinion polls give the SNP no right to say that the people of Scotland want independence.
  Mr. Salmond: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Maxton: I want to be brief and the hon. Gentleman has intervened four times. The Secretary of State threw out his line four times and every time the hon. Gentleman caught the hook with alacrity. I shall not throw out lines to him. I am not trying to hook him, although it would be remarkably easy to do so.
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  The Scottish people voted overwhelmingly at the last general election for a devolved Scottish assembly within the framework of the United Kingdom. The largest number of votes went to the Labour party. The Scottish people also voted for the alliance and, I accept, for the SNP. Seventy-five per cent. of the people of Scotland voted for a devolved assembly in Scotland. They say that there is separate Scottish legislation and a separate Scottish administration within the United Kingdom, but that it lacks the democratic structure that should go with it.
  It is all right for the Secretary of State to say that there is no desire in Scotland for independence, but equally there is no desire there for this Government. The people of Scotland have said repeatedly that if there is to be the continuation of a separate Scottish entity within the United Kingdom, the Government of the day—whatever their colour—should recognise morally, if not constitutionally, the democratic care for ensuring that the Scottish people have a right to say how their education, housing and transport systems, which are administered and legislated for separately, should operate.
  At the last general election the people of Scotland rejected both the SNP's futile, narrow nationalism and the Tory party's arrogant centralism. They voted for a devolved assembly. The Labour party understands the frustration and anger of many Scottish people at the Government's treatment of them. Most Scots despise the get-rich-quick, greedy society of the Government. They reject the poll tax and the income tax cuts, which are designed to give to the rich and take from the poor. They object to their Health Service repeatedly being cut so that increasing pressure is put on people to seek private medicine and thus line the pockets of Tory party supporters. They object to their public housing being returned to grasping private landlords in order to increase profits. They object to the cynicism of a Government who starve public services of essential funds and then denounce those services because they can no longer provide the help to public that they once did, so that they can hand over the provision of those services to private companies, which are interested only in maximising their profits.
  We understand and agree with the Scottish people when they reject Tory greed and self interest, but we know that the only way to get rid of this despicable Government is to defeat them at a general election within the United Kingdom. The Labour party will do that at the next general election.—[Laughter.] I thought that that might raise a cheap laugh. Only one party in the United Kingdom and Scotland is capable of doing that—the Labour party. A Labour Government will give the Scottish people what they want, which is the right to control their own affairs through a Scottish assembly within the United Kingdom. I urge my hon. Friends to vote neither for the motion nor against it, because one would be a vote for national independence, and the other would be a vote in support of the Government.
  5.41 pm
  Mr. Allan Stewart: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) regretted that so far in the debate there had been not much comment on the Labour party's position. Perhaps I can repair that by making one or two positive and helpful comments for the benefit of Opposition Members.

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  It is not true that Opposition Members always say silly things about Scotland. One recalls in particular the splendid speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition at Perth, where he not only failed to praise Scottish Labour Members for their great victory, but, absolutely sensibly, in a 50-minute speech, said nothing about devolution. That showed a real appreciation of its importance to the people of Scotland. Subsequently, when asked why he had omitted any such reference, he said to an interviewer;
  "Well I did not talk about weather conditions in the Himalayas either".
  The hon. Member for Cathcart is a Front-Bench spokesman for a fairly disparate band of 50 Labour Members of Parliament.
  Mr. McAllion: Desperate Dan.
  Mr. Stewart: They are probably fairly desperate as well. I thought that the hon. Member for Cathcart sounded remarkably confident, given that the front page headline of today's edition of the Glasgow Herald states:
  "Labour slump now 11 points."
  It was remarkably good timing for the Scottish National party to choose this debate on a day when there is a clear swing to the Conservatives in the opinion polls. In the past year there have been a number of tendencies in the Scottish Labour party.
  Mr. Maxton: Conservative Members always claim that the only poll that matters is the one on polling day. The opinion poll in the Glasgow Herald today shows the Labour party 2 per cent. down on the general election and the Conservative party 1 per cent. up. I assume that the hon. Gentleman considers that to be a remarkable turn around.
  Mr. Stewart: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that one cannot read too much into any one opinion poll. I never suggested otherwise.
  Opposition Members have divided into a number of tendencies during the past year. Initially there was what might be described as the headbanger tendency, led by the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan). He is not here today, and in the light of recent events he is rather a moderate exponent of headbangerism among Opposition Members. He has become an elder statesman headbanger.
  The other tendency is what might be described as yuppie Socialism. The chief yuppie in Scotland, Bearsden's answer to Dagenham, who, unfortunately, is not present on the Opposition Front Bench, is unquestionably the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith). I pay tribute to him. Where do we read his thoughts about the Scottish economy and the Scottish political scene? We do not find them in the Morning Star, nor in the Labour Weekly, but in that splendid newspaper the Sunday Post, a well-known non-union newspaper. I hope that his initiative in writing for the Sunday Post will be followed by other Opposition Members.
  There are some signs of common sense on some Scottish issues. The paper on the Health Service by the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden, which is in the press today, rightly points out the importance of giving patients the chance to choose their own doctor, surgeon and hospital and to choose between area health boards. It
  1098
  is a pity that, having described an internal market in the National Health Service, he went on to say that the Labour party was not in favour of it.
  The hon. Member for Cathcart, who on this occasion is speaking from the Front Bench, has had a rather difficult time recently within his own party. Perhaps he will reassure me that that is not the case, but, following his article in the Glasgow Herald entitled,
  "Non-payment campaign a dangerous diversion",
  he was assailed by all fronts of the Labour movement. A leading assault on him came from the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) who, if she manages to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, will continue her attack on the position taken by her Front Bench, as no doubt will many activists in the Labour movement.
  I understand that 7,000 of them will be attending a conference because they believe that the Labour party's fragmented battle against the poll tax will fail. According to today's press, they will be addressed by another leading Member of the Scottish parliamentary Labour group. The Labour party is fundamentally divided on its tactics in Scotland.
  In opening the debate, the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) concentrated on constitutional change. I shall make two points about that. First, it is important to remember that each of the Opposition parties wants something different. They are not in any sense united in their proposals. There is a theoretical argument for independence, and I believe that independence would be a lesser evil than devolution, if that were the unfortunate choice, as devolution would lead to continuing chaos. There is a theoretical Right-wing argument in favour of independence, in that it would lead to the defeat of Socialism on both sides of the border. Without the Scottish Labour Members, Labour would be finished for ever in England and Wales, and north of the border, after 1992, and independent Scotland could not pursue Socialist policies. If it tried, people and companies would vote with their feet and move to Tory England. I hasten to add that I do not accept that argument, because I believe that independence would lead to considerable chaos, considerable economic problems and, fundamentally, a loss of influence, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State pointed out.
  The hon. Lady mentioned the Scottish Select Committee, and the record must be corrected. The Government have not failed to set up a Select Committee. That is not the Government's responsibility. The Leader of the House wished to set up a Scottish Select Committee but Back Benchers do not want to serve on a Scottish Select Committee and cannot be forced to do so.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland was right in what he said about breaking the law, which action is advocated by the Scottish National party. Its election manifesto contained no suggestion that law breaking should be encouraged. The Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act 1987 was already on the statute book. Furthermore, the Scottish National party forecast that the Conservatives would win the general election. The campaign against the community charge is failing, as the regional registration figures amply demonstrate. I believe that most of the people of Scotland will obey the law, will want to obey the law and will not be seduced from that path by the wholly spurious arguments of Opposition Members.

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  The economy is fundamental to the wellbeing of the Scottish people. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State rightly pointed out that all the forecasts are favourable. Unemployment is still too high, but it is steadily coming down. Opposition Members cannot deny that fact. Manufacturing productivity in Scotland has been rising since 1979 at the rate of 5·6 per cent. per annum. It is higher than elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and it is higher than in seven other OECD countries. That is a sound foundation for the future, as is the fact that the number of self-employed has been rising consistently and that 15,000 new companies have been registered since 1979. My right hon. and learned Friend's policies are fundamentally sound. We must continue to pursue them in the interests of the Scottish people, who will benefit from them. The Scottish people will not be seduced by the Opposition parties' spurious campaigns.
  5.51 pm
  Mrs. Ray Michie: I welcome the opportunity once again to draw the attention of the House to the democratic rights of the Scottish people. I congratulate the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) on her speech and on the sincerity of her purpose. Today we are debating the political situation in Scotland. Despite what the Secretary of State said, I want to concentrate on the political rather than the economic situation.
  I have to admit, albeit reluctantly, that there is a certain constitutional legitimacy in having a Secretary of State, backed up by three or four Ministers, charged with running the Scottish Office in Edinburgh, but it is a poor substitute for a Parliament of our own, particularly when the five Ministers oppose their own people and, in order to hold on to their own ministerial posts, rely on support from south of the border—from another country.
  The Secretary of State has made a series of speeches in Scotland in which he has tried to spread the gospel of Thatcherism. I am told, because I hardly know him, that he is a nice man and that he is intelligent. I am sure that he is, but that is puzzling when one looks at what he has said.
  The United Kingdom requires constitutional reform to meet the needs and aspirations of all its people. A federal United Kingdom has been the policy of my party for many years. The Secretary of State acknowledges the arguments in its favour but says that it is not on, as there is no demand for it, particularly in England. But has he ever asked the people of England? He has never asked them. I believe that the ordinary Englishman would not deny the right of Scotland to look after its own affairs. England would lose nothing. I believe that it would gain a great deal. I am certain that this House would gain a great deal if it had more time to deal with its own affairs. That would be possible if we were able to do our own thing in Scotland rather than in this place. If the Government want to keep the United Kingdom together, federalism is the only option. It is a better form of government and it is practised by sensible countries.
  I do not intend to argue the need for single-tier local authorities and proportional representation. That has been well rehearsed time and again. I do not want the Minister who is to reply to the debate to say anything about the imposition of another tier of government. That is not a necessary prerequisite.
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  The Secretary of State contends that unilateral devolution is impossible. That is rubbish. A precedent has already been set in Northern Ireland. He says that there is no evidence of a desire for home rule in Scotland. That myth has already been punctured. The evidence is there, from the referendum of 1979 to the most obvious evidence of all—the lonely 10 from Scotland who sit on the Government Benches.
  The greatest canard of all is that a Scottish Parliament would mean higher taxes and that all the businesses would flee the country. I ask the Secretary of State: where is the evidence? Is he telling us that businesses run from state to state in all the federal countries of the world if taxes are raised or lowered? Such a contention presupposes, first, that the Tories would never expect to form a Government in Scotland and their fear that the Labour party would. Surely that is defeatism.
  Mr. Maxton: The hon. Lady is absolutely right about companies, but the biggest threat facing Scottish companies is the Government's failure to tell Scottish businesses exactly what is happening about the uniform business rate and to bring Scotland into line with the rest of the United Kingdom.
  Mrs. Michie: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says about the Government's failure to tell Scottish businesses what is happening about the uniform business rate.
  Secondly, the Secretary of State contends that the members of a Scottish Parliament would not be elected by a fair system. If the Government were sensible, they would set up a Scottish Parliament, but I do not believe for a minute that they would introduce proportional representation. That would prevent domination by a minority party. As the Secretary of State is so fond of telling us, all the parties in Scotland are minority parties.
  Mr. John Home Robertson: The Labour party is not a minority party.
  Mrs. Michie: The Labour party is a minority party, because it gained only 42 per cent. of the votes cast at the last general election. The majority of the people of Scotland voted for other parties, not for the Labour party.
  I do not want to be completely unfair to the Government. It would be foolish to deny the worth of reforms such as ballots before industrial action. People should be allowed to buy their own houses and business and industry should be run successfully and competitively. But that should have been done long ago. Successive Tory and Labour Governments have kept Scotland and its people shackled for so long that they have prevented Scotland, as a nation, from releasing the initiative and enterprise that we see in Scots the world over. The sad thing is that in the past our people have left our shores, and they continue to do so, for jobs in London and in other parts of the world. One of the reasons why they do that is that in Scotland they are not allowed to express themselves in a nation that they can recognise as their own.
  The Government imagine that they are passing power to the people by allowing them to buy their own houses or to sit on school boards, but they are at the same time taking more and more power to the centre. Scots are allowed to take a little individual responsibility but not political responsibility in shaping the destiny of their country. They are allowed to take the small decisions but

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  not the big ones. I find that patronising and arrogant. I must tell the House that without our own Parliament we shall disappear as a nation.
  When a small country lives alongside a large and domineering one, there are risks and it is always difficult for it to survive. Without a forum and a focal point giving leadership, the battle to preserve our culture, identity, values and way of life will become well nigh impossible. It so happens that England is the domineering country in this case. It could easily have been Canada, France or Germany. I stress that I do not object to England or to the English. Many of the most ardent proponents of devolution are English people who have settled in Scotland. My argument is with the House, which, over the years, has consistently denied Scotland her political birthright.
  I would feel a great deal more confident if I heard Scottish Ministers defending their country at the Dispatch Box, particularly during Scottish Question Time, when they face questions put by hon. Members representing English constituencies. Scottish Ministers always sound apologetic. The only exception is the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), who at least stated during Scottish Question Time the other day that Caledonian MacBrayne provided a lifeline to the highlands and islands and that the Government are prepared to defend it. I should like to see Scottish Ministers being much tougher and harder in defence of their own country.
  My party has no hang-ups about reducing the number of Scottish Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons, provided that we have our own Parliament in Scotland. Nor would I contend that, having such a Parliament, everything in the garden will be rosy. That would be foolish in the extreme. However, we would not have introduced, for example, an unfair and regressive poll tax that is contrary to our sense of democracy and fairness. We would not have witnessed the staggering daily reports of attacks being made on our ancient and proud universities. Nor would we be contemplating the English idea of allowing schools to opt out of the education system. Instead of taking power away from local government, we would increase and give it back. We would extend it to community council level. We would also have more control over the activities of the Nature Conservancy Council and the Crown Estate Commissioners. There is a long list of what we ought to be doing in Scotland but which we are unable to achieve in this House.
  Given a Scottish Parliament, many more Scots—in particular, women—would be able to participate in governing their own country instead of having to travel 500 miles to work in another country every week. Of course, we were all elected to attend a United Kingdom Parliament, but every Scot on this side of the House came to London with a view to removing some of the power of the United Kingdom Parliament and returning it to our own country. The only way in which that can be achieved legitimately and legally is through this House. That is why we came here.
  Meanwhile, the Government deny us a Select Committee for Scotland. They bunch Scottish Estimates days into a couple of weeks. We sit on a Scottish Grand
  1102
  Committee in Edinburgh discussing education, but we are not allowed to pass our own laws. We must come to this place to do that, and that is humiliating.
  Although concentrating mainly on the political aspects, I wish to say a few words also about economic matters. It is the Government's belief that if they get the economy right and if everybody has money in their pockets, we will all be happy in Scotland. The Government believe that money is all that matters, but we care about other values.
  I must tell the SNP that my party will not be supporting this motion because it does not wholly reflect what the Scots want. However, I warn the Government again, and I do so with good will and sincerity towards Scottish Ministers, that by their persistent refusal to listen, it is they and not the SNP who will bring about the break-up of the United Kingdom. One needs to know one's history to understand what is likely to happen in the future.
  I conclude by quoting Professor Gordon Donaldson, Her Majesty's historiographer in Scotland, introducing the Scottish Sunday Mail's "Story of Scotland":
  "I don't know whether any of you have ever stood, as I have so often done, on the bridge of a ship leaving Aberdeen Harbour.
  If so, you may have wondered why the skipper keeps looking back over the stern.
  He does this because the channel is marked by two white beacons among the buildings of the town and, in order to keep in the channel, he must have those two beacons lined up.
  It is by looking BACK that he can be sure of his way FORWARD.
  I wonder if this is the case for knowing history. Do we need to look back sometimes to make sure we are on the right course ahead?
  Can we know where we are heading for without knowing where we have come from?
  I remember once hearing a man say: 'I'm not interested in the past, I'm only interested in the future.'
  I have often thought that a peculiarly silly remark.
  The man who made it is now a member of Parliament.
  The truth is that the past has shaped the present and the past and the present will shape the future."
  I believe that our Parliament will he restored sooner rather than later and that, in the end, it is the Scots' inalienable right to have it and to make a kirk or a mill of it.
  6.8 pm
  Mr. Bill Walker: I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate on the Scottish political situation. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) said in her concluding remarks that one must look at history to understand and possibly to plan for the future. To judge from recent events in her merged party conglomerate, I should have thought that there was a lesson in her remarks for herself and her party.
  Recent events have shown very clearly that if the SLD party is coming forward with a proposal, as the hon. Lady seems to be saying, which it thinks that it can deliver, for some form of federal structure within the United Kingdom, it must first win the hearts and minds of eight out of 10 people and have its representatives elected to this Chamber in order to achieve its aims. Eight out of 10 people who live in the United Kingdom live in England, and until those people are persuaded there is no likelihood of such a measure getting through the House. That must be taken on board by the hon. Lady and all who propose theoretical programmes for constitutional change.
  It is easy enough to go to a few people in any part of the country and present a package that those few will accept,

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  but such a package—whatever it contains—will be for only a few people. That applies to all the various devolution packages that are on offer. We are talking about making proposals to one out of 10 of the United Kingdom population and the representatives in this place, but those proposals must make sense to the eight out of 10 before they can get through the House.
  The hon. Lady expressed an interest in the recent history of difficulties in getting motions and legislation on devolution through the House. That clearly shows that, regardless of the political persuasions of hon. Members representing English seats in this and previous Parliaments, the important thing is to win the hearts and minds of eight out of 10 representatives. Until that is done, such proposals will remain theoretical.
  It is important for any hon. Member speaking from these Benches to recognise that the Conservative party did badly in Scotland in the 1987 election. It would be wrong to pretend otherwise. We must ask ourselves why, when what we are doing south of the border is accepted by so many people there—those whom I would describe as the hard-working, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens of England—we find it so difficult to obtain the same support in Scotland.
  Part of the answer must lie in the way in which we have put our message over, or rather failed to do so. There is no doubt that we have failed, and again it would be wrong to pretend otherwise. But that does not mean that the message is wrong, or that the policies are wrong. It means that Scottish Conservatives have not done their job as fully or as effectively as they could have or should have. I accept, as I must, my share of that criticism.
  Mr. Maxton: I am only sorry that the Secretary of State for Scotland, who after all led the party in the years up to and into that general election, is not present to hear such a vicious attack on his appalling leadership.
  Mr. Walker: I hope the hon. Gentleman understands that my comments are not made frivolously. I happen to be a Unionist. I make no apology for that, and I will stand aside for no one in my support for this unitary Parliament. That is much more important than my personal feelings or those of any of my colleagues. What is at stake is the Union, and the Union is not something on which we should take a frivolous or light-hearted view. It has taken a long time to create this United Kingdom, and to produce a parliamentary democracy that functions and is the envy of almost every other country in the world. We ought not to take lightly the success that has been achieved.
  If we have run into failures, which we have, we must look closely at them and see what we should be doing better. I do not say that we should be doing things differently, but we should be doing them better. I could give a number of examples, but because of the limited time available, and because Opposition Members wish to speak, I shall not go into too much detail. Let me simply try to put some specifics on the record.
  We need to look at developments since 1979 on the Scottish political scene. The Conservative party must recognise that our decisions in the House, for instance on Ulster, will have an impact on Scotland. Anyone who disagrees with that is not living in the real world. That is what I mean by the Union and a unitary Parliament.
  Mr. William McKelvey: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his analysis. I am
  1104
  sure that he does not mean simply that the Conservative party is failing to get its message across in Scotland and that that is why it does so badly there and Labour does so well. If that is the case, conversely, the Labour party in Scotland can claim that it is not getting its message across in England because it is so successful in Scotland. If we reverse the position, we will win the next election, even if our position in Scotland diminishes somewhat.
  Mr. Walker: On any mathematical analysis, if a party is getting its message through to one tenth of the population extremely well and doing very badly with eight tenths, something is not quite right about its message. What I am saying is that our message is getting through to eight tenths. What is wrong with getting through to one tenth?
  We are the Government, and we must therefore be accountable and acceptable. We must recognise that the decisions that we make will be seen as such by the people of Scotland. But modern government is very complex, and much of what goes on is carried out by quasi-governmental bodies an arm's length away. Those bodies often disburse vast sums of taxpayers' money, while the Government determine the amount that they are to disburse and the policies on which they operate.
  The Scottish Development Agency, the Scottish tourist board and the Highlands and Islands Development. Board disburse vast sums from the public purse, but if we wander around Scotland and chat to the individuals who have been in receipt of those sums, we find that the majority believe that the money is coming from those benevolent bodies and not from the Government. We are not getting the credit for what we are doing. Similarly, the health boards are non-elected, anonymous bodies, and generally speaking the public have no idea who they are, yet the Government carry the responsibility for their activities. Scotland has other quangos that operate on a United Kingdom basis, making decisions in Scotland about various important aspects of Scottish life.
  The hon. Lady touched on the subject of the universities, and on that issue I agree with her. I have always been a strong supporter of a United Kingdom arrangement for our universities. Recent events—by which I mean events that have taken place in the past year, and in particular in the last few months—have caused me to review my position. I am extremely worried about some of the decisions that have been made, and may be made in future, by the University Grants Committee.
  In particular, I see no sense in a decision which I am told is likely to be made tomorrow affecting the dental hospital in Dundee. On any objective criterion, it cannot be said that that is in accordance with Government policy. I defend the Government's policy of asking for the best possible value for money—we should get what we pay for—and I believe that the policies that we have introduced to achieve that have been largely successful, but I cannot, and will not, support a decision that cannot be defended on that criterion. According to the Fraser of Allander Institute, which produced an impartial objective report, Dundee dental hospital is top of the league for value for money, so it should be the last place to be considered for closure.
  I agree that there is a Scottish dimension. We Scots are proud of our history and culture and of what has happened in our universities and education establishments. We have every reason to be. We have led the world

