Commons Sitting of 7 July 1988

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  PRIVATE BUSINESS

    LONDON REGIONAL TRANSPORT BILL (By Order)
    Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [10 December], That the Bill be now considered.
    Considered; to be read the Third time.

    BRITISH RAILWAYS (NO. 2) BILL (By Order)
    Order for consideration read.
    To be considered on Thursday 14 July.

    TEIGNMOUTH QUAY COMPANY BILL (By Order)
      YORK CITY COUNCIL BILL [Lords] (By Order)
        CARDIFF BAY BARRAGE BILL (By Order)
          FALMOUTH CONTAINER TERMINAL BILL (By Order)
            NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE TOWN MOOR BILL [Lords] (By Order)
              PORT OF TYNE BILL [Lords] (By Order)

                AVON LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT BILL [Lords] (By Order)
                Orders for Second Reading read.
                To be read a Second time on Thursday 14 July.

Oral Answers to Questions
  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Set-aside Scheme
    Mr. Ron Davies:: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what consultation he had with the Game Conservancy Council prior to making his announcement concerning the set-aside of agricultural land; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Selwyn Gummer): The Game Conservancy Council gave us detailed views in response to the consultation documents that we issued last December and we took those into account, together with views from a wide range of other bodies, in reaching the conclusions that my right hon. Friend announced in the House on 14 June.
    Mr. Davies: Will the Minister bear in mind that the Game Conservancy Council believes that, to provide the most effective environmental benefit, set-aside strips should be accompanied by conservation headlands? Now
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    that the Government have introduced the former as part of their set-aside proposals, do they intend to provide the latter as part of their extensification proposals?
    Mr. Gummer: I have a great deal of sympathy for such arguments. I know that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that fact, as I took some part in the experiment that we are conducting in the Brecklands, which I hope will be a success. Although conservation headlands are admirable in providing benefits to wildlife, they do not conform to the requirements of the set-aside scheme and that is why they are not part of it. We shall consider such headlands and other possibilities when we try to find a good way of carrying out extensification, which is not easy.
    Sir John Farr: Is my right: hon. Friend aware that the consultations are regarded by the House as important and significant? Has his Department considered introducing a regime of low-input, low-output farming?
    Mr. Gummer: I assure my hon. Friend that we have considered that. From the discussions that we have had in committees on which we have served he will know that it is a matter of great importance to us. There are problems about creating such a regime and about policing it. If there were not such problems it would all be much easier. I do not have any answers yet, and if my hon. Friend has some further points to put to me I should be happy to listen, because I sympathise with his aims.
    Mr. Morley: Will the Minister confirm that there has been a cool response from farmers to the set-aside scheme? Will he accept that the sums of money involved do not make it an attractive proposal to farmers who grow the bulk of cereal crops, and that the scheme is more likely to attract the more marginal producer? Therefore, if we are spending public money to try to reduce surpluses, has he considered whether that money should be targeted to introduce much more environmentally advantageous farming, whether through low-input farming or other schemes, such as farm woodland projects?
    Mr. Gummer: We have already produced our farm woodland project and we are to introduce an extensification scheme. We are also achieving a great deal through the environmentally sensitive areas. I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman can accuse us of not taking on board the issues that he has put forward. The set-aside scheme is specifically designed to decrease the production of cereals. We have found that the scheme is attractive to the people to whom it is supposed to be attractive—the marginal producers of cereal. I believe that we would be criticised by the Opposition Front Bench if we were in the business of doling out public money in excess of that which is necessary. I have heard all sorts of words from Opposition spokesmen, and they would be even tougher if I had done other than ensure that we have a system that takes out those who are only marginal producers.
    Mr. Bellingham: Is the Minister aware of the efforts made by farmers in East Anglia to plant spinneys, replant hedgerows and leave headlands to encourage conservation and country sports? That has done a great deal to enhance the beauty of the environment. Will he tell the League Against Cruel Sports and some of their supporters among the Opposition that if they had their way all this good work would come to an end overnight?
    Mr. Gummer: I consider that country sports are one of the most important elements in the conservation of the countryside. I am glad of the support that we have had from bodies that support such sports.

    Fur Farming
    Mr. Haynes: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food which species of animals are currently farmed for their fur in Britain.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Donald Thompson): Mink, white, red and cross fox and fitch are farmed for fur in Britain.
    Mr. Haynes: Is the Minister aware that, like a woman, these little furry friends of ours are beautiful? Will he seriously consider the issuing of licences for this sort of farming? Will he also seriously consider the complete elimination of licences for this sort of farming over the next 10 years?
    Mr. Thompson: The mink farmers are licensed and almost insist that they are. There are few other fur farmers. I have heard what the hon. Gentleman said about abolishing fur farms here, but the number of fur farms in Europe is increasing and I would have to think carefully before putting British farmers at any disadvantage.

    Pollution
    Mr. Duffy: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he next expects to meet the president of the National Farmers Union to discuss agricultural pollution.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John MacGregor): I have discussed this with various members of the National Farmers Union, including the president. Farming unions are already well aware that the Government regard last year's number of pollution incidents as unacceptably high.
    Mr. Duffy: Is that good enough, given that illegal farm discharges of slurry and silage in Yorkshire and Humberside last year were up by 38 per cent.? Is the Minister aware that south Yorkshire's water supply is 25 per cent. derived from surface-derived water abstracted from the River Derwent outside York, which itself is a catchment area of intensive agriculture? If so, he will understand the concern in south Yorkshire. I am being asked whether the time has not arrived for the Minister to consider a more vigorous prosecution policy.
    Mr. MacGregor: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we take this matter seriously. I know that the National Farmers Union is now doing so. We have fully backed water authorities in stepping up prosecutions. Through ADAS we have offered general free advice and we are carrying out a great programme in this area to assist. We are carrying out research into improved construction and management of waste-handling facilities. Capital grants for this sort of purpose, for dealing with waste storage and handling equipment, are available at the highest rates. We take this matter seriously. Clearly, we cannot have this sort of increase in farm pollution incidents.
    Mr. Bowis: Will my right hon. Friend discuss with the farming community ways of encouraging modern crop spraying methods, such as the electrically charged droplets system, which uses much less water and therefore causes much less drift spray pollution in the countryside?
    Mr. MacGregor: I have seen a considerable amount of that sort of thing at various shows and other exhibitions, where the attractions of such equipment have been drawn to the attention of farmers. I know that agricultural machinery companies are constantly trying to improve these sorts of facilities, and I agree that they are one way of helping to deal with the problem.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Is the loss of the common minnow in the Cumbrian lakes in any way linked to this agricultural pollution?
    Mr. MacGregor: I shall look into that and write to the hon. Gentleman.

    Cod
    Mr. Dunnachie: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what recent representations he has received regarding a mid-year adjustment to the North sea cod total allowable catch for 1988; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Gummer: I am aware of concern by fishermen about the allocation of the United Kingdom sea cod quota, but I have had no recent representations about a mid-year adjustment to the total allowable catch for 1988. No change to it was recommended in the most recent biannual scientific assessment at the end of May.
    Mr. Dunnachie: Does the Minister agree that the industry cannot be run viably when the quotas of species such as cod fluctuate so wildly? Will he listen to the fishermen as well as the scientists?
    Mr. Gummer: If one listened to the fishermen one would hear all sorts of different voices, including the voices of those who always want an increase in the number of fish that can be caught. We must listen to the scientists. If we do not, there will be no fish for fishermen to catch—not only next year, but when their children go fishing. I am in the business of conserving our fish stocks so that I can conserve the fishing industry.
    Mr. John Townend: Is my right hon. Friend aware that British fishermen are demanding not more fish than last year, but a fair share of the quota? Does he accept that the quota for the Yorkshire and Anglian fish producers' organisation has been cut by significantly more than the reduction in the United Kingdom quota? If something is not done, that will result in the collapse of the producers' organisation.
    Mr. Gummer: I do not accept that. My hon. Friend must agree that the quota given to the Yorkshire and Anglian fish producers' organisation is a fair share of our national quota. It has been cut, but, of course, some boats have left that producers' organisation. If I gave his producers' organisation more of the cod, I would have to take it from other producers' organisations, and they would rightly say that that was unfair. The system is operated fairly between different parts of the country, and I can see no other way of doing it.
    Dr. Godman: North sea cod fishermen have a legitimate worry. May I offer my compliments to the Minister on obtaining at the recent Council meeting a reduction in the minimum landing size of nephrops? However, the disappointment about west coast mackerel is considerable. These achievements and failures fall within the framework of the common fisheries policy. Will the Minister assure the House that with the advent of the European single market we will not see the demise of the common fisheries policy, especially in relation to access agreements and historic fishing rights?
    Mr. Gummer: The Government are wholly committed to the basis of the common fisheries policy. It gives our fishermen a very fair share of the fish that are available in the European Community. Any renegotiation of that would be bound to give our fishermen a smaller share. That is the reality. We are determined to see that the situation remains as it is and that the policy is applied to new resources in exactly the same way as it is applied to old resources. I give that assurance to the hon. Gentleman.

    Farming Unions
    Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he last met representatives of the farming unions; and what matters were discussed.
    Mr. MacGregor: I meet representatives of the farming unions frequently to discuss agricultural matters.
    Mr. Jones: During his discussions with the farming unions, does the Minister discuss the implications of the recent House of Lords ruling that income levy raised by the Meat and Livestock Commission is not VAT-recoverable? Is he aware that that represents a loss of about £2·5 million a year to the agriculture industry, and that to some people it is seen as the thin end of the wedge for the introduction of VAT on food? Does he intend to discuss the matter with the Chancellor of the Exchequer with a view to introducing regulations to amend that ruling?
    Mr. MacGregor: As I think the hon. Gentleman has recognised, this is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his colleagues. I am obviously aware of the concerns that have been expressed as a result of the House of Lords ruling. However, it has absolutely nothing to do with any question of VAT on food, on which the Government's position is entirely clear. There is no question of this being the thin end of the wedge.
    Mr. Colin Shepherd: Has my right hon. Friend discussed with the farming unions the question of livestock in respect of the set-aside proposals contained in the latest agreement? Does he agree that it is particularly important to the west of the country that the livestock sector should be kept strong, and that there should be no temptation to move the livestock centre of gravity towards the east into land that might otherwise have been used for grain production? Does he further agree that it is vital for this matter to be understood so that the full confidence of the livestock sector in the west of the country may be maintained?
    Mr. MacGregor: I agree with my hon. Friend. In the decisions that I took on set-aside, and especially the decision not to take up the grazed fallow option, I had very much in mind the interests of the livestock sector, not only on the western side of England but in Wales and Scotland, and especially in the hill areas. Therefore, I understand the point of his question about the possibilities that might have arisen if we had gone for the grazed fallow option.
    The other matter that my hon. Friend might be concerned about is whether we can achieve greater transferability of quotas in the dairy sector. From all the discussions that I have had with British farmers, I can tell my hon. Friend that I do not think that greater transferability of quota would undermine the livestock sector in the west. I assure my hon. Friend that. I am conscious of the importance of that sector to farming on the western side of the country.
    Mr. Geraint Howells: I am sure that the Minister will agree that it is difficult for members of the farmers union, for his Department and for our friends in the EC to introduce a sensible policy that will be acceptable to the farmers of this country, will cut production and will ensure that they have a reasonable livelihood in the years to come. Does he further agree that, if 10 per cent. of the land in this country is taken out of production, the farmers will be able to produce even more, if that is their wish? Does he agree, therefore, that it is essential that we consult for a long period before we make a decision that may be wrong for the rural dweller, the farmer and the consumer in this country?
    Mr. MacGregor: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I consult and am in discussion all the time before taking decisions on matters that affect the agricultural community.
    The need to take more land out of agricultural production arises simply because of the capacity to grow more from the land and, in any case, because of technological developments. I am anxious to ensure a reasonable transition that preserves the attractiveness of the countryside for all of us as that land comes out of production. That is the purpose of a number of the schemes that we have been pioneering recently.
    Mr. Cormack: Has my right hon. Friend had recent discussions on the problems and anxieties of pig producers, and is he able to give any further reassurances?
    Mr. MacGregor: I am very much aware of the problems. We have done all that it is possible for the Government to do within the context of the CAP, both earlier in securing for a proper period—not too long—a private storage aid, and as a result of the decisions taken in the Community in the price negotiations on the further reduction of negative MCAs. That means that, shortly, the negative MCAs in the pigmeat sector will have dwindled to almost nothing, provided we obtain final agreement on price negotiations. However, one of the problems currently facing the pig sector is the possible increase in feed costs, as a result of the drought in the United States.
    Dr. David Clark: When the Minister met the agricultural leaders, did he discuss with them the proposals to dump in Britain the domestic rubbish from New York and elsewhere? Did they tell him that the farmers and the British people are not prepared to become the garbage tip

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    of the world, with the accompanying health and disease risks? Will he give the House an assurance that he will continue to refuse a licence for such applications?
    Mr. MacGregor: We have not yet had discussions with the farming unions on this matter—nor have they raised it with us—but we have already been considering it carefully. In so far as it is our responsibility, particularly in relation to animal health, I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are considering it carefully.

    Organic Farming
    Mr. Colvin: T: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what support his Department is giving to organic farming.
    Mr. MacGregor: My Department is giving full support to the board of the United Kingdom register of organic food standards in the task of setting standards for organic production which are essential if organic farming is to achieve its potential. In addition, those farming organically benefit from the various agricultural support measures in the same way as other farmers, while the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service is equipping itself to respond to demands for specialised advice.
    Mr. Colvin: My right hon. Friend will be aware that, under the set-aside proposals, farmers will merely try to produce more food from their remaining acres. In view of what he said, therefore, will he consider giving financial incentives to those who practise extensive farming methods, which would not only reduce farm surpluses, but would ensure that the food that we produce was much better for us and would cut our imports of organic food, which at present constitute 60 per cent. of the total consumption of the United Kingdom?
    Mr. MacGregor: I do not think that there will be in this country the increase in production on land that is not set aside within a farm as one sees in, for example, the United States, because, on the whole, United Kingdom farmers are already farming to maximum efficiency and productivity. I do not think, therefore, that that particular point arises, but my hon. Friend will know that organic farming was not a feature of the set-aside scheme because it was not a part of the thinking behind it, although those who take up the fallowing aspect of set-aside may find that that has some implications for organic farming.
    Set-aside was not designed to deal with the organic farming issue. The matter arises in the extensification proposals that we will consider in the Community and in the United Kingdom. We will then consider closely the possibility of an organic farming option within the extensification proposals.
    Mr. Boswell: I welcome the opportunities for informed consumer choice and what my right hon. Friend has said about the encouragement of organic farming, but does he agree that British food produced by conventional methods is equally good and wholesome?
    Mr. MacGregor: Yes, it is important to keep stressing that. I agree with my hon. Friend. There is among some consumers a growing demand for organically grown food which I should like to see our farmers meeting. That is the reason for setting up the register, which enables us to
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    establish nationally recognised production standards for consumers who want organic food. However, my hon. Friend's point is entirely right and relevant.

    Milk Marketing Board
    Mr. Robert G. Hughes: T: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he last met the chairman of the Milk Marketing Board; and what was discussed.
    Mr. MacGregor: I met the chairman of the Milk Marketing Board on 9 June, when we discussed various issues affecting the dairy industry.
    Mr. Hughes: When my right hon. Friend next meets the chairman of the Milk Marketing Board, will he stress the importance of giving all possible help and encouragement to our quality milk producers in seeking to find export markets for their goods? Does he agree that the liberalisation of the European milk regime is liable to widen those markets and that milk producers should take all the opportunities presented to them?
    Mr. MacGregor: In the last financial year the Milk Marketing Board spent nearly £24 million in support of market development, and that effort must be encouraged. I agree with the implication of my hon. Friend's remarks that sometimes we in Britain have concentrated too much in a rather defensive way on the dangers of imports of milk products and not sufficiently on the prospects for exports of our dairy products. I hope that as we move towards the single market we shall increasingly take opportunities to exploit those markets.
    Mr. Martlew: At a recent meeting with the head of the Milk Marketing Board we were told that there was no longer a milk surplus in the United Kingdom and there is a shortage of milk in Scotland. Is it not a fact that the surpluses in Europe are being created by EEC countries that have not met the quota? What will the Minister do to protect British farmers?
    Mr. MacGregor: That is not the case. There is still overall a milk surplus within the Community. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I encourage the two Milk Marketing Boards to sort out problems that arise as a result of seasonal troughs and certain shortages, for example, milk for cheese production—a problem which arose particularly in Scotland. I am glad to say that as a result of the talks some arrangements have now been made to transfer milk from England to Scotland.
    Mr. Curry: When my right hon. Friend next meets the chairman of the Milk Marketing Board, will he discuss with him the remarkable turnaround in the European dairy industry? Will he note that there is now virtually no skimmed milk powder to be had, that the butter mountain has been more than halved and that the incorporation premium has been reduced? If he studies the Milk Marketing Board's annual report, he will also note that since it ceased to put large amounts of butter into cold store its financial situation has improved because it is not tying up its money so much.
    Mr. MacGregor: My hon. Friend is right. There has been a considerable change as a result of the decisions taken by the Council of Ministers on the dairy sector, in

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    particular the introduction of quotas and the tightening of quotas in 1986, so that we are achieving a better balance between supply and demand. My hon. Friend is also right to draw attention to the considerable reductions in the amount of butter in intervention and to the fact that the amount of skimmed milk powder in intervention has come down to practically nil. On the other hand, we still have sizeable subsidy support programmes to dispose of some of the surpluses, including skimmed milk powder. We are still paying a good deal of money to encourage its disposal. Nevertheless, my hon. Friend is correct to say that substantial progress has been made.
    Mr. Ron Davies: Will the Minister also discuss bovine somatotropin with the board, and in particular, the view of a group of scientists employed by the Monsanto chemical company who think that if BST is licensed it should be made available on prescription only? Is that not a reasonable policy to follow?
    Mr. MacGregor: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have permitted under the Medicines Act 1971 the BST trials that are taking place because we were satisfied, from all the advice and evidence that we were given, that within the terms and criteria set by that Act it was right to do so. We have not yet received advice on the application for licences, and we shall have to take various matters into account when making those decisions.

    Poultry
    Mr. Alexander: T: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps is he taking to ensure that the health of the United Kingdom poultry flock will continue to be safeguarded after 1992; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Donald Thompson: While the Government fully support the single European market, we believe that animal health should be achieved by working towards uniformly high standards throughout the Community. In the meantime, we shall press for eradication of serious diseases and the maintenance of necessary controls. The European Commission has yet to make any detailed proposals.
    Mr. Alexander: I note my hon. Friend's comments, but will he confirm that the current quarantine regulations will remain in force after 1992? Is he aware that this is a matter of the utmost concern to both poultry breeders and farmers?
    Mr. Thompson: I am aware of that concern and have answered a great deal of correspondence from my hon. Friend and others on the subject of the quarantine regulations, which we are determined will remain in place for as long as they are necessary.
    Mr. Butler: Has my hon. Friend yet made any assessment of the danger to the United Kingdom poultry stock from the importation of millions of tonnes of American domestic waste into this country?
    Mr. Thompson: My right hon. Friend touched on that matter in a previous answer. I am doing all that I can to ensure that if any American waste is imported it contains no animal matter or any matter injurious to animal or plant health in this country. Perhaps we may have to invoke the well-tried rule that the polluter pays.

    Dolphins
    Mr. David Shaw: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what measures he will take to prevent the killing of dolphins.
    Mr. Gummer: The United. Kingdom Government are opposed to the needless killing of dolphins and will continue to press for further measures to protect dolphins and small cetaceans, through the International Whaling Commission and other relevant international fora.
    Mr. Shaw: Is my right hon. Friend aware that almost everyone loves dolphins, which are graceful and beautiful animals, and that there is much appreciation of the Government's work and the concern that they have expressed? However, can my right hon. Friend say what the Government are doing in response to recent reports that the Faroese are continuing to kill dolphins?
    Mr. Gummer: Immediately we received that information about the Faroese we asked for an immediate investigation. What happened is clearly contrary to the law of the Faroes and we are determined to do all that we can to defend dolphins and small whales, as well as larger whales. I am pleased to report that we have received commendation for our action not only from Greenpeace locally but from that organisation's headquarters, and from Sir Peter Scott.
    Mr. Macdonald: Does the Minister accept that one of the problems is sheer lack of knowledge about dolphin numbers and the tendency of the dolphin population to decline? Will he undertake to fund research into the dolphin population, to discover the causes of its declining numbers?
    Mr. Gummer: The question of inshore dolphins, relating to our country, is one for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, and I shall certainly talk to him about it. We are committed to the view that the depredations of those animals and of whales in general are wholly unacceptable, and we shall do all that we can to ensure that mankind does not destroy that important part of its heritage.

    Chernobyl
    Mr. Patrick Thompson: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what further action he intends to take consequent upon lessons learnt in the aftermath of the Chernobyl incident.
    Mr. Gummer: My Department has participated fully in the interdepartmental review leading to the setting up by the Department of the Environment of a national response plan for dealing with any future nuclear emergency overseas, and we shall continue to review and update our emergency arrangements in the light of the experience afforded by the Chernobyl accident.
    Mr. Thompson: I welcome my right hon. Friend's reply, in particular as it applies to the co-ordination and dissemination of information following such an incident. What credibility does my right hon. Friend give to suggestions from Opposition Members that contaminated lamb has got into the food chain despite the restrictions on movements that were applied by his Department?
    Mr. Gummer: I give no credence whatever to that. I do not believe that anyone in this country, in any circumstances or on any occasion, was in any way endangered as a result of eating lamb after the Chernobyl incident. What saddens me is the way in which the Opposition have sought to make party political propaganda out of frightening people, when there has been no reason for it.
    Dr. David Clark: With respect, the Minister has not answered his hon. Friend's question. Did any sheep that were checked as having high radioactivity levels and which should have been remonitored go for slaughter without such remonitoring? The question is not how safe it was to eat meat, but how many sheep entered the food chain.
    Mr. Gummer: All sheep remonitored on request were found to be below the action level. A third were monitored: there is no reason whatever to monitor every sheep. If Opposition Members do not understand that, they are once again trying to do what they ought not to—do down the British farmer—and frighten the British consumer in circumstances that make that entirely unnecessary. They should be ashamed of themselves.
    Miss Emma Nicholson: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that his officials were significantly better prepared to deal with the Chernobyl disaster than were the officials of other member states of the European Community?
    Mr. Gummer: I should not like to do down officials in any other country, but I believe that our officials behaved extremely well and were very well prepared. I am sometimes sorry that they are not given the kind of support that they ought to receive from the whole House. The fact is that because of their prompt, continued and energetic action no one in this country was endangered by eating food after the Chernobyl accident, and that is a very remarkable thing to be able to say.

    Horticulture
    Mr. Matthew Taylor: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the current state of the horticulture sector.
    Mr. Donald Thompson: The latest available figures, to be published next month, show an increase of 11 per cent. in the value of horticultural produce, rising from £1,219 million in 1986 to £1,349 million in 1987. Despite the setback caused by the great storm last October, the industry is buoyant and there is a feeling of increased optimism among growers.
    Mr. Taylor: Is the Minister aware that the Government's recent announcement of the unexpected and far worse than anticipated news that there is to be a cutback of up to 65 per cent. in their horticultural research spending has dealt a devastating blow to the morale that the Minister has just mentioned? Will he reconsider that decision? Is he aware of the particular concern in my part of the country over the future of the Rosewarne experimental station?
    Mr. Thompson: I am fully aware of the hon. Gentleman's concern about Rosewarne. There is no need to reconsider the decisions involved, as they have not yet been fully considered. Consideration is continuing.
    Mr. Lord: My hon. Friend will be aware of the grave concern of both horticulturists and sugar beet growers following the recent importation of rhizomania on the root balls of Acers from Holland. What action is being taken to deal immediately with this urgent problem? In the light of the forthcoming plans for 1992, is my hon. Friend satisfied that other EEC countries have plant hygiene standards equal to ours?
    Mr. Thompson: My hon. Friend will realise that the Dutch are as anxious as we are to ensure that such an incident does not happen again, because a huge Dutch export industry relies on the highest possible quality of plant and tree being introduced into this country. Our officials are at present in Holland discussing the matter with the growers and their officials, and we hope that it will be sensibly and satisfactorily resolved in the near future.
    Dr. David Clark: Will the Minister confirm that the horticulture industry has been shattered-to use Simon Gourlay's word—by his announcement of a reduction of 65 per cent. in research and development spending? Will he also confirm that these massive cuts are part and parcel of proposed cuts of £60 million in spending on research and development in agriculture and food? Does he not accept that this is a stupid and short-sighted policy?
    Mr. Thompson: I do not accept that trying to attract more money into research and development from wherever possible is stupid or shortsighted. We are convinced that at the end of our discussions the industry and the Government will have a greater and better-organised input into research and development than ever before.

    Caffeine
    Mr. Thurnham: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement about his policy towards the sale of soft drinks containing a high level of caffeine.
    Mr. Donald Thompson: Draft proposals for revised soft drinks regulations issued for public consultation on 18 May include a provision to limit the caffeine content of soft drinks to 125 mg/litre. Government policy will not be finalised until all comments have been considered.
    Mr. Thurnham: Does my hon. Friend agree that manufacturers should not encourage children to consume drinks with excessive levels of stimulants? When he decides this matter, will he treat the protection of children as a priority?
    Mr. Thompson: When we decide any matters of additives in food or drink, including caffeine, the protection of children is paramount.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: In the light of the work done by Dr. Wurtman in America and others on the difficulties that arise from the use of aspartame, otherwise known as Canderel or Nutrasweet, in soft drinks, will the Government now review approval that they gave to Searle, the manufacturers, some four years ago?
    Mr. Thompson: We constantly review the approvals that we have given. At present we have no intention of reviewing that product.

    Pollution
    Mr. Barron: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what discussions he has had with water authorities about reducing agricultural pollution of rivers and streams.
    Mr. Gummer: I have had discussions with the Ministry's representatives on water authorities about reducing pollution and have arranged to meet the chairmen of the Anglian water authority and the Water Authorities Association later this month.
    Mr. Barron: Does the Minister accept the growing concern over pollution to rivers from agriculture? There was an increase of 60 per cent. in serious pollution incidents last year in this country. Does the Minister accept also the argument put by many people that the advice given from ADAS ought to be free, not only on the first visit, but on further visits as well, to ensure that all is being done to stop the atrocious pollution of our rivers?
    Mr. Gummer: I am sure the hon. Gentleman will know that I condemned that considerable rise and said to the farming community that it is up to it to make the necessary changes. We already give the highest rate of grant for the changes that have to be made to farmers. As the hon. Gentleman said, we give the first visit free, but it is not unreasonable for people to pay something towards the detailed application, because they get very high rates of grant for the work that they have to carry out. What is more important, having done the work, the day-to-day management has to be excellent, and we are encouraging farmers in that.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the serious concern expressed by the Welsh water authority over pollution, which has doubled in Wales in recent years? Will he consider whether the 60 per cent. grant which is available in hill areas might be extended to lowland areas?
    Mr. Gummer: I am always willing to look at such things, but I consider that the grant levels are right. Many people who have carried out the changes that needed to be made have not carried on with the day-to-day management. Pollution incidents arise, even when proper installations have been made. Therefore, we have to insist that farmers properly maintain those installations, and we must support water authorities and magistrates in enforcing the law.

    ADAS
    Mr. Geraint Howells: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he has any plans to privatise the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. McGregor: I have no plans to do so.
    Mr. Howells: I am sure that agriculturists will be delighted with that answer. There is no more to be said.

    Pollution
    Mr. Brandon-Bravo: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether, in the light of increased river pollution from farm effluent, he will be seeking stiffer penalties on those found guilty.
    Mr. Gummer: The Government have drawn the attention of the Magistrates Association to the need for penalties to reflect the seriousness of water pollution offences.
    Mr. Brandon-Bravo: Does my right hon. Friend agree that if those penalties are to be effective they must be painful, and seen to be painful? There is growing public concern and a growing belief that the polluter should pay, not just the fine in a magistrates' court, but the cost of putting right the damage done by that pollution.
    Mr. Gummer: It is important that the fines should be sufficient. The highest penalty for a single case in 1987 was £3,000, with costs of £4,500. We are beginning to crack down very hard on this offence. Ultimately, it is up to the farming community to ensure that its enterprises and activities do not harm the water of the nation. We are determined to see that that happens.
    Mr. Hardy: Is the Minister aware that since this Government took office the condition of Britain's rural rivers and streams has deteriorated at an astonishing pace? It is no good calling for extra penalties if the water authorities do not bring prosecutions. In many areas there has been a sharp decline in the number of prosecutions brought, despite an enormous increase in the number of offences.
    Mr. Gummer: I do not think that that assessment of o waters and rivers stands up. We are determined to support water authorities when they bring prosecutions and people are found guilty. We are also supportive of the strongest implementation of the fines imposed by magistrates. The hon. Gentleman must accept that it is up to the water authorities to carry out those prosecutions. In many cases they have found that by conciliation and work with farmers they can produce a better response than by taking farmers to court.

    Continental Pig Producers
    Mr. Gill: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has any evidence of hidden subsidies to continental pig producers; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Donald Thompson: Recent Italian and French state aids in the pig sector are the subject of Commission investigations. Rulings on their legality are awaited. We are always prepared to refer firm evidence of possible illegal aids to the Commission for action.
    Mr. Gill: Does my hon. Friend agree that a failure to implement fair trade in pigmeat will not only weaken the position of the British pig industry, but seriously undermine the United Kingdom balance of payments?
    Mr. Thompson: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. He will welcome the reduction, all things being equal, of the MCA on pigmeat to—1·7 per cent. next January, and I am sure that he will be joined in his welcome of that by the NFU and the National Pig Breeders Association.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Mathew Taylor: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 7 July.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today. This evening I shall be presiding at a dinner in honour of the recently retired secretary general of NATO Lord Carrington.
    Mr. Taylor: The Prime Minister will be aware of the great difficulties facing young people looking for housing in areas such as Cornwall. Does she agree with the comments in Building Today of her Secretary of State for the Environment in relation to his two new papers on rural housing, when he said:
    "I don't see this as making a major contribution to solving the housing problem."?
    The Prime Minister: I fully support my right hon. Friend's most excellent paper, which is designed to ensure an increase in the life of rural communities by attracting more industry and light industry, and by providing more housing of a kind that will persuade these young people to stay in rural areas.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Will my right hon. Friend find time in her busy day to send a message of encouragement and thanks to our naval personnel in the Gulf on the Armilla patrol? All their families and friends and, indeed, the whole House will wish them well in the difficult job that they have been doing these past eight years.
    The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and will certainly respond to his invitation. Our naval personnel have been doing their task extremely well, quietly and efficiently, regularly accompanying many ships up the Gulf. The whole House will wish to join my hon. Friend in his good wishes and thanks.
    Mr. Kinnock: May I fully endorse the Prime Minister's sympathy for those who have lost loved ones and who have been injured in the horrific accident in the North sea oilfield. May I join her in commending those in the rescue services who have shown bravery and skill. Mindful of the scale of this disaster and aware of the memory of other disasters and the implications for families who have been bereaved and suffered losses or injury, may I ask the Prime Minister whether she will now give further consideration to establishing a system of no-fault compensation, which would at least provide immediate support and future financial security for people hit by horrors such as these?
    The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Energy, is in Aberdeen, and I spoke to him at lunchtime. There will be a full statement after questions, but my right hon. Friend wished to say that the rescue services, always good, had on this occasion absolutely excelled themselves. We should all be very grateful to them for that, although we know the enormous tragedy with which they were faced.
    The right hon. Gentleman asked about no-fault compensation. I cannot undertake to introduce statutory no-fault compensation, for reasons that the right hon.
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    Gentleman will know—the matter has been debated and discussed for a very long time—but he will have heard at previous Question Times that a number of voluntary no-fault compensation schemes are being introduced and that I agreed to look at them.
    Sir Richard Body: Has my right hon. Friend seen a report of the speech made by the President of the EEC at Strasbourg yesterday in which he estimated that, with the Single European Act in place, in 10 years' time 80 per cent. of social and economic decisions now made by national parliaments will be made in Brussels? Does she agree with that estimate of 80 per cent. and if it is some other percentage will she tell the House?
    The Prime Minister: I heard the reports of what was said in Brussels and I do not agree with what was said on the occasion.
    Mr. Wall: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 7 July.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Wall: Will the Prime Minister explain why her Government abolished independent provision for safety in the North sea in 1980? Does not the transfer of that function to the Department of Energy leave the Government open to accusations that huge profits are more important than safety and human lives? Will she further explain why provision for independent safety representatives has been opposed for nine years by the Government and the oil industry? Does not this tragedy show the need for working people in the North sea to have the right to statutory provision to bring safety aspects to the notice of authorities on all occasions?
    The Prime Minister: As I said earlier, there will be a full statement after questions. In the meantime, it is obvious that we all wish to express our deep sympathy with the people concerned—those who have been injured and the bereaved of the very many whom we seem to have lost. My right hon. Friend will be referring in his statement to safety and to the recent inspections on the rig, and it would be best if we waited for that statement.
    Mr. Couchman: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 7 July.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Couchman: We are all acutely conscious of the tragedy in the North sea today, but may I turn to the continuing tragedy in Northern Ireland? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that our troops, to whom she has so often paid tribute, will remain in Northern Ireland as long as law and order demand? In that context, has my right hon. Friend been approached by any other party leader for advice on how to deal with a Front-Bench spokeswoman who has broken the bipartisan approach by demanding the withdrawal of troops?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The question must refer to the Prime Minister's responsibilities.
    The Prime Minister: May I answer my hon. Friend's main point. In thinking of other tragedies we perhaps do not remember often enough some of the daily tragedies that occur in Northern Ireland. Our troops will, of course,

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    stay there as long as the situation requires them to do so and I hope that all hon. Members will join me in paying tribute to their courage and dedication as well as to that of the RUC.
    Mr. Vaz: Does the Prime Minister agree that it is one of the fundamental principles of our democracy that all our citizens should have equal access to the law and to proper legal advice? If she does, how does she square those sentiments with the proposals in the Legal Aid Bill, which seeks to deny citizens the right to select the lawyer or legal adviser of their choice? Is she not deeply ashamed, especially as she is a former lawyer, that hers is the first British Government in history to put justice out to competitive tender?
    The Prime Minister: The fundamental principle is, I believe, that all people are equal before the law. As they come before the courts their rights are absolutely equal. Under this Government the amount spent on legal aid has made that budget one of the fastest rising budgets of all. We have spread opportunity ever more widely.
    Mrs. Gillian Shepherd: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 7 July.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mrs. Shephard: Will my right hon. Friend find time today to consider the encouraging improvement in employment in south-west Norfolk, especially in Thetford, where unemployment has fallen during the past year from 11 per cent. to less than 6 per cent.? Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be a great encouragement to those successful companies in Thetford, which in expanding have taken advantage of the Government's economic policies, if the Department of Transport were to increase its investment in the dualling of the A11, so that sooner rather than later Norfolk will be linked convincingly by a dualled road network to the rest of the United Kingdom?
    The Prime Minister: I am delighted to hear the figures on the fall in unemployment in Thetford, which has been brought about by greater prosperity. Advantage has been taken of that prosperity by more small businesses starting up. I know my hon. Friend's views on the A11/M11. I think she will agree that when the present works are finished about 80 per cent. of the road will be dual carriageway all the way up to Norwich. I shall carefully consider my hon. Friend's comments on further improvements.
    Mr. Boateng: Is the Prime Minister aware that there are more people homeless and sleeping rough on the streets of our capital city than in any other capital city in Europe, with the exception of Istanbul? Is the right hon. Lady aware that for every £4 that the Government spend on the homeless £10 was spent under the last Labour Government? Is she aware that last night the city of Westminster agreed to close a hostel for the homeless to make way for studio flats for the well-to-do? We know that the Prime Minister has no compassion, but has she no shame? What will she do for the homeless?
    The Prime Minister: This point came up a few weeks ago and the same allegations were made. Inquiries were carried out. According to the figures, and as far as we are
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    aware, there has been no increase in the number of people in difficulty in the capital and some places are available in hostels which are not taken up every night. Young people can benefit from a number of our measures—[Interruption.] More than 14,700 places have been approved since April 1981 to benefit the young single homeless and others. We made it easier for council tenants to sub-let so that they can take in people who need lodgings. We are increasing the programme of grants to voluntary bodies concerned with homelessness.
    Mr. Holt: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 7 July.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Holt: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the events surrounding the Cleveland child sex abuse scandal must not be allowed to happen again? Does she agree also that those who are charged with the responsibility of taking action arising out of the scandal must do so quickly and allow the people of south Cleveland to build their lives on the prosperity which has been laid down so well during the past five years?
    The Prime Minister: I listened carefully to yesterday's statement in the House and to the response by many hon. Members. It will now be for the authorities to take such further action as they think fit in the light of the report. I agree with my hon. Friend. We all utterly condemn child abuse and violence against children. We must do everything we can to protect children from that, but at the same time we must make certain that false allegations are not made against parents or children who may be innocent. It is easy to draw the line; it is not always as easy for social workers, neighbours and others to see the right side. Paramount protection must go to the child.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 7 July.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave quite some time ago.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Why, when representatives of the Westminster Association of Relatives went to see the Prime Minister in her surgery some 10 days ago about the scandalous sale of Westminster cemeteries, was she both insensitive and indifferent to their plight and, indeed, upset them? Why did the Prime Minister refuse point-blank to condemn Lady Porter and Westminster city council for selling, for £1, assets worth at least £5 million to £7 million? Was not that sale, which is now the subject of an investigation by the fraud squad, the unacceptable face of privatisation?
    The Prime Minister: When my constituents wish to see me—and I am sure the same applies to the hon. Gentleman—I do not refuse to see them, although I sometimes have to explain that, when matters are being investigated by the fraud squad, independent auditors or by the Ombudsman, I am in a position only to listen to what they say. I am not in a position to pronounce, especially when they are asking for such things as a statutory inquiry, which my right hon. Friends have no power to give. In accordance with my custom, they came and I listened to them for a very long time. One could not possibly be unsympathetic to what they were saying—no one could be. They knew that I

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    could not reply and it would have been totally wrong if I, in the position of Prime Minister, replied on something to which my right hon. Friend may have to pronounce.

Piper Alpha Platform
3.31 pm
The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Cecil Parkinson): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the explosion and fire on the Piper Alpha platform last night.
At about 10 o'clock last night a serious explosion occurred at the platform. The coastguard service was informed and an emergency control centre was established. All emergency services were immediately alerted. Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and coastguard helicopters and surface vessels in the area, including a NATO detachment, were committed to the search for survivors. Occidental, the operators of the platform, activated its emergency centre to control the fire and oil and gas flows.
The explosion appears to have been so violent that the platform was effectively destroyed. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State went early this morning to Aberdeen. He has kept me in continuous touch with developments. My latest information is that there were 229 people on the platform at the time of the explosion, of whom 65 are known to have survived. There were three people in a small boat involved in the rescue, of whom one is known to have survived. Sixteen people are known to be dead and 150 are at present unaccounted for.
Her Majesty the Queen has asked me to convey to all those concerned her heartfelt sympathy for the injured and bereaved and her admiration for the gallant efforts of the firefighting, rescue and medical services in preventing even greater loss of life. I am sure that the whole House will wish to join in expressing our sympathies and in paying tribute to the efforts of the emergency services.
Oil and gas production in the hostile environment of the North sea demands the greatest attention to safety. Safety is the first priority of the Government and the operators. We apply the highest safety standards to all phases of development: design, construction and operation. We have also established procedures to be followed in the event of an emergency. These are regularly rehearsed.
The Government are determined to establish urgently the cause of the explosion and the lessons to be learned. Nearly 30,000 people work in the United Kingdom sector of the North sea. They and their families have the right to expect the fullest possible investigation. The Government will therefore be setting up a full public inquiry as soon as possible.
Mr. John Prescott: We on the Labour side of the House very much welcome the Secretary of State's statement. We offer our deepest sympathy to the families and all involved in the tragic event. We should like to express our deepest appreciation—and, yes, admiration—for the excellent rescue services that are provided in these most difficult circumstances and for the onshore response by the police, hospital, and other services. It reminds us how much those people contribute in difficult circumstances. Those are not simply words, but express great admiration.
Considering the magnitude of the tragedy, we fully endorse the Secretary of State's decision to hold a public inquiry. However, does he accept that that inquiry should be open and wide-ranging and that its scope should not
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exclude anything in examining the safe operation of such installations? Although this is not in his statement, will the Secretary of State confirm that the Health and Safety Executive will conduct its own investigation into the technical causes and effects of the tragedy so that it can reach a conclusion quickly while we await the longer public examination?
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the public inquiry will address itself to the following issues: the increasing number of accidents and dangerous occurrences in the industry in the past few years; the reduction in inspections and maintenance in the past few years, which have been highlighted and drawn to our attention by the Select Committee on Energy; the increasing pressures on costs and safety practices, and the low level of expenditure on training in what is clearly a profitable industry? Will he also address the issue of no-fault compensaton, which has been raised by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, and which should be considered by an inquiry and considered for inclusion in any statutory system?
Finally, will the Secretary of State confirm that health and safety legislation does not fully apply to this industry, highlighting the conflict between his Department's responsibility for production and for safety? Will the right hon. Gentleman now give further consideration to making safety the first priority? Will he now review that conflict of interest and consider whether the Health and Safety Executive should extend its powers and responsibilities to that North sea industry?
Mr. Parkinson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his generous tributes to the emergency services. I shall take up his points one by one. Of course, the inquiry will wish to be far-reaching and to discover the fundamental causes to make sure that if there are any wider implications from this particular event and any lessons to be learned for other operators, that information will be disseminated as quickly as possible. It will be a deep and far-reaching inquiry.
The Health and Safety Executive has responsibilities in this area but, by agreement, it delegates them to the inspectorate in my Department, which is recognised worldwide as being technically one of the best qualified inspectorates. Therefore, it is not true to say that the Health and Safety Executive is not involved. It does have rights and duties but delegates them to my Department's inspectorate.
On the question of the increasing number of accidents, it is simply not true that accidents are increasing in the North sea. In fact, last year the number of serious accidents reported fell from 101 in 1986 to 59, although 59 is still far too high a figure and we wish to keep the pressure on to ensure that that improvement is maintained.
On the question of the reductions in surveys, I advise the hon. Gentleman that it is not only the inspectorate of my Department which attends the platforms. It may interest him to know that an inspector finished the most recent inspection of that platform on 28 June. Lloyd's Register of Shipping is also under a responsibility annually to certify the platforms and equipment and the Department of Transport must also check the safety arrangements and safety equipment on board. Therefore, the platforms are under continuous inspection, not just from my Department acting on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive, but also from other Government

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Departments which themselves have duties, and independent bodies, such as Lloyd's Register of Shipping, which has a duty to carry out the full certification.
On the question whether my Department should continue to carry out this work as agent for the Health and Safety Executive, as he knows, this was carefully examined by the Burgoyne committee, which reported in 1981. That committee said in its majority report that the present arrangements were, in its opinion, the best possible. I accept that there was a minority report which disagreed, but the majority report, whose recommendations the Government accepted, felt that the present arrangements were the best.
Sir Hector Monro: May I join in the expressions of sympathy from all Members of the House to the families who have lost relatives? In praising all the rescue services, may I highlight the work throughout the night of the Royal Air Force and civilian helicopter pilots and the Nimrod pilots and crews? Does this not highlight the importance of keeping a good search and rescue capability all round our coast, and particularly on the east coast of Scotland?
Mr. Parkinson: I join my hon. Friend in paying a tribute to the RAF and civilian helicopter pilots. One of the few satisfactory aspects of this tragedy has been the operation of the emergency procedures. The dovetailing of the arrangements has worked extremely well. As helicopters were deployed, further helicopters were brought up from other stations throughout the country. I note what he says, but I am sure that he will share my satisfaction that the arrangements worked so well on this occasion.
Mr. James Wallace: May I, on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, join in the expressions of sympathy to the bereaved and injured and in the tributes to the emergency services? As the Secretary of State well knows, the oil from the Piper Alpha platform comes ashore at the Flotta terminal in Orkney. Occidental has, over many years, played a very positive role in the community in Orkney and I am sure that the sense of loss and tragedy felt by the company is shared by my constituents.
The Secretary of State has mentioned a public inquiry. Is he able at this stage to go further and say what the nature of it will be? Am I right in thinking that it will certainly go beyond the fatal accident inquiry which would otherwise follow?
Finally, there have been other reported incidents this week on North sea platforms. Is this just a case of a tragic coincidence or is there any evidence at this stage of any connection?
Mr. Parkinson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks. I chose my words very carefully about the public inquiry. We want it to be the fullest possible but, as he knows, we are operating in Scotland and either Scottish law or English law, or both, can be applied. The Law Officers are, therefore, in discussion to settle which would be the most appropriate. As soon as decisions have been made—and I am talking about a very short time—I will reveal further details to the House.
Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith: Not so long ago I visited the Piper field. Many of my constituents work on that platform. Many of them are known to me personally. Surely today, above all, so far as the House is concerned, it is incumbent on us to join the whole of the nation in keeping in our thoughts and our prayers those who have lost their lives, and their families.
Mr. Parkinson: I am sure that my right hon. Friend speaks for Members in all parts of the House.
Mr. Harry Ewing: As a Member who has had to deal with tragedies in the oil industry onshore rather than offshore, can I say to the Secretary of State that all our technical or probing questions are overshadowed by the extent of this tragedy and the sad loss that is borne by so many people as a result of what has happened. I have learned from bitter experience that on the day of the tragedy it is never wise to probe too deeply. Having said that, however, can I bring out the point about Scots law and ask the Secretary of State if the decision to establish a public inquiry will rule out, as it seems bound to do, any possibility of a fatal accident inquiry? Will he discuss these aspects with his noble Friend the Lord Advocate?
Finally, for 13 years, as the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) has said, my constituency has been connected by pipeline from rig to refinery. Today, my constituency is connected by sadness and on behalf of all those who work at the BP refinery at Grangemouth, which receives the oil, and on behalf of all my constituents who live in Grangemouth, I express their deepest sympathy to those who have lost loved ones and their fervent hope and prayer for a speedy and full recovery of those who have been injured.
Mr. Parkinson: I associate myself with the hon. Gentleman's final words. We are looking extremely carefully at the interrelationship between the two laws. It does not necessarily follow that an inquiry under one law is ruled out by the other, but that rather detailed discussion is going on at this very moment and we intend to resolve the matter as quickly as possible. I stress that we want the inquiry to be as full and as public as possible.
Mr. David Howell: We would all wish to be associated with the words of sorrow that my right hon. Friend has expressed at this appalling tragedy in the North sea where, as he reminds us, under successive Governments safety has always been the first and proper priority in this inevitably risky industry. Although the obvious and only dimension of the tragedy in our minds must be the tragic loss of human life, will my right hon. Friend also confirm that the destruction of the Piper Alpha platform will mean the loss of 5 per cent. of the entire oil production of the North sea until it is rebuilt? If the destruction has covered some of the other pipelines in nearby oilfields, that loss of production could be even greater, although I repeat that it is obviously human lives that concern us most.
Mr. Parkinson: I thank my right hon. Friend, as a former Secretary of State for Energy, for underlining what I said about the importance of safety as a top priority from the moment that the platforms are designed right through to the day when they move into operation.
I confirm that the Piper Alpha platform is a major producer, producing about 120,000 barrels of oil a day. I

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am glad that, as I would have expected, my right hon. Friend today puts the emphasis on the tragic loss of so many lives, and I am sure that that is what preoccupies the House.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: May I also, on behalf of my hon. Friends and the nationalist parties, extend our sympathy to all those families throughout the United Kingdom who have suffered bereavement or seen their breadwinner injured in this enormous disaster in the North sea? May I also add my congratulations to the rescue services, many of whom operated from the bases in my constituency at RAF Kinloss and Lossiemouth, and add my tribute to those who volunteered, such as many of the fishermen along the north-east of Scotland, and went to assist in that operation?
As this is a day of tragedy, I shall ask one brief question. Will the Secretary of State assure us that provision for the families who have been bereaved will be taken into account as quickly as possible? Today, we have seen the human cost of winning North sea oil and I am sure that the Government, who have benefited so much from the revenue of Scotland's oil, will ensure that everything is done to provide for those families.
Mr. Parkinson: I note what the hon. Lady says and I shall bear it very much in mind in the next few days.
Mr. Bill Walker: Like those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith), a number of my constituents work in this part of the North sea. Although we have no knowledge of which individuals are missing, I am sure that the rest of the House will extend its sympathy to their relatives. Will my right hon. Friend have discussions with his right hon. Friends at the Scottish Office and the Ministry of Defence to make absolutely certain that there is no plan to reduce, for example, the helicopter rescue capability and, in particular, the search and rescue unit based at RAF Leuchars, which is a key centre for that part of the North sea?
Mr. Parkinson: Yes, I will discuss these matters with my right hon. Friends. I also stress that the events of the past 24 hours have shown that the emergency arrangements work extremely well, even when they are put under the huge pressures of the past 18 hours or so.
Mr. Frank Doran: I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and the courtesy he has shown me throughout the day in keeping me briefed on progress, as the terrible tragedy has become known to us all.
This is the second major tragedy connected with the North sea oil industry to have hit Aberdeen in the past three years, the previous one being the helicopter disaster—although this accident far outstrips that one in its magnitude. I add my sympathies and condolences to the families among my constituents who have lost loved ones who worked in the North sea, and to such families all over the country—particularly those in the north-east of England—from where I know many employees come.
I add my thanks to the rescue services and to people in the Grampian health board who have been working throughout the night and today to deal with the terrible injuries that they have had to cope with. I also thank the
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people of Aberdeen who have rallied round magnificently, to the extent that the health board has had to stop calling for volunteers to donate blood, for example.
The Secretary of State mentioned that there are about 30,000 employees in the North sea. I urge him to ensure that the public inquiry that he has said he will hold is as wide and open as possible, and not restricted in the way that a fatal accident inquiry would be under Scots law. In the interests of those 30,000 employees and their families I also ask him to ensure that, as soon as the lessons and causes of the tragedy are known, there will he no hesitation in circulating them to the other operators in the North sea. We must not wait until the inquiry report has been discovered: the lessons should be distributed as quickly as possible.
Mr. Parkinson: My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Energy has visited the survivors in hospital and has paid tribute to the way in which they are being looked after and to the tremendous spirit of co-operation in Aberdeen. The whole city has joined in wanting to help the victims of the tragedy.
I want also to deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) about the string of incidents. There have been two or three incidents recently, but they have had no connection. Each one is being investigated as part of our normal procedures.
As for the public inquiry, if we find that there are lessons of wide application to be learned, we shall not waste a second in making sure that they are conveyed to the other operators.
Dr. Michael Clark: On this day of tragedy and sorrow, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is appropriate to pay tribute to the skill, dedication and above all courage of all who work in the hostile environment of the North sea?
Mr. Parkinson: Yes. As I said earlier, we have become accustomed to taking North sea oil almost for granted. But if one goes offshore, as I have done on a number of occasions, and sees the area in which the platforms operate and the appalling conditions that can occur from time to time during the year, one realises that it is a hazardous operation carried out by very brave people. We try to ensure that the maximum possible number of steps are taken to ensure their safety.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: I, too, would like to voice my deepest sympathy and condolences to those who have suffered tragic loss today. I also speak as one who represents many constituents who work in the North sea. I ask the Secretary of State to ensure that the people who were involved in the rescue operations and who behaved on this as on other occasions in such a magnificent and heroic way have the finest resources at their command. I say this with special regard to emergency support vessels dynamically positioned on the continental shelf and in relation to standby vessels which provide cover for every platform.
My final question is about the absence of an experienced and critical safety voice. It is about the absence offshore, vis-a-vis the Health and Safety at Work, etc Act 1974, of trade union safety representatives. May I assure the Secretary of State and others that in this field

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trade union representatives perform an admirable and vital service? The absence of a critical voice should be carefully examined by the Government.
Mr. Parkinson: The hon. Gentleman mentioned the standby resources. On this occasion the standby vessel was, as one would expect, in position and was responsible for saving many lives. There was a second vessel there belonging to Occidental and it was also able to take part in the rescue. On this occasion there is no suggestion that the standby resources were inadequate.
They were considerably more than adequate. The hon. Gentleman asked about safety on platforms. As I am sure he knows, on every platform there is a major safety committee consisting of management and representatives of all grades on the platform. Many of those people are trade unionists and, therefore, trade unionists are taking part in discussions about safety on each and every platform.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sure that the whole House will echo the comments made by the right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith). I shall allow questions to go on for only a further four minutes because we are to have two other statements, a business statement and the presentation of a Loyal Address before we move on to the main business.
Mr. Rupert Allason: I endorse all my right hon. Friend's tributes to the rescue services, but may I draw his attention to a matter that causes great anguish among the families of those directly involved in a tragedy such as this? It is that the first news that they get of a major disaster is through the news media. A telephone number is flashed up on the television screen. Of course, the number is constantly changing and families have to ring a number and the lines are very soon swamped by calls. The lack of information for the families that are directly involved causes great anguish. Will my right hon. Friend agree to consider with his ministerial colleagues the setting up of some kind of centralised disaster unit so that after future disasters like the one that we have just experienced and the Townsend Thoresen disaster people can ring a central number and have their calls logged straight away?
Mr. Parkinson: The arrangements for dealing with tragedies such as this are finely developed. Each company immediately opens its emergency room which is in mothballs waiting for eventualities such as this. I shall certainly look at my hon. Friend's idea, but I must tell him that the flashing up of telephone numbers is a way of trying to give anxious relatives the most immediate access to information. The companies then set out to try directly to contact the relatives of those concerned. I am sure that my hon. Friend realises that in an operation such as this, in which many vessels are active, it is not immediately possible to know the exact position.
Mr. Jack Ashley: Is the Secretary of State aware that when all the headlines about this terrible tragedy and all the expressions of sympathy
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have been forgotten, the people who have been injured, badly burned and disabled in this accident and the relatives of those who have been bereaved will, year after year, face legal struggle for compensation? Because of our archaic laws only the lawyers will win those battles. Some people will be denied compensation. They will face years of hardship and horror on top of the horror that they have suffered because we do not have no-fault compensation. The Prime Minister has just rejected a request for no-fault compensation. Could the Secretary of State have a private word with her about a more just and equitable system to help these people?
Mr. Parkinson: I note what the right hon. Gentleman says and, as he knows, this is a long-running and difficult argument, but, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, a number of private insurance schemes covering no-fault compensation are being developed. However, all I can say is that I note what the right hon. Gentleman says.
Mr. Martin Flannery: Is it not a fact that, in the minority report mentioned by the Minister, there was bitter criticism of the safety precautions in the North sea? I am chairman in this House of the MSF union's committee on health and safety matters which represents many people involved with helicopters and oil rigs and which made it clear that it wanted an inquiry into the whole business and that that inquiry should not be attached to the Department of Energy, but should involve an independent group of inspectors examining those rigs. Is it not also a fact that warning was given that, unless such a step were taken, something like this would ultimately occur?
Mr. Parkinson: The hon. Gentleman should remember that that was a minority view, as he hinted, and that the majority of the Committee set up by his right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) disagreed with that point of view. [Interruption.] He was not the Member for Chesterfield then, but the majority of that Committee came down firmly on the side of the present arrangements.
Mr. Prescott: May I again ask the Secretary of State about the role of the Health and Safety Commission, which has statutory powers of inquiry under section 14 of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, but from which the offshore industry is exempt? The commission can conduct a quick and technical examination so that the lessons can be learned and implemented before the final conclusions of a public inquiry. Because of the agency arrangement between the Department and the commission, the Department's agreement to that is required. Will the Secretary of State give his agreement to such an inquiry?
Mr. Parkinson: I have already spoken to the chairman of the Health and Safety Commission and we have discussed the range of possibilities. He knows of the discussions that I am having with the various Law Officers. The key is to ensure that we have the fullest possible inquiry, and as soon as I am able to give a definitive answer, I shall come back to the House.

Local Government Finance (England)
4.2 pm
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement about a number of matters that will bring local authority finance in England up to date for the introduction of the new system in 1990.
First, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I are issuing a consultation document today on local authority capital expenditure. The paper has been placed in the Library and is available in the Vote Office. It will be sent to local authorities and their associations today. The new system will take effect from 1 April 1990. It will be a control on borrowing and all forms of credit, rather than on expenditure. I believe that authorities will welcome this.
Capital receipts will continue to be another source of finance for capital expenditure, but the debt attributable to past capital expenditure by local authorities in England and Wales now stands at £45 billion. We propose that a proportion of the accumulated and future cash receipts should be set aside for debt redemption or to meet future capital commitments. Local authorities will be free to spend the balance, in whatever year they like.
Local authorities will also be free to finance additional capital expenditure from revenue contributions, subject only to the discipline of the community charge. I believe that the new system will provide local government with greater assurance and flexibility in the planning of capital programmes.
Secondly, under the new system in the Local Government Finance Bill, revenue support grant is to be paid on a fixed basis, authority by authority. Authorities will have certainty about their grant entitlements. There will be no adjustment to take account of actual spending. The discipline will come from the community charge. My right hon. Friend and I have decided to pave the way towards the new system by introducing greater certainty for 1989–90. In doing so, we will remove any scope for creative accounting by an authority designed to increase its grant entitlement by reducing its reported "total expenditure", without changing its true spending. There would otherwise be a number of ways in which authorities could do that for next year, this year and, indeed, earlier years.
We therefore propose to bring forward legislation as soon as possible to alter the basis on which grant will be paid in England and Wales. For the current year, and for the previous three years, final supplementary reports have not yet been made. For some of those years, it would still be open to local authorities to undertake book-keeping transactions or financial deals unrelated to true spending, but which alter the level of reported total expenditure and therefore gain extra grant. We envisage that the Bill will provide that, for all years up to 1988–89, grant entitlements should be calculated in general using total expenditure information which was with our Departments by midnight last night.
In a normal year, grant payments would be calculated taking account of grant-related expenditure assessments, block grant mechanisms, any arrangements for limiting grant changes and authorities' reported expenditure, which I announce following consultation in the autumn. Grant payments for 1989–90 will be calculated in the same
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way, except that the legislation will provide that grant payments for individual authorities should he calculated not on authorities' reported total expenditure, but on a figure derived for each authority, based on information about their present levels of total expenditure and projected forward. Allowance will be made for changes in function where appropriate. In making the calculations, we shall use, in general, only that information about total expenditure which was with our Departments by midnight last night. When the RSG report has been approved, and subject to Parliament approving the new legislation, grant will be paid on the new basis.
That will provide local authorities with greater certainty about their RSG entitlements for 1989–90 and previous years. It provides a basis for an orderly transition to the new system and for bringing the existing system to a close. Without the new legislation, it would have been necessary to recalculate grant under the present system well into the 1990s. I hope that it will now be possible to make the last supplementary reports under the present system during 1989–90; otherwise I would have been asking the House to approve them up to probably 1992 or 1993.
Thirdly, let me deal with my proposals for next year's RSG settlement for England. I propose to set the level of provision for current expenditure at £29,140 million. That is 4·7 per cent. or £1·3 billion more than authorities' budgets for this year, after deducting the cost of polytechnics, which, from next April, will he the responsibility of central Government. That increase is slightly above the anticipated level of inflation.
That sum includes £110 million in respect of the current costs next year for preparing for the introduction of the community charge. That is in line with the estimate of those costs made by Price Waterhouse and is consistent with the figures put forward by the local authority associations. Since authorities continue to spend more than they need, I again intend that there should be a margin between the total of grant-related expenditure assessments and provision.
I propose that aggregate Exchequer grant should be set at £13,575 million. After allowing for the removal of polytechnics, that is £600 million more than the settlement allowed for this year, and is about £1·1 billion more than the grant which will be paid for 1988–89. That represents an increase of about 9 per cent. on the amount of grant that will be paid out. Under my proposals for closing down the system, grant payments to authorities will not be affected by their level of spending in 1989–90.
I am conscious that some local authorities will be disappointed that no grant increase will be available in recognition of any shortfall in their spending in the current year and last year. I believe, however, that if they look at the total picture they will recognise that the package I am proposing is a fair one. If spending is held steady in real terms, this settlement will enable most authorities to hold the increase in rates to less than the rate of inflation next year. I shall be discussing all these proposals with the Consultative Council on Local Government Finance on Monday.
Fourthly, let me deal with rate limitation. I am today laying before the House a report setting out how general purpose authorities will be selected next year. The selection criteria that I am adopting are the same as those I adopted last year—first, for authorities not selected in 1988–89, budgets of at least 12·5 per cent. above GRE and showing

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a growth of at least 6 per cent. since 1987–88; and secondly, for authorities that are selected in the current year, budgets of at least 12·5 per cent. above GRE.
On those criteria, seven authorities will be reselected for 1989–90—Camden, Greenwich, Hackney, Lewisham, Southwark, Thamesdown and Tower Hamlets. No authority that was not selected last year is being selected this year. I am today also setting the expenditure levels for the seven rate-capped authorities at the same level as in 1988–89.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science has laid a separate report designating the Inner London education authority and he will be setting an expenditure level. That completes the Government's proposals for designating authorities in England.
Dr. John Cunningham: Is the Secretary of State aware that this is a typical statement from him and the Government—a statement of bogus claims and, in some cases, deliberate illusions? Is he also aware that, despite his rather vain hope, rarely, if ever, do local authorities welcome any statement that he has to make about local government finance?
Will not what he has announced today force all local authorities to use the balances of their capital receipts to reduce debt? The right hon. Gentleman's previous claim was that he would slow down the rate at which they would be able to embark on new expenditure. Now he will forbid local authorities to use apparently large amounts of their own money in the way that they wish to do. Does not that mean that Conservative authorities, such as Bracknell, with £48 million worth of receipts, Wycombe with £52 million, Medway with £40 million, Shepway with £11·5 million, Nottingham with £51 million, Bromley with £45 million, Croydon with £50 million, Barnet with £47 million and Solihull with £25 million of their own money, will not be able to spend it in the way that they decide, but will have to use some of that money in the way that the Secretary of State and his Cabinet colleagues, most notably the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will determine?
Is it not also the case that to suggest that local authorities will be free to increase their expenditure in the way that they choose is deliberately misleading? The Secretary of State said that that would be subject to the discipline of the poll tax—
Mr. John Heddle (Mid-Staffordshire): Community charge.
Dr. Cunningham: No one outside the Conservative party refers to it as the community charge.
Has not the Secretary of State ensured that the notorious gearing of the poll tax legislation means that for a 1 per cent. increase in expenditure, however important or necessary, all local authorities will need a 4 per cent. increase in the poll tax?
What can possibly be the justification for the Secretary of State's second announcement in four months of legislation by the midnight knock? He is now announcing that from midnight yesterday he will be retrospectively legislating over this year's local authority finances and the previous three years, again changing the rules and moving the goalposts long after the expenditure has been made and the decisions have been taken. There is no precedent
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for the way in which the Government have rigged rules on local authority expenditure and changed them so often, so capriciously and so retrospectively so many times. The record is a scandal. It is outrageous that we should be faced with that again.
What can possibly be the purpose of the Secretary of State's meeting next Monday, 11 July, with the local authorities, planned for some considerable time, to discuss his proposals for the coming year? He has announced his proposals today. It means that the meeting next Monday with the local authorities to consider this matter is a farce. Or will he confirm to the House that he will take on board the points made by the local authorities and come back and change what he has said today? Is that a possibility? If not, it makes nonsense of the consultation process.
We welcome the Secretary of State's belated admission that what he and his colleagues said in the financial memorandum to the Local Government Finance Bill was nonsense. They hopelessly underestimated the costs of implementation of that obnoxious legislation, as the Price Waterhouse report has confirmed. At least we welcome the recognition forced on him by Price Waterhouse's conclusion that he would have to make far higher allowances for the costs of implementing the poll tax.
Why does the Secretary of State waste his time, as well as that of the House, by repeating what he said last year during his statement on the rate support grant for England, that the
"increase in rate bills … should be around the rate of inflation"—[Official Report, 23 July 1987; Vol. 120, c. 496.]
He kept repeating that last year, when in fact average domestic rate bills rose by 10·1 per cent. and, in many Tory-dominated authorities, increases were of the order of 20, 30 or 40 per cent. Shepway, in the constituency of his hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Local Government, had one of the largest rate rises in the south-east of England. Why the time of the House should be wasted again and again by bogus claims for the implications of what the Secretary of State is announcing, I really do not know.
It is also welcome that at long last the Secretary of State is beginning to wind down the arbitrary use of power in the Rates Act 1984. But what is it that the citizens of Camden, Greenwich, Hackney, Lewisham, Southwark, Thamesdown and Tower Hamlets have done—
Mr. Heddle: Vote Labour.
Dr. Cunningham: Exactly. The hon. Gentleman has given the game away. It is an action of enduring political spite by the Government towards the citizens of those boroughs that they should go on applying the Rates Act to them in that way.
The statement is as pathetic, as misleading and as obnoxious—and it should be regarded in the same way by all Conservative Members who are concerned about local democracy—as any previous statement that the right hon. Gentleman has made. I only wish that we could believe that it is the last that he will make.
Mr. Ridley: We are all becoming used to the ritual courtesies of the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), with which he covers up the fact that he does not understand the subject under discussion. His views on the capital control paper, which obviously he has not yet read, were interesting. If he reads it, he will find that the prescribed proportion that may be spent from