  1105
  in many things and we want to retain that—and our Scottishness. To do that, we must have bodies that are understanding of and sympathetic to what we are trying to achieve.
  I have examined this matter with some care and I believe that if the University Grants Committee decides tomorrow that the Dundee hospital should close—because the Government have said that they want fewer dentists to be trained—and if the committee cannot justify closure on objective criteria of value for money, it is time we wound up this quango. It is of no use to us in Scotland. In 1979 I never believed that I would say things like that, but experience has taught me that there is a lack of sensitivity and understanding of what is required.
  I do not know what deals have been made, or which university or school is being protected, but I know that if part of the whole is left out of a review, the review is not complete. I have never been afraid to stand up for what I believe is right, and this matter is vital. This is probably the most important speech that I have made since my speech on Guinness. I was unhappy about the Guinness affair, and I am equally unhappy about what is happening on this matter. I leave it to hon. Members to judge whether Scotland's best interests are being served by the way in which these matters are being conducted.
  6.22 pm
  Mr. Harry Ewing: The logic of the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) about Dundee dental hospital leads him down the road that the Labour party has taken in respect of devolution. The University Grants Committee and the universities in Scotland are under the control of the Department of Education and Science, not the Scottish Office. If the hon. Gentleman did not understand that before, perhaps he does now.
  This morning in the Dundee Courier and Advertiser, under a banner headline two inches high, there appeared a story given to the paper by the hon. Member for Tayside, North, claiming that the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth), support the retention of Dundee dental hospital. Whether or not the UGC decides tomorrow that the hospital is to close, the Government will win. If the hospital closes, that will be the fault of the UGC; if it is retained, that will be to the credit of the Ministers. That was the import of the briefing that the hon. Gentleman gave the Dundee Courier and Advertiser—
  Mr. Bill Walker: The hon. Gentleman has the advantage of me, in that I have not read the article. What I gave the Dundee Courier and Advertiser was a verbatim report of what took place at a meeting that the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross) and I attended. We were advised by the people representing the UGC—the secretary and two others—that the Secretary of State for Scotland had had two meetings and that his advice was that the Dundee hospital should remain open. The hon. Member for Dundee, West can confirm this. He and I were horrified at what we discovered.
  Mr. Ewing: I mean no disrespect to the hon. Member for Tayside, North, but when Ministers commit themselves to the retention or closure of anything, I prefer to hear it from their mouths, not from a message boy. Whatever the UGC decides tomorrow, the Government will win. It would have been far better, if the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State were in favour of retaining the dental hospital at Dundee, that they should have told us.
  I see that the Under-Secretary of State is in his place; if he wants to confirm the words of the hon. Member for Tayside, North—that he is in favour of retaining Dundee dental hospital and has made that view clear to the University Grants Committee—I shall gladly give way to him. Is he prepared to confirm what the hon. Gentleman has just said? His silence is eloquent testimony to the value of the headline in today's Dundee Courier and Advertiser. We owe a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for Tayside, North for raising this matter. I suspect that he was scarping around for something to end his speech with and used an example that will be unfortunate for the Minister.
  The hon. Member for Tayside, North also said that the Tories' problem in Scotland is that they are not getting their message across. I have news for him: the problem is not that they are not getting it across—they are getting it across only too well, and the people of Scotland understand it fully. That is why the Tories lost 11 seats at the last general election and were returned with only 10.
  I enjoyed the speech made by the Secretary of State today—it was good knockabout slapstick stuff—but it lacked serious content and did not recognise the problem in Scotland. On both occasions since the 1987 election when I have heard him speak on the political problems of Scotland the right hon. and learned Gentleman has done himself less than justice. He should study rather more seriously the tensions that are developing there.
  The Secretary of State said that unemployment was falling: of course it is. When the Conservatives came to power in 1979, unemployment stood at 133,000; now it is more than 300,000. The hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) conceded that that was too high. To listen to the Secretary of State, one would think there was no problem, but there is, and the people of Scotland recognise that it has been caused by an unwanted Government forcing unwanted policies on an unwilling population. The people of Scotland do not identify with the policies imposed on them.
  To be generous to Scottish Office Ministers, I must say that there have been times when they have wanted to act differently. They did not want to intervene in the school closures issue in Strathclyde. They did not want to go along with some of the social security provisions. But the leaks of the letters between No. 10 and the Scottish Office showed conclusively that the Ministers were instructed by the Prime Minister's office—in the case of the Strathclyde school closures, encouraged by the hon. Member for Stirling—to change their policies.
  Let us not think for a moment that the people of Scotland did not notice this. They noticed that the Scottish Office Ministers wanted to do one thing but the Prime Minister told them that it was not on. They had to do something completely different to bring themselves into line with the rest of England and Wales—Northern Ireland must be excluded.

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  If the problem continues in this way, the role of the Scottish Office, far from being strengthened, will be diminished, and many of the powers that it enjoys and which have been devolved to it down the years will be sucked in by central Government Departments such as the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department of Education and Science, the DHSS and all the other mammoth Departments that make up the Whitehall complex.
  That is the road down which we are travelling. That is the road down which the people of Scotland understand we are travelling better than we do here. That is why there are so many tensions in the Scottish political scene. It is a matter of judgment for each Member of Parliament whether he or she wants to respond to the tensions in the Scottish political scene or whether he or she wants to do what the Secretary of State and his colleagues do and turn their back on those tensions, ignore them and hope that they will go away.
  I have bad news for the Conservative party. Those tensions will not go away. I have bad news for other hon. Members who would like to see them go away too. If politicians do not lead those tensions in the proper direction, other people will step in from other areas to lead those tensions in a bad direction. That will not be the fault of the people. That will be our fault. It will be our responsibility if something goes wrong in Scotland. It is almost as if a democracy has to stand still.
  The hon. Member for Tayside, North claims that he is a Unionist, and I respect that claim. That does not mean to say that the constitutional make-up of the Union has to be constant. It can be changed, and that is what Labour Members are saying should happen. It should be changed and there should be devolution. I do not go down the separatist road. It is a credible position for the SNP, but SNP Members have no right to table a motion and then criticise those hon. Members who do not support them on issues in which they do not believe. We shall not stand on our heads merely to satisfy three hon. Members who came here on very small majorities and are likely to be out at the next election. They are not representative of Scottish opinion. We are, and we had better respond before the people of Scotland take the lead and are led down the wrong path. The matter is in our hands, and I beg the House to act.
  6.32 pm
  Mr. Andrew Welsh: The Secretary of State, in responding to the motion, completely failed to answer the positive points raised by the motion and by my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing). If his was the case for the Union then it is most certainly a lost cause.
  The SNP motion puts forward a positive and dynamic role for Scotland, both within the nation and as part of a wider world. That contrasts with the nation's present stagnant and subordinate role within a London-dominated political system. That contrasts with the SNP's positive view of Scotland and its future. The Government amendment simply sums up the Government's arrogant misguided attitude towards Scotland. The Government amendment is simply misinformed, misstated and inaccurate. It states, for example:
  "in the 1987 General Election more than four people out of five in Scotland voted for parties which support the Union."
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  They want us to act upon that assumption, but they also neglect to say that 76 per cent. of Scots voted for a return of governmental decision-making powers to Scotland. The Government will not act on that assumption, but they cannot have it both ways.
  The Scottish Grand Committee is no substitute for proper legislative machinery for Scotland. The Committee has no powers. It rarely votes, and, even then, it votes only on technical motions. It can never be in any way a substitute for a real Parliament for Scotland, but that is all that the present Government are prepared to offer the people of Scotland. The Government amendment states that the SNP was, in their view,
  "the least popular party in Scotland and received the least support from the electorate".
  That is not true, although no doubt the Green party, for one, wishes it were.
  However, things have moved on. Since then, the local government elections have confirmed the growing pattern in Scotland of the rejection of the Conservatives and the arrival of the SNP as the main challenger in Scottish politics. In the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Conservatives cannot even get a seconder when it comes to regional matters with regard to proposing members for top regional posts. They can barely do so when it comes to similar matters with regard to the districts. The SNP is now the second largest party in COSLA.
  When the Scottish people vote for independence, it will happen because, unlike the Unionist parties, Scotland has a political party that owes allegiance only to Scotland and will deliver the goods whenever it is given the mandate. The Government claim that Scotland can best meet the challenge of the single European Community as part of the United Kingdom. They should tell that to Scotland's decimated fishing industry and to its agriculture, both of which were once told by the Conservatives that they had nothing to fear from entry into the Common Market. They now know the truth, when Scotland's vital fishing, agriculture and oil interests have been used as bargaining counters to suit the superior British interests within the EEC. Scotland, with direct EEC participation and representation, would ensure that that ceased to happen in the future. That would be a far better system of representation and would meet the needs of the Scottish people far better than the present situation.
  The Government again reject a constitutional referendum because they are clearly unwilling to face the people. Ultimately, only Scotland will decide its own future. We will not be given independence. No country is ever "given" independence. Scotland will take independence as and when the Scottish people so decide. It will be done through the ballot box, unlike the sad situation in many other strife-torn parts of the world. The Scottish solution rests with the ballot box and the SNP has, throughout its history, firmly and correctly rejected violence as a suitable way of ever delivering independence for Scotland. We have correctly said that it is up to the Scottish people, and to them alone, to decide their own future through the ballot box and in their own good time.
  In the amendment, the Government reaffirm their belief in the Act of Union, yet they reject or neglect that Act whenever it suits them. Part of the deal written into the Union was that there would be uniform taxation throughout the country. The Government's main flag-carrier, the poll tax, breaks that principle and,

  1109
  according to Professor McCormick, it breaches one of the major items within the treaty of Union. It is the old story— the Government accept the treaty when it suits them and reject it when it does not.
  The Government have no Scottish mandate for many of their major items—school boards, their attack on local government and so on. Indeed, there is outright and obvious Scottish opposition to those measures. We are seeing the English mandate applied to Scotland, irrespective of the wishes of the Scottish people. That is at the heart of the Union because, ultimately, in the House, England will rule and England will decide. It would not matter if there were unanimity throughout the Scottish people and among our representatives, because, ultimately, England will decide. That is the price of the Union, and it is a price that anyone loyal to Scotland simply will not pay.
  Why should Scotland remain subsumed within England and within the new European Common Market? Why should Scotland not be directly represented in Europe, rather than subsumed within the broader English interests, any more than Denmark, which has the same population as Scotland, or Luxembourg, which is tiny in comparison with our country? To assume that we can see Europe only through English eyes or that Scotland can act in Europe only while subsumed within England shows extreme arrogance and is a poor deal for Scotland. Why should we expect the majority English interests to get a better deal for Scotland in the EEC than direct representation from Scotland of our views? It is an absurd proposition which no Dane, Greek, Irishman, Spaniard or Luxembourger would accept for one minute, yet Scots are expected to accept such a deal as a permanent arrangement.
  The Government object in their amendment to the description of colonial status when it is applied to Scotland, but how else can one describe the present Scottish situation? Scottish legislation is simply being tagged on to English Bills. Major Scottish amendments are shoved in on Report without proper discussion. When Scottish universities, including the Dundee dental hospital, were discussed as part of a general English Bill, Scottish Members with university interests were queuing up to have two minutes to discuss those matters that are vital to Scotland.
  Again, the only major Department of State that does not have a parliamentary Select Committee is the Scottish Office. That is lack of control, through this Parliament, of those who control Scotland. All this goes on while the Scottish assembly building lies empty in Edinburgh.
  We are asking only for basic democracy. Of the three arms of government, Scotland already has its own executive and its own judiciary. All that we are asking for is the third arm of government—a Scottish legislature, democratically elected and able to control and influence the fabric of our society, our economy and our life and to get Scotland on the move. Montesquieu rightly pointed out that the three arms of government spell the difference between despotism and a democratic system. We are asking for the fundamental right that every other democratic country takes for granted.
  Edinburgh is a city with two parliamentary buildings and no Parliament. It is a city waiting for the return of parliamentary powers. Scotland is a nation awaiting the
  1110
  rebirth of its identity in Europe and in the wider world. It is to this that the SNP motion addresses itself. It is a pity that the House will not do the same.
  6.40 pm
  Mrs. Maria Fyfe: I believe that, as a nation, Scotland has a right to self-determination, but that does not mean that I am about to apply for an SNP card. Correctly, the Labour party believes that Scotland has determined that its wants it own devolved assembly. It has shown that in its votes at the general elections and in opinion polls again and again. Clearly, the Scottish nation has spoken and wants what the Labour party in Scotland and the United Kingdom has been saying it wants.
  The Scottish people do not want he status quo. That is why the Government's amendment begs the question: why is it that the Tory party does not want a constitutional referendum? Could it be because it is afraid of the answer? Suppose the referendum reaffirmed what the Labour party says—that the majority of Scottish people want devolution and their own assembly. Would the Government accept that result and implement it? I do not believe that they would, because they do not recognise Scotland as a "free partner" in the United Kingdom, as they claim in the amendment.
  A "free partner" would have the right to decide whether to continue the partnership or to withdraw, or, as we would suggest, offer a change in the terms of the partnership. The Government are refusing to allow the people of Scotland to have a choice, and we are convinced that if the people of Scotland had a free say they would vote for Labour party policy. Labour recognises Scotland as a nation and as a "free partner" in the United Kingdom. For that reason we offered that policy at the general election, and for that reason, we shall continue to offer that policy. There is no doubt about this policy, from which we have not deviated one iota.
  I have recently returned from a short visit to Nicaragua, a small country of only 3 million people with a young parliamentary democracy that has been in existence for only a tiny speck of time when compared to the long existence of this noble House. That young Parliament of a small nation has already accepted that two areas of its country, because of different culture, history, language and development, deserve devolution. The National Assembly has already passed the law to bring in devolution so that the areas can have their own economic development, education system and so on. Will this ancient and honourable Parliament take the opportunity to learn from that small nation something about democracy in action?
  6.44 pm
  Mr. John McAllion: I agree with the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) about the Dundee dental hospital. There is no case for its closure. If the University Grants Committee makes that recommendation tomorrow, it will be a disgrace. I hope that every Scottish Member of Parliament will object to such a decision. In particular, I hope that the Ministers in the Scottish Office will lead a campaign against any such decision. As the recommendation of the working party that was set up by the UGC had to have been influenced by Scottish Office instruction, that working party could not take into consideration the position of the Dundee

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  dental hospital but looked only at Edinburgh and Glasgow dental hospitals. That had to prejudice the working party's recommendations. It is up to the Scottish Office to stand up for Dundee dental hospital, as there is no case for closure, and to say that it will not accept the recommendations of the UGC working party.
  In the Dundee dental hospital case, we see a classic example of the Scottish interest being squeezed between a United Kingdom Department that treats Scotland like another region of a unitary country and a Tory-dominated Scottish Office that will not stand up for the national rights of Scotland within the United Kingdom. It is time that Ministers in the Scottish Office began to argue the Scottish case rather than meekly accepting what is handed down to them from the Cabinet or the Secretary of State for Education and Science.
  We can legitimately argue about the merits or demerits of the no-mandate case within the unitary Parliament of the United Kingdom, but no hon. Member can quarrel with the fact that Scotland has overwhelmingly rejected the Government's approach, which is generally termed Thatcherism. Scotland did not reject Thatcherism only in the 1987 general election. It did so in both the 1983 and 1979 general elections. Ever since Thatcherism came into being as a political creed, it has regularly been rejected, with an ever-increasing majority, by the people of Scotland. That has happened in every general election since 1979, and there is no case for the Scottish Office, or any other Tories, trying to impose on the people of Scotland the policies that constitute the Thatcher consensus.
  Conservative Members would do well to reflect that, since the war, the Conservative party has been the only political party in Scotland to win an absolute majority of Scottish votes in the general election. It did that a generation ago in the 1955 general election. It should learn from its decline, which leaves it, 30 years on, with only an embarrassed rump of Scottish Members of Parliament and the lowest share of the vote in any general election since the war. The Tories must ask themselves why that is, and they must realise that if they continue down the road that they have been pursuing since 1955 the only end will be the break-up of the United Kingdom. That will be their fault, and their fault alone.
  At the next general election, in 1991, the Scottish people will have to vote for the party that can deliver them from the yoke of Thatcherism. The hon. Member for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh) said that, if the Scots want independence, they will vote for it. However, the SNP must make clear what they mean by Scotland voting for independence. A leaflet from the SNP has come through my door since the last general election. It says that 37 SNP Members of Parliament equals independence. That is nonsense. The Labour party has 50 Members of Parliament but only 43 per cent. of the vote in Scotland. Even if the SNP were to get into the Labour party's position, the majority of Scots would still be voting against independence, and for the continued link with the United Kingdom. The Government would ignore the fact that 50 SNP Members had been elected to Parliament and would go on as they are now, saying that there is no mandate for independence. A mandate for independence must be based on more than half the votes that are registered in Scotland at a general election, and the SNP could not achieve that.
  I was staggered to learn that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) has referred to the SNP as the
  1112
  equivalent of the Rainbow Coalition in the United States. I come from Dundee and I know about the SNP members on Tayside regional council. Only a few months ago, a prominent member of the SNP group on the council caused a sensation locally by referring, during a debate on the multicultural education policy of Tayside regional council, to the danger of Scotland being swamped by ethnic minorities. He used the very remark which the Prime Minister used disgracefully some years ago, a remark that will not be welcomed by any rainbow coalition on either side of the Atlantic. I hope that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan will denounce members of his party who use that sort of language in arguing against a proper multicultural approach to education in areas such as Tayside.
  6.50 pm
  Mr. Alex Salmond: The debate has been notable for a number of factors. Probably the most notable is that virtually all hon. Members who have contributed to it, with a few honourable exceptions, have failed to address the perspective which was set out in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) and in the motion—the exciting new perspective of an independent Scotland playing a full role within the European Economic Community.
  It seems that the Secretary of State for Scotland has not graduated beyond university debating tactics. There was nothing in his speech that told us where he thinks Scotland is going. There are few enough opportunities in this place to debate the future of our nation, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in a disgraceful speech, failed to take advantage of the opportunity that was presented to him. His speech contained no analysis of his own position in favouring the Union. It was purely a debating speech, worthy, perhaps, of a university debating chamber. It was not worthy of a Secretary of State for Scotland.
  I shall analyse the positions of the three other parties in Scotland apart from my own. It is interesting that there is no Labour party amendment on the Order Paper. In a way, that is appropriate. The problem that the Labour party faces is that devolution, as proposed by the party which won the last general election in Scotland, is no longer on the political agenda. That is because it will not be conceded. It is not available and it will not be delivered. It is not on offer.
  The Scottish National party supported the devolution Bill that Labour Members introduced last year on the ground that even half a slice of bread was better than no loaf. The reality, however, is that the Government will not concede devolution. With the Labour party 10 or 12 points adrift in the United Kingdom opinion polls a year after the general election—at the same stage after the 1983 election the Labour party was either level or ahead in the MORI polls—there is no realistic prospect in the foreseeable future of a Labour Government being able to implement Labour party policy, even if we accept as genuine the commitment of the Leader of the Opposition to the policy of devolution.
  Mr. Harry Ewing: I accept that the reality is that the Government will not concede devolution. That is accepted also by the Labour party. The reality also is that the Government will not concede independence. That is the problem in Scotland. The people of Scotland are reacting to an obstinate Government who ignore every plea that is

  1113
  made by every political party. Every branch of society in Scotland is being ignored. There is no point in the hon. Gentleman concentrating on the fact that the Government are ignoring one political party. Everyone in Scotland is being ignored. That is causing the problem.
  Mr. Salmond: I want to deal directly with that question later in my speech.
  The hon. Member for Falkirk, East (Mr. Ewing) and his right hon. and hon. Friends should listen carefully to the convoluted explanations of the Secretary of State when he is asked why he changed his position on devolution. I have heard the right hon. and learned Gentleman offer an explanation on several occasions in the past year. It seems that he changed his position because he thought 10 years ago that the Union was under threat. He was prepared to concede devolution only if there was a substantial vote in Scotland for independence. That is a lesson that the hon. Member for Falkirk, East should learn from the Scottish political scene.
  As I have said, it is significant that the Labour Opposition have not placed an amendment on the Order Paper. I believe that they have chosen not to do so because devolution is no longer on the political agenda in Scotland. During the count in the 1983 general election, I remember the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) roaring like a lion, declaring what he would do with this Parliament after that election to ensure that an assembly was delivered. Since then, the hon. Gentleman has been as quiet as a mouse on the issue. During this period he has graduated towards a Front-Bench job. I can understand hon. Members being bought and sold for English gold, but to be bought and sold for the prospect of Opposition Front-Bench spokesmanship at this moment places a low price on the hon. Gentleman's abilities.
  I was struck by a quote in The Scotsman of 16 January from the hon. Member for Cathcart. He was explaining then—as he has since in the Glasgow Herald—why the Labour party could not countenance a campaign of non-payment in opposition to the poll tax. The hon. Gentleman wrote:
  "At the end of the day, it would be a campaign about the right to govern Scotland, aimed at ending Conservative English rule in Scotland. That is the nationalist case which the Labour Party does not accept."
  I congratulate the hon. Gentleman. It has taken him five years to understand the full implications of the mandate argument. Unfortunately, after five years he has come to exactly the wrong conclusion. If the hon. Gentleman graduates to a further elevation in the Whips Office, he will find a new generation of younger Labour Members willing to take his place. They will not challenge the "right" of the Government to run Scotland either. That is the position generally of the Labour party. I say to Labour Members that if they continue to accept the "right" of the Government to run Scotland on English votes, they will relegate themselves to the fringes. In the end, they will find that they are spectators of Scottish politics. The argument will crystallise between those who are prepared to accept that the Government have a right to pursue their policies on the back of the English majority and those who are prepared to reject that so-called mandate.
  As far as I can understand the position of the Social and Liberal Democratic party, as expounded by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie), it seems that
  1114
  it is sympathetic to the SNP analysis. It is clear from the SLD's amendment that it accepts our analysis. The only difference is that it proposes another solution.
  The case for federalism is in the same difficulty as that for devolution—it will not be delivered in the immediate future. The hon. Lady should consider the relative merits of federalism compared with independence within the European Community. The Liberal party—now the SLD—has had a variety of views on a variety of issues. One consistent theme, however, has been a belief in the European dimension. It is strange that the quarrel that the SLD has with the motion is on the need, as the SNP sees it, for an independent status within the wider community. The federalism which the SLD proposes would automatically deny Scotland access to representations at the top table of the Community. That is a strange position for a party which has long espoused the European ideal.
  The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute should remember that we have supported motions and amendments, tabled by her party, that have set out its solution for Scotland. That was because we believed they represented an improvement on the status quo. The SLD should give serious consideration to whether it prefers the SNP's solution to the Scottish question or the solution that is put forward by the Government.
  The Government's position was predictable. As I have said, the Secretary of State's speech did not make clear the position for the Union. I welcome the attacks that were made on the SNP by the Secretary of State. My colleagues said to me, "It is just like old times." When the SNP is under attack, that is a sure sign that it is rising and that the Government are frightened.
  An attack was made also on Muriel Gray, the rector of Edinburgh university. Muriel Gray is not a political activist. She is not involved in politics. I do not know whether she is a member of the SNP, but I hope that she is. She is not part of the political debate in Scotland. She is most certainly not here to answer the charges that the Secretary of State made against her earlier this evening. It is demeaning for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to be so reduced that he is driven to level such charges against a lady who is not able to reply to them.
  Unlike the Secretary of State, I want to look at the amendment tabled by the Government.
  Mr. Maxton: The hon. Gentleman made an attack upon my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) in a London hotel recently. Did he invite him to be present so that he could respond?
  Mr. Salmond: The hon. Gentleman must forgive me, but I lost his question in the general hubbub from his hon. Friends.
  As I was saying, I want to look at the content of the Government amendment. As I understand it, there are four principal arguments for opposing our motion set out in the Government's amendment. The first is the substantial role which, according to the Government amendment, individual Scots have to play within the United Kingdom. When I saw the amendment, I thought that they were referring to the "sudeten Scots" on the Government Benches who come to disrupt Scottish Question Time at regular intervals. The argument misses the point entirely. We are not arguing whether individual Scots should play a role within English society, or French or German society, or vice versa, but whether Scotland, as