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housing receipts is increased from 20 to 25 per cent., and on other local authority assets, from 30 to 50 per cent. I do not know why the hon. Gentleman thinks that local authorities will be cross about that.
The hon. Gentleman claimed that this measure is in some way retroactive. The phrase that he used was that we are moving the goalposts long after the expenditure has been made. I make it clear that the statement will stop local authorities changing the accounts long after the expenditure has been made. That is changing the goalposts, and if he understood the subject, he would know that that is liable to save his constituents, as taxpayers, a considerable sum of money, possibly.
The hon. Gentleman asked about consultation. What an extraordinary question! I am having a consultative meeting on Monday. Is it not better to have proposals about which to consult the local authorities, rather than to wait until after that meeting to announce them? The hon. Gentleman has a very odd idea of what consultation means.
As for rates, the hon. Gentleman again misunderstands the situation. Last year, and again this year, I said that if local authorities spend at the settlement assumption, their rates should just about increase by the level of inflation. This year I say that if local authorities spend at the settlement assumption, it should be necessary to increase rates by less than the rate of inflation. The hon. Gentleman does not seem to comprehend the fact that local authorities spend at a great deal higher level than the settlement assumption, which is why rates increase so much.
The hon. Member for Copeland asked why certain local authorities appear to be rate-capped year after year. The answer is simple: they spend too much.
Mr. Heddle: Does my right hon. Friend accept that all prudent local authorities who have the genuine interests of their ratepayers and local accountability at heart will not fear anything that he has said today? Will he confirm that the most eloquent expression of the need for the reform of local government finance is if any local authority has to increase its rates above the figure of 4·7 per cent. to which he has referred? Will he confirm that the £110 million included in next year's RSG settlement will be a one-off figure, and that it will not be necessary for any local authority to come back after 1990 for a supplementary order, because only then will the community charge restore real accountability and local democracy between the ratepayer and the spender?
Mr. Ridley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and can tell him that if all local authorities were to spend at the settlement assumption, which is that they should spend about in line with the increase in inflation between this year and next, it is likely that rates increases would be about 1·6 per cent. in England, which is much less than the rate of inflation is likely to be. I confirm that, as soon as all outstanding years have been completed and supplementary reports have been presented to the House, there will be no need, under the proposals I am putting to the House for its approval, for there to be any further supplementary reports into the 1990s.
Mr. Simon Hughes: Can the Secretary of State clarify what appears to be a contradiction? He said that capital expenditure limits are being raised, and he gave a figure, yet he said in his
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statement that control would be moved away from expenditure to borrowing and credit, which is something very different. Is not the reality that the Government are retaining their controls, even if easing them slightly? Local authorities are looking to spend much more, particularly on housing investment, about which he has said nothing today.
Is it not the case that, as was said by the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), the Secretary of State is going for a completely arbitrary and simple system at the expense of justice? To say that rate support grant for this year and next year will be calculated on the basis of information known to the Secretary of State last night, irrespective of the reality, completely disregards real need. The reality of the situation is also apparent when one remembers that, in real terms, rate support grant since 1981–82 has been cut by the Secretary of State's announcement by 12·5 per cent.—at a time of great economic growth, according to the Government.
The inner city, which is meant to be helped, is being rate-capped yet again, so that poor boroughs such as mine in inner London and others are being told that money will not be available in the form of increased rate support grant. Is it not the case that the Secretary of State wants there to be a massive difference between the amount that local authorities currently receive and their revenue from poll tax in 1990, so that people will be penalised for being poor and will receive nothing from those who have much to give? The Minister could have distributed that money to them.
Mr. Ridley: The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) mentioned control. The new system will control borrowing rather than spending, but that will not help us with the treatment of in-year receipts and existing cash-backed receipts, where we propose that under the new regime 75 per cent. of housing receipts should be put to the redemption of debt and the remainder should be available for spending, and 50 per cent. of receipts from other assets should go to the redemption of debt and 50 per cent. be available for spending.
We propose fixing allocations of new borrowing consents so that we can concentrate on areas of need rather than on areas of high receipts, which will give us a flexibility that we do not have at present, and ensure that allocations go to the areas of greatest need.
The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey commented on the rate support grant, and I can tell him that if he and the local authorities will examine all the years concerned in my statement, they will find that the package as a whole is a very fair one, because the rate support grant for the coming year must be taken into account as well.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that the previous Labour Government provided far more in rate support grant. I shall give him the true figure. The grant I have announced for 1990 is only £1 billion less than that given in the last year of the Labour Government, brought up to date.
Mr. Ian Gow: The hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) would have been more honest with the House if, when naming the local authorities that had accumulated capital receipts as a

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result of council house sales, he had set alongside those receipts each of those council's debts, which greatly exceeds the accumulated receipts.
Dr. Cunningham: They are all Tory.
Mr. Gow: Is it not the case that the Government's legitimate attempts over the past nine years to control local authority capital expenditure have not been successful, and that my right hon. Friend's decision to control their borrowing is to be warmly welcomed?
Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend may not have heard me say that local authorities' total debt has risen to the very high figure of £45 billion. To the extent that local authorities repay that debt from their receipts, they directly benefit their community charge payers because the servicing of that debt is reduced by the amount by which the debt is reduced. That in itself is a major way of helping their electors. My hon. Friend is of course right in his second point.
Mr. Peter Shore: When the Secretary of State says that the reason why a number of London boroughs, including Tower Hamlets, are being rate-capped yet again is that they spend too much, does he not himself believe that he is guilty of an oversimplistic statement? Is he aware that they are precisely the boroughs which, by all objective measures and calculations, have the greatest measurable financial and other needs? Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that in the year ending 1987 Tower Hamlets spent £20 million simply in providing bed-and-breakfast accommodation for the homeless, and that the figure for this year cannot be much less, and will be at least £13 million? How can the Secretary of State justify continued rate-capping and grant reduction? His figures are bogus and he knows it. How can he justify taking such action for another year?
Mr. Ridley: The right hon. Gentleman talks about an objective measure of need. The nearest that we have to an objective measure of need are GREAs, which are based on need and are subject to negotiation with the local authorities over many years. Tower Hamlets is spending 23 per cent. above its GREA, or 23 per cent. more than the objective measure of its needs. I believe that that entirely justifies the statement that I made. It turns out that the inhabitants of Tower Hamlets face an implied community charge of £616, and if that is not a measure of overspending I should like the right hon. Gentleman to tell me what is.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the reduction of grant. The settlement that I have announced today is a £1·1 billion increase in the amount of grant that will flow from the Exchequer to the authorities next year. That is an 8·9 per cent. increase against inflation, which will probably be about half that.
Ms. Mildred Gordon: Will the Secretary of State tell the House how he will explain his announcement to the 10,000 on the housing waiting list in Tower Hamlets and the 11,200 on the transfer list, one of whom I spoke to last week? He has had a heart transplant operation, but the results of that wonderful operation will be lost because of his housing stress and because there is no place to which he can be transferred.
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How will the right hon. Gentleman explain his statement to the many others who are locked in unsuitable flats—where they cannot see daylight—because they are disabled and cannot be transferred to ground floor flats? How will he explain it to more than 1,200 homeless people and to the 35 families who have been sleeping in church halls because there was nowhere else for them to go? How will he justify the rate capping and financial restrictions with which he is punishing those people?
Mr. Ridley: The hon. Lady and her right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) are being not very complimentary to the Liberal-controlled council of Tower Hamlets, which has responsibility for such matters. I have heard of people criticising the council for wasting large sums in all sorts of directions. When it gets priorities right, I will listen to the hon. Lady.
Sir Ian Lloyd: As the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) has exhausted the vocabulary of condemnation, it is much easier for Conservative Members to frame their remarks in the vocabulary of approbation. Those of us who regard this whole area of local authority expenditure as highly convoluted and complex welcome anything that introduces simplicity and clarity.
The second paragraph of the yellow paper—the consultative document—discloses the remarkable fact that local authorities have now borrowed £45,000 million, on which the annual charge is £6,000 million, or roughly £300 per annum per family. Does that mean in effect that a considerable proportion of the community charge will go towards financing existing borrowing?
Mr. Ridley: This might be considered an occasion for rejoicing, in that it is the last time—we hope—that a rate support grant statement of the traditional type will ever have to he made in the House. I hope that next year a statement can be made about the support grant for the new system of community charge finance which will be much more acceptable and much easier to understand. I entirely sympathise with my hon. Friend about the immense complications to which, with any luck, we shall be saying goodbye today.
I confirm that the total of local authorities' capital debt is £45 billion, which costs £6 billion a year to service. That £6 billion must be met by the ratepayers at present and by the community charge payers in future, which is why we are helping the community charge payers by suggesting that some proportion of receipts should be applied to the redemption of debt.
Sir George Young: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many in local government will welcome his announcement because they have been pressing for control on borrowing rather than on expenditure? Any new system that enables capital expenditure to go to areas where it is needed must be an improvement on the present system, whereby it goes where the receipts are accruing.
The statement will, however, be received with a tinge of regret in the London borough of Ealing, rate-capped this year but, sad to say, not to be rate-capped next year. Is my right hon. Friend aware that the rates went up by 66 per cent. last year, and that rate capping this year reduced them by some 23 per cent.? Without the protection of rate capping next year, they are likely to go up by between 50

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and 100 per cent., making it difficult for the Leader of the Opposition and me to budget. Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are real problems in boroughs that come in and out of rate capping year in, year out? Will he give some thought to the problems facing us in Ealing?
Mr. Ridley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he said about the capital controls document, and I confirm his important point that it will enable us to target borrowing resources to areas of greater need. I think that all hon. Members would benefit from reading the paper carefully, because it contains a number of new ideas, many of which at least will he welcomed by local authorities.
As my hon. Friend knows, I have to set the criteria for rate capping so that they are justifiable, and then we have to see which authorities fall within those criteria. This year, Ealing has not done so. It is, in a sense, rather an irony that the more successful rate capping is in reducing rates and expenditure, the less likely the authority in question is to be rate-capped next year. This, however, is another part of the present system that I hope will disappear from the scene for ever after 1990.
Mr. Tony Banks: Why does the Secretary of State continue his campaign against two of the three most deprived local authority areas in England and Wales—Hackney, which is the most deprived, and Tower Hamlets, which comes third? Is he aware that the second most deprived area. my own borough of Newham, has just put forward a scheme to lease some 600 private dwellings to try to house the homeless?
Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me—because this has been a long and complicated statement—whether he has changed the rules so much that the goalposts are now outside the stadium? Can he tell me that the borough council of Newham will be able to proceed with its package and will not be caught up by the right hon. Gentleman's retrospective legislation?
Mr. Ridley: I can only confirm that Hackney is spending 20 per cent. above its GREA, and therefore falls within the criteria for rate capping. The capital changes that I am suggesting are to be the subject of consultation and then of legislation, and are intended to come into effect in 1990. Even the hon. Gentleman will therefore have time to understand them and give us his comments.
Mr. Robin Squire: These are complex matters. None the less, I congratulate my right hon. Friend and echo the praise that has already been accorded to the capital spending adjustments. The control of borrowing is to be widely welcomed.
Can my right hon. Friend tell us what will be the position on revenue expenditure when a need grows in a particular borough, if distribution is to be based broadly on expenditure up to 1987–88, as I understood from his statement?
Mr. Ridley: In any system of support grant—whether it is the present rate support grant, or the new revenue support grant that will apply under the community charge—the change in population is taken into account in GREAs, and the numbers are adjusted accordingly. It will not be possible to change those numbers after the system has been closed down in the way that I suggest, but I think that my hon. Friend will find that the package as a whole will deal fairly with the problem.
Ms. Diane Abbott: How does the Secretary of State reconcile the Government's stated intention to regenerate the inner city with, year after year, rate-capping some of the poorest inner city boroughs—including my own borough of Hackney, the poorest local authority in the country? How can he see it as fair that over the years the balance of rate support grant has moved, in practice, from the poorest areas in the inner cities to the richest in the shire counties?
As the right hon. Gentleman seems to think that Hackney is spending 20 per cent. above GREA heedlessly, recklessly and unnecessarily, will he accept my invitation to come to Hackney, see the result of cuts in the past and note the cruel cuts in jobs, housing and services that will have to be made in the coming year as a result of today's announcement?
Mr. Ridley: Hackney has very high rates. It has an implied community charge of £573. When will the hon. Lady realise that community charges or rates at that level impoverish the citizens and drive businesses away, causing those problems of deprivation and unemployment which she has been talking about? The sooner relief can be brought to Hackney by bringing in the national non-domestic rate and by a reduction in spending, the more likely that borough is to prosper.
Secondly, the hon. Lady said that grant had been switched from the inner cities to the shire counties. I do not think that my hon. Friends who represent the shire counties have that feeling. Some counties are nearly out of grant because grant has been switched to the inner cities.
Mr. Simon Burns: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his statement will be greeted with a great deal of pleasure by hard-pressed ratepayers and taxpayers? Does he agree that the proposed legislation to close down the existing rate support grant system will put a stop to attempts at creative accounting to milk the taxpayers by authorities that are trying to get grants that have little relation to their spending or their need?
Mr. Ridley: I agree with my hon. Friend. The only people for whom today's statement will be bad news are some fringe banks and dubious accountants who were hoping to prosper in the future.
Mr. Harry Barnes: The Minister has taken more and more control of the affairs of local government by cuts in provisions since 1979, by grant capping, rate capping and controls on authorities to force them into privatisation, so how can he continue to blame local authorities for the shortcomings in their services when he is beginning to run it all from his office?
Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman and the Leader of the Opposition tie in mathematics. An increase of £1·1 billion cannot be described as a cut.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall endeavour to call hon. Members who have been rising, because I hope that it may curtail business questions, but I ask them to be brief.
Mr. Richard Holt: Will my right hon. Friend accept from me, as I have tried to grapple with local government finances for 25 years, that few people understand them, but they understand the bottom line when they receive their rate demands—particularly in

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Cleveland? One way in which my right hon. Friend can help matters is to take the bull by the horns, get rid of Cleveland county council and restore to my constituents their Yorkshire heritage.
Mr. Ridley: I note my hon. Friend's views, but the first stage is to abolish the rates. After that, we shall see about other matters.
Mr. Neil Hamilton: Did my right hon. Friend notice that the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) seemed to treat the accumulated capital receipts as the personal playthings of councillors, when the true position is that councillors act as trustees for the ratepayers? Will there not be a huge welcome throughout the country for the control that my right hon. Friend has announced today, which will reduce the accumulated debt burden of the local authorities? Just as the reduction of the debt burden centrally has been essential to the reduction of taxation, the reduction of the debt burden of local authorities will be central to the reduction of the community charge. I believe that my right hon. Friend's reputation and popularity will shortly exceed even that of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer through pursuing such a policy.
Mr. Ridley: I am not entering the competition that my hon. Friend invited me to enter. The total amount that has been raised by the local authorities by selling assets since the Government came to power amounts to £17 billion, of which £6·2 billion remains unspent but cash-backed. Next year, we expect there to be a further £2·9 billion of assets. Those are very large sums indeed, and I am sure that the whole House will agree that some of that should be applied to the reduction of debt to benefit the community charge payers when the new system comes in.
Mr. Barry Field: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the way in which the present convoluted system has always conspired against the Isle of Wight. He will also be aware that the present system includes a special factor for the Scilly Isles. When he introduces the new system, will he seriously consider giving some assistance to the Isle of Wight, on the lines of that given to the Scilly Isles, to recognise the fact that it is the only United Kingdom offshore island which has no financial recognition of its excommunication from the mainland?
Mr. Ridley: The concept of GREA for islands had not occurred to me hitherto. I should have to consider the consequences for a number of other islands round the shore of this country. I doubt whether we need to go that far; we could take into account the needs of such places through the new needs grant system.
Mr. David Wilshire: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in the interest of fairness, the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) should have included in his list of Tory authorities my own Conservative Spelthorne borough council, which cut its rate by more than 70 per cent. the last time it fixed a rate? Does my right hon. Friend accept that the great majority of councillors will thank him for his measures further to curb creative accounting, since those who play by the spirit of the law as well as the letter of the law need protecting? Will he confirm that his sensible announcement means that
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there will no longer be any need for councils to cut anything except rates, unless they are Left-wing councillors who want to play party politics with people's services?
Mr. Ridley: The worst evil of creative accounting is not that it enables expenditure to be increased but that the bill comes back on future generations, possibly long after the councillors who incurred it have ceased to be councillors. Mortgaging the future for which one may not be responsible is clearly something which we should seek to stop. I believe that the new system outlined in the consultative paper will have the effect of making councillors live with their decisions.
Mr. Jeff Rooker: May I press the Secretary of State on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes), who spoke about what has happened since 1979–80? Twice the Secretary of State, in his statement and in answers, said that the settlement of £13·57 billion is £600 million more than the settlement allowed this year, and £1·1 billion more than the grant paid for 1988–89. I have the benefit of a calculation, carried out for me by the Secretary of State's private office, which shows that far from being an increase, the £13·57 billion settlement is £1·8 billion less in real terms than the same figure for 1979–80, taking both figures at 1989–90 prices. The precise figure is £13,575 million, and the comparative figure under Labour was £15,437 million. I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State's private office for that calculation, which was carried out during the statement.
Twice in his statement the Secretary of State referred to the discipline of the poll tax. What does the discipline of the poll tax mean? Surely the implied discipline of the poll tax is that a local authority will not wish to put up the poll tax because of the fear of electoral consequences. [HON. MEMBERS "That is right."] If that is the case, if the council puts it up and wins the election, why do we have poll tax-capping when the Government boast about getting rid of rate-capping? There is no discipline. It is an absolute fraud and a misuse of the English language to speak in that way.
Whatever might be the consequences of the statement, it is less generous than the local authorities require. There is a cut of £1 billion on what is needed for current policies due to demographic changes and structures in the country, there is retrospective legislation and the lifting of capping on the joint boards a year before the poll tax comes in. All those unelected joint authorities will be free to precept what they like on the elected local councillors.
Those four factors come together to make the existing rating system even more unpopular than it already is, and herein lies the reason: it is all part of the plan to try and make the poll tax popular. Two thirds of the British people see a poll tax in 1990 as unpopular. What better than to try and turn that round in the last year of the present system? To twist and use bogus arguments and to make the present system even more unfair, bogus and unpopular is all part of the plan to improve the credibility of the poll tax. Well, it won't wash.
Mr. Ridley: After a rather sensible and restrained session of questions on this statement we return to what I call the ritual courtesies from the Opposition Front Bench.
I confirm that there are two figures on this matter and, equally, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, that comparing

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aggregate Exchequer grant in this settlement—after making adjustment for the polytechnics it works out at £13·575 billion—with the AEG in the 1979–80 settlement expressed in 1989–90 prices, that settlement is £15·437 billion, including the polytechnics, which is an increase of £1·9 billion. It depends how the polytechnics are treated. That is the simple answer to the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the community charge. We have made it abundantly clear that we hope that it will never be necessary to cap a community charge. But, as I said earlier in relation to capital, if a local authority ceases to care about the future when an election whose conclusion is foregone is coming up, it is enabled to go berserk with the community charge in its last year of office. In those circumstances it may well be right to use the capping powers.
I have not noticed in local authority by-elections, the local authority elections in May or in the public opinion polls this strange unpopularity which the hon. Gentleman keeps suggesting. If I may suggest it politely to him, the unpopularity seems to fall on the shoulders of the Labour party.

Local Government Finance (Wales)
4.52 pm
The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. Wyn Roberts): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about local government finance in Wales in the period leading up to April 1990.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has already announced that he and the Secretary of State for Wales are today issuing a consultation paper on our proposals to revise the arrangements for controlling local authority capital. The paper has been placed in the Library and is available in the Vote Office. It is being sent to local authorities in Wales and to their local authority associations today. The new system will operate in Wales as in England. It will control borrowing and all forms of credit rather than expenditure.
Local authorities have made representations over several years about the use of their capital receipts. Under the new system we now propose, a proportion of accumulated and future cash-backed receipts will be applied to debt redemption or set aside to meet future capital commitments. Councils will be able to spend the balance of their receipts in whichever year they choose. Local authorities will also be free to finance capital expenditure from revenue contributions, subject only to the enhanced accountability that they face following the introduction of the community charge. The system meets the needs of both central and local government. I believe that local authorities in Wales will welcome it.
I turn now to rate support grant and the local government finance system. My right hon. Friend has decided that it is appropriate to pave the way towards the introduction of the new local government finance system in 1990 by making changes to the present system which will give local authorities certainty about their grant entitlements for the coming financial year. We propose to achieve this by introducing a fixed grant for 1989–90.
As in England, legislation will be introduced during the next Session to alter the basis on which grant will be paid. It is proposed that grant payments for 1989–90 should be calculated, not on authorities' reported total expenditure, but on a figure derived for each authority based on information about their present level of total expenditure and projected forward. Appropriate adjustments will be made for changes in functions. It is also envisaged that in making such assumptions we shall use only that information about total expenditure which was with the Department by midnight last night.
Once the report has been approved, and subject to Parliament approving the new legislation, grant will be paid on the new basis and will not depend upon authorities' spending decisions in 1989–90. That contrasts with 1987–88 and this year, when local councils have budgeted to forfeit about £20 million in grant.
Final supplementary reports for the current year and for the two previous years have not yet been made. We envisage that for these three years authorities' grant entitlements should be calculated in general using total expenditure information which was with the Department by midnight last night.
Our proposals provide a basis for orderly transition to the new system and for bringing the existing system to a close. Without the proposed legislation, it would have been necessary to seek the approval of the House to

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recalculate grant under the present system at least until 1991–92. It should now be possible under these proposals to make the last supplementary report under the present system during 1989–90. I am sure that hon. Members will be relieved to hear that.
I refer now to next year's rate support grant settlement for Wales. Local authorities in Wales are beginning to consider their budgets for next year, and to assist this process I am today announcing our proposals for the key elements of the settlement. We shall be discussing them in the usual way with the local authority associations, and the Secretary of State will take account of their representations in reaching his decisions. In due course, more detailed information will be circulated, as usual, to Welsh councils. Copies of this additional material will he placed in the Library and in the Vote Office.
We propose to set the level of provision for current expenditure at £1,785 million. This is 5·1 per cent. or £87 million more than authorities are budgeting to spend in 1988–89. This increase is above the level of inflation and is close to the forecast of spending made by the expenditure sub-group. It should allow authorities to keep their spending in line with our plans and broadly level in real terms. It includes full provision for the current costs which will be incurred next year in preparing for the introduction of the community charge.
We propose that aggregate Exchequer grant should be set at £1,316 million. This increase of 5 per cent. is ahead of inflation, is £63 million more than we provided in the settlement for 1988–89 and about £77 million more than the amount being paid to local authorities for the current year. We will he discussing all these proposals with the Welsh consultative council on local government finance on 13 July.
This is a generous proposal. It gives local authorities certainty and offers a smooth path to the new system. Both grant and expenditure provisions have been increased by more than the level of inflation. Ratepayers should therefore expect their councils to safeguard their interests by setting their budgets in line with the settlement. They will know that in doing so rate increases can be kept below the rate of inflation. I hope that all councils will ensure that rate increases are kept low. I hope, too, that they will continue to improve their efficiency and effectiveness to ensure that they use available resources for the full benefit of the communities.
Mr. Alan Williams: I thank the Minister for his statement. Naturally, we welcome generally the greater predictability that the announcement will give to councils. That is a gain in method, but whether it proves to be a gain in substance depends on the ceilings, which we do not know yet. In that context, will the Minister confirm that, despite his protestations about a generous announcement, the Government stand by the White Paper prediction, which shows that local council spending in Wales will fall? If the Minister's announcement is in keeping with that, the standards of service will also continue to fall. In future, control will be exercised by borrowing rather than through expenditure. Will the Minister confirm that that is a return to the system that operated before his Government started meddling with the
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system of local authority finance—the system that operated before 1980? Is it a rather belated confession of error?
The fixed grant may be good or bad depending on the level at which it is fixed—which we do not know. We shall have to wait and see. I welcome, as a general proposition, the idea that local authorities will be free to finance capital expenditure from revenue. However, that proposition must be seen in the context of the financial environment in which it is intended to operate. The cruel sting in the tail is that it will be subject to the disciplines of the community charge. That is the same as giving someone the freedom of the straitjacket. Local authorities will be limited by the ratchet effect. To the extent that there is a 6:1 magnification in the poll tax impact of any expenditure decision, that is a meaningless freedom. It is a freedom to pace the cell.
I welcome the fact that councils will be able to spend the balance of capital receipts in whatever way they choose, but the impact of that depends on what the balance is. The Government intend that a proportion of receipts must—not may; this is an enforced decision by the council—be set aside. The Minister has not told us the amount for debt redemption or for future commitments. That means that most of the resources that the councils have received from the sale of their assets will not be available for the replacement of facilities or for new facilities for the communities that they serve. If anything, the overall effect will be that councils will lose freedom rather than gain it.
The Minister referred in glowing terms to the increase of 5·1 per cent. As he admits, it is a standstill figure. Inflation is running at 4·5 per cent. and, as hon. Members know, local authority expenditure—like National Health Service expenditure—is not directly related to the cost of living index, which is based on personal spending patterns. Inflation in local authority expenditure is always higher, because of the way in which local government costs are made up. The Minister gave this away inadvertently when he said that the announcement will
"allow authorities to keep their spending … broadly level in real terms."
That is the key statement. Their spending will he level in real terms. There will be no expansion of services and no provision to meet the cost of GERBIL—the Education Reform Bill. That is an additional cost that councils have not had to meet before.
The provision will remain constant in real terms. It will include the cost of meeting the introduction of the community charge, yet expenditure will be level in real terms. In other words, when one deducts the cost of education and the cost of the community charge, constant expenditure in real terms becomes cuts in real terms. Will the Minister give us the precise estimates of the cost of introducing GERBIL and the community charge in Wales? I suspect that the ultimate figure will not even match the cost of living index and the normal inflation figure that the Government use.
Where is the extra provision to finance the councils' part in the valleys initiative? We eventually wrung the information out of the Treasury that there is not a single penny of Government money for this. What is available in this constant funding to help the valleys meet their part of the cost of the valleys initiative? Not a penny again, it would seem.
Will the Minister confirm that, since the Government came to office, Wales has lost £829 million in support for

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local government expenditure from Government compared to 1978–79? Those figures were given by the Secretary of State to one of his hon. Friends on Friday. Will the Minister confirm that the figure for the valleys is £250 million and that the announcement will do nothing to refund any of that money to the valleys or to Wales? Will he also confirm that—
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Too long.
Mr. Williams: It was a long statement.
Will the Minister also bear in mind that as interest charges are a major part of council costs—
Mr. Colin Shepherd: This is boring.
Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman may be bored; the people of Wales are interested and concerned. We do not need a tame poodle Parliamentary Private Secretary coming here from England to tell us what we can ask about Wales.
As interest charges are a major cost in local government administration and as these figures were settled before the latest increase, will the Minister confirm that there is another erosion of the real spending power of the councils? We need far more detail before we can assess the real impact of the announcement. It appears to be utterly inadequate to sustain existing services, and certainly inadequate to meet the extra costs that are being imposed by the Government's policies.
Mr. Roberts: The right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) welcomed parts of the statement and I thank him for that. He quickly went on to talk about the consultative paper. Of course, there will be considerable discussions on the contents of that paper in the months ahead. However, I was rather surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman object to the limitation that would be put on local authority spending by the community charge, as the Government are introducing the community charge to make local authorities more accountable to their electors for what they spend.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned debt redemption. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment said that local authorities in England were indebted to the tune of £45 billion, and the figure for Wales is £2·5 billion. That is a significant sum and the majority of hon. Members would regard the redemption of debt and the devotion of some part of captial receipts to that purpose as worth while. As the right hon. Gentleman acknowledged, there is a debt interest charge to be borne by those who contribute to the expenditure.
We are talking about the overall spending figures for both provision and grant, and we shall be discussing the detailed implications. We expect that local authorities will have adequate resources under the settlement to meet all their commitments. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that under this Government rate support grant for current expenditure has increased by 15 per cent. in real terms, whereas under the previous Labour Government, between 1974 and 1979–80, RSG expenditure remained unchanged in real terms.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I again remind hon. Members that there is a heavy day ahead. I ask for brief questions, to which I hope brief answers will be given.
Sir Anthony Meyer: Is my hon. Friend aware that councillors in Wales will give a warm and unreserved welcome to the removal of the restrictions on capital expenditure which have irked them for a considerable period? Does it not clearly emerge from the figures quoted by the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) that, during the final three years of the Labour Government, because of their mismanagement of the economy, the amounts in real terms devoted to rate support grant dropped steadily year by year, whereas under this Government in the past three years they have steadily increased?
Mr. Roberts: My hon. Friend is right. One must remind the Opposition that, had the trend in rate support grant between 1976–77 and 1979–80 continued, the level of RSG this year would have been £620 million, not the £1 billion that the Government have made available.
Mr. Richard Livsey: I welcome what has been said about councils spending the balance of their capital receipts in the year they choose. None the less, on this pre-poll tax statement, I should like to ask the Minister to enlighten us as to the mechanisms that will be deployed for controlled borrowing and credit. Will the hon. Gentleman consider relaxing council house receipts controls in Wales, just as the Secretary of State for the Environment said would happen in England? Has provision been made in the coming year for school building repairs in Wales, as were announced for England by the Secretary of State for Education and Science?
Mr. Roberts: I again emphasise that we have issued a consultative paper which contains various proposals. In the next three months we shall receive representations on them, so we have not made firm decisions. As for other details of the settlement, I again emphasise that today we are dealing with overall figures.
Mr. Keith Raffan: I warmly welcome my hon. Friends statement, which will allow councillors to budget more efficiently and effectively, and in particular the Government's proposals on capital expenditure. Does my hon. Friend agree that next year's settlement should lead not only to low rate increases—if any—but to an improvement in the services, provided local authorities concentrate on their statutory obligations? Does my hon. Friend recall the statement last year by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that not enough was being done to ensure the rapid and effective dissemination of improvements in efficiency? What has been achieved in that direction?
Mr. Roberts: My hon. Friend may be aware that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had discussions about efficiency with local authority associations in Wales. The Audit Commission has pointed out that it is possible to make savings of £40 million per annum in local authority spending. Only about one third of the savings suggested by the Audit Commission have been achieved. I agree that there is considerable scope for savings, but even as things are, if local authorities keep to this settlement there should not be significant rate increases. Such increases should be below the rate of inflation.
Mr. Donald Coleman: If the statement means that local authorities will be freed from the meddling of