  1115
  a national entity, will have the chance to play a collective role not on the British stage but on the wider stage of the European Community.
  Secondly, the Government make the mandate argument most explicit—I refer to the question raised by the hon. Member for Falkirk, East. Basically, the Government say that as long as Scots vote for Unionist parties—the Labour party, the Democrats or the Conservative party—the votes are counted as being for the Union. The Secretary of State put it clearly in an interview in Radical Scotland of December 1986. He said:
  "I think as long as the vast majority of Scots vote for unionist parties and by that I mean Conservatives, Labour, Liberal, or SDP, anything other than the Nationalists—and thereby express a clear political desire to remain a part of the United Kingdom—then the only mandate that matters is the UK mandate."
  That is a development of the Conservative party's position. In the 1979 referendum they wanted to count only non-voters on their side. Now the Conservative party's position is to count the votes for the other Unionist parties to recruit them in the Conservative party's supposed mandate in Scotland.
  The votes for the Labour party and the Democrats are being used, in terms of the Secretary of State's argument, as the justification for the Conservative party's position in Scotland. I do not know whether hon. Members who represent those parties are satisfied with that position, but I believe that the members of those parties in Scotland would be profoundly dissatisfied to know that their votes are being use as the justification for the Conservative party continuing to rule in Scotland on a minority vote.
  The third argument from the Government is that the Secretary of State makes decisions in Scotland and that many areas of Scottish life are under his direct determination. Anybody looking at the celebrated exchange of memos on the school boards legislation will be able to give the lie to how much power the Secretary of State currently has in Scotland. There is a vast difference between being Scotland's man in the Cabinet and the Cabinet's man in Scotland, which is the sorry position of the present incumbent. Perhaps the Secretary of State or the Minister would like to tell us whether the decision on the future of the Ravenscraig steel plant is one of the "important" decisions that will be made by the Secretary of State or the Scottish Office. Sir Robert Scholey, introducing the British Steel Corporation's annual report today, said that it was "reviewing strip mill production," that there were
  "no more guarantees for Ravenscraig,
  and that "nothing is for ever."
  We want to know whether the future of the Ravenscraig complex will be decided in Scotland by the Secretary of State or by the BSC south of the border.
  The Government's fourth argument rejects our claim that Scotland is a colony and has colonial status. When a country is ruled by a Government that it does not elect, when that Government make a comprehensive attack on Scottish values and institutions, when that country is denied the right of self-determination through referendum or constitutional convention, and when that Government are engaged in the pillaging of Scottish assets—I am talking about £70,000 million of oil revenues since 1979—that looks to me like a colonial position.
  The Secretary of State was not always as averse to describing his position as that of a colonial governor. I shall quote from an article in Scottish Field of March 1986.
  1116
  Perhaps the Secretary of State drew courage from the fact that the readership of Scottish Field did not extend too far among the Scottish population. It quotes the Secretary of State as saying in respect of his position:
  "It is not at all a narrow field as some people might suggest. In fact, the powers of the Secretary of State for Scotland are not unlike those of a colonial governor."
  It seems that the Secretary of State and the Conservative party were not always so sure that the analogy between Scotland's position and that of a colony was so absurd.
  I want to reiterate some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Moray when she introduced the motion and to deal directly with the Scottish economy. If we listened to the Government, we would believe that the Scottish economy was a great success. That is a remarkable argument given that industrial production m Scotland is up only 7 per cent. since 1980—less than half the average increase throughout the United Kingdom as a whole. Unemployment in Scotland is the second highest in mainland Britain. The House of Commons research officers have released a paper showing that, of the 10 worst constituencies in Britain with the highest percentage of youth unemployment as a percentage of total unemployment, no fewer than seven are Scottish constituencies.
  The Government argue that the prosperity of the south-east of England will gradually spread throughout the rest of Britain—first, to the midlands, then to the north of England and then to Scotland—and that our salvation will come if we wait long enough. That argument is reminiscent of that used for Third-world countries. They were told that if they waited until the Western world was more prosperous, prosperity would eventually drip down to them. Just as it was fallacious in the Third-world context, so it is fallacious in the Scottish context. Far from prosperity spreading out from the south-east of England, inflationary pressures which have been generated in the south-east mean that economic measures will be taken to put the economy into restraint. Thus, we have had five increases in interest rates in the past five weeks. The reality is that economic restraint will be applied before the Scottish economy is even out of deep freeze.
  I want to look at Scotland's real choice—whether we want to play a bit part on the British stage or whether we want to find a new role for our nation within the European Community. I find the British state fundamentally unattractive. It is unattractive in the attitude displayed towards foreigners and unattractive in terms of the breakdown of social cohesion. It is a depressing vision for the Scottish people to have to continue to play a subsidiary role within a declining and out-of-date Britain. Steinbeck once wrote that Scotland was not a "lost cause" but a "cause unwon". The Scottish National party gives notice to the House of Commons that it intends to win that cause.
  7.9 pm
  The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Ian Lang)rose——
  Mr. Ron Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As I understand it, no Opposition Member representing Edinburgh, Scotland's capital, has been called. Is that not a disgrace? Is that not strange, particularly as some of us want to support the anti-poll tax movements that are developing in Scotland and that intend to fight the Tories?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Only the Minister sought to catch my eye, and I will call him.
  Mr. Lang: I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland would be happy to feel that his speech represented the Unionist parties from the Edinburgh constituencies. There have been few surprises in the debate and the speech by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) contained none. The debate has identified the alien values mentioned in the Scottish National party motion, because we support the rule of law. If the SNP believes that it is alien to the Scottish people to support the rule of law, no wonder it gained so little support in the last election.
  It was interesting to note how the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan distanced his party from the other Opposition parties because that suggests that perhaps the SNP is the party that espouses alien values. That is underlined by the fact that 86 per cent. of the Scottish people rejected separatism at the last election in favour of the Union. The greater curiosity in the debate is not the behaviour of the Scottish National party, which is always sadly predictable, but the behaviour of the Labour party. We have a nationalist motion, a Liberal amendment and a Government amendment, but no Labour amendment.
  What is even more curious is that, on this of all days, when a Glasgow Herald poll revealed the full extent of Labour's crumbling edifice and when the party has lost one fifth of its support in five months, the leader of the Scottish Labour Members, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar), chose not to speak in the debate, and his party has chosen not to vote.
  Perhaps that comes as no surprise to us, because last November, in a debate on a motion by what was then the Liberal party but which is now travelling incognito, the Opposition leader in Scotland, the hon. Member for Garscadden, decided not to speak. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland said at that time that the debate was rather like Hamlet without the gravedigger. I am not as learned as my right hon. and learned Friend but in my version of Gilbert and Sullivan the Duke of Plaza Toro led his regiment from behind because he found it less exciting. But at least he led his troops. In this debate, the Scottish Labour party has had no leadership at all. No wonder that two thirds of them have not bothered to turn up and are hopelessly divided on these issues.
  In its manifesto for the last election the SNP said:
  "Should the Conservatives win power again based on English votes, the SNP will cooperate with other parties to establish a Constitutional Convention as an immediate priority."
  We have seen the measure of that co-operation in the debate. There has been much high-principled concern for devolutionary matters, but when it comes down to the detail, the parties shelter behind different approaches and different nomenclature. The Labour party wants an assembly, the Liberals want a Parliament and the Nationalists want a convention. Labour will not have an assembly if it has proportional representation, the Liberals will not have one without PR and the SNP says that it will take anything as long as it gives it a chance to move on to separatism.
  What I discern in these postures is not high constitutional principle but low political calculation. Self-interest is the driving force behind the Opposition parties, and Scotland's true interests are secondary to that.
  1118
  I do not know whether self-interest drives the leader of the Labour party on this issue or whether he just does not know what his troops in Scotland are saying. At least on this issue he has been consistent, even if, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) said, he is up in the clouds of the Himalayas. In 1978 he said that devolution
  "will smash beyond healing the unity of Britain."
  In 1985 he said it
  "will not provide a factory, a machine or jobs."
  As recently as last Thursday, he was quoted in the Western Daily Press and Times and Mirror as saying:
  "what was needed was government which was more accountable and efficient in serving people and communities.
  `But those needs would not be met if they divided the country, and produced institutions with grand titles that were all dressed up with nowhere to go'''.
  Nothing better summarises the present state of the Scottish Labour party, which does not seem to listen to its leader any more.
  To the vast majority of Scots, devolution is simply irrelevant. True devolution is the devolution of power that we have introduced. We have introduced the devolution that matters, because we have given power to the people through cuts in taxation, so that they may spend money as they think fit. We have done it through the sale of council houses, and that policy has enabled over 100,000 Scots to buy their own homes. Our privatisation programme has doubled the number of Scottish shareholders. We have given devolution by providing a stable economic base on which so many new companies have been able to start up. The economy is a sign of the devolution and the success that we have achieved.
  It is a great pity that Opposition parties cannot speak up for Scotland but feel obliged to knock it at every opportunity and send out the sort of message that we heard in Dundee when Ford pulled out. The success of the Scottish economy is irretrievably bound up with the success of the United Kingdom economy, and the success of the United Kindom economy has recently been reflected in Scotland.
  The report last week from the Fraser of Allander Institute said that the Scottish economy is now moving in line with that of the United Kingdom. Our economic success in Scotland is increasingly evident. The Scots are benefiting from the control of public spending and therefore from the control of inflation. They are benefiting from the reduction in taxation and are now sharing in the biggest fall in unemployment in recent times. All this has been achieved without the benefit of a Scottish assembly.
  Looking ahead, we can see the prospect of this continuing, and the forecast is that 64 per cent. of construction firms expect to expand in the next few months. The Fraser of Allander Institute report predicts growth of almost 3 per cent. per annum over the next five years and the creation of about 100,000 new jobs. Scotland is more prosperous than it has ever been. Personal disposable income is up by 16 per cent. in real terms over the 10 years to 1986. Scotland had the highest average earnings outside the south-east of England and all this has been achieved without the benefit of a Scottish assembly.
  Manufacturing output in Scotland is higher than ever, and over the last eight years Scotland's manufacturing productivity has come from the bottom to the top of the OECD league. We have seen our manufacturing

  1119
  productivity improve by more than that in America, Canada, France, Germany, the rest of the United Kingdom and Japan.
  Now that we are competitive again, our exports have done well. They are better than for the rest of the United Kingdom and more per head than in Japan. That success has not been achieved by accident but because we have stuck to the policies that were needed to create success. We have taken the difficult decisions about getting Scotland back on the rails. We have been tackling the problems at their roots instead of going for cheap, short-term cosmetic solutions.
  Scotland within the United Kingdom is now out in the world again and the world increasingly sees Scotland as a place in which to locate. We have put behind us the decline and despair of Socialist policies, and in the stable political framework of being part of the United Kingdom Scotland is seeing our policies bear fruit. Against that growth and success, how damaging and irrelevant is the posturing over devolution and separatism and the bickering over breaking the law on the funding of local government.
  Scotland is where the vast majority of people want her to be—strong, prosperous and secure, and playing her full part in the United Kingdom. I urge the House to keep it that way, to throw out this irrelevant and damaging motion and to support the Government amendment.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 5, Noes 206.

  Division No. 399]

  [7.17 pm

  AYES

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Kilfedder, James

  Mr. Andrew Welsh and Mr. Dafydd Wigley

  Salmond, Alex

  Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis

  NOES

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Allason, Rupert

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Amess, David

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Amos, Alan

  Carrington, Matthew

  Arbuthnot, James

  Carttiss, Michael

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Cash, William

  Ashby, David

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Atkins, Robert

  Chapman, Sydney

  Atkinson, David

  Chope, Christopher

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

  Churchill, Mr

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

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

  Batiste, Spencer

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Cran, James

  Benyon, W.

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Biggs-Davison, Sir John

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

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Day, Stephen

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Devlin, Tim

  Boswell, Tim

  Dicks, Terry

  Bottomley, Peter

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Bowis, John

  Dover, Den

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Dunn, Bob

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Durant, Tony

  Brazier, Julian

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Bright, Graham

  Evennett, David

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Fallon, Michael

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

  Favell, Tony

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Fearn, Ronald

  Burns, Simon

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Burt, Alistair

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Butcher, John

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Butler, Chris

  Forman, Nigel

  Butterfill, John

  Forsyth, Michael(Stirling)

  1120

  Forth, Eric

  Mates, Michael

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Franks, Cecil

  Mellor, David

  Freeman, Roger

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  French, Douglas

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Gale, Roger

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

  Gill, Christopher

  Moate, Roger

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Gow, Ian

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Moss, Malcolm

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Gregory, Conal

  Nelson, Anthony

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Neubert, Michael

  Ground, Patrick

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

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

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Harris, David

  Portillo, Michael

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Raffan, Keith

  Hayward, Robert

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Heddle, John

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Shersby, Michael

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Hill, James

  Skinner, Dennis

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

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

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Steen, Anthony

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Stern, Michael

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Irvine, Michael

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Jack, Michael

  Summerson, Hugo

  Janman, Tim

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Jessel, Toby

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Kennedy, Charles

  Thorne, Neil

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Thurnham, Peter

  Knapman, Roger

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Trippier, David

  Knowles, Michael

  Twinn. Dr Ian

  Knox, David

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Lang, Ian

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Latham, Michael

  Walden, George

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Wallace, James

  Lilley, Peter

  Waller, Gary

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Walters, Sir Dennis

  Lord, Michael

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Loyden, Eddie

  Watts, John

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Wells, Bowen

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Maclean, David

  Wilshire, David

  Maclennan, Robert

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Wood, Timothy

  Mans, Keith

  Yeo, Tim

  Maples, John

  Marland, Paul

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Marlow, Tony

  Mr. David Lightbown and Mr. Richard Ryder

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Question accordingly negatived,
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,

  1121
  That this House recognises the benefits to Scotland of being a free partner in the United Kingdom and the contribution which the Scottish people continue to make in many fields to the life of the United Kingdom; notes that the Government has a clear mandate to govern following a General Election fought on a United Kingdom basis, and that in the 1987 General Election more than four people out of five in Scotland voted for parties which support the Union; notes that in that election the Scottish National Party was the least popular party in Scotland and received the least support from the Scottish electorate; believes that Scotland can best meet the challenge of the single European Community market as part of the United Kingdom; acknowledges that many decisions affecting Scotland are already taken in Scotland by the Secretary of State and the Scottish Office; considers as absurd references to Scotland's alleged colonial status; rejects completely calls for a constitutional referendum and independence; and reaffirms its support for the Act of Union.

  Pensioners (Government Policies)
  7.28 pm
  Mr. Charles Kennedy: I beg to move,
  That this House notes the increasing proportion of elderly people in society; views with great concern the failure of National Health Service funding to keep pace with the growing demand placed upon the Health Service by the elderly; believes that greater support and financial provision must be given to the field of community care; condemns the recent changes in Social Security regulations and in particular the cuts in the housing benefit budget which have caused hardship for many pensioners; recognises that the income of many pensioners is woefully inadequate; and calls upon the Government substantially to increase the real level of old age pensions.
  One of the most profound demographic changes in Britain is the increasing number of elderly people, which number will continue to accelerate. There are now 3·7 million people over the age of 75 and by the year 2006 that will have increased to 4·1 million. By 1996, roughly 15·5 per cent. of the entire population will be over the age of 65. That presents a major demographic change which will have implications across society, not least for the welfare state, and especially for health and social services, social security and the caring services generally.
  It is worth noting, not least in the context of the review of the Health Service, of changes in the system of social security and of developments in social policies generally, that the straightforward reality is that such a vast increase in our elderly population is due largely to the success of the welfare state. Improved health services, education services, housing, environmental and working conditions are a cause for celebration in any country, especially when moving towards the latter stages of the 20th century. They are a tribute to the achievement of generations since the industrial revolution.
  The political and public policy problems that are generated by an increasing proportion of people in the non-working phase of their lives, who are not producing revenue but are more likely—and quite rightly—to be consuming it, are a fundamental product of the success of the nation in improving conditions. I hope that the review of the Health Service and the changes in social security will be viewed in the longer term. It should be remembered—this is one of our fundamental differences with the present thinking and policies of the Government—that the welfare state provision that has led to greater longevity for so many people has made it a victim of its own success.
  That is one of the fundamental philosophical differences that have emerged between the Government and the various Opposition parties during the past eight years, and the motion draws attention to that fact. If my hon. Friend the Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) is fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he will say more about that.
  I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field). Debate on the nature, extent and form of Health Service provision is attracting far greater political attention, and that is a tribute to his work as Chairman of the Social Services Select Committee, the reports of which have recently informed debate on the subject.
  The changes in the Health Service are beginning to be discussed more openly by Ministers, not least by the Secretary of State in recent interviews. The Government are concerned about increasing choice. We do not differ

  1123
  from them on philosophical grounds, but choice is too often seen from the consumer' point of view. I do not want to dwell on that in view of yesterday's debate on this subject; but none of us wants the credit card type of health care that is to be found in North America, particularly in the United States, where there is enhanced consumer sense.
  The figures are well known. The demand made by the elderly is high, especially in personal social services, compared with that of people of working age and the young. The elderly should not pay the penalty for any changes along consumerist lines which the Government may be contemplating. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some reassurance about that.
  I wish to concentrate on social security and the housing benefit changes. I welcome the fact that the Government have recently made concessions, but for many thousands of pensioners a total of £540 million has been taken from the housing benefit budget by the recent social security changes. That is a harsh price. In addition, everybody is now expected to make a minimum contribution of 20 per cent. to the rates no matter how low his or her income may be. In theory, people who receive income support have an extra £1·30 a week in benefit to cover that charge, but in practice 20 per cent. of the rates bill will often work out at considerably more than that. Here in Westminster, for example, 20 per cent. of the average rates bill works out at £3·12 a week, which is considerably more than the amount built into income support.
  Many claimants on incomes just above the minimum level—perhaps occupational pensioners or people of pensionable age still in part-time employment—will lose benefit by the introduction of a higher taper for withdrawing help. Housing benefit is now being taken away at a rate of 65p in the pound for every £1 above the income support level, which means that benefit is withdrawn on the basis of net earnings. Therefore, people with low-paid jobs who have benefited from tax cuts will find that they lose most of what they gained in tax cuts through the reduction of housing benefit.
  I am sure that the Minister and right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House have come across many such cases in their constituency surgeries. The figures are small in terms of the hundreds of millions of pounds involved in the Budget, but the result is great hardship and heart-rending for many pensioners who already live at the breadline. I welcome the fact that the Government raised the capital cut-off for housng benefit to £8,000. That was a small step in the right direction. My party takes the view that no cut-off point should have been introduced in the first place. I do not want to be unduly churlish about the changes that the Secretary of State has announced, but they were announced in haste and largely in response to Conservative Back-Bench pressure. I do not want to belittle the Opposition's contribution, but Conservative Back Benchers recognised that the people who were being hit were likely to be their voters. The change was made because of that rather than because of the merit of the case. That was their motivation, not the merits of the case. The Government are fond of preaching about morality, but there is a curious contradiction between what we hear said from the Dispatch Box and in other places and what influences the troops behind the Prime Minister.
  Prior to last month there was no capital limit for claiming housing benefit. Instead, notional interest on any savings was taken into account. That was a much fairer
  1124
  system, as it meant that help was phased out more gradually. In other words, the severe loss at the point of that change was considerably cushioned or diluted, especially when compared with what happens now.
  We have argued previously, and do so again tonight, that the cuts in housing benefit were wrong in principle and that the Government should now consider restoring them and act to do so. We should like the rate of the withdrawal taper to be reduced, as we believe that the system is particularly hard on low-income families and those with small pensions. We should also like consideration to be given to the abolition of the capital limit and the reinstatement of the system of notional interest. We should like a system which is generally more flexible and responsive to individual needs, instead of a system which forces people into crude and often arbitrary categories, regardless of their particular circumstances.
  We should like a system which lives up to the fundamental, fairer and simpler reform of the social security system which the previous Secretary of State for Social Services hailed when he introduced the comprehensive review—and the public hearings which followed—and its implementation in legislation prior to the last general election. The Government's track record on housing benefit in particular, and social security provision in general, makes them extremely culpable.
  Finally, I should like to refer briefly to the moves towards care in the community, which has commanded the support of successive Governments and of all parties. Elderly people face hardship because all too often the social services, local authorities, various other authorities and, for that matter, the voluntary sector do not receive the support from the Government, such as the rate support grant, that they require if they are to meet the demands of the central policy that is not just being encouraged but is being demanded by the Government.
  Let us take as an example public sector housing. It has been estimated that to put right the backlog of repairs for such housing would cost about £10 billion across the nation. Elderly people suffer because poor housing affects their health. When broken down on a regional basis. that figure is well beyond anything that could be met from the budgets of even the truest blue, most loyal, Conservative local authority. It can be neither contemplated nor met at local authority level. It is the Government, centrally controlling the purse strings, who are causing so many of the difficulties.
  Roughly 95 per cent. of the elderly live in their own homes. Therefore, an effective network of community services is essential. The Griffiths report recently emphasised the need for more money and support for community care; for example, for respite care. However, successive Select Committee reports, and other reports, have shown that the Government have not given as adequately or as generously as they should if they are to make that welcome policy become a reality.
  I come now to a feature of community care which we have long advocated—improving support for the carers through the introduction of a carers' charter. We have still not seen adequate movement on that by the Government, despite encouraging signs from the previous Secretary of State prior to the last general election.
  Taken in totality, those and the many other points that will doubtless arise during the debate point to a Government who are not meeting their obligation to distribute the tax revenues of the realm in a way that is