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Ministers, it can be welcomed. How is the completion of local authority schemes, such as road building, affected by the statement? Will it mean that local authorities can still make bids for grant aid to complete those schemes, or will they have to find the money from their own resources?
Mr. Roberts: I have announced local authority provision as being some 8·8 per cent., or £145 million, over provision this year. That is some 5·1 per cent., or £87 million, over this year's budget. The authorities are reasonably well provided for, and I am being very restrained about the provision for next year. Local authorities will also receive grant of 5 per cent., or £63 million, more than this year, which in turn is 6·2 per cent. or £77 million more than claimed this year. In short, the authorities are in a good position to carry on with their existing plans.
Mr. Gwilym Jones: In joining the general warm welcome for my hon. Friend's generous statement, I urge him to stress as forcefully as possible that his abolition of spending controls should not be taken as a green light for local council spending again to go out of control. My hon. Friend knows as well as I do that next year is local election year in Wales and that, for electoral purposes, the Labour-controlled councils will operate a cynical cycle, producing low or no rate increases next year.
Mr. Roberts: Up until the coming year, local authorities that overspent had their grant reduced. That will no longer happen. I should have thought that it will be clear to local authorities and their electors that any heavy spending that attracts huge rate increases will be due solely to the decisions of their local councillors.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I should like to press the Minister further on capital controls. In view of his comment that there will be controls on borrowing and other forms of credit rather than on expenditure, can the hon. Gentleman clarify the position in relation to European grants, for example, for the counties of Gwynedd, Powys and Dyfed, where the integrated operations scheme is making available millions of pounds of capital? Can we take it that that scheme is outside the capital control system which he proposes and that the new system will provide for additionality, so that these councils will not miss out because of a reduction in capital allowance from the Government because capital is available from the EEC?
Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman will find that that matter is referred to in the consultation paper. I cannot give him the precise page, but he will find that there is a complete paragraph discussing various ways of dealing with his point.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is clear from the fact that only one third of Welsh Labour Members are present that they are satisfied with his statement? Will he draw attention to those local authorities that believe that their expenditure can continue to rise and that they do not have to grasp the nettle, for instance, on the number of surplus school places in Dyfed? Is my hon. Friend aware that the Audit Commission has
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repeatedly pointed out that it is a matter not of milking the ratepayers for more money but of local authorities getting their house in order?
Mr. Roberts: My hon. Friend is right to say that there is tremendous scope for local authorities to make savings. Of course there is scope for local education authorities to make savings, as they are well aware, by getting rid of surplus places in primary and secondary schools. I am glad to say that local education authorities are fully apprised of the need to get rid of surplus places and thereby devote the resulting savings to other educational purposes.
Mr. Alun Michael: It is clear that we will know what the Minister is really up to only when we have the figures and percentages. Capital expenditure is important for employment in local authority areas. Will the Minister be genuinely generous in his decisions on capital expenditure?
The Minister should be subject to the maximum penalties of the Trade Descriptions Act when he uses the word "generous" about revenue, because he knows that that signals yet another round of imposed cuts. How is it that the Secretary of State for the Environment can calculate the cost of introducing the poll tax and refer to it in his statement, yet there is none in the statement for Wales? If the Department of the Environment's figure of £110 million is correct, that suggests that between £7 million and £10 million is appropriate for Wales, although I have reservations about that figure.
In addition, it will cost some £10 million a year to collect the tax. That calculation is based on the £1 million extra required for collection for the city of Cardiff. What are the Minister's calculations? In view of those figures, will he undertake to fund the effects of bringing in this crazy tax and not allow it to eat still further into the inadequate provision for inflation in the figures he has announced today?
Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman is right: we have not made our announcement about capital spending for next year. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment was able to give a figure for the community charge in his statement. I cannot because the matter will be discussed by my right hon. Friend at a meeting next Wednesday with the local authority associations, but the cost is estimated at between £4·5 million and £7·5 million.
Mr. Michael: That is far too low.
Mrs. Ann Clwyd: Surely even the Minister is aware that this statement is a completely inadequate response to the problems of deprivation in the valleys, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) said. It cannot deal with the problems of bad housing, high unemployment, poor infrastructure and the heavy demand on social services in those areas. It will enable local authorities simply to stand still. It will not allow them to develop those essential services.
I remind the Minister that earlier this week the United Kingdom came bottom of the pile of European countries providing child care. That has happened in a week when we have heard much about the Government's concern for children. The settlement will not enable local authorities to develop child care and nursery education in Wales or in any other part of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Roberts: As usual, the hon. Lady is painting an excessively black picture. We in Wales are very fortunate, because 70 per cent. of our children aged under five are in some form of nursery education, as compared with some 40 per cent. in England. I think that she is painting far too dark a picture.
My right hon. Friend has announced his valleys initiative. I know that Opposition Members do not like it, but the people of the valleys do. It involves a tremendous concentration of expenditure and is a real attack on the social, housing and other problems of the valley communities. The settlement is generous in terms of the grant to Wales. The current expenditure provision is perfectly adequate and maintains expenditure for next year at the same level in real terms as for this year.
Mr. Gareth Wardell: Will the Minister help me in two ways? First, will he explain and clarify the difference between the statement that he has read out today and the copy of the statement that I received on the board a few minutes ago? There are two differences between them. According to the copy of the statement that I have, he is meeting local authority associations on 12 July, but he read "13 July". Secondly, he completely omitted an important sentence in the first paragraph on page 3, which says:
"There will be no grant reduction if authorities spend more than planned."
As that was not read out, should it be included in or excluded from the statement?
When statements appear on the annunciator concerning Scottish rate support grant settlements, "Scotland" is put after "rate support grant," and the same applies for England. Why can Wales not receive the same treatment?
Mr. Roberts: I do not think that the last matter is one for me. The hon. Gentleman is among those privileged to receive a copy of a statement as a matter of courtesy, but of course the actual statement is the one that I delivered to the House.
Mr. Win Griffiths: Having explained to us that the settlement is generous and that 5 per cent. is better than the level of inflation, will the Minister now say that he does not expect inflation to rise above 5 per cent. during the coming year? Will he further say that he does not expect interest rates to rise during the coming year? Both have a crucial effect on local authority expenditure. Is the Welsh Office keeping a sum of money in reserve to cover those contingencies? If so, how much does it have available?
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The Minister laid great stress on the fact that local authorities would be consulted about the overall package and about what might eventually happen. Will he confirm that, if there is an overwhelming majority view in favour of some significant changes to the package, the Welsh Office will meet the local authorities' demands?
Mr. Roberts: It is not for me to forecast the level of inflation, but I can urge local authorities, which are after all major spenders in the United Kingdom, to play their part in helping to keep down inflation. They can do that by keeping to the expenditure levels anticipated in the settlement.
Mr. Alan W. Williams: Where is the generosity in the statement? The last paragraph begins:
"This is a generous proposal."
Where is that generosity when what is being suggested is a 5 per cent. increase and inflation is 4·5 per cent. and rising? At best, that is a standstill budget.
The settlement highlights what is wrong with the whole of the Government's economic policy, which is that throughout the public sector we are at a standstill. What growth there is is in the private sector, and being let rip, it is causing serious balance of payments problems. The settlement is not just bad for local government in Wales—it is bad for the economy of Britain. How can the Minister describe a standstill budget as generous? It is double-talk.
Mr. Roberts: I am afraid that I have to remind the hon. Gentleman of what I said earlier about what happened to rate support grant current expenditure under the Labour Government—it remained unchanged in real terms. Since 1979, however, under this Government. it has increased by some 15 per cent. in real terms.
Mr. Paul Flynn: When one includes the cost of introducing the community charge in Wales, one sees that the increase over the last year is not 5·1 per cent. but 4·4 per cent., which is below the level of inflation. In spite of our entreaties, we have yet to hear what the cost of introducing GERBIL to Wales will be. We can summarise today's statement in simple terms—it is a cut.
Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman would be wrong to do so. With regard to the cost of introducing the community charge, I believe that the £4·5 million estimate is that of the local authorities themselves. The £7·5 million estimate is that of Price Waterhouse.
Mr. Flynn: And the cost of GERBIL?

Business of the House
5.29 pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Wakeham): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the business for next week:
MONDAY II JULY—Second Reading of the European Communities (Finance) Bill. Details of the documents relevant to the debate will be given in the Official Report.
Motion on the Rate Support Grant (Scotland) Order.
Remaining stages of the Court of Session Bill [Lords], which is a consolidation measure.
TUESDAY 12 JULY—Opposition day (18th Allotted Day). Until about seven o'clock, there will be a debate entitled "The growing divide between rich and poor in London". Afterwards, there will be a debate entitled "Public provision for sport for all". Both debates will arise on Opposition motions.
Motion relating to the Wireless Telegraphy (Broadcast Licence Charges and Exemption) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations.
Motion to take note of EC documents on the control of chlorofluorocarbons and the ozone layer. Details will be given in the Official Report.
WEDNESDAY 13 JULY—Ways and Means Resolution relating to the Finance (No. 2) Bill.
Progress on remaining stages of the Finance (No. 2) Bill.
Motion on short speeches.
THURSDAY 14 JULY—Completion of remaining stages of the Finance (No. 2) Bill.
Motion on the Redundant Mineworkers' Concessionary Coal (Payments Schemes) (Amendment) Order.
Motion on the Army, Air Force and Naval Discipline Acts (Continuation) Order.
FRIDAY 15 JULY—There will be a debate on Hong Kong on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
MONDAY 18 JULY—Estimates day (3rd Allotted Day). There will be debates on hospital and community health and other services. England (class XIV, vote 1) and on the Training Commission (class VII, vote 5) so far as it relates to adult employment and youth training.
[Relevant documents:
Monday 11 July 1988: Undertaking as confirmed by the representatives of the Governments of the member states of the European Communities meeting within the Council to make payments to finance the Communities general budget for the financial year 1988 (CM 418); Decision of the Council of the European Communities on the system of the Communities' own resources (CM 419); Treasury and Civil Service Committee fifth report Session 1987–88 (HC 358).
Relevant European Community documents: (a) 5647/88. Gross National Product; (b) Unnumbered. Correction of budgetary imbalances: United Kingdom abatement. Relevant reports of European Legislation Committee: (a) HC 43-xxvi ( 1987–88 ), paragraph 1; (b) HC 43-xxxii ( 1987–88 ), paragraph 4.
Tuesday 12 July: Relevant European Community documents: (a) 8335/87 Chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere; (b) 4997/88 COR 1 Protection of the ozone layer. Relevant reports of European Legislation Committee:
(a) 11C 43-iii ( 1987–88 ), para. 3; (b) HC 43-xxi ( 1987–88 ), para. 1, HC 43-xxvii ( 1987–88), para. 1 and HC 43-xxxii (1987–88), para. 1.]
Mr. Frank Dobson: I thank the Leader of the House for his statement. In view of the length of time that has been taken on the earlier statements, I shall keep my questions to a minimum. Arising from that, will the Leader of the House consider postponing the estimates debates on the environment and housing which are set down for later today as it looks as though they may either not be reached or will scarcely be reached before the close of business?
When can we expect a statement on the discrepancy between the assertion made on 24 May 1984 by the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Mr. Stanley) that no strip searches have been carried out on women at Greenham Common, and the recent court award of damages to a woman on the grounds that she had been strip-searched at Greenham Common before that date? The House is owed some explanation.
When can we expect a debate on the Government's lamentable failure to get enough of their Members to serve on the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs?
Does the right hon. Gentleman intend that all stages of the European Communities (Finance) Bill should be taken on the Floor of the House rather than in Committee upstairs?
Finally, will the Leader of the House take this opportunity to spell out for hon. Members the arrangements for the ceremony in Westminster Hall on 20 July to mark the tercentenary of the Declaration of Rights, the Bill of Rights and the claim of right?
Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman has asked me five questions about the business for next week and for today. So far as today's debate is concerned, I recognise that there have been several statements and that we shall be starting that debate later than we had intended. However, the best plan is to see how we get on.
With regard to the point raised by his hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry), I should like first to apologise to the hon. Gentleman, who I do not see in his place today, for the fact that there was not a Minister on the Treasury Bench when he raised his point of order yesterday. That was due to a misunderstanding. However, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Mr. Stanley) stands by the answer that he gave on 24 May 1984, which was based on a Ministry of Defence police investigation, which had found no evidence to support the allegations of strip searches at Greenham Common. However, I can give the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) an undertaking that the appropriate Minister from the Ministry of Defence will write to his hon. Friend about the matter that he raised in his point of order yesterday. I shall ensure that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras receives a copy of that letter.
The hon. Gentleman raised the question of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. As I have said many times in the House, I regret very much that the proposals that I put forward, which would have enabled the Select Committee to be set up, were not acceptable to the Opposition. I have undertaken that we should have a debate on the matter but the arrangements for the debate are best made through the usual channels.

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I intend to have discussions through the usual channels to decide how best to handle the European Communities (Finance) Bill, but it would be my present intention—I think this is the right thing to do—to commit the Bill to a Committee of the whole House.
With regard to the Westminster Hall ceremony, it is proposed that both Houses will present their addresses to Her Majesty the Queen to mark the tercentenary of the revolutions of 1688 and 1689 and of the Bill of Rights in Westminster Hall on Wednesday 20 July at 11 am. Hon. Members have been asked to notify Mr. Speaker's Office if they or their spouses wish to attend so that seats may be reserved for them and tickets issued in advance. Hon. Members and their spouses must be in their places by 10.30 am. Because each House will be attending formally on the Sovereign, Members will be seated separately. The ceremony is expected to end with the departure of the Queen at about 11.30 am.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. May I again stress that we have a heavy day ahead of us with a Loyal Address and then a debate on the estimates? I ask for questions to be directed to the business for next week.
Mr. Nicholas Soames: Will my right hon. Friend spare time to reflect on the great aggravation and anguish that is being caused to many hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens as they move about London because of the terrible state of the roads and the traffic? Will he find time to include in an estimates debate an opportunity to debate the sum of money that the Government presently spend on the roads in the capital to see whether the expression of the whole House would encourage them to spend a bit more?
Mr. Wakeham: As my hon.Friend knows, the amount spent by this Government is substantially up on the amount spent by the Labour Government. The question of which estimates are debated on estimates days is not a matter for me, but I shall certainly ensure that my hon. Friend's suggestion is referred to the appropriate quarter.
Mr. Alfred Morris: As the European Commission is required to put forward proposals about New Zealand's butter exports to the United Kingdom by the end of this month, will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement to be made next week on the British Government's decision on that important matter, having full regard to the Prime Minister's comments in this House on 19 May?
Mr. Wakeham: I recognise the right hon. Gentleman's long-standing interest in such matters. The best thing that I can do is to refer his point to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
Mr. Michael Latham: May I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing forward the motion on short speeches next week? Is he aware that the foreign affairs debate last week was an absolute travesty because right hon. Members of all parties had absolutely no concern for the ordinary rights of squaddies on the Back Benches?
Mr. Wakeham: As my hon. Friend knows, I have written to him about that because I recognise that several hon. Members had some modest cause for complaint
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towards the end of that debate. That issue is not something that we can always control but the motion on short speeches should make it more easily controllable in the future.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: While I acknowledge the fact that the need for a debate on the Government's failure to set up the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs is a matter for the usual channels and is not in the programme for next week, may I ask whether the Leader of the House will give us an undertaking that time will be found for that before the summer recess?
Mr. Wakeham: I cannot add anything other than to say that I will discuss it through the usual channels. It is not entirely a matter for me.
Sir Peter Blaker: Following the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham) about the foreign affairs debate, the point was not only that the speeches were rather long, but that the lapse of time since we had had a foreign affairs debate was so long that an enormous number of hon. Members wanted to speak. Will my right hon. Friend bear that in mind, and can we have another debate on foreign affairs reasonably soon?
Mr. Wakeham: I recognise the strength of what my right hon. Friend says, which is a logical deduction from last week's debate. I shall do my best, but I do not promise such a debate in the near future.
Mr. William McKelvey: Can the Leader of the House be a little more forthcoming on the question of the debate on the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs because it was my understanding that he said that we would have such a debate before the House rises at the end of this Session?
Mr. Wakeham: I have said that I would prefer to have a debate and that we would have a debate. I am seeking to arrange that through the usual channels.
Mr. Tom Sackville: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the growing chaos at Manchester Airport and some other British airports with passengers, particularly with Mediterranean holiday destinations, having to wait for up to 10 hours, mainly as a result of the air traffic control system in Europe being unable to cope with the volume? Will he find time for the House to debate this matter before what is already a very serious situation becomes a crisis?
Mr. Wakeham: I recognise that these matters are important, particularly at this time of the year. I cannot promise my hon. Friend a special debate before the summer recess, but I can think of ways in which he might use his ingenuity to raise the matters that rightly concern him.
Dr. Jeremy Bray: Will the Leader of the House ensure that the British Steel Bill, which was having its Third Reading in the House of Lords at a late hour last night, comes back to this House for further consideration, because the Lords were successful in extracting from Ministers the articles of association for the successor company, which we in this House asked for and were refused? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is apparent from these articles of association that the golden share offers the British Steel Corporation no protection

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from a takeover, because the share can be sold at any time with the agreement of the Government? Is he further aware that, because the chairman of the British Steel Corporation has made the statement that the closure of the Ravenscraig strip mill is probable rather than possible next year, this would spell the end of the steel industry in Scotland?
Mr. Wakeham: As the hon. Gentleman says, the Bill is still proceeding through the House of Lords. I think that the best thing is to wait until it has finished its passage there and then decide what to do.
Mr. John Carlisle: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many on these Benches will be delighted by the Opposition's decision to have a debate on sport next week? Can he perhaps ask the Minister for Sport whether, during that debate, he will indicate to the House the ideas set out by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in the excellent scheme for membership of football clubs for the season after next? Will he also point out to the House how successful this membership scheme has been in Luton and how readily accepted it will be by all those interested in the well-being of sport?
Mr. Wakeham: That is a very helpful suggestion from my hon. Friend. I think it is unlikely that my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport will not be dealing with these matters in his speech.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: With respect to Monday's business on the European Communities (Finance) Bill, in view of the fact that this authorises an increase in both EEC expenditure and our contributions of up to 25 per cent., will the Leader of the House assure us that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be here to explain and move it? In that regard, has he noticed that in the claimed financial effects of the Bill in the explanatory memorandum it is indicated that our estimated net contributions increase will be £200 million to £300 million? Is he not aware that under these provisions the gross taxation increase will be up to £1,000 million? Why is that not in the explanatory memorandum?
Mr. Wakeham: These are matters for the debate next week. While I cannot say which Minister will be speaking, I can guarantee to the hon. Gentleman that the Second Reading will be moved by a senior Minister, who will be highly competent to deal with the matters the hon. Gentleman has raised.
Mr. Harry Greenway: As a matter of compassion for the Leader of the Opposition, and, more important, for my constituents, will my right hon. Friend arrange a debate next week on the statement of the Secretary of State for the Environment on rates for next year so that I can put arguments to him directly for Ealing council to be rate-capped, bearing in mind that it is reliably estimated that rates will rise by 50 per cent. simply for that Labour council to stand still? In fact, an 80 per cent. increase is expected.
Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend makes his point well. Unfortuntely, I shall not be able to arrange a debate on that subject next week, but no doubt we shall come to the matter from time to time.
Mr. Bob Cryer: Will the Leader of the House arrange time for a debate on the enterprise culture so that we can discuss the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry's failure to refer the Cannon takeover of Thorn EMI cinemas to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission? Is he aware that the Cannon group has started asset-stripping by closing cinemas, including the much admired, much used and profitable Ritz cinema in Bradford, and has now sold off Elstree studio, one of the three major film studios left in this country, which played an important part in producing much admired and in some cases profitable films that were shown all round the world? These have been sold off to a property developer. Does not the Leader of the House think that it is disgraceful conduct by both the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Cannon Films which should be the subject of a debate?
Mr. Wakeham: No, I do not accept that for a single minute. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry acts in matters of mergers and takeovers in accordance with statute law. He conducts himself quite correctly in accordance with his duty. If the hon. Gentleman wants to raise matters of the enterprise culture, I suggest that he might be able to do it on both Wednesday and Thursday, when the remaining stages of the Finance Bill are being discussed.
Mr. Peter Thurnham: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the great concern in the country about child abuse. Will he consider providing time for a full debate on this matter, including the need for a wider inquiry into the full extent of child abuse in the country?
Mr. Wakeham: Yes, this is a very important subject and I recognise that there is a demand for a debate in many parts of the House. I do not think that I can promise a debate in the near future, but it is something that we can discuss through the usual channels.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Will the Leader of the House make arrangements next week to enable us to debate the situation in Turkey, in view of General Evren's unwelcome visit to this country? Will he ensure that, if General Evren does indeed come, the Prime Minister will make it clear to him that in Turkey there are far too many political prisoners, that far too many people have died as a result of the coup that he led in 1980, that trade union freedom is something that we hold precious and that the war against the Kurdish people should be brought to an end rapidly? Will she make it clear that there is no question whatsoever of Turkey being allowed to pursue an application to join the EEC while the lack of democracy in Turkey is such an obvious and palpable fact?
Mr. Wakeham: The visit of the President of Turkey next week is welcomed by, I believe, everybody in the House, with a few exceptions such as, probably, the hon. Gentleman. I believe that a closer relationship with Turkey will be to the benefit of both us and the Turkish people. I certainly am not prepared to arrange a debate next week on the subject.
Mr. Edward Leigh: In the light of next week's debate, is it not ironic that certain voices are raised in favour of setting up a central European banking system—an act that would certainly deprive this House of its traditional control over economic policy, as

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we celebrate the tercentenary of that control? Will my right hon. Friend therefore use his considerable skill and influence in Government to impress on his colleague who is to introduce the debate next Monday that the Government have no intention of presiding over any diminution of this House's traditional powers and privileges in matters of economic policy?
Mr. Wakeham: I have heard and read some of the reports to which I imagine my hon. Friend refers. I prefer to rely upon what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said during questions today, which seems to me to be much nearer the views of the British people.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Will the Leader of the House arrange a debate or a statement about the continuing lockout at TV-am? Is he aware that this matter has never been debated properly in the House of Commons even though the lockout has been going on for more than six months and 299 people have been deprived of their jobs? Since Tories are appearing on that company's programmes, and since people of principle on these Benches refuse to take part, and go to picket lines instead, does it not mean that there is political imbalance and that therefore we should have a debate in order to thrash out these matters in a proper way so that some of us can defend those who have been chucked out of jobs?
Mr. Wakeham: Not for the first time, the hon. Gentleman wants to have it both ways: he refuses to go on a programme and then complains that he is not on it. These are matters for the management and the work force to resolve; it is not for the Government to intervene.
Mr. Richard Holt: Notwithstanding the answer that my right hon. Friend gave a moment ago and the excellent one-hour statement yesterday, I believe that the House, and certainly the country at large, would far rather have a debate next week on child sexual abuse than on Hong Kong. Ought not my right hon. Friend to consider having an early debate on that subject, because there is much that needs to be said, which so far has not been allowed to be said in the House?
Mr. Wakeham: I totally agree with my hon. Friend that it was a most excellent statement by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health yesterday and I think that the House conducted itself very well during the subsequent discussion. I recognise that the House will want to debate these matters further. All I can say to my hon. Friend is that I will look at the matter again, but I cannot promise him an early debate.
Mr. Harry Ewing: Can I ask the Leader of the House a Member's question? Can I try to persuade the Leader of the House to investigate on behalf of Members what is going on in relation to the use of the services and facilities of the House? Is the Leader of the House aware that hardly a week passes without the all-party Whip having one more notice on it restricting the use of the facilities by Members? Last week's all-party Whip was the final insult. It explained that Members could not take more than six people on the Terrace, which is had enough, but went on to say that that applied unless they were going to a party in the Terrace Bar. The Leader of the House will appreciate that the House is rapidly passing
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into the hands of outside interests. Will he investigate all this and make a statement to the House as early as possible?
Mr. Wakeham: I have sympathy with some parts of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. As a matter of fact, earlier this week, I had a meeting with senior members from both sides of the House to consider what we should do about some of the things that occur in all-party groups and things of that sort. We are considering it as a matter of some urgency and I shall be in touch with the hon. Gentleman and the House as soon as we have done so.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Following the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames), may I point out that we have not had a general debate on transport since this Parliament met? On the Conservative Benches there is a desperate desire to discuss the successful deregulation of buses and the need to privatise British Rail.
Mr. Wakeham: I recognise the strength of my hon. Friend's suggestion and I wish that I could be more forthcoming, but this is a difficult part of the year in which to find extra time for debate.
Mr. Max Madden: Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate next week on the increase in visa fees, which did not receive any parliamentary approval? Does the Leader of the House realise that such a debate would allow Ministers to explain why visa fees have been increased by 20 per cent. and why they are now imposed upon all children? It would also force Ministers to defend such policies, which are clearly erecting financial obstacles to families being united in this country.
Mr. Wakeham: The Government's policy of, by and large, making the services that are provided financially self-sufficient is a good one. I do not believe that Ministers would have any difficulty in defending what has happened. I wish that I could offer the hon. Gentleman time for a debate next week, but he knows that, at this time of the year, there are occasions when he might be able to raise the matter should he want to.
Mr. Robert G. Hughes: Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate next week on the Post Office monopoly'? My constituents have just suffered a seven-day strike by Harrow post office. Companies have lost thousands of pounds and private individuals' lives have been disrupted. They would like to have a choice of postal service. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this matter and the Post Office monopoly should be referred to the Director General of Fair Trading?
Mr. Wakeham: I readily recognise the great inconvenience that such industrial action may cause and has caused my hon. Friend's constituents. Such matters must be kept constantly under review because things cannot necessarily go on the same for ever if such strikes continue. However, it will be difficult for me to arrange a debate on the subject next week.
Mr. Tony Banks: Is the Leader of the House aware that there is a strong feeling going around Westminster that he and a number of members of the Select Committee considering the televising of Parliament are deliberately dragging their feet to try to ensure that the experiment does not go ahead in October?

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May we have a debate next week on the reasons for the seeming delay and, if not, can we have an interim report before the House rises for the summer recess so that Members can consider what has been done so far? Finally, will the Leader of the House assure us that he will not attempt to frustrate the will of the House regarding the televising of Parliament?
Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman is one of the most naive of Members if he believes everything he reads in the newspapers about the television Select Committee. That Committee consists of Members from all sides of the House, who hold all sorts of views about the televising of Parliament. That Committee has been working extremely well and extremely hard and has dealt with many aspects of the problem. It is making good progress. We discussed whether we should make an interim report, but the present view is that that would further delay matters rather than speed things up.
Mr. Harry Barnes: Would we also be naive if we believed what is written in Hansard when it reports the answers that the Leader of the House gives to our questions? On 9 June in answer to my question about hunting deer with packs of dogs he said:
"Wild deer are already protected by the provisions of the Deer Acts 1963 and 1980"—[Official Report, 9 June 1988; Vol. 134, c. 987–8]
He said that those provisions mainly referred to protection against poachers.
Scotland has the Deer (Scotland) Act 1959, which offers the sort of protection asked for in the early-day motion that I mentioned on 9 June. May we have a debate so that such protection is spread to England, Wales and Northern Ireland?
Mr. Wakeham: I do not think that I have written to the hon. Gentleman, but I have written to a number of his hon. Friends setting out the detail of the statement I made, which I believe was correct. However, the hon. Gentleman will know that such matters are normally left to private Member's legislation. The Government have no plans to introduce legislation on this topic.
Mr. Allan Roberts: Will the Minister confirm the rumours circulating in Westminster that the Government are about to announce where the housing action trusts will be based? Will he make sure that, when that announcement is made, it is not in a written answer, but in a statement by the Minister for Housing and Planning or the Secretary of State for the Environment to the House next week? Will he also arrange for a debate on Girobank privatisation before it is privatised because, to go through, that privatisation does not require legislation?
Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman is a glutton for punishment. I thought that we were having a little rest from housing legislation. It is not for me to confirm the rumours that are going around the House. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment will make a statement at the proper time if a statement is required. I cannot confirm any rumours.

WELSH AFFAIRS
Ordered,
That the matter of the Effect of Government Legislation on the People of Wales, being a matter relating exclusively to Wales, be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for its consideration—[Mr. Wakeham]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, Standing Order No. 52 (Consideration of estimates) shall apply to the consideration of Estimates as if paragraph (2) of that Order were omitted.—[Mr. Wakeham.]

Revolutions of 1688–89 (Tercentenary)
Mr. Speaker: I have to announce to the House that I have not selected any of the amendments on the Order Paper—[HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."]—nor have I selected the manuscript amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourhridge (Sir J. Stokes).
5.56 pm
The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:
Most Gracious Sovereign,
We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, having in mind the acceptance by Their Majesties King William and Queen Mary of the Declaration of Rights presented to them on 13th February 1689, and recalling also the Bill of Rights passed by the Parliament of England and the Claim of Right made by the Estates of Scotland for vindicating and asserting the ancient rights and liberties of the people of the two Kingdoms, beg leave to express to Your Majesty our great pleasure in celebrating the tercentenary of these historic events of 1688 and 1689 that established those constitutional freedoms under the law which Your Majesty's Parliament and people have continued to enjoy for three hundred years.
The address commemorates the 300th anniversary of one of the great events in the history of these islands: the glorious revolution of 1688. It is an anniversary with particular meaning for this House because, uniquely in the annals of European history, this was a revolution carried through by the action of Parliament itself.
The main events are well known: the defiance of the orders of King James II by the bishops and the judges; the invitation to William of Orange and Mary to defend our ancient rights and liberties; the landing at Torbay and the peaceful transfer of power which gave rise to the title of the bloodless revolution in England—although it was not like that in Scotland, and it was a very different story in Ireland; the summoning of the Convention Parliament; and the passage of legislation starting with the Bill of Rights and in Scotland the Claim of Right, which set us firmly upon a course of political stability and peace at home.
Those who invited William and Mary and who drew up the constitutional settlement wanted to secure our liberties and safeguard our institutions—Parliament, the common law, the jury system, local government by justices and corporations.
There are many important conclusions to be drawn from those momentous events 300 years ago. First, the glorious revolution established qualities in our political life which have been a tremendous source of strength: tolerance, respect for the law and for the impartial administration of justice, and respect for private property. It also established the tradition that political change should be sought and achieved through Parliament. It was this which saved us from the violent revolutions which shook our continental neighbours and made the revolution of 1688 the first step on the road which, through the successive Reform Acts, led to the establishment of universal suffrage and full parliamentary democracy.
Secondly, the events of 1688 were important in establishing Britain's nationhood and they opened the way to that renewal of energy and resourcefulness which built
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Britain's industrial and financial strength and gave her a world role. They demonstrated that a free society will always be more durable and successful than any tyranny.
Thirdly, we also celebrate the forging of the alliance between Britain and the Netherlands, which has endured for more than three centuries and which is active today in NATO and the European Community. Her Majesty's visit to the Netherlands this week further strengthened our friendship.
Even great events are subject to constantly shifting judgments and interpretations. Not every legacy of 1688 is a happy one—above all in Ireland. But the principal achievements of our forebears in 1688 remain and ensure that the will of the people be exercised through Parliament rather than by intimidation or pressure practised by any one group or faction. That is the legacy of 1688—a legacy not only to this country, but to parliamentary democracies everywhere.
6 pm
Mr. Neil Kinnock: This motion to express to Her Majesty our pleasure at the tercentenary of the revolution is a worthy act, not only because it celebrates a significant advance, as the Prime Minister just said, but because it requires us all to consider the character of our democracy and the ways in which, arduously and slowly, it has been brought thus far to our own time. Reflecting on that journey of democracy is a rewarding activity in itself. For me, it is fascinating, for instance, to see some who are usually scornful of fudges and compromise give such respect to the settlement of 1689, for if the coup d'etat itself was dramatic, the contemporary explanations of what occurred—and why—were somewhat pragmatic.
The Whigs, as we all recall, claimed a little disingenuously that James had been deposed merely because he had broken the contract of monarchy with the people. The Tories disagreed with that, holding that there was no such contract. Phlegmatically, however, they preferred what had happened peacefully to the alternative, which would certainly have been the second revolutionary civil war inside 50 years, with all its incalculable consequences. Once again, the world would have been turned upside down.
Meanwhile, the Prince of Orange knew a good thing when he saw one. With a Dutch opportunism not now seen outside the realms of the European Nations Cup, he asserted that he had brought an army with him to Torbay, not for reasons of invasion or insurrection, but merely for personal security. Then he went on to accept Parliament's rather dexterous definition that the throne had simply been vacated by James II, apparently in between having nose bleeds and disposing of the great seal in a rather original manner.
To the actors in the revolution and to many subsequent politicians, constitutionalists and historians, the interpretations of the revolution have been a matter of "pick your preference". As Christopher Hill said, history is written by the winners, and that is certainly true of revolutions. It was ever thus.
However, some of the most redoubtable roots of our democracy and some of the most intractable causes of our divisions, as the Prime Minister implied, run back to those years of 1688 and 1689, which is what makes the events so significant. It is important, therefore, even at this distance of centuries both to avoid the overblown romanticism of

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those who say that the revolution meant everything to liberty and democracy, and to eschew the cynical affectation of those who hold that the revolution meant nothing for liberty and democracy. Both schools of thought, if that is what they qualify to be called, are wrong.
The coup d'etat and settlement of 1688 and 1689 produced an important advance in the process of constructing rights and suppressing tyrany, which has progressed gradually and fitfully in our country over the centuries. No final date has been set for that process, and if we are truly a democracy of vigilance and vitality, no date for the completion of the body of liberties will ever be set:
"Each freedom"—
as Aneurin Bevan said—
"is only made secure by adding another to it".
The real assessment of 1688 and its consequences must, like all historic events, be made according to the two criteria of what they meant when they happened and what they convey to our age. That is especially true when the events concerned are held to be the very foundry of our liberties.
As for what happened, let us commend the undoubted fact that the revolution effectively asserted Parliament's power to dislodge the executive. Let us commend the fact that it did so without bloodshed in England. Let us celebrate the fact that it began to dispose of the dictatorship of divine right and to replace it with the civilised and durable strength of democratic right. Let us welcome the fact that, by further developing the conditions for liberty, the revolution notably assisted the advance of freedom of speech, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary.
In all those ways the revolution deserves to be marked, as today's motion puts it, with "pleasure", just as it earned the accolades offered by Liberal historians such as Macaulay and G. M. Trevelyan and the applause of Socialist historians such as A. J. P. Taylor, who hailed the revolution as
"the foundation of our liberty".
They were all prepared to praise the revolution, despite being conscious, as we are, that in its immediate wake there was bloodshed in Scotland, and in Ireland there was dreadful slaughter, since when there has been a long and dreadful history and inheritance of conflict. All these commentators were conscious, too, that, although they were prepared to praise the revolution as a genesis of liberty, issues such as the royal prerogative, exercised not by the monarch but by a political executive, were bound to remain vexed—as they do in our time.
This brings me back to the second criterion for judging these events—what do they convey to us now? For the most incisive assessment of that, we are indebted to the most distinguished of our contemporary historians of the 17th century Christopher Hill, former master of Balliol. In a perfect illustration of the fact that the historian's art is confined not merely to analysing the past, Hill wrote to The Independent as recently as February of this year to say that the revolution of 1688
"was not a popular Revolution like that of 1640–60. But … it overthrew a Government which … had alienated the whole electorate, including its Tory supporters, by an arrogant and insensitive disregard for public opinion, by its arbitrary interference with the independence of local government and
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the universities, by its bullying of the press and the judiciary and by the subordination of British foreign policy to the wishes of the greatest World power."
Christopher Hill continued:
"James alienated Scotland and even the House of Lords; opposition to him started among the bishops".
The revolution, Hill concluded,
"re-established effective parliamentary control over the executive, the rule of law and the political independence of judges, restored traditional local government and greater freedom of the press. It ended rule by royal favourites and ideological sycophants, most of whom were recent converts to the rulers' religion."
It is clear that the former master of Balliol was writing only of 1688 and 1689.
The liberties and democracy which the events of those years began to establish in our country must never be taken for granted. Parliamentary democracy above all systems of government must respond to and stimulate change. In three centuries democracy has slowly been extended in our country. Parliamentary democratic government has adapted to each new age. It must continue to do so: by getting rid of residual injustices and abuses from previous ages, ancient and modern; by advancing to new ground in the achievement of rights; and most of all by using the best of all collective instruments—democracy itself—for its highest purpose of enlarging the political, social and economic liberty of the individual.
We in this generation recognise that which the generation in 1688 did not, that that obligation must apply to all individuals—women as well as men, poor people as well as those who are not poor—and that it must apply without prejudice or preference to everyone regardless of race, colour and creed. The object of that obligation is freedom. It is freedom that is not merely formal and conditional upon the accidents of fortune, but freedom that is real and usable because people have the political rights, the economic power, the personal confidence in security and the sense of social responsibility that make them truly emancipated. Now, as always, it is our parliamentary obligation to further those freedoms. As we endorse this celebratory motion, we regard it as our democratic mission.
6.10 pm
Sir Bernard Braine: May I, as one who has had the privilege of sitting in 12 successive Parliaments under six of your illustrious predecessors, Mr. Speaker, and having seen nine Prime Ministers at the Dispatch Box, offer a few reflections on the motion that is before the House?
As the Leader of the Opposition has said, we may have our differences in this place, but there is surely one consideration that unites us all. It is the knowledge that the parliamentary system which we jointly serve is greater than the sum total of all who are here at any one time. We are here, of course, to make the laws, to control taxation, to check the abuse of power and to seek redress of grievance, but only for a brief tenure. Therefore, we are no more than custodians of the best inherited from the past and trustees for generations yet unborn. That is why being a Member of this House is the greatest privilege that any British citizen can have.
Yet it might have turned out differently. If the arbitrary rule of a Stuart king had not been checked, as it was by the events of 1688–89, upheaval might have been delayed but

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it would have been as inevitable and probably as violent as it was to be in France a century later or as it was in 1917 in Tsarist Russia.
Looking hack, we can see that those events were a major watershed in our history. It was certainly a revolution but more in the sense of the turning of a wheel back to normality, away from arbitrary rule back to the ancient contract between king, Parliament and people which had obtained at least from the middle ages. As one of our most distinguished historians has written:
"Stuart England, like so many continental countries, found kingship and liberty incompatible. The revolution of 1688 gave us a constitution in which the two are inseparable."
Henceforward, not even the king would be above the law and the actions of his Ministers would require the assent of a freely elected Parliament. That is the nub of it.
Of course, the glorious revolution did nothing to change the social order. It did nothing immediate for the lot of the common man, it did not widen the franchise, but what it did was provide a strong framework of law within which later far-reaching changes were to prove possible and a stability ensured which became the envy of the nations of the world.
What is more, no year since 1689 has passed without a meeting of Parliament. The way was at last open for the expansion of commerce, the extension of influence overseas, the building of empire and later that truly remarkable and peaceful transition from empire to a free Commonwealth of nations. Of course, it did not all proceed smoothly. Only 76 years after the revolution, an unthinking British Government sought to tax 2·5 million Britons on the other side of the Atlantic without consulting the colonial assemblies or representation here. When that happened there were some Members of this House who took the view that the Government of the day were in breach of what had been settled in 1689.
The great Edmund Burke, writing to his constituents in Bristol in 1777, rejected the charge that those who, like him, opposed the Government's American policy were guilty of encouraging rebellion. [Interruption.] I hope that hon. Members will agree with what Edmund Burke went on to say:
"revolts of a whole people never were encouraged, now or at any time. They are always provoked."
Ironically, one of the greatest compliments that could have been paid to our revolution was that the American founding fathers drew their inspiration from our Bill of Rights, even to the extent of using some of its phraseology in the framing of their own constitution.
Happily, we learned from the experience, beginning with the Durham reforms, the extension of self-government to Canada and to the Australasian colonies, and eventually sovereign independence to India and to nearly all our remaining dependencies. In the end, we kept faith with all who had been subject to the British Crown, and we did so in the spirit of what was begun here 300 years ago.
It was not given to those who participated in the glorious revolution to know where it would lead. What they did not know was that only 40 years before their fathers had engaged in cruel civil war, had executed a king, had suspended Parliament and had installed a military dictatorship. It is true that king and Parliament came back in 1660, yet the lesson had not been learnt, so that once again the realm was in grave danger. Those who sought a new settlement saw clearly the need for constitutional
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stability and freedom, and they acted. Their instinct was sound, and we can justifiably say now that they built better than they knew.
It is wholly fitting, therefore, that, as we celebrate the tercentenery of this great milestone in our history, we should pay tribute to what was done then and should thank God that as a consequence we live in a free country. We should support the motion with full and grateful hearts.
6.17 pm
Mr. David Steel: On behalf of my hon. Friends I warmly and readily support the motion which the Prime Minister has moved which says that
"an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty,"
to mark the celebration of significant and historical events which led to 300 years of stable constitutional monarchy.
For once the motion correctly refers to the Parliament of England. I hope hon. Members will not mind if I remind them that we are the successors not just of the Parliament of England but also of the Parliament of Scotland. We all have our favourite historians and I should like to quote the words of Professor Robert Rait who reminded us that the Claim of Right of the Scottish Convention of Estates was different from the declaration in England. He said:
"But the Scottish declaration, as a whole, was not expressed in the general terms which satisfied the English Parliament; it was less philosophical and more indignant, and it specified a large number of detailed offences."
He went on to say:
"In 'offering' the Crown to William and Mary, the Convention asserted, more explicitly than the English Parliament, the dependence of the royal authority upon the will of the legislative assembly, and, in making the offer, the rights defined in the list of grievances were claimed, demanded, and insisted upon."
It is right to remember that the revolution of 1688–39 established the rights of a democratic Parliament against the usurpation of power by the Crown, but that it did not, nor did it purport to, establish the rights of individuals against the abuse of power by the Executive. As we celebrate these events of 300 years ago, it is wholly right that we should use the occasion to deliberate on our present constitution and the abuses of power within it. In that constructive spirit, I support the motion.
6.19 pm
Mr. Ian Gow: Last month, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury came to the House of Commons and told us that, following a decision of the European Court, the Government were proposing to introduce legislation to give effect to the judgment of that court. My hon. Friend was asked what would be the consequence if the House of Commons failed to agree to that change in taxation which he had announced the Government were to seek to secure. My hon. Friend told the House that, if we were to make that decision to reject the Government's proposal to give effect to the judgment of the European Court, that would lead to a serious constitutional situation.
Earlier this week, the President of the European Commission was reported as having said that, in a few years' time, 80 per cent. of the powers now enjoyed by the House would have been transferred to the European Commission or the European Parliament. It is against that

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background that I want to underline some of the words that appear in the Humble Address moved by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Those words refer to the
"constitutional freedoms under the law which Your Majesty's Parliament and people have continued to enjoy for three hundred years."
It is appropriate, when we are debating this motion, that the House should reflect that that which occurred 300 years ago is in the nature of a trust conferred upon us. It is timely that we should reflect whether those freedoms granted to this Parliament and to our people can long be maintained, if we are to continue in the direction proposed by my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary and which was envisaged by the President of the European Commission.
The great movement—in a way, it was a great movement—towards what some people regard as European unity started 42 years ago with the famous speech at Zurich of Winston Churchill. He said in those telling sentences:
"We must recreate the European family—or as much of it as we can—and provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom."
The next sentence, which I believe has been widely misinterpreted, stated:
"We must build a kind of United States of Europe."
We do not know what Churchill would have said about the prospect of a continuing erosion of the powers of this place over our people, but it is legitimate for those who, like myself, share his European ideal to say that it is possible to believe that the European nations must co-operate as closely as possible, one with another, where it is in their common interest to do so.
It is possible to believe, as I do, in the free movement of people, goods and capital in Europe without also believing that we need to go on surrendering the powers of this place, either to the Commission or to the European Parliament.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: It is not a Parliament. It is an assembly.
Mr. Gow: Following the Single European Act, it is so called.
It is appropriate on this occasion that the House should reflect on the liberties that were conferred specifically upon us as a result of the glorious revolution and say—I believe that we have my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's sympathy in this—that we shall seek to preserve and uphold the rights of this House and the rights of our people to be taxed and their rules to be made only as we, the House of Commons, decide.
6.23 pm
Mr. Tony Benn: This is the first time in my 38 years in the House that we have had a debate on parliamentary democracy, on what was meant to be a formal motion. But it cannot possibly be a formal motion because of the speech made in support of it by the Prime Minister and by other hon. Members who have participated.
One thing has become quite clear to me, and I have thought it for some time. If one blows on the embers of any old controversy, the flames come up quite quickly. I recommend the House not to pass the Humble Address that has been moved by the Prime Minister today. What
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happened in 1688 was not a glorious revolution. It was a plot by some people. By chance, they conspired in Chesterfield. The Earl of Devonshire got a dukedom for his pains and it would have cost him his head if it had gone the other way. That plot sought to replace a Catholic king with another king more acceptable to those who organised the plot. It was not bloodless. I do not know how the House can discuss the arrival of William of Orange without referring to the hideous repression for which he was responsible in Ireland. He was not alone in the long history of British repression in Ireland, but he was responsible for very much of it. Historians have said, and I have read, that the rights of the Irish Catholics under William III were fewer than those of the American negroes at the time of slavery.
Nor, indeed, was 1688 the establishment of our liberties. How many hon. Members have read the Bill of Rights? I shall quote just one passage from it. It referred to:
"An Act for the more effectual preserving of the King's person and government by disabling papists from sitting in either House of Parliament."
That is in the Bill of Rights. Are we to say today that we welcome a Bill of Rights that says that papists could not sit in either House of Parliament? I know that that was changed later, but we should not attribute our rights to the Bill of Rights.
Let me turn to the oath required of magistrates and Ministers, which states:
"I do declare that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual within this realm. So help me god."
However, the Prime Minister allowed the airfields of Britain to be used by an American President to bomb Libya. The standing army of James II consisted of 30,000 troops, exactly the same number that President Reagan has at his command in our islands.
The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) touched on another aspect of the matter—the fact that this Parliament is about to be destroyed by the European Act. It is all very well making a speech, saying that he thinks that the Prime Minister really sympathises with him. Whatever the sympathies of the Prime Minister, one has only to read what Mr. Delors said as quoted in The Times today. It states:
"M. Jack Delors, the president of the European Commission, yesterday stunned Euro-MPs by declaring that the existing system of national parliaments would have to give way to the 'embryo' of a European government within seven years, and the Single European Market after 1992."
What capacity for self-deception does this House have when it celebrates such a motion? The Father of the House and I were elected in the same year, although he was elected a few months before me. The one difference between us was that I followed Edmund Burke in Bristol. Edmund Burke was the paid agent of the state of New York. That is why he supported the American colonies. He was the Member for Bristol for six years. He visited the constituency four times and he is now treated as one of the great architects of parliamentary democracy. He used to take his holidays in Bath, 10 miles away, but he did not bother to visit Bristol. For God's sake, the capacity for self-deception in this House never ceases to amaze me.
Then we are told that 1688 was the birth of our democratic rights. Only 2 per cent. of the population, all of them rich men, were represented in this House in 1688. No working people or middle-class people and no women

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were represented. That had nothing to do with democracy and that is no doubt why the National Front joined the Prime Minister in welcoming the glorious revolution. It has endorsed it and, when Exeter celebrates the landing of William III at Torbay, the National Front will be there because it knows what it was about.
This is all to justify a celebration in Westminster Hall on 20 July. The contractors have not waited. They are already building the structures in Westminster Hall to allow the Queen to reply to a Humble Address that we have not even passed. If we want to have a celebration, have a celebration, but do not ask the House of Commons to falsify history to justify a party in Westminster Hall. Do not ask us to do it. Do not ask us to confuse the electors about democracy.
Let me give a parallel. If this was the birth of democracy, will the Prime Minister tell us whether, if the Russians adopted the principles of 1688, she would welcome it? If Gorbachev said that he intended to be a hereditary monarch, would that be a great advance towards democracy? If the Supreme Soviet were to be hereditary and the prerogatives of the General Secretary of the Communist party were to be the same as the royal prerogative, would that he a great gain? Who is the House trying to deceive by passing the motion? There is also the American standing army here to which I have referred; and the power of the European Commission over our Parliament.
I do not mean to he controversial. The House knows that it is not my practice ever to be controversial on constitutional matters. But I would not be human if I did not express my deep resentment at having to listen to a speech on democracy from the butcher of the GLC—the person who tried to destroy the civil liberties of our people, the Prime Minister who has pursued Peter Wright around the world at enormous cost to prevent him telling the truth about the crimes committed by MI5 against an elected Government. I will not listen to a lecture from her on democracy.
If we were to celebrate parliamentary democracy, we could perhaps celebrate Wat Tyler's campaign against the poll tax. We could celebrate the Levellers. We could celebrate Tom Paine, whose books are still not allowed to be read by the prisoners in the Maze. We could celebrate Tolpuddle, or the Chartists, or the Suffragettes.
I must tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I am going to put a plaque in the House. I shall have it made myself and screwed on the door of the broom cupboard in the Crypt because in that broom cupboard on the night of the census in 1910 a suffragette hid herself so that when she filled in the census she could say that she lived in the House of Commons on the night of the census. Those are the people who gave us parliamentary democracy. Indeed, the Prime Minister would not be Prime Minister if the suffragette had not broken the law.
Mr. Gow: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that part of his speech, will he reflect on the fact that there are many Conservative Members, and vast numbers outside, who think that for him to lecture this place about freedom and liberty in the light of his conduct during the miners' strike is a disgrace?
Mr. Benn: All that the hon. Gentleman has done is to show that this is not an all-party motion; it is an occasion to argue about the meaning of democracy. The day that
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the Labour party and the Tory party agree about democracy, I shall apply for the Chiltern Hundreds, so I hope that we never end that sort of argument. Of course, this is about controversy. But if we have an opportunity 300 years later to discuss what democracy is about, let us discuss it properly.
My amendment is of inordinate length, Mr. Speaker, but you allowed me to table it. I think that that must have been on the clear understanding that I did not mope it, but that is another matter. I have tabled in my amendment, first, that Crown prerogatives should be replaced by statute law. There is no justification whatever for powers to be exercised in this country that have not been endorsed by Parliament. Let me list the powers of the Sovereign today, most of them exercised by the Prime Minister—to make Orders in Council, to declare war, to make peace, to recognise foreign Governments, to sign or ratify treaties, to grant pardons, to grant charters, to confer honours, to make appointments, to establish commissions, to grant commissions, and to issue orders. Those are prerogative powers and sitting on the Government Front Bench is the person who exercises them.
I asked the Library to tell me a bit about the Prime Minister. Since she has held office, she has made 170 peers—170 of them sitting in the other place, not by virtue of democratic right but because of patronage. The Prime Minister's predecessors all did the same. She has made four hereditary peers, 11 Lords of Appeal, and 56 bishops. Those appointments were made under prerogative powers. They were never discussed in Cabinet or in Parliament. How long shall we pretend that a system of law that rests on feudal prerogatives, even if exercised by the monarch sitting on the Government Front Bench, has anything to do with democracy?
Then we come to the House of Lords itself, a subject in which I have some interest. But when I saw those old peers who were given a map of London, their rail fare and £100 to support the poll tax, I must confess that I understood why the House of Lords is so beloved by the Conservative party. The poll tax is the best thing that has ever happened to the stately homes of England.
Then we come to the third point in my amendment, that people be allowed to know and understand the decisions taken in their name by the Government. We are now told that anyone who ever serves the public must swear confidentiality for life—except Bernard Ingham, who leaks state secrets at 11 o'clock every morning. That includes members of the Cabinet who publish their memoirs. We are Crown servants too. This is an attempt to suppress information about what happens in Whitehall and the Government so that the public do not know, and if they do not know, they cannot exercise their vote in order to change the society in which they live.
Then we come to the powers of the European Commission, the right to equality of treatment and the right to be granted free speech in assembly and free trade unions, the right to have elected local and national authorities to meet the needs of the community and that the armed forces of foreign powers should be subject to the annual Army Act. What is wrong with the House of Commons deciding every year whether it wishes American troops to remain here'? Every year we go through the farce—it is a farce—of re-endorsing the disciplinary code for our Army. Why cannot we say about the American army

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what we can say about the British Army—whether we want it to continue in order to ensure that it does not threaten our liberty?
Then we have the Church of England. We are part of a Parliament that believes in equal rights for women, but the Synod is still discussing whether women priests are to be permitted. The House of Commons, which does not have to be Chrisitian, let alone Anglican, and a Prime Minister, who does not have to be Christian, let alone Anglican, have the power to endorse or reject the Synod's decisions, appoint bishops, and so forth.
Then we come to the oath. I have been looking at the oaths and my next Bill will seek to amend the Promissory Oaths Act 1868. When one looks at the oaths of a Privy Councillor, a Member of Parliament and the Sovereign at the coronation, they throw an interesting light on the obligations by which we are bound. The reality is that nobody takes an oath to uphold democracy in Britain. The Queen takes an oath to govern the country and uphold the rights of the bishops. We take an oath to the Queen. Nobody in the House takes an oath to uphold democracy in Britain, and one does not need to have watched "A very British coup" to realise that that might have some relevance at some future date.
We must now terminate the jurisdiction of Britain in Ireland. I asked the Ministry of Defence to give me the figures. The war in Ireland costs £722 million a year—£13 million a week on repressing Ireland, and that must stop.
Finally, I come to the last point in my amendment about common land belonging to the people of Britain. It took me some time to realise that the privatisation of British Telecom was not an intention of the Prime Minister. The Enclosure Acts were medieval privatisation. They took the common land and gave it to the great landowners who have benefited greatly by it.
I finish with the words of my amendment:
"and humbly pray that proposals that would give effect to these demands be brought forward for an early decision by the House of Commons, in line with the manifest need for a genuine restructuring"—
a rough translation of a word that is becoming familiar—
"of the institutions of the state to replace its present feudal nature and introduce a new sense of openness"—
another rough translation—
"which is necessary if democracy is to be entrenched in the hearts and minds of the people, and to meet their needs and satisfy their aspirations, which are the only ultimate safeguards of its maintenance and development in this, or any other, country."
I beg hon. Members not to make the House of Commons look a fool by endorsing this Humble Address, and to vote against it, or, if they cannot do that, to abstain, so that at least we do not have to tell children that democracy had nothing to do with the franchise; it was all because William of Orange had to give an assurance to justify the fact that he landed an army in Torbay and took over, in order to repress the Catholics and the Irish. I recommend that course to the House.
6.40 pm
Mr. Julian Amery: When I came to the House this afternoon, it was not my intention to intervene in this debate, which I thought was likely to be a formality. However, the speech of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) has moved me to seek to catch
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your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman is himself the finest product of the glorious revolution. His speech was possible only because of the political evolution that we have enjoyed since those days. Had he made it in some other assembly, and had we not had the glorious revolution, his head might well have rolled.
Mr. Benn: It may yet.
Mr. Amery: The right hon. Gentleman says, "It may yet," but I do not wish to anticipate the Labour party conference.
The difficulty is one of definition. The right hon. Gentleman has told the House what he considers to be undemocratic about the last three centuries and about today, but he has not given a clear definition of what is democracy. When I first looked out of my political cradle and submitted my draft speeches, as a candidate in 1945, to the scrutiny of my father's eagle eye, he always crossed out the word "democracy" and substituted "constitutional government".
Mr. Benn: That explains a lot.
Mr. Amery: I believe that my father was profoundly right and that the freedoms we enjoy and the progress that has been made results from having a constitutional Government. We learnt three centuries ago what the Soviets are learning now—that there is no progress without freedom. However, freedom represents a threat to authority and a balance must be struck. I believe that we can claim, over those three centuries, to have struck that balance fairly well.
I am not sure what the right hon. Gentleman means by the word "freedom". The essence of the motion is our faith in parliamentary democracy—not direct democracy or trying to discover from day to day, through public opinion polls or by any similar method, what people think at any given time, on any given issue. The old phrase has it that a politician with his ear to the ground must inevitably have his bottom in the air, and he must not be surprised if it gets kicked. The essence of our system is that we deliberate in this House on what we think is right and vote according to our conscience. That was the doctrine of Burke, but I believe it is also the philosophy of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield on issues such as capital punishment, where public opinion would almost certainly be against that of the House. We need rather more definition before opposing the motion, which I wholeheartedly support.
I turn to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow), who warned us of the dangers of a European federal government. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has spoken on that issue in relation to a central bank and a monetary union. I confess to being surprised at the way in which we so easily accept that the choice is only between a federation and national sovereignty. M. Delors and others have spoken about a monetary union; but we are the experts on that subject. Nobody ever ran a monetary union without gold, until we started doing so in 1931, when we operated the sterling area with enormous success until the 1960s.
It was a monetary union of sovereign states using central banks. In its early days, before exchange control was imposed with the onset of war, it was a monetary union of sovereign countries, sometimes having varying parities. Its members merely banked their reserves with the Bank of England, without losing control of them. That

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was an enormous success, and all those in the sterling area came out of the pre-war recession long before the rest of the world. When the gold standard was stopped, everybody thought that the heavens would fall in, but, because of sterling, they did not.
That system was a miraculous success, and it continued through the war with the pooling of the gold and dollar reserves—and the situation which was even more difficult financially after the end of the war. We can teach others more about monetary union than they can teach us. Instead of saying no to the different proposals, we should say, "You ought to listen to us, because we know much more than the German or French banks and can teach them lessons."
To take it further, up until the mid-1950s, the Commonwealth was a remarkably successful economic, political and military association of sovereign nations working together on a basis of joint consultation, yet with nothing like the apparatus that Europe already has. In those days, there was no Commonwealth secretariat, and nothing like the European Commission and the regular European meetings which there are now. We can set the pace in the way in which a monetary union should develop. It may be that the old Commonwealth system—and I do not mean the hotchpotch we have today—could also provide a pattern more suitable to mature and historical nations than a federation of the kind now being proposed.
It is in that spirit that I say that our country, as the author of so many contributions to democracy—sorry, constitutional government—in the past, should set the pattern again in the future, in both the monetary and political fields.
6.46 pm
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I am not surprised that the father of the right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) crossed out from his speeches the word "democracy" and substituted "constitutional government". The fight for democracy had to be wrung out of the class of which the right hon. Gentleman's party has been representative since the days of the 1640 revolution; democratic rights have not been handed to the people of this country.
I too wish to quote Christopher Hill, because my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition referred to him. In his book on "The English Revolution 1640",Christopher Hill quotes the Leveller Rainborowe in 1647,and then makes a point that is vital in understanding and debating our democratic rights and freedom. He wrote:
"It is struggle that wins reforms, just as it is struggle that will retain the liberties which our ancestors won for us. And if the people find the legal system 'not suitable to freedom as it is', then it can be changed by united action. That is the lesson of the seventeenth century for to-day. It was of us that Winstanley was thinking when he wrote at the head of one of his most impassioned pamphlets:
When these clay bodies are in grave, and children stand in place,
'This shews we stood for truth and peace, and freedom in our days'.".
I hope that the House will take note of that for which our forefathers fought.
I return to the "glorious revolution". It was neither glorious nor a revolution. It was not a revolution because the real revolution had already taken place when, the day after the king's head was cut off in 1649, the House of Lords was abolished. It was restored, incidentally, in 1660,
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when James came back to the throne—[HON. MEMBERS: "Charles."] I am sorry, Charles II. I am not well up on kings. To be honest, I do not think much of them.
When the monarchy was restored, the House of Lords was brought back. That is the important thing to remember: the real revolution was that revolution. But, in the process, those who were fighting for real democracy were suppressed by the Cromwellians, who put down the Levellers and others in the part of the world where I was born. The people of property asserted their power. That is what the English revolution was about. A group who had property—the landed aristocracy—were superseded by a new class that had arisen, with new kinds of property.
But they made a mistake. When the monarchy was restored, they discovered that this guy unfortunately still had ideas of the past. That was not entirely acceptable to them, because he was going to restore to some extent the right of the kings over those of the property owners who were the real rulers. So William and Mary were brought in and used. [Interruption.] Hon. Members may laugh, but there are other interpretations. For instance, we heard about the Whigs. Although they claimed that they supported William and Mary, the real people who brought them in and supported them were the high Tories of the day. Some hon. Members would do well to read a little about the history of the period and to think about where we are today.
There are some mythologies about 1688. If we examine the Declaration of Rights of 1689, we see that the Catholics were put in their place, both here and in Ireland. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) made that clear in what he read out to us. But one of the myths is that William, the great Protestant leader, got into such a position on his own.
I do not know whether hon. Members have read the very interesting "A Concise History of Ireland" by Maire and Conor Cruise O'Brien. I hope that Conservative Members will not suggest that Conor Cruise O'Brien is not a capable historian and a man of great ability—he does not necessarily endorse everything that I believe in. In that book, he says:
"This internal simplification had been effected by an external complication: the Pope was not, this time, on the Catholic side as far as the civil war in James's dominions was concerned. The quarrel between the Holy See and the French monarchy, over the question of the liberties of the Gallican Church, rendered impossible any Vatican support for Louis's protégé, James. In Ireland, the contending parties felt themselves to be fighting 'for' and 'against' the Pope, but the Pope was not in reality where he was expected to be. The fact remains an embarrassment to those on both sides who cherish simple historical pieties. In our time, the Parliament of Northern Ireland"—
this was written when Stormont was still in existence—
"which venerates the memory of the victory of Protestant William over Papist James, once acquired and displayed a portrait of their deliverer. The portrait was hurriedly withdrawn when one of the figures shown as hailing—and perhaps even blessing—the Protestant hero was identified as Pope Alexander VIII. Louis, at war with the Emperor and the Dutch as well as with England, could spree little for war in Ireland."
The mythology is that it was just a question of the suppression of the Catholics. The truth is that it was power politics and class politics. It has been class politics ever since. It is most unfortunate that the conflict tends to be viewed as Catholics versus Protestants, when in reality the Catholic and Protestant workers of Northern Ireland and in Ireland as a whole—and in this country—have more in

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common with each other with which to fight the class that the Conservative party represents. I am informed that the day that Rome learnt of the battle of the Boyne, the Pope had all the bells rung and a special mass was celebrated in St. Peter's.
Another part of the mythology is that democracy came through the Tory party. The Tory party is in favour of democracy only for as long as it can use it for its own people and its own interests. The day that democracy is used properly and effectively against them, the Tories will be no different from many other people in the world in overturning democracy and using other methods to suppress the real democrats.
I would like to say much more, but let me finish by talking about the place at the other end of the Corridor. I am sorry that the amendment was not selected. It is a modern Declaration of Rights, and one that is vital. At this juncture, we have a Government who are upsetting, undermining and slowly but surely destroying all the real freedoms that have been achieved by the British people over the years.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: The people voted for us.
Mr. Heifer: The hon. Gentleman's great-grandfather was one of those tough men who fought for the freedoms of the working man. He would be ashamed of the hon. Gentleman. The real rights that we have in this country have come because of the struggle of the mass of ordinary people over the centuries. Such rights have never been achieved by people looking down from on high and handing them to us on a plate; we have had to fight for everything that we have. Our trade union movement is now being tied up with worse anti-union legislation than in any other European country. It is not much different from what is happening in Jaruzelski's Poland—indeed, it is perhaps slightly worse.
I know that some people were relying on the other place to stop the abolition of the GLC. They thought that if a number of amendments were passed it would be a setback. But the other place is an instrument used by the Conservative party against the interests of the British people. That anti-democratic organisation has existed for too long; the wisest thing that the Cromwellian Parliament did was abolish it. It is time that we returned to the real revolutionary attitudes and got rid of it as quickly as possible, rather than allowing it to be used againt real democracy and the people of this country.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I remind the House that we have a good deal of business to get through.
6.59 pm
Mr. James Kilfedder: The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heller) has referred in disparaging terms to the Ulster Unionists and to the Stormont Parliament which existed for many years, and identified the class system with the Unionist people of Northern Ireland. The people of Northern Ireland, apart from a few, know nothing at all about the class structure. They find it ridiculous. I was born in a little whitewashed
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thatched cottage on a tiny farm, and my family know more of hardship than does any other hon. Member in the House. The time has come for people in this country to do away with talk about class structure and get people working together.
The hon. Member for Walton spoke about the Pope as if the Unionist people of Northern Ireland were trying to hide the fact that the Pope was instrumental in getting William III to fight against James II. When I was Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, I brought into my office at Stormont the very portrait to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, the portrait believed to be of the then Pope blessing King William on his way to the Battle of the Boyne. It is not a portrait of King William. Certainly it is a figure of the Pope. I was proud to show that painting to everyone who came to Stormont, including some hon. Members of the House. I did not try to hide it. Irrespective of whether we disagree about incidents that happened over the decades and the centuries, we should look upon history as something on which we can build for the future.
The right hon.Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), who has left the Chamber, attacked Edmund Burke. I am sorry that he made that vicious attack.
Mr. Norman Buchan: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the subject of the precious painting in his office in Stormont, is it not the case that the popular belief in Northern Ireland, as expressed through their songs, is exactly the opposite? The presence of the Pope in violent language, and the support of the Pope at the battle of the Boyne, when they were
"steeped to the knees in Fenian blood, knee-deep in slaughter",
was rejoicing at the defeat of the Pope. That is the popular image that was presented, no matter what the portrait shows.
Mr. Kilfedder: There is no doubt that at a time of controversy when people feel at risk, and when their existence is at peril, they adopt black and white attitudes to history.
The Ulster people were a greater thorn in the flesh of the British Government over the centuries than what would now be termed the nationalist people of Ireland. The Ulster people were always complaining, fighting and arguing. At one time, because of the religious persecution, whole congregations of Presbyterians moved to America and helped to form the United States of America.
Many leading Roman Catholic clergy supported Ireland as part of the British Isles. We must never forget the distinguished Unionists who represented in the House constituencies in what is now the Irish Republic, and who were Roman Catholics.
The right hon. Member for Chesterfield launched a vicious attack on Edmund Burke. Every time the right hon. Gentleman enters the House by the main entrance at St. Stephen's, he passes Edmund Burke on one side and Henry Grattan on the other. Everyone who enters this Parliament through the main entrance must pass those two distinguished Irishmen. I defend Edmund Burke, as I am the vice-president of the Dublin College historial society which was founded by Edmund Burke. Professor Laski went to Dublin to deliver the bicentenial address in praise of Edmund Burke. It was wrong for the right hon. Gentleman to launch a vicious attack upon that distinguished Irishman of the past.