  1125
  appropriate to the priorities of most people, one of which would be provision for the elderly. The Prime Minister has frequently been quoted as saying that she considers that there is no such thing as society. I hope that that is an example of her being economic with the truth.
  Surely, if one truth holds, especially for this subject, it is that in an interdependent, interrelated society such as we have in Britain at the moment a Government can best be summed up by looking at what they offer to those at the two ends of the age spectrum. They should offer a sense of idealism and opportunity for their young, and a sense of comfort and security for their old. In this country those things are available to many, but they are not available to a sufficient number. In many parts of the country substantial sections of the population, especially the elderly, do not enjoy comfort and security. The Government should at least try to create the conditions for those needs to be met. I hope that tonight's debate will be a reminder to the Government that more needs to be done in that policy area. I commend our motion to the House.
  7.45 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Portillo): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "congratulates the Government on the success of its policies for pensioners, in particular the control of inflation and the stimulation of the economy, which together have dramatically improved pensioners' total incomes; commends the Government for the increased resources now available to the National Health Service; concurs in the Government's determination to ensure that the considerable resources committed to community care are put to the best possible use; and endorses the recent reforms of social security, not least because they increase the choice of future pension provision.".
  I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) for the opportunity to have this debate on the position of the elderly in our society. I agree with much of what he said. I agree that the working population of our nation has important responsibilities towards those who are retired, not least because when they were the working population those who are now retired made their contributions to pay for the people who were then elderly. However, more than that, we have a responsibility to the elderly because they are the generation who fought and suffered in the wars of this century and who lost a great deal in the inflation of the 1970s.
  The debate is a good opportunity to reflect on the needs and worries of the elderly who face poor health, failing capacities, loneliness, cold and inflation. I believe that for many—not for all, but for many—the worst of those problems has been inflation. I say that because inflation dealt them a double blow: an almost lethal financial blow, with repercussions on their health and ability to face the other problems of old age; and deprived them also of their independence, pride and self-esteem.
  I begin unashamedly, broadening the context of the debate, by declaring that there was no stronger duty upon the Government than to control inflation and no greater benefit has come to the elderly than the gain that they have received from our success in controlling inflation.
  Under the previous Labour Government, we all know that inflation reached 27 per cent. However, to understand
  1126
  that, let me illustrate what that would mean today. If inflation over 12 months ran at that level, the basic single pension, worth £41·15, would be reduced by £8·75 over that 12-month period and the couple's pension, worth £65·90, would be reduced by £14 in just 12 months.
  The effect on any occupational pension that a pensioner might have would be just as devastating. Most damaging of all would be the effect on savings. In fact, during the period of both the Labour and Lib-Lab Governments, the value of pensioners' nest eggs in building societies fell by a third, and their income from savings fell by 16 per cent. in real terms.
  Today the position is very different. The House is well aware of our pledge to maintain the value of the retirement pension in real terms and of our success in honouring that pledge. However, the retirement pension is only one element in the income of most pensioners and, because of that, the average living standards of pensioners have risen rapidly as inflation has come under control.
  Mr. Kennedy: As the Minister wants to broaden the context of the debate, I hope that, when considering the value of the retirement pension and the figures that he has quoted, he will not forget the decision of the Conservative Government in the early days after 1979 to break the earnings link. Can he give the House the equivalent figures for what the pension would be worth now?
  Mr. Portillo: For the hon. Gentleman's sake, I am sorry to say that I intend to address that issue later in my speech. I am not sure that he will enjoy it quite as much as he thinks.
  In 1985, 70 per cent. of pensioners had incomes from savings compared with 60 per cent. in 1979. Not only do more people now have income from savings, but this income in real terms has increased by about half. Over half of all pensioners, including 70 per cent. of recently retired couples, have income from occupational pensions. Only four out of 10 of all pensioners had such income in 1979. Not only do most pensioners have occupational pensions, but the real value of their average income from such pensions has increased by more than 7 per cent. a year from 1979 to 1985. As a result of those factors, average pensioner living standards rose by 18 per cent. between 1979 and 1985—a faster rate than for the population as a whole and for the working population. By 1985, the average pensioner couple had a gross income of about seven tenths of the wage of the average male manual worker. We have every expectation that the growth trend in living standards will continue strongly as more people retire with second pensions.
  Mr. Archy Kirkwood rose——
  Mr. Portillo: If the hon. Gentleman is going to ask "What about the rest?", which is what he has asked before, I shall come to that.
  Mr. Kirkwood: Will the hon. Gentleman give way, on a different point?
  Mr. Portillo: I give way.
  Mr. Kirkwood: I am following the Minister's argument carefully. He may be interested to know that I strongly support the move in the direction of occupational pensions, which, by the end of the century, will provide for the vast majority of people who have retired and enable

  1127
  them to sustain their living conditions. The problem is that, between now and then, people on supplementary pensions will suffer grinding poverty. It is no good the Minister talking about averages; he must address that problem as well. I agree that occupational pensions and state earnings-related pensions will iron out the difference in the long term, but we are worried about the short term.
  Mr. Portillo: I cannot make my entire speech in four minutes, especially if I keep giving way. I am coming to the hon. Gentleman's point.
  The motion calls for an increase in the real value of pensions. I understand that desire, but it misses the point, just as the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye did when he intervened. In the past, when an attempt was made to raise the pension in line with earnings or prices, the result was not a rapid increase in pensioners' living standards. The increase was minimal—3 per cent. over the period 1974 to 1979—as thousands who had fended for themselves were brought down by inflation into reliance on state benefits. As usual, the real problem is more complicated than the hon. Gentleman or Britain's middle party is prepared to acknowledge.
  I should like to say something about how we compare with the rest of Europe. In the past, simplistic comparisons between pensions in the United Kingdom and pensions in, say, Germany have been made most notably in press advertisements issued by the Labour party's Euro MPs. The difficulties of comparison are obvious. Here we have a basic pension, but no one is expected to live off that alone. A couple with nothing else would receive income support and housing benefit, lifting their weekly benefit from the state far above the pension of £65·90 to over £90 a week in an average case, to which could be added free prescriptions and dental treatment, social service support, concessionary fares, and so on.
  In Germany, there is no basic pension—only earnings-related pensions—and no comparable system of housing benefit. Germany, therefore, has both richer pensioners, who were chosen for the Labour party's press campaign, and poorer pensioners, whom it ignored. It is ironic that, by implication, the Labour party embraces a system that involves greater inequality than ours, based on what people earn rather than what they need. This may be another appeal by the Labour party for the yuppie vote.
  There is only one basis of comparison that the European Statistical Bureau is prepared to endorse—the proportion of GDP spent on the elderly. On that basis, Britain at 9·6 per cent. is third, just behind Denmark and France. The hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) has not risen because, I suspect, she is embarrassed by the Labour Euro MPs' campaign. The hon. Lady would, of course, appreciate the difficulties of comparison.
  I want to turn to poorer pensioners because I recognise that there are people without savings, occupational pensions or SERPS. Even among that group there are observable improvements in living standards, and I ask the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) to recognise that fact. The luxuries of a few years ago—such as televisions, telephones and washing machines—have reached many of the very poorest. They have enjoyed increases in income. Between 1981 and 1985, the incomes of the poorest 10 per cent. of the population increased by more than 8 per cent. compared with 6·4 per cent. for the population as a whole. In the same period, the
  1128
  number of pensioners in that group—the bottom 10 per cent.—fell from 18 to 8 per cent. The proportion of pensioners requiring income support is falling.
  The new income support system recognises the extra needs of the elderly. Income support for a single pensioner covers the value of his or her supplementary benefit scale rate, the standard heating addition, average water charges and 20 per cent. of average rates. A pensioner couple automatically receive £16·25 a week more than an unemployed couple who are under 60 and £18·60 a week more if they are disabled or over 80. The same rates form the basis of the more generous housing benefit provision for the elderly than for those under 60.
  I know that the greatest concern to hon. Members—it was an important part of the speech of the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye—arising from the social security reforms has been housing benefit. I remind the hon. Gentleman that those on income support continue to receive 100 per cent. help with their rents and get the maximum help—80 per cent.—with rates. Their income support contains £1·30 for the average of 20 per cent. of rates. Therefore, the starting point for the calculation of housing benefit also contains that £1·30. The new housing benefit system gives more help to many of those who have to pay high rents and far greater protection against future rises in rent and rates for all housing benefit recipients.
  It was our aim to reduce the numbers on housing benefit because, with one household in three receiving it, it had been an extraordinarily distended benefit. But even today about 6 million people receive housing benefit. The savings made by the taxpayer on housing benefit, quoted by the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye, are outweighed by the compensation for 20 per cent. of rates added to income support, by the extra money devoted to family credit and by transitional protection. The hon. Gentleman was wrong to refer to the 20 per cent. as an addition to the reductions in housing benefit. He did not refer to the fact that the reductions in housing benefit accounted for by the 20 per cent. of rates is then recognised in the income support rates.
  Mrs. Margaret Beckett: The hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) was too kind to the Government. Although he mentioned the £1·30 that the Government claim to have added to the rates of income support to compensate for what they say is the average amount of rates, he omitted to mention the £150 million that the Government clawed back from those basic rates before they added the £1·30. The real value is not £1·30 but 80p for a couple. The Government saved £150 million by that sleight of hand.
  Mr. Portillo: I do not recognise the hon. Lady's figures. I was taking issue with the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye about the fact that he made it sound as though £540 million had been removed from housing benefit without compensation and, in addition, 20 per cent. had been demanded of people in their rates. The record will bear me out, if the hon. Gentleman checks it.
  Because those on income support receive maximum housing benefit, on the whole, the concern about large losses has centred on people whose income puts them some way above income support levels. It is worth stressing that, however large those losses have been for some, they still have incomes after meeting their housing costs which are

  1129
  higher than if they were on income support. The new housing benefit system guarantees that that will be so for everyone paying rent and rates.
  We recognise that a drop in income is hard for the elderly to adjust to, and we have responded to the difficulties that have been brought to our attention. The transitional payments unit at Glasgow is up and running and the first payments have already been made. The elderly, along with the disabled, families with children and widow's pensioners, can apply for compensation for reductions in their housing benefits above £2·50 a week. Arrears will be met back to the start of the new scheme in April and payments will continue for as long as necessary. Payments will, of course, be disregarded in working out normal benefit entitlement. We have taken steps to publicise the scheme and will take further steps. I am glad to announce that later this month we will run a further national advertising campaign.
  The best advice to those who think that they might be entitled is that they should apply. The form—RR4—is straightforward and available from post offices, local authorities, advice centres and, of course, DHSS offices. In addition, I know that a number of local authorities will be trawling their housing benefit records to trace those likely to qualify.
  Pensions and other cash benefits do not tell the whole story. We are concerned not just with the income of elderly people but with their quality of life. For many, that means staying at home with their friends and relatives for as long as they can. Expenditure on NHS services and personal social services mainly used by elderly people increased in real terms between 1978 and 1986 by 22 per cent. and 15 per cent., respectively. The elderly have gained significantly from the major advances in surgery. For example, between 1979 and 1985, the number of joint operations increased by 14,000 and the number of eye lens operations—mostly for cataracts—by 19,000.
  Within the social security budget, there is a wide range of benefits which support elderly disabled people in their homes. Attendance allowance is paid to more than 400,000 people over pension age, some two thirds of all those who receive it—and it is an important element in helping with the financial burden faced by elderly, severely disabled people when living in their own homes.
  We have long recognised the financial sacrifice that many carers make, and invalid care allowance is paid to almost 100,000 carers to help mantain their income. None the less, I certainly recognise that many carers give up years of their lives to care for parents, wives, husbands, sons or daughters, whether they receive benefits from the state or not. Those carers probably make as big a contribution as social services or social security, and we should never forget them.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: What is the position of a man who retires under the age of 60 with a bad heart, who is not eligible for constant attendance allowance, whose wife is advised to give up her job to look after him and who, because he does not receive constant attendance allowance, cannot get a carer's allowance? What will happen to such people?
  Mr. Portillo: I am wary about answering detailed cases, but in general, if that person were receiving invalidity
  1130
  benefit, he could receive an addition to his invalidity benefit in respect of his dependent wife. That would help to maintain their income.
  In all the talk of the decline of the family, we should recognise that the family remains the most important source of support to the elderly, and we could never hope, and should never aim, to displace it—nor, indeed, the voluntary sector which supports the elderly and the carers.
  Although we want as many elderly people as possible to live at home—and 95 per cent. of them do—we recognise that for some elderly people it is not possible or desirable. The House will be well aware of the very large contribution being made from supplementary benefit to support people who go into residential care or nursing homes. The figure has increased from £10 million in 1979 to £670 million in 1987. The number of people helped in that way has risen from 12,000 to 170,000.
  That raises a serious point. If we spend too much on people in homes, we may be putting community support at risk and people may have to enter homes because domiciliary support is not available. At present, we are considering a number of reports, particularly Sir Roy Griffiths' report. We shall study them carefully, as they merit, and bring forward proposals in due course.
  A point which underlies today's debate—it was certainly highlighted by the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye—is the rapid rise in the numbers of elderly people. During the next century there will be one and half times as many pensioners as today, and broadly the same working population. Whatever levels of benefit are paid to the elderly in the next century, it must be sensible to encourage those of working age today to provide for their retirement, particularly at a time when participation in work by men and women is so high, when real wages are rising and unemployment is falling.
  The thrust of our pensions reforms has been to broaden choice in pensions, to heighten awareness of the need to provide for the future and to increase the numbers covered by occupational pension schemes. There is increasingly little reason why retirement and poverty should be in any way connected. Our reforms will continue to break that connection, but without the risk of impoverishing the working population of the future and without choking off economic growth.
  Our policies address every aspect of the pensioner's needs. Economic growth is essential if we are to support an increasing number of pensioners. That people should provide for the future alongside the state schemes is necessary, if high living standards are to be maintained into retirement. inflation must be controlled if that individual provision is to hold its value in the years when it is drawn upon.
  By pursuing those policies, there will be scope for families, on the one hand, and for the NHS, local authorities, social security and voluntary bodies, on the other, to provide support to the elderly: to enable them to remain in their homes while they can, and to take up residential places if they cannot.
  Today's motion—which, obviously, I oppose—is in many ways sadly misguided, but it does have one merit to which I pay tribute. It recognises that the needs of the elderly are complex and are about much more than just the level of pensions. The Government have addressed every aspect of the question, and most importantly the need for economic growth which is the key to everything else. That is why I commend our amendment to the House.
  8.4 pm
  Mrs. Margaret Beckett: I listened with considerable interest to the Minister's observations, which echoed in their complacency the wording of the Government amendment. Perhaps at this point we should commemorate the fact that this week we are celebrating not only the 40th anniversary of the National Health Service, but the 40th anniversary of the establishment of national insurance benefits, of which the most well known and the most taken for granted is a reasonable income in retirement, a pension which should allow our fellow citizens to enjoy dignity and independence in their declining years.
  Perhaps the most vital lesson that the Government should have taught us—although, sadly, some of us seem to be slow learners—is that nothing can be taken for granted. In recent years sneaking worries have become apparent, even on the Conservative Benches, that the Government were being so unwise as to undermine, and even threatening to demolish, the National Health Service.
  With the exception of a few more expert or vigilant souls, the realisation has not yet become widespread that, at the same time as weakening the service to the sick, the Government are cutting back on the rest of the welfare state and are undermining that other post-war consensus. Pensioners who lived through at least one and in some cases two major wars have earned the right, not just to the lip-service of respect, but to financial support from us in their retirement, in the same way as they offered financial support to us in our childhood. What a tragic, wicked irony it is that those whose sacrifices helped to justify the establishment of the welfare state should be at the sharp end when, after 40 years, a Conservative Government start to demolish the welfare state, whose existence so many of them have silently resented for 40 years.
  Ministers and Tory Back Benchers speak of rising numbers of elderly people as if they are nothing but a problem. As the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) said, they do not celebrate the success of better health care, housing and diet in an extended life span, let alone make available public funds even to maintain, let alone improve, the benefits for which so many have sacrificed so much.
  I noted the Minister's observations about the level of spending on community care. I remind him again, as Opposition Members have reminded him so often, that most of the contributions to the Budget for which the Government like to claim credit in these debates is from Labour councils which the Government rate-capped and about whose expenditure on social services the Secretary of State for the Environment, the Prime Minister and Conservative Members complain.
  The Government complain—as the Minister almost strayed into doing today—about there being more pensioners, as if it were news, as if the pensioners had been beamed down from Mars, and as if they had no right still to be around. They call them a burden on the working population—to use the Prime Minister's words. Surely it must have been clear, at the latest since 1928, roughly how many pensioners there would be this year. Those to whom apparently it comes as a surprise are guilty of culpable ignorance on a grand scale. But the Government are guilty of something worse than ignorance. They are guilty of deliberately rejecting that consensus about our duty to our elderly citizens.
  1132
  The effect of the changes that the Government have made in pensions—to which the Minister referred hardly at all—is to reduce the provision made for pensions to well below the level provided today. I find it particularly disgraceful that at the same time as the Government are ensuring lower provisions for pensioners they are doing everything they can, for short-term political gain, to increase expectations.
  In the comparative secrecy of Standing or Select Committee, or in this debate in the Chamber—in a speech that I suspect the Minister will not circulate to the pensioner organisations in his constituency—Ministers may talk about the need to reduce pension expectations, but the propaganda machine is working in entirely the opposite direction. The Government are deliberately encouraging the young in particular into the new, so-called personal pension schemes. In the process they are also encouraging disparaging comparisons with the state scheme. I imagine that hardly any of those who are attracted by this propaganda will realise until, unfortunately, too near their own retirement that the comparison is with a state scheme that has been halved in value by the Government and that, even if their investments are successful, and even if they never have a sustained period of unemployment or sickness, the pension that even the better off can expect to receive will be worth less than the basic state pension of today.
  Mr. Tony Favell: The hon. Lady denigrates the Government's efforts to encourage people to provide for their old age. Does she not agree that the vast majority of people take both pleasure and pride in providing for their old age?
  Mrs. Beckett: Either the hon. Gentleman has not been listening, or he has not understood a word of what I am saying. I do not denigrate the idea of people providing for their old age. I hope that many people will be able to earn enough, despite the Government's encouragement of a low-wage economy, to do precisely that. The last Labour Government did far more than this Government have done to encourage the growth of occupational pension schemes. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) has clearly not looked at the record, if she thinks that that is amusing.
  The last Labour Government put enormous effort, as the occupational pensions industry will tell her, into encouraging the growth of good occupational pension schemes, for the benefits of which the Government attempt to claim credit. I do not disparage provision for one's old age, but I condemn the deliberate reduction of pension provision. That is precisely what the Government are doing. If the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Favell) thinks that they are not, I recommend to him the technical annex to the 1985 White Paper. The Government are reducing pension provision, while at the same time talking up pension expectations. That is what is so dangerous and damaging, and that is what the Opposition condemn.
  The Government have savaged the state pension scheme and the standards that have to be met by occupational pension schemes because they say that the cost of the scheme, unamended, was miscalculated, that it was spiralling out of control and that it could not be afforded. That is just not true. The cost of the state earnings-related pension scheme was not significantly different in 1985, when this Government tried to abolish it,

  1133
  from the cost that was anticipated in 1975 when the scheme was introduced by the Labour Government, with the consent of the then Conservative Opposition. That is not just our judgment. It is the considered and publicly expressed view of the Government Actuary, who said, in words simple enough for even Conservative Members to understand, that it was the "political will" to meet the cost that had changed, not the cost itself.
  Even if it had been true that in 1985 the Government found pensioners of whose existence we were all ignorant in 1975, with financial consequences then unforeseen, the cuts in pension provision that this Government had already made would have more than taken care of the problem. The Government claimed in 1985 to be worried about the level of the national insurance contribution that would be needed to meet the full cost of the state earnings-related pensions scheme, although they ignored again the Government Actuary's figures—not ours—which showed a decline in the overall ratio of those dependent on the working population for support because of the effect of a declining birth rate. However, the break in the link between earnings and the basic state pension had already wiped out the extra cost by the time the Government made these proposals in 1985.
  The state earnings-related pension scheme—untouched and unmodified by the 1986 Act—would have done no more than make up for the dramatically declining value of the basic pension, leaving the pensioners of tomorrow at least no worse off, though no better off, than today's pensioners. But that was too much, too generous and too costly for this Government. In their determination to cut the cost of provision for retirement, in their dogmatic zeal to make a rotten buy—the Fowler plan for penury in retirement—look like a good buy, they halved the value of SERPS as well. They have deliberately legislated to reduce the standard of living of tomorrow's pensioners below that of today's pensioners, by whatever means their pension is provided.
  The Government, who justified the case for this change by saying that it would mean raising too much money through national insurance contributions, are in this year alone raising, through those contributions—which hit the lowest paid the worst—£2,000 million more than they need for the national insurance benefits now in payment. They are making a profit of a cool £2,000 million this year at the expense either of the pensioner or of the national insurance contributor, depending on how one chooses to look at it. But no matter how one looks at it, it cannot be squared with the Government's concern for the national insurance contributor, as expressed in 1985.
  Nor should we look too narrowly just at pensioners' incomes. The Government have taken to boasting—the Under-Secretary of State did it again today—that, thanks to the improvement in occupational pensions—fostered by previous Governments of all colours, even previous Conservative Governments, who were more sensible than this one, because of the post-war consensus of which I spoke but which the Government are so spectacularly breaking—the average standard of living for pensioners has risen sharply in recent years.
  Mr. Favell: Does the hon. Lady accept the Government's figures that, without change, the cost of the
  1134
  SERPS scheme would rise from £200 million a year now to £23,000 million a year by 2033? How would that be paid for?
  Mrs. Beckett: I am not sure that I accept the hon. Gentleman's last figure.
  Mr. Favell: It was £23,000 million a year.
  Mrs. Beckett: Yes, I heard it, but I am not entirely sure that I accept it. I cannot recall from memory whether it is correct. However, again I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has been listening to me.
  There has been no change in the cost of SERPS, to which the Conservative party agreed in 1975 when in opposition and then in 1985 when in government. There was no argument then about the fact that there would be a peak in the year that the hon. Gentleman quoted and that at that stage the level of national insurance contributions would need to be raised. However, we are talking about a period of 50 years. I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts—perhaps it is not mentioned in the brief with which he has been supplied—that by 1985 that cost was well out of the window. The Government had more than saved on the damage that they had done to the basic pension, whatever might have been expected in the increased cost of SERPS.
  That is the point that I am making to the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends, little though they like it. Whether or not they recognise it, their Government smashed the standard of living that could have been enjoyed from the basic pension, and now they have done the same thing with SERPS. The inevitable result, according to the Government's own figures, set out with admirable clarity in the technical annex to the 1985 White Paper, is that in future the total pension will be less than the basic state pension today. That is what the Government have legislated for, and that is what the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have voted for. I am not surprised that they do not like it. They will like it even less as time goes on, but it is the pensioners who will like it least of all.
  The Government boast of the improvement in the average standard of living of pensioners, but it is the Government who have done so much to claw back the benefit of those improvements. The Government penalise those with occupational pensions of over £35 a week—a figure that has remained unchanged for years. That penalty does not apply to pensioners whose extra money comes from investment. It applies only to those for whom it comes from their work. In nine years the Government have increased the basic pension by only 5 per cent. in real terms, compared with 20 per cent. in real terms under the last Labour Government in half the time. At the same time, they have doubled VAT, put special taxes on gas and electricity and scrapped the concessionary scheme for standing charges for fuel that the Labour Government introduced.
  Mr. David Martin: Is the hon. Lady able to explain why the electorate, so badly treated, returned a Conservative Government in 1983 and then in 1987 with such massive majorities? Why did the hon. Lady's party lose so resoundingly in 1979 if the Labour Government were treating so many pensioners so well?
  Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman may have heard me comment earlier that some people appear not to have

  1135
  learnt the lesson that is taught by the figures. The Government won a victory, but does that make any difference to the figures that I have given? Does it mean that the Government are providing more money than I have identified? Does it mean that they are not basically cutting the cost of pensions and of SERPS? No; it means that they got away with it. It means also—and I do not know how long the hon. Gentleman thinks he will serve in the House—that some future Government, of whatever party, will live bitterly to rue the day that his Government took the action that they did. Comments of the kind that he has made will be utterly irrelevant then, as they are fairly irrelevant now.
  This is the Government who—as the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye commented—have cut £650 million from rent and rate rebates. Most of that has been at the expense of those having only small war or occupational pensions, about which the Under-Secretary of State has been boasting. This is the Government who offered nothing to the oldest and poorest pensioners, who—as was said by the hon. Member for Stockport-never had the opportunity to provide for their retirement because they never enjoyed a decent wage during all the years of their working lives.
  Pensioners have been given no advice except, to be fair, that of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), who said that they should mortgage their homes, or give up holidays that they cannot anyway afford, to pay for operations that the Government will not fund because they choose instead to give the money to the wealthiest in the land. This is the Government who offer no extra help, no matter what the need, to the pensioner couple who have saved just about enough to pay for their funerals. This is the Government who have reintroduced into a system founded on hard won rights the need to beg for charity.
  The Under-Secretary of State and his hon. Friends have been, and are, very complacent about the Government's record on pensions. To some of them I do the justice—although they may not care for it—of assuming that they are unaware of the consequences and implications of the Government decisions for which they voted. To them I say bluntly that the Government are betraying this country. They should he ashamed that those who have earned so much now receive so little. Unless the policies which the Government have been pursuing are reversed, in 30 or 40 years' time hon. Members, in whatever part of the House they may sit, will be as astonished as they will be aghast at the legacy of poverty and neglect that the present Government bequeathed to them.
  We for our part remain convinced that it is the duty, as much as it should be the pride, of the family of the nation to care for its elderly members. It is a duty that we shall not shirk.
  8.22 pm
  Mr. David Atkinson: I represent a constituency that has one of the highest proportions of pensioners in its population. When I was elected to the House nearly 11 years ago, one of the major issues then was the disastrous effect that the policies of the last Labour Government were having on pensioners, with the erosion of their savings by inflation, of their investment income by taxation, and of their dividends by control. At that time, Labour was being sustained in office by the party responsible for the motion we are debating this evening.
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  Today it is a different story, but as memories fade, pensioners should be frequently reminded of what they and their predecessors went through 10 to 15 years ago. Compared with their predecessor, this Government have a first-class record in responding to pensioners' demands and needs. My hon. Friend the Minister referred to some of those responses this afternoon. The conquest of double-figure inflation, which was the pensioners' worst enemy, has to be our major achievement, with an average of 5 per cent. inflation compared with 15 per cent. under the last Labour Government. There is also the continuing fulfilment of the Prime Minister's pledge that the Government will never allow the value of state pensions to fall behind the cost of living. There was also our response to pensioners' complaints, which brought forward the annual increase from November to April.
  The Government's responses also included an entitlement by law to the annual Christmas bonus, which Labour abolished for two years because its economy could not afford it. The abolition of the grossly unfair domestic rating system, for which elderly owner-occupiers have been crying out for decades, is now in sight. As was mentioned in debate yesterday, pensioners in particular have also benefited from the real increase in resources to the National Health Service since 1979. That has brought a 20 per cent. increase in hospital nurses caring for geriatric patients, a 34 per cent. increase in consultant geriatricians, and an increase in the number of hip replacement operations front 28,000 a year in 1978 to 40,000 today.
  Those are all achievements that cannot be ignored arid for which the Government deserve full credit. However, I accept that none of that suggests that we should not be doing more for pensioners, because there is more to be done. Inflation is still far too high at 4 to 5 per cent. That represents a halving of the value of savings during the average period of retirement, and that is higher than the figure other countries have been achieving for several years. I hope that the Government will redouble their efforts to achieve their target of zero inflation.
  Although the majority of pensioners have a second income and are doing well by it, 15 per cent. still rely entirely on the state retirement pension. Many of them have been unable to afford to invest in a second pension, with war service and the post-war years denying them the opportunities which exist today. The time has come for those pensioners to enjoy a better share in the economic success achieved under our Government, and I want all future annual increases in the basic state pension to be at least 1 per cent. higher than inflation.
  The Government continue to provide extra help to the over-80s—with, for example, the extra allowance in last year's Budget and a higher premium of income support—but I ask them now to replace the historic 25p increase, which has to be an insult, with a better deal for those reaching the age of 80.
  Another anachronism is the earnings rule, which the Government pledged to abolish in each of the last three elections. Maintaining a rewarding occupation is one of the best incentives to a healthy old age. To remove all remaining restrictions will cost about £85 million, and l hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will do so in his next Budget.
  Thanks to the prosperity generated by the Government's policies, in which the majority of pensioners have shared, income is no longer the problem that it was.

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  Today, many old people are more in fear of bad health, of loneliness, and of the immobility that often results from having no family, friends or neighbours who really care—bearing in mind that 30 per cent. of all pensioners live alone and that 80 per cent. of them are women. I should like the Government to present a package of policies complementing their pension strategy and offering new incentives and encouragement to provide for health and housing needs in old age. For example, I hope that the Treasury will, as part of my right hon. Friend's NHS review, concede tax relief to pensioners wishing to take out private health insurance.
  I hope that we have not heard the last of attempts to help the elderly to retain their financial independence by realising the asset value of their homes, as was proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill), with his scheme for this year's Finance Bill, giving tax relief on home annuity loans, which the Government have declined to accept. I hope also that further thought will be given to schemes bringing the private provision of sheltered accommodation for the elderly with supporting health services—such as that pioneered by McCarthy and Stone in my own constituency—within the means of all who have the asset of a home to realise.
  Finally, I make a plea on behalf of those pensioners whose investments in Barlow Clowes are now so obviously at risk. They have been asked to register their interests with the liquidators and to report to FIM BRA where financial intermediaries have been involved. Many elderly people will be confused by all that. Will my hon. Friend ensure that special advice and assistance will be made available, perhaps at post offices, to those elderly people who need it in respect of Barlow Clowes?
  8.29 pm
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones (Ynys Môn): As we have heard already tonight, the problems faced by the elderly must be seen in the context of the tremendous growth in the proportion of elderly people in society. An OECD study referred to in today's Financial Times notes that the percentage of the population aged 65 and over in the United Kingdom will increase substantially from just over 15 per cent. in 1985 to 28·7 per cent. in 2050. Alongside that figure is the realisation that health spending on the over-65s is more than four times as high per capita as spending on the under-65s. For the over-75s, the proportion rises to almost six times. Figures published by the Welsh Office suggest that there will be an increase of 50,000 in people aged over 75 in the next 20 years, and that in the United Kingdom generally there will be over 1 million more pensioners by 2025 and a substantial increase in the number of those over 75 and over 85.
  The Government recognised that their stated policy of caring for old people in their own homes and within their local communities had not been working, so they asked Sir Roy Griffiths to prepare a report. It is clear that we now need a fresh look at community care in the light of the increase in the elderly population that we face in the next three decades.
  The Public Accounts Committee report published on 25 April this year shows that between 1980 and 1985 the number of elderly people accommodated in private and
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  voluntary homes increased by over 100 per cent., and that the level of supplementary benefit used to finance that accommodation rose from £18 million to an estimated £459 million in 1986. Clearly, substantial additional resources have been targeted to that sector. But the same report also pointed out that up to 23 per cent. of claimants entering residential homes could have stayed in their own homes for longer periods had appropriate community support services been made available. In my view, resources have been targeted in the wrong direction.
  The PAC report said that since 1974 the Department of Health and Social Security had, under statute, required the NHS and local authorities to co-operate in planning and operating complementary health care services. The report also noted, however, that progress on producing jointly planned strategies had been slow and was hindered by differences in planning time scales, in accountability and management structure and, in some areas, in geographical boundaries between health and local authorities. The lack of joint planning is one of the reasons why care in the community remains a dream rather than a reality, and the Government must address the issue now.
  In 1976, the Department introduced joint finance arrangements under which area and district health authorities made annual grants to local authorities and voluntary bodies for approved community-based schemes. Grants are for set periods, and are subject to tapering in the final years. As the House knows, there has been a growing reluctance on the part of local authorities to take up that initiative, as they are ultimately responsible for continued funding and set the charge against other priorities that they may have for spending within their own budgets.
  The National Audit Office report, published in October last year, also referred to the difficulties encountered in joint planning and collaboration between authorities and various agencies. The report pointed out that supplementry benefit is paid to claimants in residential care without any assessment of the need for that care. It referred to pilot studies commissioned by the Department, disclosing that in about 93 per cent. of cases examined the claimants were found to be in need of care. If, however, the appropriate accommodation and intensive support services had been available in the community, that figure would have been substantially reduced.
  In my view, there should be a shift away from care in residential homes towards more support for community-based services. The National Audit Office report that some elderly people currently in residential care could continue to live in their own homes for longer periods if such support were available. This highlights the importance of providing such reports where necessary, and points to the need for further research on whether some forms of assessment should be undertaken to ensure value for money for both the resident—who should obtain the most appropriate form of care—and, of course, the taxpayer.
  Now we come to the Griffiths report, which the Government are so reluctant to debate here. That report on community care, entitled "Agenda for Action", addressed itself to the problems encountered with joint planning and collaboration between the various agencies, and recommended that the main responsibility for community care of the old and other priority groups should be concentrated in the hands of local authorities. The services—including residential care, day centres, hostels, home helps and meals on wheels—are now run

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  variously by the NHS, health authorities, the private sector and local authority social services departments. Under the Griffiths proposals, local authorities would handle the amount currently spent through social security on places in private and voluntary residential care homes.
  Sir Roy Griffiths spent a year investigating the way in which the switch from long-stay hospitals to care in the community is operating. We all have experiences of the problems that that creates for the elderly. I am sure that every hon. Member will have experienced the nightmare of being telephoned by families at the weekend, or perhaps late at night, saying that the hospital insists that an old person leaves and goes either home or to a residential home immediately. Such families are put into a tremendous quandary. They are faced with old people being asked to leave hospital because they no longer need the acute medical attention that they have been receiving. They may have had a period of recuperation, but the families are then faced with a problem because the support for community care is not there.
  The conclusions of Sir Roy Griffiths match those already outlined in the reports by the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee: that a clear responsibility must be given to one body or authority for monitoring and developing care in the community, because joint planning has failed. I fear—as, I am sure, do many other hon. Members—that, owing to the Government's pathological antipathy towards local authorities, the Griffiths recommendations will not be acted on, and we shall face the massive population explosion among the elderly without a coherent strategy.
  Let me again draw to the House's attention the decision by the DHSS and the Welsh Office to withdraw funding from the research team for the care of the elderly, based at the University of Wales college of medicine in Cardiff, from January next year. It seems to me the height of folly to withdraw funding from a department that is looking at a number of the problems that we have been addressing tonight, and has gained expertise not only in monitoring specific schemes but in piloting new ideas.
  Poverty levels among pensioners in Wales are on the increase. Eighteen per cent. of pensioner households in Wales were wholly dependent on benefits in 1987. Now 20 per cent. are. Coupled with the cuts in housing benefit for pensioners with modest savings, Government policies have hit pensioners especially hard in recent years. I urge the Government to set pensions at a level that will ensure that pensioners can live with the dignity and the measure of independence to which they are entitled.
  8.40 pm
  Mr. Anthony Nelson: The hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones) spoke with great conviction and sincerity, and I pay tribute to what he said. Few of us would not share many of the sentiments that he expressed about the importance of community care, which is an accepted trend in modern attitudes towards supporting the elderly. To some extent, local health authorities are already putting his views into practice. Of course there are financial constraints on them and thus on the pace at which change can take place, but the hon. Gentleman did the House and his constituents a service in reminding us of the importance of this subject.
  I thought the hon. Gentleman's speech was in stark contrast to those of some Opposition Members this
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  evening. For example, the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) indulged in a bit of political hyperbole, not to say downright cheek. Anyone would think that she had not been a Labour Member between 1974 and 1979 and that she dissociated herself entirely from a Government who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) reminded us, was responsible for inflation at 27 per cent. and a standard rate of income tax of 35 per cent. Let us not forget that that Government took away the pensioners' Christmas bonus for two years, or that they increased the retirement pension by 0·6 per cent. a year during those five years, compared with the real increase every year under this Government of 2·7 per cent—a total increase of more than 18 per cent. in real terms.
  The hon. Lady was a member of the party and Government that presided over a time of economic disaster at the end of which we were led to the International Monetary Fund with our begging bowl. It was a time when the lot of the poor and the elderly was meagre. Not a pensioner in the country would swap the financial support they receive from the Government today for that which they received in 1979. They are all better off——
  Mr. Tom Clarke: A number of my constituents worked in the oil industry and are now pensioners. What benefit have they gained from oil revenues under this Government?
  Mr. Nelson: If it is not self-evident to the hon. Gentleman that the country's economy and standards of social support and of living after tax have improved immeasurably, nothing that I say would be likely to persuade him. The comparison that I made was fair.
  The hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) is highly respected on both sides of the House and I pay tribute to what he said. His speech was delivered in measured tones and I, like my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, believe that there is a good deal in his party's motion. However, he has not been in government, and his party always indulges in generous promises at other people's expense. As it is never likely to be in government, it can afford to be more generous about not having a capital limit for entitlement to housing benefit.
  I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister said that the Government had adjusted their view on this important matter in response to representations. The extraordinary thing is that, when the Goverment do something that is apparently wrong or unpopular, and there is an outcry, they are called intransigent if they do nothing about it. But if, in response to parliamentary and public pressure, they recognise that changes need to be made, they are accused of only looking after their own for narrow political purposes. Of course we are looking after the wider public interest and seeking to be re-elected—that is wholly proper and honourable. No doubt we should not be re-elected if we did not deliver. So far the record shows that the electorate and pensioners are at least reasonably happy with the record of the Government, to which I pay tribute tonight.
  On top of the genuine increase in the state retirement pension and the reduction in inflation, there has been a significant increase in real-terms expenditure on the Health Service. About £9·2 billion per annum has been allocated within Health Service expenditure to elderly people. Their interests have by no means been forgotten. Infrastructural

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  social support has been offered them, as well as direct financial payments; the Government have an exemplary record on that.
  Nevertheless, I believe there is a consensus in the House—based on visits to our constituents and talking to those of them who are elderly—that many pensioners still find it difficult to make ends meet. I represent a constituency with nearly double the national average number of pensioners, including a growing proportion who are very elderly. It is not only a matter of money, but of life becoming much more complicated. People do not always understand their rights, and I am glad that my hon. Friend the Minister is to undertake a publicity campaign to emphasise what can be achieved if people apply to the DHSS.
  More elderly people live longer now, and more of them live alone, so the costs of accommodation cannot be shared as they were in the past. Capital costs for those who live in properties that they own—the costs of repair and renewal—are significant deductions from their savings. I know many elderly people who do not qualify for financial support and are frightened about how they will pay for major items of expenditure that come along—£500 here, £700 there. Those sums represent a major proportion of their accumulated savings. We must recognise that, as I think the Government are trying to do in building up personal provision for the future. But many people face a short-term problem because they have seen the real value of their accumulated earnings and savings eroded in recent years.
  Not unnaturally, many of our constituents look at their net position. They are not like Ministers, who espouse the virtues of an improvement in a particular policy for which they are responsible. Our constituents count up the net result of rent increases for their council houses, changes in housing benefit and milk bills. They work out exactly whether they are better or worse off. If they are worse off, they are worried about how they will cover the costs. So, although we have an exemplary record of maintaining and improving standards of living for the elderly, and at least of meeting our manifesto commitments, we have a particular obligation to improve the lot of the elderly in a way that helps the least well-off and maintains the relativity of the system, so that those who have provided for themselves see the benefits of so doing during their lifetimes and are not penalised to the extent that others who have not done so are underwritten by income support and other means of social security assistance.
  I suggest two themes or policies that draw on some of tonight's comments. The first concerns targeting financial assistance for the elderly. In their social security review and legislation, the Government have acted rightly and of necessity. The main reason for what they have done was the need to target assistance from limited financial resources on those whose need was greatest. That was wholly defensible and a proper responsibility of Government. Now, having done that, with all its attendant difficulties, my hon. Friend the Minister should seek opportunities to build up the level of support for pensioners more generally. He should not in future try to pre-empt any additional resources that he can argue out of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for the least well-off.
  That is a controversial view, and others are entitled to take a different view. Some of my elderly constituents are
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  just above the line of entitlement to all sorts of support, are badly off and finding it tough to make ends meet. We have done what we can for those on the lowest means. At least the real value of that support will be maintained, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East suggested, there is a substantial case to be made for improving the level of the state retirement pension ahead of the level of inflation.
  Many of my constituents do not receive income support, housing benefit, lower-cost, local authority-provided sheltered accommodation, a free television licence or help with their fuel or with the cost of furniture removal, yet they cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered well off. In fact, many of them are significantly worse off than those who receive and are entitled to this panoply of support. Those people come to me and say, as they do to other hon. Members, "What is the purpose of providing for myself during my working life? Where is the equity and fairness in helping those who are less well off and have made less provision for themselves so that they are better off than I am? What prospect is there for an improvement in my standard of living?" I tell them that their best prospect lies in steady improvement of the state retirement pension, at least to the level of inflation, and perhaps over and above that. If we can expand the economy, as has happened in recent years, there should be every reason to expect real increases in the state retirement pension.
  I am drawing on part of the content of the SLD party motion and on part of the speech of the hon. Member for Derby, South, who pressed my hon. Friend the Minister not to forget the case for improvement in the statutory retirement pension. He will have our full support in arguing the case with Treasury Ministers. The time to do that is not a year before an election. There should be a steady improvement year on year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East suggested.
  That in itself is not enough. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East was unsuccessful in his attempt to bring about a change in the tax law for elderly home-owners to release some of their capital, I believe that we should begin to consider the problems that we have built up over a generation of tax relief in tying up people's capital in non-income producing assets. Many people in my constituency, which has relatively high property capital values, are sitting on properties worth very significant sums of money, but are living in genteel poverty and sometimes finding it difficult to afford to put on the electric heater during the winter. There is a paradox between the capital values of people's accommodation and the Government's unwillingness or inability to change the tax laws to release some of that capital to support those people during their retirement.
  I should like to see quite a different scheme. I should like to see a new form of variable tax relief over and above the personal allowances built into our tax regime. People should, at different stages in their life, be able to adjust to different expenditure necessities. For example, when people are young and get married, they probably need the maximum tax relief for a mortgage. The current value of that relief is probably about £800 a year. That is the value of basic rate of tax on the average level of building society interest on a mortgage of £30,000. That £800 could and should be used during people's lifetimes for other forms of designated expenditure.