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Following the Prime Minister's eloquent speech in support of this motion, she and the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic should meet next year on the site of the battle of the Boyne. Perhaps that would demonstrate the closeness between the two countries.
I resent the attitude of some hon. Members. The right hon. Member for Chesterfield criticised the cost of maintaining the Army in Northern Ireland. The basic right to life is worth preserving, no matter what the cost. During the past six months three IRA atrocities have received national and international attention. A number of innocent people were slaughtered on Remembrance Day at Enniskillen, and it was only by a miracle that hundreds were not killed. More recently, there was the murder by the IRA of three soldiers at Lisburn. They were taking part in a charity marathon. It was only by a miracle that hundreds of innocent men, women and children were not slaughtered by that IRA bomb, as it was a family reunion and many families were out and about in Lisburn that night. Last week there was the IRA bomb attack on the school bus. I believe that that little girl is still fighting for her life. It is only by a miracle that all those children were not murdered by that IRA bomb.
I do not think that one can put a price on protecting human life. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman did his cause any good by saying that it was too costly to maintain the Army in Northern Ireland.
In conclusion, although William III by his success in the battle of the Boyne ensured that we have parliamentary democracy today, there is not much democracy in Northern Ireland. As a result of the Anglo-Eire Agreement, which I believe was sponsored by Sir Robert Armstrong, the then Secretary to the Cabinet, the people of Northern Ireland are now in a worse position than they were before the agreement was signed. More people have died in Northern Ireland since that agreement was signed than in the same period before. We in Northern Ireland feel that we are being ruled as if we were some far off colony in the last century and there is great basis for that feeling. In addition, a foreign Government now have a say in the government of Northern Ireland.
I hope that we can more forward with good will. Perhaps when people recollect the battles of the past and the need for people to come together, the people of Northern Ireland will come together and make progress. Perhaps there will be a devolved Parliament at Stormont which will be fully representative of all the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland.
7.8 pm
Mr. David Winnick: I am pleased that the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow), who is not in his place—I am in no way criticising him for that—took the view, which I strongly share, that much of our sovereignty in the House is constantly undermined and eroded as a result of the treaty of Rome. We are now debating the event of 1688, but it may well be that in a few years time, certainly before the end of this century, we will end up having less economic power in this Parliament than do many of the individual states within the United States. That should cause all of us deep concern.
Unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), I do not want to go over the background to the events of 1688. However, it is interesting to note that few hon. Members would have
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been allowed to be in the Parliament of that period, either because they did not have sufficient property or wealth, or because of their religion or race. Therefore, it is nonsense to believe that 1688 created a democracy which we should be celebrating.
I tabled my amendment—I realise that it was not selected—because while the Prime Minister's motion refers to the
"constitutional freedoms under the law",
one or two aspects cause anxiety. The Prime Minister takes the complacent view that all our rights and freedoms are perfectly intact and there is no need to worry, but so long as the security services are not accountable to Parliament, the officials employed in them will remain largely a law unto themselves.
Unlike Conservative Members, I believe that Cathy Massiter performed a useful public service in telling us of the abuses that occurred when she was employed by MI5. We learned from her that, before my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) was a Member of Parliament, she was the subject of an investigation by the security authorities—the Government have not denied it—because she was the full-time legal officer for the National Council for Civil Liberties. Cathy Massiter, who should understand these matters because she was employed by MI5, said that anyone employed by the NCCL, anyone on its executive and any local activist was the subject of an inquiry and that a file was kept on him or her by MI5. Much the same occurred with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, yet Ministers have repeatedly said that campaigning for nuclear disarmament is perfectly legitimate.
It may be said that this is an obsession of the Left, that no one should take these allegations seriously and that there is no foundation for these claims. Yet the right hon.Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), who was in charge of the security services from 1970 to the beginning of 1974 so should know about them, said in his speech on the Protection of Official Information Bill:
"However, I also met people in the security services who talked the most ridiculous nonsense and whose whole philosophy was ridiculous nonsense. If some of them were on a tube and saw someone reading the Daily Mirror, they would say, 'Get after him, that is dangerous. We must find out where he bought it.'"—[Official Report, 15 January 1988; Vol. 125, c. 612.]
A Prime Minister should have a good insight.
The Minister for Trade (Mr. Alan Clark): The Prime Minister was irresponsible.
Mr. Winnick: I would have thought that the people who were irresponsible were those who allowed inquiries into members of CND and the NCCL. It is irresponsible to have in our parliamentary democracy—I believe that we do live in a parliamentary democracy—the type of abuses which Cathy Massiter exposed. No Conservative Member has raised the matter because Conservative Members are not worried about it. We say that on the Labour Benches we treasure civil liberties far more than Conservative Members and it is illustrated by our concern about these matters.
There are also the allegations made by Wright. For all I know, as I have said previously, he could be a liar. He could have made up the allegations merely to sell his book. Incidentally, he has not done too badly. He has become a

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millionaire mainly because of the Government's stupid action in trying to ban a book which everyone in this country can read whenever they choose.
Wright alleged that he and other officers in the security services were involved in trying to destabilise a Labour Government. Those allegations should be the subject of a judicial inquiry. I may be wrong, but I do not know of one Conservative Member who has said that those serious allegations should be investigated. How do we know, for example, whether some of those involved in that conspiracy who worked with Wright do not remain in the security services? Should we not be worried? Is it not part of our constitutional freedom under the law to know that? That is a reason why I am not happy with the motion.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heifer) touched on a further reason. It is a misreading of our history to believe that the freedoms we enjoy and the civil liberties which I certainly appreciate were established in 1688. It is interesting to note that in the present debates in the Soviet Union it has been suggested that the Soviet Union should learn from the experiences of the British Parliament. Clearly, it must be to our advantage, despite our weaknesses and limitations, that important figures in the Soviet Union want a more open society and those who seek it look on us as some sort of guide if not a model. This democracy is one of the best, but I am not complacent about it. If I were, I would not be making this speech. To live in a democracy is a million times better than to live under any form of dictatorship, whether in the Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, Chile or Guatemala. Another difference between Conservative Members and us is that we are not selective; we are opposed to all forms of dictatorship and are in favour of parliamentary democracy.
The important point is that so much of our freedom and democracy was not given by Parliament, but had to be campaigned for outside. When I look at the statues and paintings in the Palace of Westminster I see hardly a reference to those who made it possible for us to be in Parliament. The Prime Minister did not mention the Tolpuddle martyrs. If our constitutional freedoms were established in 1688, why were those men persecuted for belonging to and being active in a trade union, and then deported to Australia? Why is there no memorial to or painting of them here?
What about all the campaigning last century for the right to vote? It is almost impossible to believe that at the beginning of this century and for 18 years afterwards half the population were denied the right to vote in general elections and the right to stand for Parliament, for no other reason than that they happened to be women. One would have expected the Prime Minister to refer to that, but not at all. Before 1918, no women were allowed in Parliament and even after that there were some qualifications. Until 1918 incidentally there were qualifications on the right of men to vote. Those qualifications were being much reduced but did not disappear until 1918, and then not for women.
Those matters are extremely important and relevant. For the motion to ignore all the struggles that took place to establish parliamentary democracy is like Soviet history, which until recently did not mention those murdered by Stalin and his associates during the years of
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terror and the purges. I would have been much happier if the motion had dealt with these matters, recognised the fights and campaigns to make us a democratic country, and recognised some of the abuses which undoubtedly continue, mainly in the security services, which should be subject to parliamentary control and accountability.
I hope that I have not been too critical, but I thought it only right and proper to state these reservations about the motion.
7.19 pm
Mr. Gerald Howarth: I shall speak briefly in support of the motion. This is a very historic occasion. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) was somewhat dismissive of the glorious revolution. I agree that certain refinements have been made since that revolution, but he was ungenerous not to acknowledge that it was a great milestone in our constitutional history.
It is often said that we have no written constitution. The events whose tercentenary we are celebrating give the lie to that. The Bill of Rights is very much a written document. It is not a quaint museum piece, with no relevance to modern times— it is unlike the Labour party in that respect. It is very relevant to our present-day concerns.
I remind the House that when William and Mary were offered the throne, it was essentially a contract between Parliament and the new sovereigns. The declaration of rights set out the conditions under which, effectively, they were offered the throne. On 13 February 1689 it was declared:
"the execution of laws by regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal; … That levying money for … the Crown … without grant of Parliament … is illegal; That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with the consent of Parliament, is against the law; … That election of Members of Parliament ought to be free; That the freedom of speech and debates … in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court … that excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted; … And that for redress of all grievances and for the amending, strengthening and preserving of the laws, Parliaments ought to be held frequently."
Those words are as relevant today as they were in 1689.
We are about to move on to other business—voting money for the Defence Estimates. It is an inheritance of 1689 that no standing army may be kept in this country without the full authority of the House. That is why such matters are debated in the House annually. If the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) thinks that the stationing of American troops in Britain flies in the face of the rights and liberties of the people, which were guaranteed in 1689, it is open to him to submit a motion to the House and to seek its endorsement. The sad fact for him is that the House would not accept such a motion, nor would the people of Britain. However, he is free to submit such a motion.
Mr. Benn: The merits of having such an army here are not the significant factor. What is significant is that the House was never told about that army; the prerogative was used, as on several other occasions. It cannot be argued that Parliament endorsed the army. The army came here and if we were to vote against it it might be asked to leave—whether it would leave is another matter. Parliament was never told. The prerogative overrides parliamentary control of central matters.
Mr. Howarth: I accept that, but it is open to the right hon. Gentleman to submit a motion to the House because the House is sovereign in these matters and the House will decide.
Freedom of speech and debate in the House is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, which states that they
"ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court".
If it were not for the declaration of rights of 1689, the right hon. Member for Chesterfield and the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) would be in grave difficulty with the courts over libel. Freedom of speech is enjoyed in the House today as a direct result of 1689.
The events that we celebrate today are of great constitutional importance because the 1688 revolution established our present constitutional tripod of sovereign, Parliament and people. It has been refined by universal suffrage and tested, and it may be tested again. In 1689, the popular belief was that our country could have been subverted by a foreign power—in this case, the papacy—and could have been undermined. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) that we may face a constitutional threat to the House, posed by the European Community, which must ultimately be for the people of Britain to decide. Having said that, we have every reason to be grateful for the 1688–89 revolution and I warmly endorse the motion.
7.24 pm
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: It is entirely right that we should be debating this motion, and it is unfortunate that the amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) has not been selected for debate.
We have chosen to celebrate the tercentenary of the so-called glorious revolution of 1688 rather than the triumph of the armies of Parliament over the armies of the King during the civil war—or any of the other extremely important events in the history of democracy in this country—because that revolution was all about the corruption of the state by the power of the landowners and the power of wealth. It was about the manoeuvrings of Lord Shaftesbury to prepare the ground to bring over William and Mary to take over the crown. William and Mary would for ever guarantee the powers of the landowning classes as well as bringing with them the Protestant religion and the discrimination against Catholics that followed. There is no historical basis for the selection of William and Mary except that it suited the landowning classes of the time to have a Protestant King and Queen and to guarantee their own power as against that of the people defeated during the civil war as a result of the corruption of Cromwell.
There is an important place in my constituency. In 1648 there was a historic—in some ways seminal—meeting between Cromwell and the leader of the Levellers, John Lilburne, who warned Cromwell that unless he was prepared to do a deal with the Levellers and accept the fundamental democracy of Parliament he would become a despot and pave the way for the return of the monarchy, which he did in 1660. That meeting is an event worth celebrating, and it took place in the Nag's Head on the Holloway road in my constituency.
We should recognise, too, that the so-called glorious revolution of 1688 paved the way for the processes of imperialism and colonialism. Implicit in the wording of the Bill of Rights is the domination of colonies throughout the
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world and all the disgusting, and degrading events that followed from that, such as slavery and the domination of subject peoples. All of them stem from the Bill of Rights and the glorious revolution of 1688, which once more imposed the monarchy on this country.
Many hon. Members have referred to what followed from the glorious revolution. I have a copy of the Bill of Rights, printed in a book entitled "A Documentary History of England", which was given to me by my mother and father when I was 15. They said, "One day, it will come in handy", and it has. One section of the Bill of Rights has been used to dominate the people of Ireland, and that domination continues. The Bill of Rights says:
"all and every person and persons that is, are or shall be reconciled to or shall hold communion with the see or Church of Rome, or shall profess the popish religion, or shall marry a papist, shall be excluded and be for ever incapable to inherit, possess or enjoy the crown and government of this realm and Ireland and the dominions thereunto belonging or any part of the same, or to have, use or exercise any regal power, authority or jurisdiction within the same; and in all and every such case or cases the people of these realms shall be and are hereby absolved of their allegiance;"
That specifically says that the Protestant religion is to take hold and that Catholics are to be discriminated against. We should commemorate the retribution meted out to the Catholic people of Ireland as a result of William and Mary coming to the throne by remembering that the only way we can ever bring peace and freedom to all the people of Ireland is by the reunification of Ireland and removal of British troops from it.
My right hon. Friend the Member of Chesterfield rightly drew attention to the section of the Bill of Rights that refers to the imposition of a standing army. Clause 6 of the preamble says that
"raising and keeping a standing army within this kingdom in time of peace without consent of Parliament"
is against the law.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield pointed out, there are 30,000 American troops and 140 bases here, while we have no control over what happens there. It is nothing more than an insult to celebrate the glorious revolution when we have a Government who have centralised more powers than almost any other Government since 1688, who are busy pushing through the poll tax—the most unfair, unjust tax imaginable—and who allow poverty to grow at unparalleled rates and people to sleep on the streets. At the same time this Parliament passes taxation laws that are a gift to the wealthiest.
We have nothing to celebrate. The concluding sentence of the Address states:
"established those constitutional freedoms under the law which Your Majesty's Parliament and people have continued to enjoy for three hundred years."
Many people have not enjoyed those freedoms. They have been won by struggle and are all under threat while the Government and their ilk—their landowners, wealthy people and banking system—continue to repress people and take away the freedoms to organise in trade unions, to demonstrate on the streets and to organise politically against the Government. We should demand guarantees of freedom for the people, not celebrate a glorious revolution which brought a land-owning class to power and kept it there, for fear of the success of the civil war and the revolution that went with it in 1840.
7.31 pm
Mr. Brian Sedgemore: As one who was born in Devon and has walked on the beaches and landing grounds where it all began, I feel the urge to speak, even if no one has the desire to listen.
I was puzzled that the Prime Minister—a Tory with the instincts of an 18th century Liberal—should invite the House to celebrate a 17th century Whig theory of history. It is in the spirit of celebration, good will, good humour and grace which always characterise everything that I say that I am prepared to put that down to the fact that she was badly briefed rather than ignorant of history. I see that a historian is here—the Minister of Trade—but I do not think that he was here for the speech by the Prime Minister, which is sad, or he would have been able to put the right hon. Lady right.
The Prime Minister wishes to celebrate the glorious revolution because it saw the British establishment at its best—suave, cunning and deceitful. The Prime Minister invites us to celebrate the rule of law and parliamentary democracy which she claims arose from that revolution. Yes, we celebrate the rule of law, but surely we should be a little careful about celebrating a rule of law that saw Ireland drenched in the blood of virgins and Catholic priests. Surely we should be a little careful about celebrating a rule of law when E.P. Thompson in his book "Whigs and Hunters; The Origin of the Black Act", which dealt with the 18th century, said that the laws of England have always been bent and manipulated in the interests of the ruling class. Surely we should be a little chary of celebrating a rule of law which, after 1688, was largely administered by the same people who administered it just before 1688.
A painting in the corridors of this building shows the infinite mercy of the English legal system. It shows that Alice Lisle, who harboured a fugitive at the battle of Sedgemoor on 7 July 1685, was sentenced to be burnt at the stake. The English legal system, backed by the rule of law and administered by the same people after 1688 as before, in its infinite mercy commuted that sentence so that she was hanged!
Surely we should be slightly worried about the development of parliamentary democracy. I do not want to go into constitutional history or a modern theory or analysis of parliamentary democracy, but two things only can be said with certainty about parliamentary democracy. First, power does not reside in Parliament. Secondly, there is nothing that is democratic about the exercise of that power. Who said that? It was said not by Trevelyan, as one may think, not by Macaulay or by Hill, but by Sedgemore in the first paragraph of his book "The Secret Constitution". I suggest that the House should adjourn and read that book, rather than go into the Lobby and support the motion.
7.34 pm
Mr. Harry Barnes: The right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) asked, "What is democracy?" He felt that the debate required a definition of it, but did not offer one and I will not either, because there are flaws in seeking to offer definitions behind which one may hide. When asked to define trade unions, George Woodcock refused and said that it was like looking at an elephant—a person might not know how to
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define an elephant but he knew it when he saw it, and a person knew a trade union when he saw it. Likewise, democracy depends perhaps less on definition and more on recognition. There may be some characteristics that we would expect a democracy to have.
The first charcteristic of a democracy is a voting system based on a universal franchise. Our universal franchise was fought for long after 1688 and was pushed considerably from the bottom. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) is an advocate of the principles of Chartism in the 19th century. Most of its principles were finally adopted, apart from the provision of annually elected Parliaments. I do not know whether I go that far, but I believe that we should seek annual elections in local government.
An election requires choice, and we see the Soviet Union as being inadequate in that respect. Schumpter defined an election in "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy" as being a competitive struggle for the people's vote. Voting is not entirely democratic. Other provisions must be there in connection with it. It requires not only that the vote is freely and fully exercised but that society has within it a wide range of civil liberties so that the majority do not decide to take action willy-nilly and so that the electoral system does not throw up Governments based upon 42 per cent. of the electorate who willy-nilly push through items without considering individuals' rights.
My hon. Friends the Members for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) and for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) have stressed civil liberties. We need great freedoms in terms of expressing views, demonstrating, organising and ensuring that central Government do not have detailed control over what is done. Information for one purpose—for example, housing benefits—should not be used against people by the state—either the local state or the national state.
Another characteristic of a democracy is that there are some limits to the amount of centralisation. In 1688, the problems of totalitarianism did not exist. They were largely the creatures of the development of the 20th century. Governments can control centrally and operate controls over the media, as we have seen in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Social and economic developments in this country should worry us and we should make sure that there is a pull against them and that there is decentralisation, local government and local democracy.
Democracy should also have concern about fairness and public service. In 1867, the franchise was first extended to elements of the working class—but not to all—and shortly after an Education Act was introduced by Foster, saying that we must "educate our masters now". Because of the fight for the extension of the franchise, we have had public education, public services and provisions and the development of the welfare state. That has all happened because ordinary people have been able to vote for greater distribution of wealth. Left to itself, the free market brings hardship and exploitation. If we do not have a democratic system to distribute wealth, we are in trouble.
We can now compare the 1688 glorious revolution with the 1979 revolution, which started gradually but which has been pressed through at an ever increasing rate. It may become known as the inglorious revolution.
I have already mentioned the four characteristics of democracy, and I would like to say something about our supposed heritage from 1688 which working people have fought for and established. With the poll tax comes a cut

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in the franchise. We know that there is a hidden agenda for the poll tax. The results are emerging in Scotland, Manchester and Kensington, where it is clear that the number of electors is falling. It is falling in areas where people oppose the poll tax. It is a means of perpetuating, without devices such as the enabling acts used in Nazi Germany, the Conservative Government's life. That is a very serious matter because it goes against traditions that go back not so much to 1688 as to the 19th and 20th centuries and the democracy that the working class fought for. We should be fantastically worried about the cut in the franchise.
We should also be worried about what is happening in local government, where there is an attempt to fix election results. The recent Conservative party political broadcast showed that their intention is to pressurise people into voting Conservative and to get rid of Labour's base in local government. That should worry us tremendously, as should the smashing of local government and the development of further centralisation.
The second characteristic of democracy concerns civil liberties, which others have dealt with. Poll tax registrars will invade a whole host of sensitive information that was never previously registered. That information will be used to ensure that people pay the poll tax. It has been said, and confirmed by the Leader of the House, that the ancient right of petitioning, which predates 1688, is affected. Before 1688, petitions tended to be about personal grievances, whereas after they tended to be about matters of public policy. Petitions will now be available to poll tax registrars to make sure that the signatories are on their registers. That is an invasion of a right that dates back before the franchise. Indeed, it was one of the limited rights that ordinary people had even in 1688.
Thirdly, poll tax represents excessive centralisation. The Government have introduced a host of measures which advance the development of something akin to a gentle corporate state. There must be some Conservative Members who believe in the free market and the freedom of competition and that centralised authority is something that we should all fight against. Too much power is going in that direction.
The philosophical stance of some Conservative Members is nonsense. It is almost as though they have turned their backs on the freedoms enjoyed under capitalism and returned to Hobbes' "Leviathan", in which he suggested that there could be either anarchy or absolute centralisation, with authority and sovereignty resting with one person or one group of people in Parliament. Others, he suggested, should be excluded completely.
Fourthly, there is the terrible unfairness of the poll tax, but there is no need to go into that as Conservative Members know the vast social difficulties that it will cause. How can we call this democracy when it does such things? Has it not been eroded to such an extent that we must fight solidly to defend it and oppose what is taking place? The poll tax is the most serious interference with our liberties since the glorious revolution of 1688. We should all stand up and fight it.
7.47 pm
Mr. Bob Cryer: I do not propose to detain the House for long, but I want to register my objection to the motion, which I find offensive.
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Opposition Members who vote in favour of it will have different reasons for doing so, but we must deal with the motion on the Order Paper. It is reasonable to recognise that 1688 was a short step on the path to accountability and the right to dislodge the Executive, but that is not what the motion says. The motion states that some sort of millennium was established and that our people have enjoyed constitutional freedoms under the law for 300 years. It is patently offensive to suppose, for example, that the people who lost limbs and lives in the factories during the industrial revolution enjoyed anything at all, especially when their average life expectation was less than 30 years in the huge developing industrial towns in the north, such as Bradford, Manchester and Leeds. The motion will he left behind after all the arguments have gone, and that fact is overlooked.
I do not know the mechanism by which the motion came to the House, but if any Labour Members were involved, the motion should have recognised the years of struggle and bloodshed undergone by ordinary people. The first Factory Act to control the bloodshed among the people who, according to the motion, were enjoying constitutional rights was not introduced until 1802. It was then applied by a venal, corrupt and ineffective magistracy, who owned most of the factories and therefore were not keen to apply the law. The people who looked to the magistrates for the constitutional rights did not receive much consolation.
I am concerned about what the motion says, because it omits any reference to the bloodshed in the factories and the rise of the trade union movement. I will not go into that in detail because my hon. Friends have dealt with it powerfully, but trade unions were developed to protect ordinary men and women, and their families, against the outrages that were visited upon them. The workers and their organisation had no constitutional privileges or rights to enjoy.
It is folly for any hon. Member to talk about constitutional freedoms being enjoyed for 300 years, when in the post-war period we have had the threat of nuclear weapons. What sort of constitutional right have ordinary people over the Prime Minister if, for example, she decides to use Polaris when she receives information from United States-controlled radar installations—and we know how reliable they are—that the Soviet Union is promoting an attack upon us?
The right hon. Lady is organising the building of £11 billion-worth of Trident nuclear weapons. What constitutional rights does the citizenry enjoy to control the Prime Minister in the use of those weapons? The answer is, none at all.
We cannot isolate the motion from the realities. I am not here to get involved in the niceties of Parliament and to rubberstamp motions emerging from some committee. The reality is that our nation is retaining means of mass extermination on a scale that, by some fortunate stroke, has hitherto never been experienced, and is building at a cost of many billions of pounds nuclear weapons which could exterminate even more effectively and efficiently than Polaris.
The whole question of rights over those new weapons of mass extermination is ignored in the motion. It is on that basis that I shall vote against it.
7.50 pm
Mr. Graham Allen: I should like first to apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, and to colleagues of all parties for not having heard all the contributions to the debate. No disrespect was intended. My speech will be brief and I intend to refer only to my amendment, which I wish had been selected.
When I first became a Member of this place, I had no thoughts of tabling amendments mentioning a written constitution and a Bill of Rights. However, my experience of this place—brief though its is—has changed my mind fundamentally on some key constitutional issues. I believe that Parliament, as currently constituted, no longer acts as the main constitutional brake on the Government. We seriously need to consider a major constitutional settlement that would entrench the rights of individual people and define the institutions in our constitution that could defend those rights effectively.
We are meant to be celebrating the 300th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. There are many ways of celebrating. One would be to pickle that Bill of Rights, to put it into aspic and say, "It is a marvellous thing. We should have a drink and a bit of a sing-song." That would be a celebration. However, the people who brought forward that Bill of Rights would expect us to celebrate it in a far more serious way and to review where we have gone in those 300 years and say where we should like to go in the next 300. I fear that if we entrust our civil liberties and the defence of our rights to this Chamber, in 300 years' time we may not be celebrating even those few rights that are enshrined in the 1688–89 settlement.
I therefore put forward some proposals in my amendment. Those proposals do not bear particularly on my constituency. Like many of my hon. Friends, I could repeat the history of the democratic struggle that has taken place in my constituency and area. There are three unmarked graves in a church close to our shire hall in Nottingham. If those three unmarked graves were in a country fighting for its democratic rights in this day and age, they would be shrines. In fact, they are the unmarked, uncelebrated graves of three individuals who were plucked out of a crowd in 1830 and hanged on the steps of the shire hall in Nottingham. They were the victims. They were people who were merely trying to get the right to vote. I could quote many other examples from the Labour history, the trade union struggle and the struggle for the fight to vote in my city, not least the burning down of the famous Nottingham castle. However, that would not get us very far in discussing what I proposed in my amendment.
I suggested first a Bill of Rights to entrench the individual liberties of all citizens, regardless of decisions made in this Chamber. They should be entrenched by a referendum and amended only by a referendum so that, whatever the political complexion of this Chamber, there would always be a marker against which any individual would know his or her rights against our Executive and legislature.
Secondly, I suggested a written constitution so that at any point anyone in our society would know the institutional relationship between the various parts of our constitution, and so that people could make up their own minds about what we were doing and whether we were doing it properly in this Chamber of the House of Commons.
Mr. Winnick: My hon. Friend has referred to a written constitution. He will know that I am critical of certain aspects of that, hence my remarks about three quarters of an hour ago. Why should we believe that a written constitution would give our citizens greater freedom? Would it not take away from this House and give to the courts powers which we should not give away—all the more so, bearing in mind the position with the EEC, which was referred to earlier? Why cannot this Parliament control the Government? Previous Parliaments have done so. Surely it is a question of majority.
Mr. Allen: The courts have that power now, but the citizen has no guide or marker by which to measure any judgments. The citizen cannot say, "This is my inalienable tangible right which I will test against the judgment of any member of the judiciary." If my hon. Friend believes that this place has acted as a defence for the rights of individuals, trade unionists and people who would wish information to be more widely available in our society, he is living in dreamland.
My final point is that this place should ensure that it, rather than any other part of our constitution, becomes the decision-making chamber. That is why I suggest in my amendment the abolition of the House of Lords. That was and remains the policy of my party and should feature in any serious constitutional settlement 300 years after the previous one.
7.56 pm
Mr. David Alton: I wish to speak only briefly, but want to place on record the reasons why I shall vote against the Humble Address. I shall do so because it is deeply insensitive to the House to pass an address which commemorates in an almost celebratory way an event which, in 1688, led to enormous harm and distress to many people living in these islands. With a family from the west of Ireland, and having seen for myself the ravaged homes, hamlets and small villages which were depopulated as a result of what happened in the period after 1688, I find it difficult to celebrate the tercentenary of those so-called historic events, because for those families they were tragic events. The trouble with motions such as this is that they stir up old memories and hatred. For that reason, the motion is deeply offensive to many of Her Majesty's loyal Catholic subjects. I am surprised that the Government have shown such insensitivity.
I also believe that there is a danger of becoming prisoners of our own history, especially when it is history as selective as that incorporated in the motion. It is absurd to table such a motion without any reference to the events which a number of other hon. Members have touched on.
The period in the aftermath of the war with the French and after the battle of Peterloo is infinitely far more important for our constitutional rights than the battle of Waterloo or 1688. The battle of Peterloo took place on the fields of St. Peter's, outside Manchester, where the reformers demanded suffrage. For me, the Chartist movement, the emancipation of Catholics and Jews, and the anti-slavery movement which was led by William Wilberforce and other Members of this House are the events that we should be celebrating, rather than choosing selective parts of our history as in the Humble Address.
The House will not be surprised that I have another reason for resisting the Humble Address. I personally find it difficult that the greatest right of all—the right to life

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—is not enshrined in this great celebration of the tercentenary of the events of 1688. Indeed, it is impossible in this House even to bring about a vote on the question of the right to life. In 1948 the United Nations stated that everyone should have the right to life, yet hon. Members are not allowed a vote on that subject because Parliament has become so enfeebled that it will not provide the time necessary to arrive at a conclusion on that question. In these circumstances, there is, therefore, no way that I would be able to support what I regard as a sham.
There is a third reason why I shall vote against the Humble Address. It is because of the way that we run our democracy in this country. It is fraudulent and often corrupt and phoney. Governments can be elected with just one third of the votes and yet receive two thirds of the seats in the House. That we can have a system of government that is so centralist and secretive and so often rides roughshod over the wishes of the people whom we seek to serve is the antithesis of democracy.
While I agree with what the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) said about our system of government being one of which we can be proud, it was E. M. Forster, in his book "Two Cheers for Democracy", who said that only love, the beloved republic, deserves three cheers. Certainly that is true. Democracy, as we experience it in this country today, is highly inadequate. We need a new constitutional settlement which looks again at many of the questions raised during the debate. A proper Bill of Rights, freedom of information legislation, a Select Committee system that is able to hold the Executive accountable, a proper and fair electoral system, a decentralised form of government—those are the developments that we should be looking forward to, instead of simply looking back to a period that does this country no great credit, and is a period of which we should be deeply ashamed.
For those reasons, I certainly cannot support the Humble Address.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 139, Noes 18.

Division No. 402]

[8.1 pm

AYES

Adley, Robert

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Alexander, Richard

Cope, Rt Hon John

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Cran, James

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Cummings, John

Amos, Alan

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Day, Stephen

Ashby, David

Dixon, Don

Atkinson, David

Dobson, Frank

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Durant, Tony

Body, Sir Richard

Dykes, Hugh

Boswell, Tim

Emery, Sir Peter

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Forth, Eric

Brazier, Julian

Fox, Sir Marcus

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

French, Douglas

Browne, John (Winchester)

Gale, Roger

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Buck, Sir Antony

Gill, Christopher

Burt, Alistair

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Butler, Chris

Gow, Ian

Butterfill, John

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Gregory, Conal

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Carttiss, Michael

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Chapman, Sydney

Hanley, Jeremy

Churchill, Mr

Harris, David

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Hawkins, Christopher

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Hayward, Robert

O'Neill, Martin

Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Page, Richard

Holt, Richard

Pawsey, James

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Porter, David (Waveney)

Howells, Geraint

Portillo, Michael

Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Hunter, Andrew

Rhodes James, Robert

Irvine, Michael

Riddick, Graham

Jack, Michael

Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

Janman, Tim

Roe, Mrs Marion

Janner, Greville

Rost, Peter

Jessel, Toby

Rowe, Andrew

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Ryder, Richard

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Shaw, David (Dover)

Kilfedder, James

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Sims, Roger

King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Kirkwood, Archy

Spearing, Nigel

Knapman, Roger

Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

Knowles, Michael

Squire, Robin

Latham, Michael

Steel, Rt Hon David

Lawrence, Ivan

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Stewart, Ian (Hertfordshire N)

Lightbown, David

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Lord, Michael

Thorne, Neil

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Thurnham, Peter

McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

Waddington, Rt Hon David

McNair-Wilson, P.(New Forest)

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Mans, Keith

Ward, John

Mates, Michael

Wheeler, John

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Widdecombe, Ann

Michael, Alun

Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

Wilshire, David

Monro, Sir Hector

Winterton, Nicholas

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Wolfson, Mark

Mowlam, Marjorie

Needham, Richard

Tellers for the Ayes:

Nelson, Anthony

Mr. David Maclean and Mr. Stephen Dorrell.

Neubert, Michael

Nicholls, Patrick

NOES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Madden, Max

Allen, Graham

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Alton, David

Meale, Alan

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Nellist, Dave

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Patchett, Terry

Corbyn, Jeremy

Skinner, Dennis

Cryer, Bob

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Gordon, Mildred

Heffer, Eric S.

Tellers for the Noes:

Hoyle, Doug

Mr. Harry Barnes and Mr. Brian Sedgemore.

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:
Most Gracious Sovereign,
We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects. the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, having in mind the acceptance by Their Majesties King William and Queen Mary of the Declaration of Rights presented to them on 13th February 1689, and recalling also the Bill of Rights passed by the Parliament of England and the Claim of Right made by the Estates of Scotland for vindicating and asserting the ancient rights and liberties of the people of the two Kingdoms, beg leave to express to Your Majesty our great pleasure in celebrating the tercentenary of these historic events of 1688 and 1689 that established those constitutional freedoms under the law which Your Majesty's Parliament and people have continued to enjoy for three hundred years.
Resolved,
That the said Address be presented to Her Majesty by the whole House.—[Mr. Wakeham.]
Ordered,
That such Members of this House as are of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, do humbly know Her Majesty's Pleasure when She will be attended by this House with the said Address and whether Her Majesty will be Graciously pleased to permit the invited representatives of overseas Parliaments of the Commonwealth to accompany this House in attending Her Majesty.—[Mr. Wakeham.]

ESTIMATES DAY
[2nd ALLOTTED DAY]
ESTIMATES 1988–89
  Class I, Vote 1
    DEFENCE (PERSONNEL COSTS)

      Merchant Shipping and Civil Aviation
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      That a sum, not exceeding £4,503,563,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March 1989 for expenditure by the Ministry of Defence on personnel costs etc. of the Armed Forces and their Reserves and Cadet Forces etc., personnel costs etc. of Defence Ministers and of certain civilian staff employed by the Ministry of Defence on movements; certain stores; supplies and services; plant and machinery; charter of ships; certain research; lands and buildings; sundry grants; payments abroad including contributions and subscriptions to international organisations and grants in aid.—[Mr. Ian Stewart.]
      8.12 pm
      Mr. Michael Mates: It cannot often fall to the lot of one Back Bencher to have the good fortune to open two debates in the House in as many months. I am sure that most of my hon. Friends will agree when I say how glad I am that, as I rise for the second time, I do so in an air of considerably less controversy than the last time I found myself opening a debate in this House.
      I am grateful to the Liaison Committee for recommending this estimate for debate today and I am extremely grateful to my Committee for the hard work it put in to the report that we published a short while ago and that is relevant to the debate. I must say, having said how grateful I am to it, that I am wondering where its numbers are now. They were due to be here, but perhaps they have heard the sound of my voice for too long in Committee to want to listen to it again. I am also grateful to the Select Committee on Transport, which is chaired by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall), for its excellent report on the overall state of the merchant fleet. Our report looked only at the defence implications of the decline that has been taking place in that fleet.
      "I told you so" is never an edifying remark to make, but where the defence role of merchant shipping is concerned, there must be many people who are qualified to make it, not least our friend and former colleague Sir Edward duCann. He spoke out on this matter for many years in this House and warned of the consequences of the decline that was taking place. As long ago as 1980, when I was first appointed to the Select Committee on Defence, we voiced our concern about the strategic importance of the British and NATO merchant fleet and the implications of their decline. In the 1983 Parliament, the Defence Committee again and again highlighted the importance of merchant shipping to our defence capability and warned of the possible effect of the crisis then facing our merchant fleet. The Defence Committee's fourth report of this Session appears on the Order Paper today and in it we bring the story up to date. The House will see that we find no reason to come to conclusions any more optimistic than those of our predecessors.

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      I can be brief in introducing this debate because our views are set out in the report, but I shall pick out some of its themes. First, the fulfilling of the defence requirement for merchant shipping must be set against a background of the continuing decline in the British merchant fleet. As we note in paragraph 13 of our report, the previous Defence Committee took evidence on this subject in 1985 and it put to Ministers the prediction made by the General Council of British Shipping for the following two years. In reply we were told that that prediction was too pessimistic and that the methodology was wrong. However, the decline has continued at pretty much the rate forecast by the General Council of British Shipping. There may be a temporary remission now as the Department of Transport has claimed, but the trend is still downward.
      Second—I am happy to say this—although there is little actual shortfall in ships in the categories required by the Ministry of Defence—security considerations prevented us from going into great detail in our report—the squeeze on those assets is inexorable. In paragraphs 40 to 47 we identified the categories in which there are particular or potential problems. They include fishing vessels for mine counter-measures, product tankers, dry cargo freighters, which are being replaced by container ships and which are much less useful and less flexible for carrying military equipment, and, with the advent of the Channel tunnel, roll-on/roll-off ferries.
      Third, we are extremely worried that, in a time of tension or war, the military demand on available merchant shipping for the transatlantic reinforcement of Europe, for the reinforcement of Europe from the United Kingdom and for the direct support of the Royal Navy will leave few assets for the task of economic shipping. That would be vital in a period of tension or war and the Merchant Navy would be required to bring in the supplies to keep this country going and our people alive.
      Elsewhere in our report we draw attention to potential manning problems. The availability of British personnel to man ships used for British defence purposes is most important. However, not only is the number of British seafarers declining steadily, but the numbers joining the Merchant Navy are lower than ever before. We examined that matter in paragraphs 54 to 60 of our report and we find that trend extremely worrying. We also point out that other NATO countries would have difficulties in finding the ships that they would have to provide and we expressed our surprise that NATO has not taken more vigorous action about such trends before now.
      Although many of our conclusions relate to the needs during a period of tension or war, there is a regular requirement for shipping for use in exercises. I do not believe that I am the only person who was disappointed that, for the major tri-service exercise, Purple Warrior, which took place in late 1987, the Ministry of Defence had to charter Danish vessels, ally in NATO though Denmark is. As we say in the report, it would surely have been of greater benefit to our long-term national security if British shipping earmarked for requisition in conflict had been chartered for that major exercise, even if the cost had been slightly greater.
      Since the Defence Select Committee in the last Parliament began looking in detail at the defence requirements for merchant shipping there has been some recognition within the Government of the practical problems of providing the right shipping in the right place at the right time should the worst happen and we were
      1266
      faced with a major crisis or hostilities. I am not sure how far that realism has progressed. In the course of our inquiry we asked the Department of Transport what would happen if a foreign owner of a United Kingdom registered vessel trading outside NATO waters refused to make his ship available. Somewhat to our surprise witnesses told us that they envisaged that the Royal Navy could be called on for assistance—but I think that by that stage the Royal Navy would have a few other tasks on is plate.
      It is not our task as a Defence Committee to make comments or recommendations on ways of reversing the decline in the merchant fleet. However, what worries us is that there appear to be aspects of Government policy that lack drive and, above all, co-ordination. That is why we repeat in paragraph 73 the recommendation of our predecessors that these things should be co-ordinated and directed by the highest level of Government. Our views can be summed up in the words of paragraph 66 of the report and I can do no better than to end my remarks by quoting it:
      "The ready availability of adequate merchant shipping resources represents a very significant element in the make-up of deterrence. The lack of such resources represents a grave deficiency in our ability to deter. The availability of merchant shipping for defence purposes is governed by three key factors—the number of UK flagged ships, their accessibility when they are needed and the availability of a pool of British seafarers to man them."
      We believe there are grounds for concern on all three counts, and in asking the Government to examine closely what we have said I hope that these concerns will be addressed, because, although there is no crisis yet, the trend is the most worrying aspect of all. The last thing I want is to return to the House this time next year and say that there are areas in which we simply cannot do the task.
      8.24 pm
      Mr. John McWilliam: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) for his speech. I also thank him, as a member of his Committee, for his humour, forbearance and integrity as we went through these matters.
      This is yet another unanimous report from our Select Committee. That is important because it means that we are interested in the facts, rather than what some of us might wish—or others might not—to be the case. Robert Burns said:
      "Facts are chiels that winna ding."
      Roughly translated, that means that one cannot ignore the facts when they exist.
      One of our problems was getting at the facts. Paragraph 8 of the report, dealing with statistics for the merchant fleet, shows the problems that arise because of different statistical bases and different ways of including or excluding vessels. For example, I fail to see the relevance of including dredgers in ships available to us in times of war. Perhaps we shall need to dredge out a harbour, but presumably we keep our harbours well dredged out now so as to get near them.
      What are the facts? The Select Committee on Transport was told that there were 410 United Kingdom registered merchant ships of more than 500 gross registered tonnes. But we were given the figure of 906. That poses an immediate problem.
      What about the sort of ships that we want, and the roles we expect them to play? First, there is transatlantic

      1267
      reinforcement from Europe. We have a 30-day commitment to such reinforcement, and I shall return to that issue. Then there is reinforcement of continental Europe from the United Kingdom. Most of the American forward-base supplies are in this country and must be moved from here to continental Europe. Next comes direct support of the Royal Navy. There are few ships equipped to do that—there are some ro-ros and other bits and pieces that could be used, but some of them are not up to the standards that we would expect, for various reasons. There is also the category of economic shipping. In a crisis, this country would still have to exist.
      We tried to deal with all these problems, but our considerations were not helped by two things. One was the lack of an agreed criterion of which ships to count; the other, I am sorry to say, was the problem of calculations about attrition. We have tried to discover whether we can have a support convoy system of the sort that we should have for reinforcement across the Atlantic. According to the MOD, we will not. It is calculated that somehow or other all Warsaw pact hunter-killer attack submarines will be bottled up to the north of Iceland, Scotland and Norway. That is a difficult argument to sustain, given that they are not all there anyway. In any sudden period of tension there is no reason why they should suddenly all head for home and then be bottled up. The logical conclusion is that that will not happen. So the sort of attrition figures that we are dealing with were quite different from those that the MOD seems to be considering.
      We are worried about what is happening. because the numbers do not add up. It seems that categories of shipping such as stern trawlers, deep-sea trawlers and oil-rig supply vessels can be used fairly quickly in emergency roles. But we are worried because we do not have the right number of vessels. The number of bulk carriers that we have seems to keep falling. In the report, we make the point that the slowdown in that fall appears to be more of a remission than a cure of the trend. I come from Tyneside and I can say that there is no sign of the sort of vessels that we need being built, or of the sort of facilities that we need to build them being maintained. We must keep that clearly in mind when we are considering this report.
      It gives me no great pleasure to talk about this subject. I was educated at Leith academy, which was established in 1452 for the education of the sons of mariners, and it taught the skills of mathematics and navigation. It fed candidates for deck officers, cadets, and candidates for marine radar, radio and electronic officers to the nautical college. My school is still there but Leith nautical college is not, and the manpower that we need is not being trained. We are dangerously short of the skilled seamen and officers that we need to man our ships in the sort of situation that we are talking about.
      Our merchant marine has served us well through two world wars. In both wars, the convoy system was said to be unnecessary but suddenly it was necessary. If there was any major conflagration in central Europe it would be necessary again. The same mistakes have been made again and again and we should learn from our history. We are
      1268
      told that everything is all right and that somehow or other we will have the ships. But somehow or other is not good enough.
      I repeat the famous words by Robert Burns:
      "Facts are chiels that winna ding."
      The facts are there, and it is up to the Minister to assure us that the Government are taking active steps to ensure that we will have the capability to sustain on a conventional basis any future war in central Europe. If the Government cannot say that, then they are admitting something that they have not admitted before, that they have given up any idea of a conventional war being sustainable in western Europe and would have to move very early to the nuclear alternative.
      I have two daughters who I hope will raise their own families. I hope that my daughters' children will have families and I find that nuclear alternative deeply disturbing. Because of our inactivity, the nuclear threshold has obviously come down. I want to hear from the Minister what he proposes to do to raise the nuclear threshold so that I can be confident that my children and the children of other hon. Members can look forward to the future. On the basis of the information in front of us, I have no such confidence, and I look to the Minister for reassurance.
      8.33 pm
      Mr. Ian Bruce: I asked a question in the House the other day and declared an interest because my brother works in a nuclear power station. After all the trouble I have taken to try to get into The Daily Telegraph I suddenly found myself in the Commons sketch column. I shall declare an interest at the beginning of this speech because for five days prior to arriving here on Monday I was the guest of Her Majesty's Navy bouncing up and down in the north Atlantic. I enjoyed some very good food and got to know a little more about the Navy.
      One of the great advantages of those five days was that I had to eat my meals with the officers and ratings and during our off-duty hours we spent much time talking about all the aspects of present day naval warfare. One of the most gripping things we learnt about was the worry of the Navy that our merchant fleet may not be up to the job if there is a war.
      We have a standing Navy and it is an expensive asset for us to maintain. It is essential that it be maintained but there is a certain amount of the chicken and egg argument about it. The Navy has a clear role to protect merchant shipping, but what is its role if we have no merchant shipping to protect? Our Navy cannot do its job unless it has merchant vessels to call on. The Falklands war clearly demonstrated that the flexibility of being able to call upon our merchant fleet was essential for prosecuting that war.
      As we see security in Europe becoming stronger and the threat of a land war reducing, we have to take into account the fact that we might have to use our naval resources and our Merchant Navy in a peacekeeping role in areas where we would not expect to use it. Our Merchant Navy would be essential. The excellent report gives clear figures about the reinforcement of our NATO commitment and about getting American forces to Europe. Many people who know about the vast amount of money spent by the Americans on their forces forget that 90 per cent. or perhaps more of the manpower available to fight a land war in Europe comes from European nations. Everything else that the Americans would have to bring into such a

      1269
      war would have to come by air or by sea. We would be in an extremely difficult position if we did not have merchant vessels available to do that.
      Merchant vessels have military roles. We saw that in the Falklands war because one of our aircraft carriers had been a container ship and it worked very well. Most of the systems that are now being supplied to the Navy are in boxes. That applies to missile, radar and communication systems which are often designed to use a container that will fit on a ship and give it the flexibility to play its role in a specific aspect of our defence.
      For many years the merchant service has provided our basic manpower. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam) spoke about the role of the merchant shipping fleet in training the manpower that we need. The town of Weymouth is in my constituency and contains an enormous number of people with merchant shipping experience. Over the years many of them have been made redundant and have had to find other careers, other ways of earning a living. Their children are no longer being sent to naval colleges and that resource of merchant shipping experience will not last much longer.
      We have to start to think again about where we go from here. Our merchant fleet is depleted and we must proceed to a healthier position. We seem to have abandoned the idea that the United Kingdom will ever again be a great shipbuilding nation. Many products of Britain demonstrate that with the right economic climate and improved productivity we can start to compete with other nations. I would never say that we should close the door on any industry and would welcome a regime under which shipbuilding could start to grow again. Employment is important and shipping in all its forms can have a valuable effect on our economy.
      On the Front Bench there are two excellent Ministers from the Department of Transport and the Ministry of Defence, but it is deficient in that there is no one on it from the Treasury. Tiny little non-states in most parts of the world have provided tax regimes to persuade our ship owners to re-register their ships. Surely it cannot be beyond the wit of the Treasury to work out a scheme by which we can bring those merchant vessels back under our own flag. It is noticeable that the decline has stopped temporarily. Perhaps that is because the Armilla patrol is doing a successful job of protecting British ships in the Gulf and it therefore becomes a plus factor to have a ship with a British flag on it. The Navy depends on a merchant fleet to support it, and that merchant fleet appreciates having the best Navy, man for man, in the world. We should he asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer to think seriously, before the next Budget, about what he can do to bring vessels back under our flag.
      The cost of light dues and of using United Kingdom ports needs to be considered. Opposition Members, on their packed Benches, may not like me saying this, but I believe that the national dock labour scheme prevents us from being as economic as we should be in our ports. I do not want to attack the ports. I want more people to be employed in Weymouth port, instead of the dozen or so who are currently employed there. We want to see more people employed in the ports and I want to see the removal of, or a great change in, the national dock labour scheme.
      I have touched on a number of subjects in a random way, but I believe that there is a future for our merchant fleet. We must always take into account the fact that our
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      merchant fleet is part of the defence of the realm. We are willing to pay a high price for the defence of the realm and we cannot do that job without proper merchant shipping.
      8.41 pm
      Mrs. Ray Michie: I am glad to have the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I wish to commend the Chairman and his Committee on the production of the report.
      The Government are now highly vulnerable, not only because of the rundown of the merchant fleet and the decline of the shipbuilding industry, but also because recent criticism from the Select Committee on Defence and others relating to the fragile size and preparedness of the Royal Navy surplus fleet means that the cumulative effect has worrying strategic implications. It is extraordinary that a Conservative Government should have neglected a defence issue of this nature. There is not much point in having a seamless robe of deterrence if the conventional end, like the merchant fleet aspect, begins to look increasingly threadbare.
      A number of Select Committee reports chronicle the worsening situation. We know from the last war that the role of the merchant fleet has been and is vital in transporting essential materials, such as food and supplies, to our country. Now, as part of Britain's role in the NATO defence plan, it would carry divisions of the United States army to Europe. Both those operations would have to take place at the same time and it is difficult to imagine how that double task could be achieved, given the drastic decline in United Kingdom flagged vessels.
      One of the dangers with the decline of the fleet is that it weakens the potential to deter. Not only do we need a good many merchant vessels and a good many trained seafarers to sustain the country, but, just as important, we need to convince a potential enemy that we can sustain a conventional war of any length. As has been said, it is now highly doubtful that the United Kingdom could mount a Falklands-style operation again. The Conservative Government take great pride in their strong stand on deterrence in nuclear matters, yet they appear at best slipshod in naval deterrence. The Soviet Union does not need to be able to read semaphore to observe the United Kingdom merchant fleet weakening fast. The Government appear content to shrug their shoulders indifferently. That is simply not good enough.
      There is also a shortfall in special categories of shipping, for example, fishing vessels for mine countermeasures. The decline in the fishing fleet has resulted in a shortage of large stern trawlers available for that purpose. I believe that there are now only about five such vessels. Even the decline of the fishing fleet has a knock-on effect on our defence capabilities. I have a particular interest in that because, in my constituency, we have an excellent fishing fleet and we build fishing vessels.
      The far-flung nature of the Merchant Navy means that a numerical sufficiency of ships is not necessarily the practical and accessible number of ships. The scope for double-counting the availability of a dwindling fleet is considerable. The demands on merchant shipping for transatlantic and economic shipping, as well as for defence purposes, would lead to impossible competition for the same resources. How can we easily get back ships. many of which would need refitting, from the other side of the world and make them available for defence purposes?

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      The same applies to the availability of men to man ships in an emergency. The report warns of a continuing decline in the recruitment of new cadets and trainees. Trained seafarers are vital because foreign crews cannot be a substitute for United Kingdom personnel in a time of strife. It would be simply impossible to train large numbers of United Kingdom seamen to man requisitioned ships, if they could be obtained, to deal with an emergency.
      Hon. Members have talked about a shortage of skills, but that is not universal throughout the United Kingdom. I know very well that there is not a shortage of skills and knowledge and that there is an honourable tradition of seafaring in the Merchant Navy in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. During the last election, I came across many men who had been laid off and lost their jobs in the Merchant Navy. It was with great sadness that they came to me and said, "What are the Government doing to our once proud merchant fleet?"
      The number of United Kingdom flagged ships has declined rapidly, leaving a smaller and smaller pool on which to call in times of emergency. It is a sad story. There has been a decline from over 1,600 ships of 50 million deadweight tonnes in 1975 to no more than 645 ships of less than 17 million deadweight tonnes owned by British companies at the end of March this year.
      There is no point in the Government waving the flag over national defence when there are now so few ships sailing with the flag at their masthead. Virtually nothing has been done to encourage investment in shipping. The need for a proper fleet would give our shipbuilding industry a much-needed boost.
      Although the Government's help for training and repatriation of crews and the concession on income tax for seafarers serving on ships trading largely outside the United Kingdom are welcome, it is all too little and could be too late.
      The Government should consider, in conjunction with the Department of Transport, the need for a Merchant Navy strategic reserve contract under which owners would receive substantial compensation and a crew-related allowance payable in respect of each British seafarer employed by United Kingdom owners regardless of flag. Such measures are needed if the fleet is not to shrivel into insignificance, or at least to a level where it is impossible to provide the essential requirements.
      The real question is whether it matters to Britain that there should be a significant British presence in the world's merchant shipping fleets of the next decade. If the answer is yes, it lies within the Government's influence. The Government's failure to act could lead to Britain's failure in time of war.
      8.50 pm
      The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Ian Stewart): The House is grateful to the Select Committee on Defence for the valuable report that we are debating this evening. I should like to add my appreciation on behalf of the Government for the work that has gone into producing such a useful document.
      The report rightly draws attention to anxiety over the consequences of the decline in the size of the British merchant fleet in recent years. That, as my hon. Friend the
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      Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) has said, has also been the subject of a recent report of the Select Committee on Transport.
      The Government will give detailed written responses shortly to both reports. I do not want to anticipate the details of those, but rather to cover in general terms some of the main issues that those reports raised, particularly concentrating on that which is covered by the title of the Defence Select Committee's report—the defence requirement for merchant shipping.
      My hon. Friend said that he recognised that there is no crisis yet. The Government recognise the importance of the subject and we are determined to ensure that there will not be a crisis.
      Before I go any further, let me respond on one point to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam). He suggested that there are no plans for a system to protect transatlantic reinforcement and resupply as necessary. I should make it clear that there are well-developed plans for naval control of shipping which are regularly exercised and they include the use of convoys when required.
      Mr. McWilliam: I am particularly grateful to the Minister for making that point because that was not the point made by the Ministry of Defence spokesmen to the Select Committee when they were specifically asked about that very question. If the hon. Gentleman is now saying that there are plans for convoy systems, suitable escorts and the kind of anti-submarine measures that need to be taken, I am sure that the House will be grateful, but so far that evidence has not been given to us.
      Mr. Stewart: I am glad to have been able to reassure the hon. Gentleman. Although one cannot go into details in such matters, the plans that I have described are in place.
      The Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy have a long history of working together and that is a two-way process. The Navy has an honourable tradition of maintaining the freedom of our ships to trade around the world while our merchant ships have invariably played a vital role in supplementing and supporting the Royal Navy in times of war. I want to say a quick word on the first part of that two-way process following the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Bruce).
      Since 1980, the Armilla ships have accompanied a great number of British ships through the Strait of Hormuz and in the Gulf. The House may be interested in the latest figures. In 1987 there were 405 movements of British shipping in that area accompanied by Royal Navy ships. In 1988 so far there have been over 350 movements, so we are already nearly up to the total of the whole of last year.
      During that time British warships have accompanied about twice as many merchant ships as those of all other Western countries with navies in the Gulf put together. That is a record of which we can be proud. I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my appreciation, having visited them on occasions, of the devoted and skilful service of our sailors in that difficult and dangerous task.
      Let me now deal with the availability of merchant shipping for defence needs. That has two clear dimensions—first, the direct requirements of the United Kingdom and, secondly, the collective NATO responsibilities which, generally speaking, is the transatlantic dimension of the question.

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      In crisis or war, merchant shipping has four main roles, which I shall list, not in order of importance—first, to support the reinforcement of Europe from the United Kingdom; secondly, to support the operations of the Royal Navy; thirdly, together with our NATO allies to assist in the transatlantic reinforcement of Europe by the United States; and, fourthly, to resupply the civil economy of the European countries.
      I emphasise first the direct needs of the United Kingdom, because the Ministry of Defence is primarily concerned with the first two of those tasks in that context. We identify the military requirements and the Department of Transport takes the lead in identifying and making available civil shipping to meet those requirements. The other two requirements are collective NATO tasks across the Atlantic.
      I refute what the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) said about there being insufficient ships in the British merchant fleet or that the Government were not concerned with that. The opposite is the case. Of course, the decline of the British merchant fleet has been a matter of anxiety to us all. But let me stress at the outset that at no time has the supply of ships fallen below that needed to meet British national defence needs. In general, for the reinforcement of Europe from the United Kingdom and the support of the operations of the Royal Navy, we have a comfortable margin of vessels available from the United Kingdom and dependent territories. However, I accept that the margin is tight in some categories of vessels.
      For example, we are closely monitoring the position of cross-Channel ferries. I agree with the Select Committee that cross-Channel ferries will continue to be important for reinforcement planning. But I remind the House that our NATO partners have large, modern roll-on/roll-off fleets which will be able to give assistance and we would not have to rely solely on our own resources.
      It was suggested that there was something wrong in having a continental ferry or two involved in the Purple Warrior exercise rather than our own. The reason for that was that our ferries were all busily occupied, but that was not the case with all the continental ones.
      Mr. Martin O'Neill: I was interested in the Minister's comment concerning exercise Purple Warrior and the reasons why British ships were not used. Does he deny that one of the other reasons was that British ferry companies' charges were too high?
      Mr. Stewart: Yes, because the reason was that British ship operators in that category were not interested in offering their ships at an economic price. They were already engaged on satisfactory tasks of another kind, whereas there was a surplus among some continental countries, which we then drew upon.
      Mr. O'Neill: The price was too dear.
      Mr. Stewart: No, I refute the hon. Member's remark. If he thinks that we should pay whatever rate is necessary for British ships that are fully occupied, against the availability of foreign ships from NATO countries, I fundamentally disagree. That would not be in our interests.
      I turn to the subject of fishing vessels, of which there are now relatively few suitable for mine counter-measures. We expect to be able to use North sea support vessels, whose adaptation for that purpose is feasible, and of which
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      adequate numbers are available. Transatlantic reinforcement and civil resupply is a matter of some concern to us. It is a problem that affects the NATO Alliance in general and is not specifically British. The number of product tankers and large bulk cargo ships is particularly tight. NATO is currently examining ways of increasing the availability of vessels for transatlantic reinforcement, particularly in the early stages.
      The report notes that at a time of war NATO nations would pool vessels of more than 1,600 gross registered tonnes for civil resupply of food and raw materials. In many cases, other countries have not assessed their wartime needs. However, resulting from a British initiative, NATO has now embarked on a study of the supply and demand for civil resupply, and I am glad that it has done so. That study is designed to establish the extent, if any, of the shortage of civil resupply vessels, and I hope that it will be completed by the end of next year.
      In addition to NATO's specific study on that subject, it also has a planning board for ocean shipping that keeps regularly under review assets available for Atlantic reinforcement and for fuel supplies to Europe on a continuing basis. I do not for one moment wish to belittle the problems posed by the merchant fleet's decline. We all want to see an industry that is prosperous and that can meet our needs in an emergency or in war. However. I wish to stress three points. First, the phenomenon is a general Western one, and the problems posed by it are NATO-wide and are not confined to this country. Secondly, although we must not minimise the problem, we must not exaggerate it. There are signs that we have been experiencing not a secular, long-term trend of decline but the reverse slope of a considerable build-up of tonnages that occurred a decade or more ago, which created unmanageable overcapacity in the industry in recent years.
      Recently, there have been encouraging signs in regard to the British-owned fleet. One key event for the shipping industry in 1987 was, in the words of the director general of the General Council of British Shipping,
      "The stabilisation of the size of the British-owned fleet of trading vessels after many years of decline."
      Within the overall figures, there has been a marked shift between registers, but in the short-term at least there are other indications that the United Kingdom-owned fleet will continue at roughly the same level, although not necessarily on the same registers. The British fleet is now slimmer, but I have no doubt that it is also more efficient. Recently, certain United Kingdom companies have been showing their confidence by placing orders for new ships to be registered in the United Kingdom, or elsewhere in the British registry system. In 1987, new orders by tonnage were higher than in 1986, and they rose again sharply in the first quarter of 1988. There has also been secondhand buying since the turn of the year.
      Perhaps the most encouraging sign of all is the movement in freight rates over the past two years. At the bottom of the cycle two years ago, at the end of the first half of 1986, the composite index stood at 85. By the end of 1986 it had risen to 95, and after the first half of 1987 it stood at 131. By the end of last year the index had increased to 176, which was no less than twice the level it had been 18 months previously. The figures now available for the first quarter of 1988 show that the index has risen to 234, which is more than 30 per cent. up again on last year's figures.

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      I strongly reject the suggestion that the Government have not given, or are not giving, enough priority to these issues. Let me pick up a point made in paragraph 73 of the report. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made it clear in an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Sir D. Price) a week or so ago that she personally has been examining regularly the implications of the decline of the British merchant fleet.
      We cannot simply encourage shipowners to invest in or retain uneconomic tonnage; that would only aggravate the problem. But we have done many other things. We are negotiating agreements with "flag of convenience" states to minimise any legal difficulties in obtaining use of British-owned vessels on their registers. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced this very afternoon that we have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bahamas under which the Bahamas agree to allow British ships to be made available to Her Majesty's Government in the event of crisis and war, and that is an important step. We have also negotiated comprehensive agreements for access to smaller ships such as coasters owned by our NATO allies, which might be needed at short notice.
      My right hon. Friend the Chancellor, far from being unmindful of this matter, announced in the Budget that, in the case of ship chartering, the business expansion scheme limit on the finance that can be raised by a company in any one year will be increased from £500,000 to £5 million. We now propose that that higher limit should be extended to companies operating their own ships.
      In addition, we have developed comprehensive war risk insurance arrangements for ships on both British and foreign registers. Such arrangements would encourage neutral states in particular to trade with the United Kingdom and other NATO allies under the threat of war or in time of hostilities. All those measures should help with the availability of vessels.
      Mr. Terence Higgins: Will my hon. Friend comment on the extent of subsidies provided by other EEC countries? As those countries are constantly complaining in other contexts about the evils of subsidies, why can we not take positive and definite action to speed matters up? The delay is not tolerable.
      Mr. Stewart: I am fully aware of the point that my right hon. Friend has made. I have to say, in the presence of my hon. Friend the Minister for Public Transport, that this is a matter for his Department rather than mine, but if unfair competition can be demonstrated we shall want to pursue it.
      Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: As the Minister for Public Transport is present, perhaps he will tell us later, if he cannot do so now, what, if any, representations have been made on the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins).
      Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend tells me that we must have specific facts on which to base our judgments, and detailed information is difficult to come by. I have no doubt, however, that my hon. Friend the Minister for Public Transport would more than welcome any further information that would enable the matter to be followed up.
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      The question of crews and manpower has already been raised. As the Committee's report acknowledges, we have taken useful measures in the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 to assist with the cost of training and repatriation. We are also setting up a Merchant Navy reserve with a potential membership of up to 5,000, which we hope will come into being next year.
      Since the Defence Committee published its report we have announced an important change in the foreign earnings deduction for tax purposes, which should help both seafarers and shipowners. It will come up next week when the Finance Bill goes on Report. We broadly estimate that it would exempt another 7,000 deep seafarers from tax, making 11,000 exempt in all. It would be equivalent to up to 15 per cent. of crew costs, which should help to ease pressures on shipping companies' operating costs, making it more competitive for them to operate ships from the United Kingdom and to employ United Kingdom crews.
      Let us not forget that, despite the decline in recent years, there are about 35,000 British seafarers—more than half the size of the sea-going and land-based manpower of the Royal Navy.
      The message is clear. The Government take seriously the implications for defence of the decline that has taken place in the merchant fleet, but there is no cause for despondency. As a result of the measures that we have already taken, the industry is in better shape than it has been for some time. Our national defence requirements certainly can be met. We are in the lead in addressing the problems in the context of the wider NATO Alliance.
      I welcome the report. If I have any general criticism of it, I think that the Committee underestimates the potential impact of the many measures that we have already taken, once they are fully in operation. In addition, it is clear that since the Committee took its evidence and prepared its report, there have been further accumulating signs to suggest that the shipping industry is beginning to pull out of the trough of the mid-1980s.
      In paragraph 14 of the report, the Committee states:
      "we suggest it would be premature to regard the arrest in the decline as anything other than a temporary remission."
      With the new information that is now available, especially the remarkable figures on freight rates that I have quoted, there are grounds for believing that that may be too pessimistic an assessment.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East asked us to look closely at the problems described in his report. I can assure him that we have done, and we shall continue to do so. But I also hope that the measures already taken will serve to reassure him of the Government's commitment to ensure that the concerns that he and others have expressed are not realised.
      9.11 pm
      Mr. Martin O'Neill: It is an unhappy coincidence that we are debating a report on the merchant fleet's contribution to our national defences on a day when many of the ships are co-operating with the Royal Navy and the Fleet Air Arm in a humanitarian exercise in the North sea. That merely serves to underline the close co-operation between our merchant marine and all the services that we have at our disposal in peace and in war.
      The Chairman of the Select Committee, in his characteristically helpful manner to the Government, glided over some of the more critical elements in the

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      Committee's report. Certainly he did not quote some of the paragraphs containing criticisms that might be more difficult for the Minister to wriggle out of.
      Nevertheless, I wish to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) and his colleagues for producing yet another frank, useful, constructively critical report on the defence of this country under the stewardship of the Minister and his colleagues. We owe them a debt for the manner in which they addressed the problem, which enables us to consider matters systematically this evening.
      It is broadly agreed that the purposes of a merchant fleet in respect of defence are fourfold: the transatlantic reinforcement of Europe, the reinforcement of continental Europe from the United Kingdom, the direct support of the Royal Navy and economic shipping—the civil traffic which brings fuel and supplies to the United Kingdom. Some of those involve the use of the same craft, so we have to be very careful to avoid the overlap of competing claims on our resources.
      The report, in setting out those tasks and analysing the effectiveness of our capability to meet them, has served to underline what many of us have spoken about in defence debates and service debates generally during the past few years. The Chairman of the Select Committee paid tribute to one of his former colleagues, a former Chairman of the 1922 Committee, who repeatedly came back to these matters in his capacity as chairman of the all-party maritime group.
      It is no consolation to read in 1988 a re-run of what we said in 1983 or 1985. Paragraph 70 sums up concisely what many of us feel when it states:
      "The optimism of the … official evidence to our predecessors has been demonstrated to have been unjustified; in fact, the 'worst case' forecasts about the likely size of the UK merchant fleet in the late 1980s have been realised."
      The report outlines the confusion both in the Ministry of Defence and between the MOD and the Department of Transport about how many ships we have available. The much-criticised fiddling of unemployment statistics seems nothing compared with the mess that the Government have got themselves into on counting ships. I do not know whether it is because of the movement of ships or because people get seasick when they think about them, but they certainly seem incapable of finding a basis for comparison. Within the confusion there may be some method in the madness.
      In February 1988 the Transport Select Committee was told that there were 410 ships, but by May the figure had decreased to 402—hardly bearing out the assertion that the decline had been arrested. In May 1988, the MOD told the Committee that the number was not 410 or 402, but 906. However, when we look at this more carefully—the forensic skills of the Committee must be praised—we find that the reason for the difference is that different criteria were used. The Department of Transport had included only the trading elements, while the Ministry of Defence had included United Kingdom-registered non-trading craft in excess of 500 gross registered tonnes.
      Until 1986 the weight threshold was 1,000 gross registered tonnes, but in 1987 and 1988 the threshold was not 1,000, nor even 500, but 300 gross registered tonnes. The Minister did not touch on the reasons for the confusion and I hope that when he has had more time to think up a reply to the Committee we shall receive an adequate response, not only about fiddling the figures, but
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      about the clear attempt to distort the statistics and to fool the Committee—an exercise in which the Government and their officials have singularly failed.
      Mr. Ian Stewart: Naturally we shall produce the explanation which the hon. Gentleman seeks. But if figures are requested by a Committee, they are given in the context in which they are asked. There is no difference between the figures understood by the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Transport. A problem arises from the disaggregation of figures into small groups because the Ministry of Defence looks not only at the total number of ships, but at the number of ships in a particular category to deal with a particular task. The information that the hon. Gentleman seeks about the reconciliation of these figures will be available.
      Mr. O'Neill: I am grateful to the Minister, but if we were to look at each category, we would end up with the same story—one of decline and confusion. I shall riot delay the House. Suffice it to say that it is nothing short of criminal for the Government to seek to inflate figures by including craft which are either inappropriate for defence purposes or are already committed to naval use, such as the 38 royal fleet auxiliary craft. Little wonder that there is a note of desperation in paragraph 31 of the report, which says that there is a
      "need for clear understanding and a consistent approach in the use of statistics."
      That is what the Committee said. The confusion over the use of shipping is even more serious when we realise that transatlantic and economic shipping, both of which are critical, require the same product tankers.
      Paragraph 38 of the report states:
      "it must be apparent that once the UK had fulfilled its commitment to provide transatlantic shipping. the number of UK-flagged vessels available for civil resupply would be minimal."
      The report identifies other areas of concern with which hon. Members have dealt, such as the dire shortage of large stern trawlers for mine counter-measures and the problems caused by the fact that all available craft are accounted for by the Armilla patrol. The Minister has the support of all hon. Members when he pays tribute to the effective role that the Armilla patrol plays in accompanying ships in very dangerous waters. I use the word accompanying, which the Minister used, I am pleased to note, but which has slipped out of the Prime Minister's vocabulary. The conditions for the men are very uncomfortable and trying and the Opposition are happy to join the Minister in paying tribute to them.
      The Minister should have told us what he believed to be the significance of the Committee's suggestion about the possibility of entering into some understanding with the Norwegian navy to see whether training and practice facilities could be established for existing support craft in the North sea. As I have said, they are playing a sterling role in tragic circumstances. I hope that the Minister will address that problem because it seems, sadly, that the Armilla patrol will be in the Gulf for some considerable time. It would be a dereliction of duty by the Government if they did not explore other opportunities to provide our merchant sailors with proper training in mine countermeasures as soon as possible, not least because if something happened while the Armilla patrol continued in the Gulf, we would have no mine counter-measure facilities available to us in the short term.