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  That would not be an additional personal allowance that would allow them to spend the money more generally and perhaps draw in imports and fuel inflation, but a special allowance to spend on designated areas of need and responsibility. I would include among those both private education and private health provision, although those are contentious issues, but they should include, in addition, provision which the elderly can make themselves. For example, if an elderly person has paid off his or her mortgage, he or she is not able to take out a new mortgage on that property and obtain tax relief on the interest paid. Why not? They should be able to do so as pensioners. However, as I understand it, they are able to borrow money secured against the property, purchase an annuity with that money and obtain tax relief on that loan.
  That smacks of the "nanny" state which says, "We'll give you tax relief, but only if you give the money back to an institution to manage for you". We should give it to the people and let them decide what is in their own best interests. A more moveable tax allowance that people can use at various times of their life with the ability to release the capital built up in their homes for designated expenditure, which would be of perceived value to them, would be a more flexible and desirable system. It would allow any combination of that expenditure within the allowance.
  I hope that in the fundamental review that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services is undertaking he will be open-minded to some more imaginative schemes, such as the one I have proposed, as there is a long-term problem to be addressed and redressed. Just as we have made a good start and have a record of which we can be proud, so we should not lose sight of the need to tackle the problems of the future. The best way to do so is to have a further improvement in the real value of the state retirement pension during the remainder of the Government's period of office and to change the reliefs and allowances so that we can release the capital that elderly people have accumulated and help them to help themselves, as they all desire.
  8.56 pm
  Mr. Jimmy Dunnachie: The recent housing benefit cuts are among the worst examples of the thoughtless, uncaring attitude that we have come to expect of the Government. The Government say that they want people to be independent, but, at the same time, they penalise the most fiercely independent section of our society—our senior citizens.
  Those are men and women whose lives have been governed by hard work, thrift, duty and independence—in fact, by all the values that the Government claim to extol. They are also men and women who have worked and fought for a fairer society in which being old or poor, or both, was neither a shame nor a crime, yet all the Government can offer them is a kick in the teeth, telling them that they are of no account in the twilight years of their lives. We all know that those people could never begin to compete in the get-rich-quick jungle of man-mind-thyself Thatcherism. Even worse, the cuts have put fear and terror into the hearts and minds of senior citizens because they remind them of the depression years and of that most dreaded by-product of Victorian values, the workhouse.
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  I have already written to the Prime Minister outlining the hardships that the cuts are creating for senior citizens in my constituency. All that she could offer them was the hope of transitional payments—in other words, a postponement of their agony. When I raised the matter of benefit cuts, she misled the House with her answer, showing that she is either unaware or simply does not care about the cruel effects that her Government's policies are having on the lives of ordinary people. Every week in my surgery, I witness these cruel effects on many senior citizens, who, through no fault of their own, have few or no savings and are worried and frightened because they do not know how to make ends meet.
  I can give some examples of this from my constituency. I recall an elderly man from the Carnwadric area whose rent and rates bill has risen by a third, an elderly lady in the Craigbank area who now has to pay an extra £30 a month, an elderly couple in the Arden area who face a 50 per cent. increase and an old lady in north Pollok who must now pay a third of her total income in rent and rates. These examples are only the tip of the iceberg. That such men and women are reduced to pleading for mercy in the twilight years of their lives is a crime against humanity.
  The effects of the housing benefit cuts on the lives of the elderly make a mockery of the freedom from want for which the Labour party fought so valiantly—a battle that it won—after the war. Instead, this policy marks a return to the darkest days in the nation's history, when the old and the poor were tossed aside, to be treated as less than human. It is a tragedy that these uncaring days have returned. I beg the House to reverse this vicious policy, so that dignity and self-respect can be restored to our senior citizens in the closing chapters of their lives.
  9 pm
  Miss Ann Widdecombe: In their recent treatment of pensioners, the Government are most to be congratulated on their targeting. We have tried to help those who are most in need, and to a large extent we have succeeded. The hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), whom I am delighted to see has returned to the Chamber after a lengthy absence—at least she.is here, unlike most Labour Back Benchers—said that we withdrew millions of pounds in benefit in our recent changes to social security and housing benefit. She omitted to say that the main losers of such benefit were asset-owning pensioners or pensioners with savings as substantial as £8,000 in the bank.
  It is crucial, when we talk about old-age pensioners, that we should be aware that we are talking not about a homogeneous economic group but about a group of people among whom there are wide divisions of income, comfort and provision, as there are in the rest of the population. Over 85 per cent. of our old-age pensioners enjoy some form of second income.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: Enjoy?
  Miss Widdecombe: I imagine that one does enjoy a second income. Even when we say that, we have to distinguish between the nature and extent of the second income—[Interruption.] I am told that I have something in common with the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). Perhaps if he had been present throughout the debate, as I have been, he would have heard this point answered before.

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  Those pensioners who enjoy a second income also fall into various categories. There are those who may have substantial occupational pensions, there are those who will have the state earnings-related pension scheme addition and there are those who will have only a few pounds in interest from savings. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) in his plea for some attention to be given to those pensioners who are just above the line below which they might have received various supports and benefits that we have so rightly targeted on the most needy and poor. In any system of benefits there will be some sort of trap so that people who are just above the line below which they are entitled to support are not as well off as people below the line who receive support and whose incomes are considerably enhanced. In our future targeting, we should pay particular attention to those people.
  Mrs. Beckett: I think that this is the first time that I have had the pleasure of listening to the hon. Lady address the House. I feel sure, therefore, that it is uncharacteristic that she did little less than justice to my observations. I drew attention to the fact that there are those among pensioners who are losing out, some who have some assets. The flavour of the hon. Lady's observations is that many of those pensioners have substantial assets, but most of those who lost out from the Government's recent housing benefit cuts have small occupational pensions or war pensions, for example. It is not those with substantial assets who are losing out especially. I think that I am correct in saying that only 100,000 benefited from the change in the capital allowance while 7 million lost out. That implies that the vast bulk of the 7 million were at the bottom end of the scale, not at the top.
  Miss Widdecombe: The hon. Lady does less than justice to the analysis that she has made. She makes the rather sweeping statement that most of those who have lost out are in the narrow trap that I have been talking about, where there is real need, but I think that the hon. Lady and I would be able to find some common ground. The thrust of our targeting was to ensure that those with a property in which neither they nor a dependent relative live, or with, in my view, substantial savings in the bank, to the tune of £8,000, lost the most significantly.
  We have targeted, I think admirably, on the care of the elderly in the National Health Service. We have 22 per cent. more nurses engaged in geriatric care now than there were in 1979. There are 34 per cent. more consultant geriatricians now than there were in 1979. This is an area in which we could concentrate specific targeting. The number of home helps has been increased by about 20 per cent., while day-care places have increased by about 25 per cent. As various sedentary Opposition Members have suggested during the debate, there are far more old-age pensioners now. It is right, therefore, that we target NHS care on the elderly.
  We must continue our policy of targeting NHS care and social services care on old-age pensioners who are still able to live at home, given the right levels of support. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on the
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  significant successes that have been achieved in targeting care, especially care in the community, which has often been deeply misrepresented.
  I hope that Opposition Members will not continue to talk in blanket terms about substantial increases in the old-age pension and in benefits for the elderly, such as the abolition of standing charges on fuel.
  Mr. Skinner: Why not?
  Miss Widdecombe: I am coming to that. I hope also that they will not talk generally about the abolition of the television licence fee. Old-age pensioners do not form a homogeneous income group. Not all of them need to be exempt from standing charges on fuel and the television licence fee, for example. These are benefits, if these charges are abolished, that will have to be paid for by others who are earning substantially less than the income of many old-age pensioners. There is an argument for targeting and for supporting what the Government have so far done in their targeting.
  Mr. Skinner: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Miss Widdecombe: I would have been delighted to allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene had he been present throughout the debate. I might then have thought that he had a contribution to make that would be relevant.
  I support what the Government are doing. I hope that we shall hear more from them about specific targeting. I believe that it is what old-age pensioners want. My pensioner constituents always ask, "Why not concentrate on those of us who do not have an income over and above the state pension?" That is the road along which we are proceeding and the road along which I hope we shall continue. I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to address himself, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester and I have urged, to those who are just above the line, as it were.
  9.10 pm
  Mr. Tom Pendry:.The hon. Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe) amazed one or two of us in many ways, particularly when she said that she had something in common with my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). The mind boggles at that and my hon. Friend has a lot of explaining to do when the debate is over.
  It is a pity that the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) is leaving the Chamber—[Interruption.] I see that he has returned with his usual athleticism. His speech, fascinating as it was, revealed the different worlds in which we live and the north-south divide. He talked about an extra £450 and £500 that many of his constituents have to find on occasion. Many of the pensioners in my constituency worry about whether they can have margarine or butter. The hon. Gentleman is living in a different world. He said that there are few senior citizens who would prefer to live under a Labour Government than a Conservative one. He is living in cloud-cuckoo-land. I invite him to come to my constituency of Stalybridge and Hyde in Tameside so that he can see for himself the difference between the constituency that he represents and those represented by Opposition Members.
  We receive long-winded letters from the Minister. As my hon. Friends know, I am a charitable guy. I know that he is a young Minister, but I had hoped that somebody was

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  twisting his arm and that he did not believe what he was writing. However, when we see him at the Dispatch Box, it is clear that he believes every word and any sympathy that I ever had for him drains away.
  I welcome the opportunity to make a short contribution to the debate, because it gives us the opportunity to speak up for a section of our constituents who are grossly disadvantaged by the Government's so-called reform of the social security system. I do not often get an opportunity to give my examples at Prime Minister's Question Time, so I shall take this chance to place on record some specific examples from my constituency.
  When the Government introduced the new social security system they said that their objective was to "target resources" on those in "greatest need." Their aim is a bit out, since they are miles from the target. I have six surgeries every month, as do many other hon. Members, and if those who come to my surgery are not those at whom the Government wish to target the resources, there is something drastically wrong with our society. We know that there is no justice in our society under this Government.
  I agree that some pensioners have been misguided up to now, because they have supported the Government. If a Labour Government had been elected in June last year, a single pensioner would by now have received an extra £275, and a pensioner couple would have received an extra £440. Even in Chichester—I see that the hon. Member for Chichester has again left the Chamber—the pensioners would have done much better.
  It is so odd that the generation which fought so hard in the second world war and helped to found the Health Service—we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the National Health Service—is being treated with such contempt by the Government. Our pensioners deserve a much better deal. They need to be treated with honour and respect things that the Government know nothing about.
  Each week I and other hon. Members receive hundreds of letters—certainly tens of letters—from pensioners who are in a desperate plight. Some plead for financial help. I know that many hon. Members think that the question of the television licence is peripheral to the debate—although the hon. Member for Chichester did raise the subject—but to many of our pensioners a television is a lifeline. My old mum, who will be 95 next Thursday, relies greatly on her television set. She told me the other day that she wanted the set taken away because the Prime Minister appears on it rather too much for her liking.
  I had a letter from a 76-year-old gentleman who lives in Dukinfield in my constituency. He was worried about his television licence. I know that the Prime Minister is greatly interested in television and in satellite techniques and new stations.
  Mr. Skinner: The Prime Minister is bound to be interested in television and in all these satellite channels. She has 13 television sets in 10 Downing street and does not have to buy a licence for any of them. She gets free heat, free lighting and does not pay rates or rent on 10 Downing street or on Chequers. Our 9·5 million pensioners should receive the same treatment. Then there are all the people with ministerial cars stuck outside to carry them from one panelled room to the next.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: The hon. Gentleman should address the House.
  Mr. Skinner: I am addressing another pensioner.
  Mr. Pendry: My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) was looking at me during his intervention. I hope he does not think that I am a pensioner. In his characteristic style, my hon. Friend has spelt it out far better than I could.
  The Prime Minister is engaged in a great deal of activity on the television satellite front. Why can she not give our pensioners free television licences? My 76-year-old constituent was told by Tameside council, quite rightly at that time, that as he was linked to a mobile warden scheme he could get a concessionary television licence. Now the Government have changed the rules. The hon. Member for Maidstone said that she hoped that certain things would not happen, but things are getting worse because people who had concessions will no longer get them.
  Miss Widdecombe rose—
  Mr. Pendry: No, I shall not give way, because other hon. Members wish to take part in the debate. The hon. Lady knows that what I say is true and that people no longer qualify.
  Another clawback from these people is to be deprecated. The 76-year-old gentleman whom I mentioned lives in an old-age pensioner's flat. In my area of Tameside the demand for social services grows each year, but the financial constraints upon the council are more severe. I can tell the House that 4,930 people in my borough are aged 75 or over and that 40 per cent. of them live alone. Of the 85-year-olds, 20 per cent. are bedfast, 20 per cent. are mentally confused and 50 per cent. are unable to bathe themselves. The Government's respeonse is increasingly to shunt people over to carers in my area.
  Every step that penalises pensioners, such as cuts in housing benefit, makes more emotional and physical demands on the 11 per cent. of adults in Tameside whom the local authority has identified as carers. Many of those 18,000 carers end up in part-time employment, with low pay and few prospects. It is a vicious circle and tire Government should address themselves to the problem.
  The cases that my pensioner constituents have been bringing to me since the benefit changes are heartbreaking. There is a single woman of 69 who has been retired for 12 years because of polio arthritis. She lives on her own in a one-bedroom flat. In 1987 she received £57·96 a week and had to pay £12·95 a week in rent. [Interruption.] Conservative Members do not want to hear this. The hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Favell) does not live a million miles from me and must have constituents with similar problems. I am trying to get through to Treasury Ministers to bring to their attention the problems affecting the people whom we represent. After that woman had paid her rent she was left with £45·01 to live on. Now her pension has been increased by £1·49 a week, but she has to pay £17 in rent and is more than £2 a week worse off. Last week she told me that a mistake had been made and that she would now be £5·61 a week worse off.
  The attack upon pensioners is nothing short of barbaric. In the 1980s it is a disgrace that their living standards should be worsened. Thankfully, the pensioners are fighting back. In my constituency the Thameside Pensioners Action Committee, along with many hundreds

  1149
  of thousands of other pensioners, will be going to various conventions, including the national pensioners' convention, which will be held soon in Manchester. They will be fighting for a better deal.
  The Government must not be complacent. We accept that they won the election, but they will not be returned again unless they adopt a more concerned approach to pensioners. I hope that, as a result of this debate and debates in other arenas, pensioners will begin to realise that the Government do not really care for them, their future or their living standards, and that they will increasingly turn to the Labour party, so that the smugness will go out of Tory Members at the next election.
  9.21 pm
  Mr. Tony Favell: I was glad to hear the Minister emphasise the duty of those in work to care for those unable to care for themselves, not only through their taxes by supporting the Government in their attack on inflation—that sure enemy of pensioners' savings. He also emphasised the need for people to give time—that valuable commodity—to help the elderly combat their worst enemy, loneliness.
  I was disappointed to hear the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) and other Opposition Members imply that anyone who retires is more interested in dependency than independence. The Labour party often gives the impression that when somebody reaches retirement his or her useful life comes to an end. Many hon. Members, and the Prime Minister herself, are entitled to a retirement pension. Many leaders of pensionable age, not only in political circles but in industry and trade unions, continue to work.
  The vast majority of pensioners continue to lead full and useful lives. It is pure nonsense to suggest that life begins at 40 and ends at 60 or 65. Many people over that age continue to work full time and those who do not give valuable service elsewhere. They serve in the voluntary sector; many voluntary bodies would collapse were it not for those of pensionable age who work hard for their fellow citizens, many of whom are older than themselves. Many pensioners give time to their families and friends and give the benefit of their wisdom to local authorities and other public bodies.
  Of course, as they get older, many pensioners become frail and dependent. Society must ensure that they do not want for care, but we should never refer to older people en masse as a problem. They are not. For that reason, I am extremely cautious about the possible implementation of the recommendations of the Griffiths report on community care, to which several Opposition Members referred.
  I find it an unedifying prospect that local authority social workers should set up systems to identify and assess people who may need care and support and then, as the report suggests—taking account of the views and wishes of the person to be cared for—informal carers would decide what packages of care, whether provided directly or indirectly, would best suit their needs. I do not suggest that social workers are not well-meaning, but I can think of nothing more certain to accelerate old age than to smother an elderly person with care, to make him dependent and destroy his self-esteem.
  1150
  An aunt of mine died recently at the age of 93. She was known to us as Auntie Connie, as she was to everyone, certainly for the last 20 years of her life. She had a very difficult life. She worked hard to provide for herself and when she retired, having bought her own home, she took enormous pleasure in looking after herself. She was entitled only to a basic pension, but, having saved, she did not need any other help. She was proud of that. There are millions like her.
  When looking after the house became too much for her—and she decided when the time came: no one else did—she made the decision to go into sheltered accommodation. She was fortunate enough to be able to go into an Anchor housing association sheltered home. She lived there for 15 years, for the last six or seven of which she was totally blind. She considered that she lived a self-sufficient, decent life. She had a bedsit, with a small kitchen, WC and bathroom. There was a warden on call, who was sensible enough to allow those living in that accommodation to help each other. They organised functions, trips out, bingo and lectures and looked after each other, and, in particular, the younger ones looked after the more elderly. I understand from a recent Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy report that the rent for a single pensioner living in housing association accommodation of that kind—it is a new unit—is between £40 and £50 a week.
  I am delighted to see that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is here. I urge him to consider whether it is better to put increased resources into sheltered accommodation than into elderly people's homes. Like many hon. Members, I have visited such homes and I think that they destroy people's independence and finally lead them to become old before their time. At the age of 92, my aunt went into a residential nursing home. Everyone there was kind and everything was done for her, but within three months, having lost her independence, she decided to die—and that is what she did.
  When we speak of the needs of the elderly, it is my firm belief that, first and foremost, we should do them the courtesy of allowing them to lead useful lives, with the absolute minimum of interference, care packages or needs reviews—call it what you like. Only when that elderly person or his or her family, friends, neighbours, family doctor or community nurse decides—and only then—should the state or local authority step in, and it should be done readily, quickly and unobtrusively.
  That has been the main thrust of the Government's policies. Some 95 per cent. of people aged over 65 live in their own homes. A flexible range of services for those in genuine need is being developed. The number of district nurses has risen by one fifth since 1979, and the number of elderly people treated has risen by 28 per cent. The financial position of pensioners has improved. Under this Government, pensioners' incomes have increased more than twice as fast as those of the rest of the population and four times as fast as they did under Labour. Now, 85 per cent. of pensioners have second incomes apart from their basic pension, 70 per cent. have savings and 50 per cent. now receive an occupational pension.
  In terms of provision for the elderly, Britain is the third highest in the EEC, and I am glad that there are new incentives to come. I believe that under this Government—certainly with the new NHS review and their thrust to help personal and occupational pensions—the wherewithal for improving the independence of pensioners will be

  1151
  increased. Pensioners wish to have their independence, and it is only this Government who will give them the wherewithal to achieve it.
  9.29 pm
  Ms. Mildred Gordon: I retired from teaching two years before I became a Member of the House. I had three small pensions besides my state pension, but nevertheless I found living on a pension a frightening experience. When something goes wrong with a piece of equipment, one's income bears no relation to the amount of money that one is charged for a repair. Now that the Government have so drastically reduced single payments to pensioners and other claimants who are on supplementary benefit, and offer loans that must be repaid out of their meagre income, any failure of equipment becomes a real disaster that frightens pensioners, because they have no way of coping with it.
  Perhaps because I have been a pensioner I get many invitations to talk to pensioner groups. I like to speak to pensioners in my constituency, which is in the borough of Tower Hamlets. They are mostly very poor and, although some have small pensions from their job, as has already been said, those pensioners are no better off than those who have not. They are people who have worked hard and long hours for little pay, and who have had no way of saving money. They lived through the depression and the blitz, and this country owes them a lot. Throughout their lives they have had to learn how to manage well on a small amount of money.
  If one goes to Tower Hamlets, one will discover that however good the women are at managing money—and the majority of pensioners are women—they hover outside the butchers' shops wondering if they can afford to buy anything except liver. Although the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), would probably say that liver is good for pensioners, one gets fed up with eating liver. They wonder whether they can afford to buy a chop. It is shocking that women who have been proud housewives, and who have reared their families, now stand outside the shops dithering and wondering whether they can afford some meat. If one goes into many of their homes in winter, one finds that they are in the kitchen, with the door of the gas oven open, the oven alight and that they are sitting over it because that is the cheapest way of heating and that is the only room that they can afford to heat. That is the reality.
  Two Methodist ministers in the east end recently protested that the DHSS had told pensioners who applied for single payments to go to the churches. Pensioners have been going to the churches for money for food. One minister has been keeping plastic bags of food to give to them.Those ministers have now said, "We cannot do this any more. Our funds do not permit it. Please do not keep telling pensioners to come to us."
  The reality is that when pensioners go to doctors for treatment, hard-pressed doctors often say, "You have to expect some aches and pains at your age." I do not think that pensioners of any age should expect to be ill, without getting proper treatment in the same way as anyone else.
  Pensioners have asked me to say that they are well aware that during the past 10 years many items have been harmonised with those in other countries in the EEC. They want to know when pensions in this country will be
  1152
  harmonised. They say that pensions in Belgium are nearly double those in England. They would like some harmonisation to come their way.
  The pensioners say that the cuts in spending weigh heavily on them, and that the agencies that help them are losing their funds because local authorities have less money to give and are being shut down or cut to the bone. Furthermore, the poll tax will penalise the carers of elderly parents and relatives.
  Pensioners have also asked me to say that they would like the Government to do away with standing charges on utilities. That is a sore point with pensioners. They try to save money by switching off electric lights and cutting down on heating, but often the standing charges come to more than the rest of the bill. Standing charges take away a huge slice of their incomes. Pensioners feel that they should not have to pay these standing charges at all.
  Another issue that pensioners have raised with me many times is that they would like free television licences, because television is so important to them.
  Pensioners would like their pensions to be increased in line with incomes. That was something that they had before, but the Government have taken that away, and pensioners would like that provision restored.
  London pensioners fear that, following the abolition of the Greater London council, 1990 will see the end of their cherished free bus and Underground travel passes. Many pensioners say that the only thing that stops people becoming depressed on reaching the pensionable age of 60 or 65 is that they get their free bus pass. They believe that the free bus pass should be safeguarded and that that system should spread to the rest of the country. It gives pensioners the chance to travel and see their friends, and stops them from being tied to their homes. Dial-a-Ride, which pensioners would like guaranteed to continue, helps those who are not able-bodied to get out of the house and have a better quality of life.
  Pensioners live in fear of reaching the age when they can no longer take care of themselves. It is not just a made-up story that often pensioners who cannot walk to the toilet or get out of a chair on their own are dumped in an empty flat by hard-pressed hospital authorities which need their beds. Those pensioners are left to sink or swim and many die before their time. Many pensioners who still have their mental faculties end up in the geriatric wards of mental hospitals because there is no other place for them. We need better provision for people at home, and that cannot be done with rate capping and cuts in local authority spending. We need more homes for pensioners who cannot cope with living on their own.
  There should be more research into the degenerative illnesses of old age and dementia, and that requires much more money. Pensioners have asked me to say that they are sick and tired of increasingly being presented as a burden to the country. When they are presented as a burden, it invites violent attacks on them, degrades them, lowers their status and makes it seem as though they are useless. If pensioners are given enough money, correct: medical treatment and are properly looked after, they have a great deal to contribute, just as they have always done Pensioners want to be respected and valued.
  9.36 pm
  Mr. Matthew Taylor: We have been talking about the difficulties of the old and the cold in our society. I welcome the fact that the debate was opened by one of the youngest Members—my hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy)—and is being closed by another of the youngest Members. Conservative Members often tell us that those earning cannot afford to support our elderly people as we should support them. Not all people in Britain take that view.
  Elderly people deserve independence and respect in society; not to be condemned to wait out the rest of their lives without friends, families or local communities around them. That is why the Social and Liberal Democrats believe that there should be a coherent approach to treatment of the elderly—adequate primary health care and support for the many carers who dedicate their lives, often voluntarily, to look after elderly relatives.
  During the general election I talked about making care in the community a reality. We are not prepared to see patients turned out of the old institutional hospitals without adequate facilities to care for them in the community. We want to support the carers and believe that the Government should and could have made giant strides towards doing that. They could and should have introduced a proper carer's benefit. They should give carers more opportunities to take a break from their responsibilities. We have heard the rhetoric of care in the community but had precious little of the reality.
  The Association of Carers tells us that over 40 per cent. of carers whose elderly dependants had severe memory impairment had not had a week's holiday in five years and only 10 per cent. had ever received respite care. We need to start from the individual and to ensure that, regardless of where he or she lives, an individual has access as of right to care appropriate and adequate to his or her needs, just as Age Concern tells us. That in turn means proper assessment procedures, a definition of minimum standards to which an individual is entitled, the development of the concept of advocacy for those people and the mechanism of independent inspection made a reality. In Cornwall, all too frequently that does not happen.
  Underpinning everything, there must be proper resources, yet what do we get from the Government? We get the poll tax for a start. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) spoke about abolishing the rates. In itself, that would be an advantage, but by replacing them with the poll tax, which will place appalling increased financial pressure on households which include dependent elderly relatives, the Government are ignoring the reality facing many people. If a married couple have an elderly parent living with them, all three will be liable to the charge. The Department of the Environment has produced figures showing that more than 80 per cent. of households will be worse off under the community charge.
  The House of Lords has forced the Government into accepting an amendment, but there is no sign that the Government will allow it to remain in the Bill.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: What the hon. Gentleman is saying about elderly persons living in a household is totally misleading. He should know that an elderly person living with another will not be assessed for the community service charge on the income of the head of
  1154
  the household. Elderly people will be assessed on their own incomes, and if they are entitled to pay the lowest possible rate of 20 per cent. that will be allowed for in their pension, so the elderly person will not be adversely affected.
  Mr. Taylor: The hon. Lady would do better to show her support for elderly people by voting for the amendment when the Bill comes back from the Lords.
  We do not have to wait for the poll tax, nor do we have to wait for the one announcement that the Minister made tonight about the concessions that the Government are giving to pensioners on housing benefit and social security. What they mean by concessions is that they are bringing in advertising executives to tell us how wonderful the Government have been for giving back a small proportion of what they have already taken away. We do not have to wait for that. The difficulty for those on the low-level basic state pension and the continued presence of large numbers of elderly people suffering great hardship in the very lowest income groups is evidence enough. We have heard some apparently convincing arguments and statistics from the Government. I wonder why statisticians rather than politicians are not at the bottom of public opinion popularity polls. It seems that they connive together.
  Constituents across the country are not convinced. In my constituency there are large numbers of elderly people, many of them in considerable hardship. Every day I receive letters from pensioners saying that they can no longer cope and that they are frightened by the changes that the Government have made.
  Miss Cocks, who has paid her stamp since she was 16, wrote:
  "I am writing this to you and will you please read it out to the Tories … I will not be able to pay for any of these things"—
  that is, rent and rates—
  "on my pension unless I get help from Social Security and there are lots of others besides me."
  She wrote that letter as she saw that help disappearing.
  Mr. Long wrote:
  "Out of our miserable pension increase in April … we have to meet extra water rates, 10 per cent. extra television fees, dearer electricity charges".
  Mr. Porter wrote:
  "How Mrs. Thatcher thinks that a married couple can live these days on £65·47 per week when they pay rent, rates, water rates, electric—what has one got to live on?"
  One of the most heartrending letters I received recently was from Mr. Lamb, who was receiving severe disablement allowance and invalidity benefit. He wrote:
  "My wife and I are registered blind … I have a small Occupational Pension (non index linked) which precludes me from receiving any benefit. Because I worked for this for many years, I am now being penalised in that I am having to pay for prescriptions, dental care, new spectacles (which in my case are essential), fares to hospital and rates. It seems ludicrous".
  No wonder I am getting those letters. Just look at the figures for the recent housing benefit changes, not just for this year, but year by year as the Government, with stealth and guile, have been penalising the poor to fund tax cuts for the rich. In April 1983, 1,150,000 pensioners suffered losses and 120,000 lost all housing benefit. In November 1984, 1,200,000 pensioners lost further entitlement and another 213,000 lost all housing benefit. In November 1985, a further 1,470,000 pensioners lost benefit and an additional 270,000 pensioners lost all entitlement. In April

  1155
  1987, 2,600,000 pensioners lost some housing benefit entitlement and a further 60,000 pensioners lost all entitlement.
  The result is the gradual erosion of the independence of the elderly and of the meagre living standards that so many elderly people already had. It is no wonder, therefore, that many elderly people feel embittered by the bad hand that they have been dealt. As one wrote:
  "The whole country is in a bad state … the price is being paid by the old people. I worked for the County Council for 39 years, for many years money was taken from my pay packet and some added by the Council for retirement, and taxed, and now delivered to me every month and taxed again which is robbery."
  The Government believe that the best course of action is tax concessions for those who can afford private insurance. That is not necessarily bad. I welcome help being given to people to earn additional pensions, but it does nothing at all for those for whom such luxuries will never be seen.
  Again, the eloquence of my constituents spells out what the Minister did not like to say:
  "we were all born too soon … The next generation of pensioners will have a works pension scheme for them and they will need it, too! I have requested a surrender value on our death policies and that will be £1 per week towards our rent."
  That is what these people are having to go through. Letter after letter landing on my desk says the same. If they were honest, I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House would say that they receive the same kind of correspondence. They could not deny it. Comment after comment shows clearly that they know where the blame lies.
  In today's post I received this letter:
  "How can the Prime Minister say no poor pensioners are worse off under the new benefit rules?"
  Again:
  "I did not realise the situation myself until I received my rates demand, and I have the feeling that the whole benefits structure is deliberately confused, why there has not already been an outcry I cannot understand."
  Most telling of all, and we all receive this complaint in thousands of slightly different ways, with the use of different phrases, but they all say the same thing:
  "She is a terrible woman on us pensioners."
  That is why we have had this debate. That is why we campaigned for an increase in the basic state retirement pension and that is why we say that the bulk of the extra expenditure should be concentrated on helping the poorest pensioners.
  Conservative Members talk about the Christmas bonus, but £10 goes nowhere today. We should be talking about a Christmas bonus of double the weekly pension at the beginning of December. We should abolish standing charges for gas, electricity and telephones, all of which are vital for the elderly, instead of privatising those industries to give a little extra cash to those who already have a lot.
  It is a far cry tonight from the day, 80 years ago, when a Liberal Government introduced the pension that Lloyd George saw as a "great experiment." He said:
  "It is made in an old country for the first time. We put it forward as an incomplete one; we say it is a beginning and only a beginning, but a real beginning."
  I wonder what Lloyd George would say today about the gradual reductions in benefits and the degrading poverty of so many of our pensioners. Many pensioners
  1156
  saw the introduction of that pension. Many of them have told me that they owe a debt of gratitude to Lloyd George for what he did. It was his dream.
  "to make provision for undeserved poverty and destitution in all its branches",
  whereas the Government provide for undeserved financial gain from investment in state industries that they sell off.
  The Prime Minister tells us that there is no such thing as society. By contrast, Lloyd George summed it up like this:
  "These problems of the sick, of the infirm, of the men who cannot find means of earning a livelihood, though they seek it as if they were seeking for alms, who are out of work through no fault of their own, and who cannot even guess the reason why, are problems with which it is the business of the State to deal; they are problems which the State has neglected too long."
  The Government do not believe that. They do not believe that there is such a thing as society. The Government do not believe that they have an obligation to our old-age pensioners and to those who live in poverty, cold and squalor. We do. I commend the motion to the House.
  9.49 pm
  Mr. Portillo: As the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) has just referred to Lloyd George, I trust that he will not object if I go less far back in history and allow the occasional reference to the Lib-Lab pact to creep into my speech. There can certainly be no complaint that I am raking up the past unnecessarily.
  The subject of community care was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Favell), and the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones) referred to it extensively. I was pleased that my hon. Friend placed such emphasis on the importance of the voluntary sector and on the role that pensioners themselves can play, because many of them are still able-bodied and relatively young in that voluntary sector. He will recognise with me that state agencies cannot do everything for our elderly and that there will always be a need for comfort and company to be provided by friends, neighbours and family. I appreciate his remarks on that point.
  Both the hon. Members for Ynys Môn and for Truro seemed to find fault with the Government over a supposed lack of urgency in relation to community care. I am surprised at that suggestion, because the hon. Member for Ynys Môn himself referred to the variety of reports that have been produced on the subject. He clearly recognises that it is an enormously complex question. He believes that too much money is being spent through supplementary benefit, and now through income support, and that some people are inappropriately placed.
  In my opening remarks, I referred to some of the fears that we ourselves could have on those scores. However, I cannot understand how the hon. Member for Ynys Môn can believe that we are reluctant to address those issues, when we commissioned the Griffiths, Firth and Wagner reports. The hon. Member would be extremely surprised if we did not then give due consideration to the Griffiths report, which raised very complex issues, and I am certain that when we present our recommendation that will give the House an opportunity to consider how to debate them. The hon. Member for Ynys Môn should bear with us in that respect.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone ( Miss Widdecombe) expressed concern about the level of

  1157
  provision for people in the community. She made her point very well about National Health Service extra expenditure on the elderly. That increased by 22 per cent. between 1978 and 1986, and my hon. Friend will know that during the same period the elderly population increased by 5·9 per cent. Funding has not only kept pace with the growing number of elderly people, but has also led to real improvements in services for them.
  The number of elderly people treated by the community nursing service increased by one fifth between 1978 and 1986, and the number of home helps shows a similar improvement. The number of day hospital and day centre attendances has also increased, as have the number of meals on wheels provided.
  Turning from the subject of community care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) placed great emphasis on inflation, and he was right to do so. He also referred to the need for a larger gap at the point where pensioners reach the age of 80. His remarks concentrated on the 25p addition to the retirement pension, but I remind him that in the case of income support the gap at age 80 is £2·35. I shall certainly refer his suggestion concerning the provision of advice and assistance about Barlow Clowes to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
  Although I was delighted with my hon. Friend's emphasis on inflation, I was disappointed with the comments of the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) who—I apologise for boring her—has heard through all our debates the explanation of how important is the amount of money that pensioners have to live on and what happens to their living standards. Yet, after all this time, the hon. Lady resolutely sticks to discussing the way in which the retirement pension increased under the Labour Government, albeit at a time when inflation was roaring away and therefore the net result was a minimal increase in the living standards of the elderly, which is of course what really matters to them.
  Mrs. Beckett: The Minister makes this point over and over again. He is right: he does bore me, because it is an extremely boring point. How on earth he can try to convey to the House that a 5 per cent. real-terms improvement in basic pensions is somehow on a par with the 20 per cent. improvement under a Labour Government I am at a loss to understand.
  It is a very simple point. Pensioners were four times better off under the Labour Government than they have been under the present Government.
  Mr. Portillo: Now I understand. The hon. Lady obviously fails to see the complete illogicality of what she has said. Because pensioners do not live only on retirement pensions paid by the state but on other things as well—because they have savings—what she says does not follow. Their living standards result from a combination of savings, occupational pensions and state retirement pensions, and not from one element in isolation. That is why the hon. Lady is misguided in what she says, and it is possibly why the Government of which she was a member were misguided in what they did.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) referred to the housing benefit capital limit, and the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr.
  1158
  Kennedy) seemed to imply in his opening remarks that the capital limit was the only concession that the Government had made on 27 April. That is absolutely untrue. We recognised a series of vulnerable groups who needed help, and we provided it. Although the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) churlishly believes that we should not now advertise that help, we strongly intend to advertise its availability.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester, however, put his finger on a dilemma. If we provide a safety net so that people will receive support whether or not they have been provident and whether or not they have had the opportunity to save, to some extent we will discourage thrift: we cannot escape that. We do not discourage thrift by having a capital limit, but it is discouraged from the moment that a safety net is provided. No hon. Member, however, would say that that safety net should be swept away. We are therefore left with difficult decisions about the point at which we should apply a cut-off on both income and capital, because all those benefits should be related to both.
  Having said that, however, let me say how interesting I found my hon. Friend's suggestions about a tax allowance, which I shall certainly pass on to my right hon. Friends at the Treasury.
  The hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. Dunnachie)—whom I do not see in the Chamber—gave four examples, all involving people whose incomes were well above the income support level and would still be above that level after payment of rent and rates. They all seemed to be people who should apply for transitional protection and I suspect that the same applies to the case raised by the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry).
  In my opening remarks I mentioned the obligation that the working population has towards the retired. It is a substantial obligation, and it carries a substantial price. The elderly account for more than half our social security budget—for about £24 billion. They also account for over two fifths of health care spending—over £9 billion—and consume about half of personal social services spending—about £1·5 billion. I mention that not because the working population should begrudge the money, but because they should be aware of it.
  First, I think that it represents a fair discharge of that part of the obligation that should be discharged through state agencies. Secondly, anyone working today must be concerned at the way that the numbers will grow by the time we reach retirement. That dictates that we should ourselves make provision where we can, alongside state provision. Thirdly, it emphasises that the well-being of the elderly is critically tied up with economic success.
  During the election campaign, the alliance promised pensioners more money. The Labour party saw that bid, and raised it. Yet neither party can be said to have done well out of its grandiose promises. I do not know whether either of the two parties has contemplated why. The reason is that pensioners are not stupid. By definition, they are people of experience. They know when they are being conned. They know that the rate of pensions relies upon continuing economic growth, and they remember inflation, and the Lib-Lab pact, and Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, Mrs. Williams.
  I end with a friendly word of advice to both the SLD and the Labour parties. They will never get elected by underestimating the intelligence of the British pensioner.
  I commend the amendment.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 58, Noes 171.

  Division No. 400]

  [10.00 pm

  AYES

  Alton, David

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Ashton, Joe

  Livsey, Richard

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Loyden, Eddie

  Beckett, Margaret

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Boateng, Paul

  Maclennan, Robert

  Boyes, Roland

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Martlew, Eric

  Caborn, Richard

  Maxton, John

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Cartwright, John

  Mullin, Chris

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  Cohen, Harry

  Patchett, Terry

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Pendry, Tom

  Dewar, Donald

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Dixon, Don

  Prescott, John

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Salmond, Alex

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Short, Clare

  Eadie, Alexander

  Skinner, Dennis

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

  Faulds, Andrew

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Flynn, Paul

  Stott, Roger

  Galbraith, Sam

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Gordon, Mildred

  Vaz, Keith

  Haynes, Frank

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Hinchliffe, David

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Home Robertson, John

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Howells, Geraint

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)

  Mr. James Wallace and Mr. Ronnie Fearn.

  Kennedy, Charles

  NOES

  Alexander, Richard

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Couchman, James

  Allason, Rupert

  Cran, James

  Amess, David

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

  Amos, Alan

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Arbuthnot, James

  Day, Stephen

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Devlin, Tim

  Ashby, David

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Atkinson, David

  Dover, Den

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Durant, Tony

  Batiste, Spencer

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Evennett, David

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Fallon, Michael

  Benyon, W.

  Favell, Tony

  Biggs-Davison, Sir John

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Boswell, Tim

  Forman, Nigel

  Bottomley, Peter

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Forth, Eric

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Franks, Cecil

  Brazier, Julian

  Freeman, Roger

  Bright, Graham

  French, Douglas

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

  Gale, Roger

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Gardiner, George

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Gill, Christopher

  Burns, Simon

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Burt, Alistair

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Butcher, John

  Gow, Ian

  Butler, Chris

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Butterfill, John

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Carttiss, Michael

  Ground, Patrick

  Cash, William

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Chope, Christopher

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

  Churchill, Mr

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

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

  Harris, David

  Colvin, Michael

  Hawkins, Christopher

  1160

  Hayward, Robert

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Moss, Malcolm

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

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Neale, Gerrard

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Hunter, Andrew

  Neubert, Michael

  Irvine, Michael

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Jack, Michael

  Portillo, Michael

  Janman, Tim

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Jessel, Toby

  Ryder, Richard

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Kilfedder, James

  Stern, Michael

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thlield)

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Knapman, Roger

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Knowles, Michael

  Summerson, Hugo

  Knox, David

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Lang, Ian

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Latham, Michael

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Lightbown, David

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Lilley, Peter

  Thome, Neil

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Thurnham, Peter

  Lord, Michael

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Trippier, David

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Waller, Gary

  Mans, Keith

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Marland, Paul

  Watts, John

  Marlow, Tony

  Wheeler, John

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Wilshire, David

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Mellor, David

  Wood, Timothy

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Yeo, Tim

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Moate, Roger

  Mr. David Maclean and Mr. Stephen Dorrell.

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments):—
  The House divided: Ayes 152, Noes 54.

  Division No. 401]

  [10.13 pm

  AYES

  Alexander, Richard

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Amess, David

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Amos, Alan

  Burns, Simon

  Arbuthnot, James

  Burt, Alistair

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Butcher, John

  Ashby, David

  Butler, Chris

  Atkinson, David

  Butterfill, John

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Batiste, Spencer

  Carttiss, Michael

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Cash, William

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Chope, Christopher

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Churchill, Mr

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

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

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Boswell, Tim

  Couchman, James

  Bottomley, Peter

  Cran, James

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

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

  Bowis, John

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Day, Stephen

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Devlin, Tim

  Brazier, Julian

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

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

  Dover, Den

  1161

  Durant, Tony

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Emery, Sir Peter

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Evennett, David

  Mans, Keith

  Fallon, Michael

  Marland, Paul

  Favell, Tony

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Forman, Nigel

  Mellor, David

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Forth, Eric

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Franks, Cecil

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  French, Douglas

  Moate, Roger

  Gale, Roger

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Gardiner, George

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Gill, Christopher

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Moss, Malcolm

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Neale, Gerrard

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

  Neubert, Michael

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Portillo, Michael

  Ground, Patrick

  Ryder, Richard

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Shaw, David (Dover)

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

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Harris, David

  Stern, Michael

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Hayward, Robert

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

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

  Summerson, Hugo

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Irvine, Michael

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Jack, Michael

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Janman, Tim

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Jessel, Toby

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Thorne, Neil

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Thurnham, Peter

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Kilfedder, James

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Waller, Gary

  Knapman, Roger

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Knowles, Michael

  Watts, John

  Knox, David

  Wheeler, John

  Lang, Ian

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Wilshire, David

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Lightbown, David

  Wood, Timothy

  Lilley, Peter

  Yeo, Tim

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Lord, Michael

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Mr. David Maclean and Mr. Stephen Dorrell.

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  NOES

  Alton, David

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  Ashton, Joe

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Beckett, Margaret

  Faulds, Andrew

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Fearn, Ronald

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Galbraith, Sam

  Boateng, Paul

  George, Bruce

  Boyes, Roland

  Gordon, Mildred

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Haynes, Frank

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Cohen, Harry

  Home Robertson, John

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Howells, Geraint

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Dewar, Donald

  Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

  Dixon, Don

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Livsey, Richard

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Loyden, Eddie

  Eadie, Alexander

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  1162

  Maclennan, Robert

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Martlew, Eric

  Wallace, James

  Maxton, John

  Wareing, Robert N

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Mullin, Chris

  Williams, Alan W (Carm'then)

  Patchett, Terry

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Pendry, Tom

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Salmond, Alex

  Mr. Dennis Skinner and Mr Jimmy Dunnachie

  Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  MR. SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House congratulates the Government on the success of its policies for pensioners, in particular the control of inflation and the stimulation of the economy, which together have dramatically improved pensioners' total incomes; commends the Government for the increased resources now available to the National Health Service; concurs in the Government's determination to ensure that the considerable resources committed to community care are put to the best possible use; and endorses the recent reforms of social security, not least because they increase the choice of future pension provision.

  Pensioners (Government Policies)

    BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
    Ordered,
    That, at this day's sitting, the Court of Session Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Lightbown.]
    10.24 pm
    Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Parliamentary history has been made today and I thought that we ought to say a word about it to make sure that it is properly recorded.
    You will recall, Mr. Speaker, as a matter of record that for some time the alliance, as it used to be called, was allocated Supply days, because it was the largest minority party after the official Opposition. I noticed on today's Order Paper an interesting feature and perhaps you will confirm it. Because the parties that formed the alliance no longer exist and a new union has been formed, and as Supply days were allocated immediately after the general election in 1987 to the different parties behind me, the allocation of Supply days has had to go to another party. The interesting feature is that the leader of the Official Unionist party, the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux), is now in charge of allocating Supply days to the Liberals and the Provos—the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devenport (Dr. Owen), who has left the Chamber. It will not go amiss on this auspicious occasion to say that in its desire for a merger the alliance has dealt itself a deadly blow and placed itself in the hands of the Ulster Unionists.
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct, and if he wants confirmation of that he will find it in Standing Order No. 13(3) which says:
    "For the purposes of this order `the second largest opposition party' shall be that party, of those not represented in Her Majesty's Government, which has the second largest number of Members elected to the House as members of that party."
    As I say, the hon. Gentleman is correct.

  Court of Session Bill [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  10.26 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The Bill repeals or re-enacts the existing provisions in many statutes since before the Act of Union right back to 1594. It relates to the Court of Session and its procedures, which have been brought up to date. This is a consolidation Bill and is totally non-controversial. The Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills said that there was no point to which the attention of Parliament should be drawn.
  10.27 pm
  Mr. Menzies Campbell: Good order and good sense dictate that one should not detain the House unnecessarily on a measure of this nature at this time. However, it is proper to say, as the Minister has said, that many of the statutory provisions that are to be re-enacted date from before the Act of Union. As a consequence, it is perhaps unfortunate that the opportunity has not been taken to bring some of the provisions into line with modern practice in the Court of Session. I hope that the Government will soon take that opportunity. They have some encouragement from the remarks, widely reported today, of the president of the Law Society of Scotland who, in another guise, was formerly the senior partner of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) and who has offered himself in Conservative colours at least once in a general election in Scotland.
  I hope that the Government will soon take the opportunity to give serious consideration to a proper review of the procedures of the Court of Session. The Bill provides that, at the discretion of the Lord President, what is called an extra division may be formed for dealing with civil appeals. Many of us who have experience of practising in the Court of Session think that the opportunity should be taken to establish permanently an extra or third division in the Court of Session in order to deal more speedily and effectively with civil appeals.
  The Bill preserves the right to civil jury trial—a right that has existed in the law of Scotland since the early part of the 19th century. It is important to mention that because recently the Lord Advocate was reported as saying that the Government are considering the abolition of that right to civil jury trial. They are doing that on the view that the introduction of hearsay evidence—a matter that we discussed earlier this week—makes it difficult, if not impossible, for a jury to be properly directed about its duties in a civil trial. There is nothing new in that attitude. In the early 1970s when the law governing interest on damages was changed in Scotland the view was that civil jury trial would no longer be possible because of the difficulty of giving proper directions to juries. That view was proved to be wholly unfounded. In the case of Macdonald v. Glasgow Corporation, with which I have no doubt the Minister is intimately familiar, the first division of the Court of Session made it plain that civil jury trials could exist side by side with the changes in the legislation governing interest on damages.
  1164
  I am happy to note that civil jury trial is preserved. because in many cases civil jury trial is the most appropriate means of determining the issues at stake. That applies particularly to road traffic accidents and to cases in which there are clear and unequivocal conflicts of fact which a jury is especially well suited to resolve.
  I am glad to note that the provisions are to be re-enacted, but I give notice to the Government that if proposals are finally made to remove civil jury trial as part of the procedures of the law of Scotland, there may well be strenuous opposition, not only from the Opposition parties but from that well-known guardian of Scottish legal tradition, the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Sir N. Fairbairn) who, unfortunately, is riot present this evening. No doubt he is recovering from his recent illness. We are grateful for that and wish him the speediest possible recovery.
  As the Minister said, the Bill is not controversial. However, some of the measures that it re-enacts appear to be the subject of Government review. If that review results in an attempt to remove some of the provisions, the Government may find themselves in rather more controversy than they have bargained for.
  10.32 pm
  Mr. Donald Dewar: First, I assure the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) that the present president of the Law Society of Scotland is still my senior legal partner. These days it may be an academic or theoretical connection; none the less, it is legally valid.
  I do not propose to spend long on the Bill, which is very much a consolidation measure; in any event, I recognise that I am circumscribed in that respect. I shall certainly not be tempted into an argument about whether we need a third division in the Court of Session. That sounds rather threatening. I welcome the Bill and the fact that 20 19th-century Acts have been raided and the various provisions regulating the Court of Session have been put in easily accessible form. That will certainly help practitioners.
  The Law Society was good enough to supply me with a number of comments on the Bill. In the interests of speed and fairness, I shall not refer to some of those comments, because they deal with law reform points rather than matters of consolidation. No doubt the Law Society will be taking them up with the powers that be with a view to getting changes made and improvements such as those referred to by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East introduced. It would be interesting, for example, to have a debate about the maximum number of judges. Even more optimistically, it was suggested that we might consider universal rights of audience in the Court of Session. That would certainly provoke a lengthy debate with the two members of the Bar who are assembled here.
  Clause 6 deals with the allocation of business by Act of Sederunt. Clause 6(i) gives a number of classifications of the causes brought into the court. It refers to
  "an Ordinary Roll … an Admiralty and Commercial Roll and … a Consistorial Roll"
  and a number of other matters. I have never practised in the Court of Session, but I am told that there is an optional procedure roll which is not mentioned in the Bill. Presumably, it can still be covered by Act of Sederunt, or perhaps it is seen as some sort of subsection to one of the main rolls to which I have referred. Perhaps the Minister

  1165
  could say whether it has had any statutory life in another Act and been dropped, or whether it has never had that kind of statutory form and authority. It is a minor point, but perhaps he could refer to it.
  The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East referred to the argument, which is receiving some publicity because of the Civil Evidence (Scotland) Bill, about the future of jury trials, but that is an argument for another occasion. I know that, by and large, members of the Bar and solicitors who practise in the Court of Session feel strongly that civil jury trials should survive. I do not complain about that, although the case is weakened by the fact that the number of jury trials has declined dramatically. At one time, they were reasonably frequent and there were more than 100 per session. I am told that we are now down to five or six, which suggests that, however important they may be, they are almost falling into desuetude.
  Mr. Menzies Campbell: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that many cases are settled before they come to proof or trial, and the mere fact that a case has been allocated for disposal by way of a jury trial frequently persuades the parties to effect a settlement, which in turn saves court time?
  Mr. Dewar: I am aware of that, and it is a fair point. The threat of a jury trial perhaps concentrates the mind wonderfully on settlement. That is sadly true of all litigation in the Court of Session, where the costs are now formidable, and I am not sure that we should accept that with much pleasure.
  I was interested to note that the senior solicitors who were quoted in the public prints this morning in defence of jury trials very honestly made it clear that their devotion to them is largely because they see them as a way in which to maximise damage awards. I have some sympathy with that, as someone who, with limited experience, has been interested in representing the pursuer.
  The Bill will be useful because it will make the chasing of the facts easier. Like most consolidation measures, it will do a useful job, and we should all welcome that. If it
  1166
  starts one or two hares running and reminds us about some of the changes and modernisation that are still required in Court of Session practice, but cannot be properly encompassed in a consolidation Bill, it will have done a second service, by persuading us to look for further reforms.
  10.37 am
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The answer to the first question asked by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) is that the matter is covered by Act of Sederunt under powers in clause 5. My understanding is that the courts are enabled to regulate their own procedures.
  I am grateful to the hon. Member for Garscadden and to the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) for raising those points and the points made by the Law Society, which will be carefully considered. They seem to be matters for the Lord Advocate, but not in the context of the Bill, which merely restates the existing law, making provision to remove laws which are anachronistic or obsolete.
  The hon. Member for Garscadden knows that there are now very few civil jury trials, but I understand that it is the Lord Advocate's intention to consult, and I am sure that he will contact both hon. Gentlemen. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that matter.
  The Bill is necessary because it repeals an Act of 1594, which debars a judge
  "from sitting in any cause where one of the parties is his father, brother or son or father-in-law, brother-in-law or son-in-law".
  The only problem is that the Act dealt only with a case where the related party was a male—not, for example, where one of the parties was the judge's sister. In these days of,equality of the sexes, I am sure that the House will generally welcome a measure that brings the law up to date.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Dorrell.]
  Committee tomorrow.

  Firefighters
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dorrell.]
  10.39 pm
  Ms. Hilary Armstrong: The subject of this debate arises because of the changes in the social security legislation, which came into force in April this year and take the earnings of retained firefighters into consideration when assessing benefit entitlement.
  In correspondence, the Minister, whom I thank for being here—I realise that he has had a busy day—offered as the main reason the fact that not taking such earnings into account would be a disincentive for unemployed retained firefighters to seek work. With due respect, I suggest that that ignores the fact that in areas such as mine we have the dual problem of a comparatively large number of retained firefighters in a rural area and still a large number of unemployed people.
  I accept that unemployment is changing, but it is difficult in our area to calculate what those changes are, because all my constituency is covered by travel-to-work areas. Moreover, the Government have made several changes to the way in which unemployment figures are calculated. Recent studies by Durham university show that the total number of jobs available has not increased during the past few years. We are losing some and gaining others. There is therefore still a large problem with unemployment.
  Firefighters join the service not to avoid work but to offer themselves for a highly dangerous and important public service. Constituents who have come to see me have looked for work. Some were previously in work but have been made redundant. They have offered themselves for firefighting when they are needed, but if work were available, they would take it. Paid work, however, is still a precious commodity in our area.
  Local residents are outraged that the Government seem to have such scant regard for the service of these men. Commitment to public service is an important issue today, and I believe that the Government are beginning to put out the message that they do not value it. That would be very unfortunate. I do not believe that that is the view of the Minister or of the Government, and I am offering the Minister an opportunity to demonstrate that there is a commitment to public service.
  I am not sure that the Minister needs reminding that a previous Secretary of State wrote in 1982:
  "I am happy to confirm that work as a part-time fireman does not affect entitlement to unemployment benefit. Similarly, any payment from employment as a part-time fireman in a fire brigade maintained in pursuance of the Fire Services Act is disregarded in the assessment for supplementary benefit entitlement."
  I believe that that commitment is not written on tablets of stone for ever more, but it was recognised that this is a public service which ought to be recognised and that those involved should not be penalised by having their benefit affected.
  Retained firefighters who are unemployed are on call 24 hours a day, and they are meant to be on call every day of the year. That in itself is an amazing act of public service. They are prepared to be tied to a narrow locality to be available in case of a fire.
  I understand that to date there has been only one resignation in Durham county. I congratulate the firemen
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  on that, because it demonstrates their commitment to service. In Durham much of the population is now located in somewhat scattered villages. Therefore, the importance of the local fire station and the local fire service cannot be overestimated. As I have said, retained firefighters are expected to respond on a 24-hour basis and within four minutes of a fire call so the location of the stations is crucial.
  In Durham, there are about 170 retained firemen, of whom 20 per cent. are unemployed. The distribution of those firefighters is not necessarily even. Some stations are affected more than others. Of the two stations affected in my constituency, one, in Langley Park, has five retained firefighters who are unemployed and the other, in Crook, has four retained firefighters who are unemployed. Those men represent over 50 per cent. of the force in those stations. I hope that the Minister can understand the concern in those communities about the potential effect of the changes in the legislation.
  As I have said, those firefighters have remained loyal to date, but they are looking to the Government for concessions. There are rumours—I emphasise that they are only rumours—that the Government are to re-examine things after six months. Some of those men are waiting for that.
  There is also the hope that the Government will be prepared to redesignate the retainer fee as bounty. I understand that bounty payments have been allowed for other public services—for example, for the Territorial Army—and I understand that some sort of concession has also been made to lifeboatmen. If that is so—as I have said, I do not have written evidence of it, although I have been told about it—I hope that the Government can reconsider the designation in respect of firefighters.
  One member of the service in Durham was recently paid his retainer fee and hoped that the Department of Health and Social Security would treat it as bounty. I understand that bounty is excluded under the legislation. However, the local office decided that it was not bounty and therefore that man's benefit has been affected for the next 26 weeks. He feels that throughout that period he will be working for nothing. It is also clear that different DHSS offices are interpreting the rules differently. I hope that the Minister can clear up some of the uncertainties and anxieties prompted by the rumours and different stories.
  However, the main concern is the potential effect on recruitment. The fire service has made particular efforts and has produced leaflets to try to recruit more people and to retain more firemen. It is clear that the shortage is partly due to local authorities and local fire authorities not being able to afford to employ the number of full-time firemen which I confess I wish that they were employing, because that would be the answer to the problem. However, in Durham a large percentage of our firefighters are in the retained sector. It is important that we can continue to recruit. I understand that nationally the recruitment is normally from one large establishment. In a rural area, there are not the large workplaces that would enable that more fruitful recruitment to take place.
  I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to think again. I hope that he will recognise the worth of the service that these people give to their local communities, the esteem in which those local communities hold them and the particular problems in rural areas, which still have high unemployment. If the hon. Gentleman cannot answer tonight, we shall look for an answer in the future. I hope

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  that the Minister can clear up the uncertainties and ensure that unemployed people feel that there is a role for them in public service and ensure, by changing the regulations, that the commitment involved is fully recognised by the Government.
  10.50 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Portillo): I very much appreciate the opening generous remarks by the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Ms. Armstrong). I congratulate her on obtaining this debate and on speaking so lucidly about the problems that she sees from her constituency experience. The Government share her high regard for the work carried out by the fire service as a whole. It is a matter of record that its firefighters have repeatedly performed heroically in the face of danger and at great personal risk to themselves, for the benefit and safety of others. I have the utmost regard for them and their work.
  The hon. Lady referred specifically to the position of the retained firefighters under the new income support scheme. Of course, officers should apply the new rules consistently and, if the hon. Lady has any examples of where that is not occurring, I shall be pleased to look into the matter for her.
  Retained firefighters are part-time firemen who voluntarily carry out their duties, often in addition to their normal full-time jobs. There are about 14,500, and only a small proportion are thought to be unemployed. We do not have any national figures, but if Durham is an indication the numbers of unemployed is likely to be under 12 per cent., and a considerably lower number may receive income support. I take the hon. Lady's point that in particular fire stations the proportion may be higher.
  The Government have always recognised the valuable role that retained firefighters have in our society and we continue to reflect that in the new income support scheme. Because they are special, we are now helping them in five distinct ways—help which, apart from transitional protection, is not generally available to other claimants.
  First, we are giving them the higher £15 a week disregard on their earnings instead of the standard £5 a week available to most other claimants. The £15 concession is normally available only to the more vulnerable groups—lone parents, people entitled to the disability premium and couples under 60 receiving benefit for two years or more. Retained firefighters, including fit single people, will get the £15 disregard automatically without having to satisfy any of those conditions.
  Secondly, we are treating the long-service bounty paid to retained firefighters as capital, not as income. Other people who receive a bounty from their employers will normally have it counted as though it were earnings. In the year it is received the long-service bounty is worth between £10 and £18 a week for basic grade firefighters, depending on the length of service, and even higher amounts are paid to higher ranks. In practice, that means that for some retained firefighters up to £33 a week can be received in certain years without affecting their level of income support. I think the hon. Lady will agree that that is a
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  significant concession in an income-related scheme, where many claimants are unable to work and therefore do not have the benefit of any earnings disregard.
  Thirdly, those retained firefighters who were receiving supplementary benefit, but whose income support is less because their earnings are above £15 a week, will have their previous benefit protected at the point of change to income support by transitional additions. That ensures that existing recipients will not lose benefit because of the new rules.
  Fourthly, we ignore the whole of their part-time earnings for unemployment benefit purposes. That has not changed. Since unemployment benefit is usually payable for the first year of unemployment and a person can requalify if he works 16 hours or more for just 13 weeks, this is a very generous concession for unemployed retained firefighters. Furthermore, because unemployment benefit is often paid at a higher rate than income support, many part-time firemen, if they find suitable employment before their unemployment benefit has been exhausted, will be completely unaffected by the new income support rules.
  Fifthly, their employment as retained firefighters is not normally considered to affect their availability for other work. As the hon. Lady will know, the condition that unemployed people should be available for suitable work is a prerequisite for their receiving unemployment benefit and income support. This is yet another demonstration of the Government's willingness to help retained firefighters.
  These in summary are the five ways in which we provide special help: we are disregarding the first £15 of their earnings in income support; we are treating their long-service bounty payments as capital; we are providing transitional protection to ensure that those on benefit under the old rules do not lose out; we are fully disregarding their earnings for unemployment benefit purposes; and we are ignoring their hours of work when deciding whether they satisfy the availability conditions for receiving benefit.
  The hon. Lady is concerned about why we have moved from a total disregard of firefighters' earnings applying to supplementary benefit. The total disregard was first introduced in 1968. It does not go back further than that. At that time firefighters' earnings were not high enough to affect the amount of the benefit that they were receiving, but their earnings have increased considerably since then. For example, on current rates of pay, a firefighter on the lowest rate who attends a drill night and is required for turnout once a week would receive earnings of just under £30. The information we have available is that retained firefighters earn around £43 a week on average. Clearly, some will earn more than that figure and perhaps well in excess of their income support entitlement.
  Let me give the House an example. Let us consider a single person earning £43 a week, with an income support entitlement of £33·40. By disregarding all his earnings he would be 125 per cent. better off than his unemployed counterpart. I do not believe that that can be right. It would be irresponsible of us, in a scheme that is supported wholly out of public funds, to give an open-ended disregard of earnings, regardless of how much those earnings might be. If we had done that, we would have been criticised.
  We must also consider the other consequences if, as the hon. Lady has suggested, we were to disregard all the earnings of retained firefighters. There is evidence to suggest that the complete disregard that existed under the

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  old scheme was acting as a disincentive for some full-time firemen to remain in their jobs because they were better off on benefits and earnings as retained firefighters. Furthermore, there was a definite risk of creating a disincentive for people seeking full-time work, particularly in areas where the proportion of low-paid jobs is higher than average. It must be remembered that income support is payable to unemployed people on the condition that they are available for, and willing to accept, full-time work.
  Nor do I think that we can afford to ignore the effects that a complete disregard under income support might have on full-time firemen with low earnings who claim the other income-related benefits, namely, family credit and housing benefit. Under family credit there are no disregards on earnings, while in housing benefit the first £5, or £10 if one of a couple, of any full-time earnings are ignored. Those rules would clearly favour the retained firefighter and serve to narrow, or even remove, the financial differentials between part-time and full-time firemen. Such a move would also be counter-productive to the Government's policy of encouraging people to be self-reliant.
  Like the hon. Lady, I should be very concerned if the income support regulations had an adverse effect on the retention and recruitment of firefighters. That is why we are liaising with the Home Office, which is monitoring the effect of the change in the treatment of earnings, the results of which are likely to be known at the end of the year. I suspect that that is why the six-month proposal has come into play. The Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council for England and Wales is fully aware of these monitoring arrangements.
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  Finally, the hon. Lady may be interested to learn about the latest position relating to personnel in Durham. She is right to say that there is a retained establishment of 270, of whom 32 are otherwise employed. She is also right to say that one man has resigned, giving the new rules as the reason, but I understand that he has since applied to be reinstated.
  We have had responses from other local authorities. I am pleased to say that no difficulties have been reported from Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Clwyd, Buckinghamshire, Dyfed, 'West Glamorgan, Gwent, Gwynedd, Hereford and Worcestershire, Powys, Shropshire, Staffordshire, West Midlands, Hertfordshire, Suffolk, Northamptonshire, Wiltshire and Leicestershire, but for the sake of completeness I ought to mention that three local authorities have expressed various degrees of concern about the problem.
  In conclusion, I assure the hon. Lady that the decision to discontinue the total disregard was not taken lightly—but we believe that it was justified—that we are monitoring the position and that, so far, we are unaware of widespread adverse effects on the retention and recruitment of retained firefighters.
  I have pleasure in saying again that there can be no doubt of the value that we place upon the services of retained firefighters. That is why, for those who are unemployed, we have made the special provisions that I set out in my reply. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the chance to spell out those special conditions. I hope that she will ponder on what I have said to her, just as I shall ponder on what she has told the House this evening.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at one minute past Eleven o'clock.