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      The number of product tankers of between 2,000 and 60,000 deadweight tonnes declined by 55 per cent. from 1984 to 1986. Most seriously for the actions that we have in mind, when we study the report and consider the work to be done by product tankers of around 20,000 dead weight tonnes we find that that is where the decline has been greatest. Those tankers were most valuable at the time of the Falklands. That is the critical size of craft about which we have most cause for anxiety and I hope that the Government will address that problem.
      We can be more hopeful about cruisers. Shell, one of the main owners of cruisers, has retained all-British crews, although BP has crews with some non-British nationals. The question of the dry cargo freights is very serious. We have the critical problem of transporting large and heavy military equipment, which does not fit easily into containers and the modular arrangements that are part and parcel of container ships. We may need more craft to transport the equipment that has to be brought across the Atlantic, and it will take some time for those craft to be adapted for that purpose.
      The Minister spoke about cross-Channel ferries and said that we would have access to a number of foreign ferries; that may be so. He should have spoken about the fears expressed about the decline in the number of craft that will result from the completion of the Channel tunnel. Although we have access to craft in the Channel and in Europe, where our allies are close by, there is the vexed problem of the location of many craft throughout the world. The hon. Member for Hampshire, East referred to that problem.
      About 35 per cent. of United Kingdom mainland registered shipping is beneficially owned abroad. When asked how these ships would be brought back, one of the Minister's hapless officials—I choose my words carefully—who is a deputy secretary, said:
      "It would depend on where the ship was, but no doubt the Royal Navy would be called upon to assist."
      I can imagine the Royal Navy being rather busy doing other things at that time, especially if its ships were in inconvenient locations in other parts of the world. That does not seem to have been at the forefront of that official's mind when answering questions. I hope that when the Minister gets around to reading the report—which, God forbid, the same official may produce—he will look at that comment and ensure that we are given a better answer.
      We shall leave aside the images of the British Navy commandeering ships in foreign ports and acting in a way that some Governments would consider near-piracy. The most serious issue is probably the location of our crews. In the last Defence Question Time but one, the Secretary of State for Defence admitted in answer to my question that this was probably the single most pressing problem. Estimates have shown that in recent years there has been a 50 per cent. drop in the number of officers and a 42 per cent. drop in the number of ratings. More serious is the information that the number of cadets decreased from 5,197 in 1981 to 727 in 1986 and that last year only 180 people joined the service for training. Unless there is a dramatic reversal in the medium and long term, there will be insufficient numbers to man a much reduced fleet. The Defence Committee makes that point. The facts are incontrovertible.
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      I welcome the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act and the target of 350 cadets per annum. The support to be given for that training is to be applauded, but we shall have to ensure that it is enough. We must take account of the point made in paragraph 56 of the Committee's report that, as long as a career in the Merchant Navy is seen as unattractive, there is little likelihood of an increase in numbers. It is not enough to provide more money; there has to be a major selling job. Some parts of the country have long Merchant Navy traditions, and the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) paid tribute to her constituents. Many people joined the Merchant Navy because there was little else for them to do in their part of the world. We all know that unemployment has traditionally been the best recruiting sergeant. In the 1990s, as the dip in the birth rate in the 1970s and early 1980s is reflected, there will be a demand for youth labour. There may not be the present level of youth unemployment. It will be incumbent on ship owners to provide much more attractive conditions in terms not only of the image of the Merchant Navy but of the profession's career structure.
      Many British ships are crewed by non-British nationals—people from the far east, including Hong Kong, and from Comecon countries. Those men may not, to say the least, be depended upon in a time of conflict. It is dangerous to assume that those men will go to sea and wish to fight on our behalf. I would like to think that they will, but that is not a calculation that we can necessarily make. After 1997, people from Hong Kong will no longer be citizens of the British Commonwealth. That matter must be dealt with seriously and carefully and I do not believe that the Merchant Shipping Act and the changes in taxation will necessarily solve it.
      We can see from paragraph 62 of the report that it came as a surprise to the Committee
      "that it has taken so long for the Atlantic Alliance, and in particular the United Kingdom with its long maritime tradition, to recognise a grave and worsening defect in strategic capability."
      The Government's proposals are not so radically different from those that Ministers and officials offered the Committee. I say that not because I wish to carp and criticise, but because I believe that the Government would be deluding themselves if they considered that their proposals would make that much difference. The Committee said:
      "they offer only marginal prospects for improving the situation."
      The Minister's additional proposals do not go anywhere near as far to deal with the problem.
      The Committee has attacked the optimism that has been described as demonstrably unjustified. It also noted that the worst case scenarios have been realised. The measure of the Committee's despair was shown by the fact that, in extremis, it turned to the Prime Minister to take charge. However, the fox has been shot on this occasion, because we have been told that the Prime Minister has been keeping an eye on it and that it has been one of her major concerns. She can barely sleep at night because of her anxieties about the Merchant Navy. We believe that the Prime Minister's anxiety might be of some additional assistance. If it is, so much the better.
      The requirements are clearly set out by the Committee—and, with respect, they are not for the Prime Minister or her Ministers of State—and they concern the availability of merchant shipping for defence purposes, which is

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      governed by three factors—first, the number of flagged ships; secondly, their accessibility when they are needed; and, thirdly. the availability of a pool of seafarers to man them. Those three factors require us to look at the ownership of our merchant fleet, to find ways of returning ships to the British flag, and to increase the size and capacity of our fleet. We must find better tax and social security regimes to encourage young people to go to sea. All those things must be carried out quickly or the next time we discuss such a report we will be discussing not our merchant fleet but an obituary on it.
      9.32 pm
      Miss Ann Widdecombe: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate, but as other hon. Members wish to speak I will try to be brief.
      I too congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) and all the members of the Defence Select Committee on their report. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister and the Government on their measures to counteract the decline of the merchant fleet. Although my remarks will be somewhat critical of what is happening, they in no way diminish either my gratitude for those measures or my respect for the deep thought that has gone into them.
      The fundamental point to remember is that the British merchant fleet must play two roles. It can be called upon to play a wartime role, but during the long intervals of peace in between it essentially plays a merchant and economic role. Therefore, it must be subject to economic forces. The decline that has occurred during the 1980s is not because the Government have allowed that decline, or for any other Government inspired reasons. Rather it is because economic factors have led to a contraction in merchant shipping in general. Those factors include the move towards containerisation, the wages and taxes prevalent in the United Kingdom, and the fall in oil imports.
      Such factors, or other economic factors, will always influence the size of the merchant fleet. That is why I do not wholly share the optimism expressed by my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces. Although I am perfectly happy to say, "Yes, the terrible decline, not just of the 1980s generally, but especially of the past three years during which there has been another substantial decline, may well have been arrested," and I am even quite happy to say, "We may see the shipping industry improve somewhat," that does not mean that we shall not enter a future period of adverse economic factors. If that happens, we are moving from too weak a base to sustain that base. That is my principal worry.
      Concern has been expressed this evening about the differences in the figures that have been supplied. Going back even a few months and looking at the Government's own defence estimates, there is enough evidence to provide a terrible warning. It is said that if it is necessary to requisition vessels from the merchant fleets across NATO, 1,642 available vessels will be required. We are told that all those would be needed. A reserve is not built in to the strength of the available fleet. I repeat that all of them would he needed.
      We are too dependent on the good will of those operating foreign registers and on the geographical dispersal of all those ships at the time they are needed for us to have any room for manoeuvre. A slight improvement
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      in the size of the merchant fleet will not mean a major improvement in the base from which we operate because we should already have slightly more ships than we can foresee needing, and not simply an adequate number of ships.
      The decline is well known and the statistics do not need detailed rehearsal. However, it is worth noting that in the past five years stern trawlers, fishing trawlers, cargo vessels, liners, roll-on/roll-off ferries and tugs have all shown a substantial decline. A slight arrestment of that decline will not supply us with a good base for the future.
      Furthermore, we were told at the time of the defence estimates that there was an estimated deficiency of 2,000 to 3,000 officers and 2,000 to 3,000 ratings should we have to call up all those ships at a time of emergency. Although I congratulate the Government on their efforts to increase the number of cadets recruited into the Merchant Navy, that deficiency nevertheless exists.
      It is not enough to say that the fleet may be smaller but that it is more efficient, because this is one area in which numbers are crucial. We must have a certain number of ships to call on in an emergency and one may have to have them in given locations. It is not enough simply to have an efficient fleet; there must be enough ships, men and equipment to call upon and to call up fast, efficiently and with complete certainty. I am not convinced that we have that base or that the measures that have been taken so far—although I welcome them—are such as to enhance it for the foreseeable future. They certainly will not do so in the medium term.
      We need to address ourselves to the somewhat unfair competition that we face and to address much more closely the question of subsidies and what other countries are doing. I echo the regret expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Bruce) that there is not a representative of the Treasury present because the role of the Treasury is crucial.
      No matter what the difficulty of trying to combine an economic and efficient force with the uneconomic factors against it, we must accept that we must do so even if it means an element of subsidy. I would welcome some further elucidation from my hon. Friend the Minister of State and our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport about what we are planning to do in the next five years, not to maintain our base, but substantially to enhance it so that in a few years' time we do not see in the defence estimates the age-old statement, "We will need all these ships"; we should see, "We shall need most of these ships."
      9.40 pm
      Mr. Julian Brazier: My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe), in her very eloquent speech, set out the difficulties in the market place which have led to the shortages of shipping. I must reinforce what she says, having worked, most recently last summer, for a shipyard which specialised in ship repair. The situation in the shipping markets is desperate, and unfortunately, in the United Kingdom, for a number of reasons, it is likely to get worse in some areas.
      To mention just one reason that came up earlier in the debate, it is absurd not to recognise that the Channel tunnel will inevitably lead to a very significant decline in the number of ferries. I do not say that against the Channel tunnel; the decision has been made on that. We are looking

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      at a world shipping market with grotesque oversupply in some categories of ships, in which almost every country in the world is now subsidising its merchant navy.
      The Soviet Union is very conscious of the importance not just of merchant shipping but of every category of supposedly civil vessels. All of them are centrally planned and co-ordinated: their fighting navy, their merchant vessels, their ubiquitous fishing fleets and, indeed, the research vessels which nominally belong to various Soviet universities. To mention just one category of supposedly civil ship, they are producing large numbers of ice-strengthened dry-cargo ships for use along their northern coastline. Many of those ships are built outside the Soviet Union, in, for example, Finland. In all cases they have strengthened hoists so that they can carry heavy weapons on their decks. In many cases the larger ones are nuclear driven and some are even fitted to carry hovercraft for transporting goods to shore. I need hardly say that their secondary role in war would be all too obvious.
      The same applies with civil aviation, and the debate is supposed to be about civil aviation as well as shipping. Many Aeroflot aircraft are designed to have a secondary war role. They have strengthened floors so that heavy equipment can be put into them and they are convertible, in some cases, for use for parachuting, the Soviet Union having eight airborne divisions.
      Two basic aspects have come up time and again in the debate—two reasons why we should be concerned about the Merchant Navy and the civil aviation fleet. One is direct support for the fleets and the RAF in time of war, and the other is the wider economic needs of the nation.
      On the direct support side, I put it to my hon. Friend the Minister that there is enormous scope for cost-effective use of civil assets in a secondary military role. With the Atlantic Conveyor we see a small example of the sort of thinking that could be used here. This extends, however, far beyond the larger merchant vessels. There are many other examples of civil assets that could be used in a secondary military role with a very small amount of money spent up front: a lot of our civil engineering equipment, for example, and many civil aircraft.
      Eighteen months before the Falklands war we were given an opportunity to fit some TriStars being sold to British Airways with equipment that would have made them available in a secondary role for air-to-air refuelling. The cost of doing it in advance would have been very modest, but the idea was turned down.
      More important than that are the economic needs of the nation, which have been mentioned time and again in the debate. I cannot stress sufficiently that the Soviets recognise this. They are subsidising their cargo vessels, which can compete against us very effectively because they are subsidised. Almost every country in the free world is subsidising its merchant navy to some extent.
      My hon. Friend the Minister stressed the problems with subsidies within the EC. In fact, of course, the EC's fleet, as a proportion of total world shipping, is falling. Outside the EEC large subsidies are provided. Two years ago I visited the largest shipyard in Venezuela and it provides enormous subsidies for its merchant fleet.
      As an enthusiastic supporter of Adam Smith, I wish to God that there was a way in which we could maintain our merchant fleet without looking for artificial subsidies and
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      supports of one sort or another. But our merchant fleet will be squeezed out if we are unwilling to subsidise it. I do not wish to pooh-pooh or thrust aside the steps that the Government have taken. The measures in the Merchant Shipping Bill are welcome, especially the late amendment on cabotage. I hope that the powers in that Bill will be used by the Secretary of State for Transport. Of course, it is sensible to have a merchant naval reserve and the enlargement of the business expansion scheme from £500,000 to £4 million is a welcome measure. They are modest measures, however, compared with what most other countries do.
      A rollover relief which would enable our shipowners to re-equip would be extremely valuable. It would also enable our ships to become vastly more competitive. Sweden, for example, suffers from the problems of extremely expensive crews. By re-equipping its fleet with modern vessels, which can survive on small crews, the Swedish navy is becoming extremely competitive despite its high labour costs.
      One of the difficulties that we face is that the cost of Third world crews is a great deal less than the cost of British crews. We cannot contend with some of the reasons for that, but, to be frank, a number of Third world ships, manned by Third world crews, have health and safety standards that would be unacceptable on a vessel using British seafarers. We could go some way to solving that problem by considering removing the national insurance contributions of British seafarers who spend a large proportion of the year at sea. The Select Committee on Defence and the Select Committee on Transport have published extremely effective reports and they highlight the serious problems that we face because of the potential shortage of vessels in a time of tension and war. That shortage could imperil our ability to keep ourselves going under the threat of war. The potential effect of that shortage would be to diminish the conventional stance of our armed forces. I do not believe that we will solve the matter by making it an MOD responsibility. Civil defence is not an MOD responsibility and for a long time it has been effectively organised by the Home Office. I welcome the increase in the civil defence budget.
      The problems faced by our merchant fleet will be sorted out only when we have one Minister with clear responsibility for all aspects of shipping and, dare I say it, shipbuilding. That Minister should be in the Department of Transport and he should be responsible for monitoring the defence aspects of merchant shipping, as he would be the only man who would have authority to do something about it. He should be answerable to the House on that matter.
      We need a proper co-ordinated policy that takes into account tax, employment and trade factors and a Minister who is answerable to the House for all those matters. We will then have a shipping policy that meets the needs of the nation and, God save us, our potential needs in war.
      9.49 pm
      Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: It is probably rather rash of me to say anything at this late moment in the debate, which has been attended by so many hon. Members who are great experts on this matter. However, I do not want the moment to pass without congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) on his skilled chairmanship—and thanking the members of his Committee. I assure him that when I go

      1285
      abroad as chairman of the military committee of the NATO Assembly I find the reports that he and his Committee have produced immensely valuable, not only in a British, but in a NATO context—none more so than the report on this subject.
      My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has a difficult task, not least because he must face up to the issue of scarce resources. Many military demands apart from those that are the subject of this debate are made on us. He is also faced with the ambiguity of NATO's defence policy, about which I have listened to a great many briefings. NATO does not speak with a voice that makes it easy for us to carry out a single-minded policy of reinforcing the forces that we already have. No one is quite sure whether we will reinforce before or after hostilities have started.
      If I had more time I should use extracts from the report by the Select Committee on Defence—specifically from the excellent memorandum submitted by Mr. F. E. C. Gregory of the department of politics in the university of Southampton. To judge from some briefings, one might imagine that we were going to fight world war I all over again, with great convoys steaming across the Atlantic—or even world war II. Many people would dispute that. In the memorandum, Mr. Gregory quotes distinguished people such as one of our former Chiefs of the Defence Staff, Lord Carver:
      "Unless reinforcements and supplies reach this side of the Atlantic before hostilities start then I have not much hope, whether they come by air or sea, that they will he very relevant to the situation."
      Others, too, have made the point. As one United States army officer put it, the next war
      "is going to he … a come as you are war."
      This sort of ambiguity makes it extraordinarily difficult.
      Mr. O'Neill indicated assent.
      Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: I am glad to see the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) nodding his agreement.
      Apart from the numbers of surface vessels of the Royal Navy, we should also consider that the effectiveness of our forces does not depend on numbers but on the extent to which such vessels provide effective modern weapons systems. My hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Bruce) made the interesting point that in the Falklands war we were able to clip on to our merchant ships—thereby making them extremely effective—container boxes that contained modern effective weapon systems. I discovered at first hand the other day, when visiting the Westland-Augusta project in Italy, that helicopters such as the EH101 could greatly increase the value that could be given to our ships by strengthening the Royal Navy's efforts to deal with anti-submarine warfare. We might concentrate our attention on that aspect rather than—as we too often do—on the numbers of merchant vessels that we have.
      I hope that as these arguments are developed—we have not reached the end of them—we shall hear rather more about what the agreed strategy is and about how we can make our existing ships more effective by using more effective up-to-date weapons systems.
      9.53 pm
      Mr. Mates: This has been a useful debate and I congratulate all hon. Members who have taken part in it. It has been an extraordinary debate too, in that hon.
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      Members from both sides of the House have spoken with one voice—a voice of concern. The House seems to be entirely unanimous about this and, to be fair, the Minister was by no means complacent.
      It was apt for some hon. Members to remind us that perhaps deterrence starts with strategic nuclear weapons but finishes at the lowest level with conventional troops and civilian shipping, without which total deterrence looks less credible. It is back to the old phrase
      "For want of a nail, the shoe was lost."
      While this may not be a very romantic part of the whole of the Western Alliance's deterrent, it is nevertheless crucial.
      The dilemma is evident and is mentioned not only in our report, which looks just at defence, but in the Department of Transport report as well. For economic reasons, some of which are understandable and some of which are less than attractive to contemplate, the fleet has been in a constant state of decline. That decline is not only in numbers and in deadweight tonnage, about which there can be no argument, but in the specific quality and type of ships that are most useful for defence purposes should we come to a period of crisis or tension that might lead to war.
      My right hon. Friend the Minister has accused us in our report of being too pessimistic. In the report we say at some length that we do not think that the Government's optimism is justified. Those two remarks are there. We have been making these warning sounds for eight years, which is as long as the Select Committee on Defence in its present form has existed. It was one of the first subjects that we tackled because it seemed to us then to be an important element that was giving rise to concern. Successive Committees have come back to it no fewer than three times. If nothing else does, that shows, the House the consistency of our concern.
      So far we have not been wrong. Our figures were brought out and we were told that we were wrong, especially three years ago, but the proof of the pudding this time round is that we were right and the Government were wrong. We were not working on the wrong figures. We had taken the right advice and the decline has proceeded, as we predicted. It gives me no comfort to say this, but I hope that it adds force to the fact that, whatever else we have done, we have produced a unanimous report right across all shades of opinion and have looked at this matter as carefully as possible.
      If we have been too pessimistic no one would be more delighted than Ito own up to that if, as I suspect, we return to this matter next year or the year after. If the Government have been too optimistic I hope that the Minister will have the good sense to realise that he cannot put this problem off. It is serious and we have to keep watching it and keep our finger on its pulse.
      Inevitably, my right hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues in the Ministry of Defence are looking at much more crucial and immediate matters such as the size of the surface fleet, for example. Had we been discussing the report on that he and I could have had a rather more rigorous debate. I think that this report takes us a good distance down that road.
      The problems of the future procurement of aircraft, tanks and all the other things must gravely concern the Ministry of Defence because it does not have the funds to match the commitments put upon it. The Ministry has our sympathy about that. This matter is bound to be neglected, not least because, as my hon. Friend the Member for

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      Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) said, it is one of those things that falls between the stools of two Departments and therein always lies a danger. One Department is looking towards the other. The Department of Transport says that the merchant fleet is its business, but that it is not really interested in defence, only in the economic side. The Ministry of Defence says that the merchant fleet will be needed only if we go to war and that the Department of Transport is looking after it.
      One of the more important recommendations that I hope will be taken up and considered across the board is co-ordination between Departments. We must ensure that this, above all, is monitored properly. If the Minister says that we have rung the alarm bells too loudly, I am prepared to be judged on that, but the most criminal thing of all would be to ignore the alarm bells until the fleet had declined to such an extent that it was too late to do anything credible about it and thereby damage the deterrence on which we have spent so much time and effort.
      It being Ten o'clock, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to paragraph (5) of Standing Order No. 52 (Consideration of estimates) and the Order this day, to put forthwith the Questions necessary to dispose of the proceedings on Estimates, 1988–89 (Class I Vote 1, Class IX, Vote 1 and Class X, Vote 1).
      Resolved,
      That a sum, not exceeding £4,503,563,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March 1989 for expenditure by the Ministry of Defence on personnel costs etc. of the Armed Forces and their Reserves and Cadet Forces etc., personnel costs etc. of Defence Ministers and of certain civilian staff employed by the Ministry of Defence on movements; certain stores; supplies and services; plant and machinery; charter of ships; certain research; lands and buildings; sundry grants; payments abroad including contributions and subscriptions to international organisations and grants in aid.

      Merchant Shipping and Civil Aviation
        CLASS IX, VOTE 1
          HOUSING (ENGLAND)

            BED-AND-BREAKFAST ACCOMMODATION
            Resolved,
            That a sum, not exceeding £1,120,244,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March 1989 for expenditure by the Department of the Environment on subsidies, improvements and investments, grants to housing associations and the Housing Corporation and other sundry services. —[Mrs. Roe.]

        CLASS X, VOTE 1
          ENVIRONMENTAL AND PLANNING SERVICES (ENGLAND)

            GIPSY SITES
            Resolved,
            That a sum, not exceeding £6,530,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March 1989 for expenditure by the Department of the Environment on other water supply, conservation and sewerage, local authority and other environmental services (including recreation), and town and country planning (including compensation).—[Mrs. Roe.]

      Church of England (Ecumenical Relations) Measure
      10 pm
      Mr. Michael Alison (Second Church Estates Commissioner, Representing Church Commissioners): I beg to move,
      That the Church of England (Ecumenical Relations) Measure, passed by the General Synod of the Church of England, be presented to her Majesty for her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.
      In an increasing number of places throughout the country, the Church of England has been seeking closer relationships, since the 1920s, with the Protestant Free Churches in England and, since the late 1960s, with the Roman Catholic Church in England. Central to that co-operation have been shared acts of worship when clergy and ministers have preached and led prayers in one another's churches and congregations have joined in united services of worship.
      Such co-operation increased rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s and today is widespread. There are more than 700 local councils of churches and almost 500 local ecumenical projects at present. The latter are places where local churches are often working together closely and where there is a considerable measure of shared worship. In many places, and in various ways, that shared worship has run ahead of the law. For example, section 15 of the Act of Uniformity 1662—to take the House back a little in this tercentenary year—requires everyone who preaches in the Church of England to have the bishop's licence. That provision has never been repealed. Therefore, technically, every time a Roman Catholic priest or Free Church minister preaches at a Church of England service, an offence is committed.
      The Sharing of Church Buildings Act 1969 made it legally permissible for the first time for the Church of England and other churches to enter into binding agreements to share buildings. Although that Act allowed a measure of shared worship, that was not its primary aim. In 1980, the House of Bishops issued a code of practice on ecumenical relations to provide guidelines for ecumenical co-operation, particularly as regards the participation of Anglican clergy, non-Anglican clergy and lay people in each other's worship.
      That code was an interim document. It was anticipated that the progress towards unity at a national level might soon make substantial changes in relationships between the Churches. However, sadly, those anticipated changes did not occur. For example, the proposal for a covenant between the Church of England and three of the Free Churches failed to win sufficient support in the General Synod of the Church of England in 1982, and thereafter lapsed.
      Therefore, the House of Bishops established a working party under the chairmanship of the Right Reverend Cyril Bowles, lately Bishop of Derby,
      "to discuss the Anglican involvement in local ecumenical development, and in particular, in Local Ecumenical Projects".
      In 1984, the working party recommended that the time had come to change the law in order to make permissible a certain measure of shared worship while retaining certain safeguards.

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      The Measure before the House and the two canons that are proposed attempt to implement the recommendations of the Derby working party report. Therefore, the Church of England (Ecumenical Relations) Measure has been drafted in the form of an enabling provision and clauses 1 and 2 make it lawful for the General Synod to promulgate canons on ecumenical relations.
      Two canons have been drafted and they are set out in the annex to the report of the Ecclesiastical Committee. One is of general application, draft canon B43, entitled "Of relations with other churches", and one deals specifically with local ecumenical projects, draft canon B44, entitled "Of local Ecumenical Projects".
      It should be noted that the draft Measure gives legal authority for the Church of England, its ministers and lay people to collaborate with other churches, but there are at every point carefully drafted safeguards. For example, clause 3(a) provides that services of holy communion according to the use of the Church of England may be celebrated only by episcopally ordained priests. Clause 3(b) requires marriages according to the rites of the Church of England to be solemnised only by clerks in holy orders of the Church of England.
      Clause 4 allows priests and deacons from the United Churches of south India, north India, Pakistan and Bangladesh—Churches which include former Anglicans—when visiting England for a limited period, to exercise their ministry both in the Church of England and in another church to which the measure applies. Up to now, those clergymen have had to opt either to minister in the Church of England or in the Free Church with which they are in communion.
      Clause 5 gives power to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York jointly to designate the Churches to which the measure applies. It should be noted from subsection 2(c) that the measure and the proposed canons will apply only to churches which subscribe to the fundamental doctrine of the Holy Trinity and which administer the sacraments of baptism and holy communion.
      Clause 6 sets out various definitions in the Measure. Clause 7 makes it possible for persons who do not hold a bishop's licence—for example, ministers of other Churches—to preach in a Church of England church, notwithstanding the provisions of the Act of Uniformity 1662, to which I referred earlier. Clause 8 contains a saving in respect of the place where Church of England marriages may be solemnised. Clause 9 is in common form.
      The Measure and the canons do not go as far and as fast as ecumenical enthusiasts would like. However, they have received the overwhelming support of the diocesan synods and of the three houses of the General Synod.
      At this time, when no national union schemes or proposals are before the Church of England, it is necessary to establish some rules for local Church of England churches to follow in their ecumenical relations. The draft measures enable such rules to be established.
      10.8 pm
      Mr. Frank Field: I was going to say that after the introduction that we have heard from the Second Church Estates Commissioner, I would defy anybody to give a competent speech on this matter, but I see two Social and Liberal Democratic Members who are well
      1290
      known for their oratorical skills. Therefore, I should withdraw that challenge immediately because I know perfectly well that they will rise to the occasion.
      I have only three small points to make and I do not possess the skills to weave them into a good debating point. Therefore, the best thing that I can do is to list them. First, as I listened to the Second Estates Commissioner I could not help thinking back to the essay written by Thomas Arnold well over 150 years ago. He thought that the Church was in such danger that it would do well to worry less about dogma and more about its comprehensiveness. Indeed, he thought that the test should be dropped, so that most citizens, apart from Roman Catholics, could become part of the then established Church. It says something about English society that 150 years later we have moved a small way towards the ideal that Arnold laid down for us. For that reason, I welcome the Measure.
      Mr. Harry Greenway: Was it not also Thomas Arnold who, as headmaster of Rugby school, said:
      My object will be, if possible, to form Christian men, for Christian boys I can scarcely hope to make."
      Although that indicated Thomas Arnold's understanding of his pupils, did it not also give some evidence of his general outlook on life?
      Mr. Field: It did, but to those hon. Members who understand how to give a coded message, I say that I accept the rebuke of my hon. Friend—as I shall call him tonight—the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Green way), that in pointing to the eloquence of the Social and Liberal Democratic Members, I did not also point to him as somebody who can make a speech out of a point that did not exist at all. I look forward to hearing his contribution later.
      My second point is that, in the Measure's preamble, it would have been possible for the Church to proceed by laying bishops' orders rather than seeking legislation. It is part of the Church of England's sickness that whenever there is an opportunity to ask for legislative changes, it does just that. That is all part of the politics of decline. Being a member of the Labour party and aware of the difficulties in which it finds itself, I recognise the symptoms when I see them in another body. One of the crosses I must carry is belonging to both organisations.
      My final point is that, given the Synod's legislative programme, this is probably the last Measure that will come before the House and pass without a vote, as I hope it will tonight. There are stormy times ahead, and I look forward to participating in those events. Tonight I welcome this Measure, and I congratulate the Second Estates Commissioner on the eloquence with which he presented it to the House.
      10.11 pm
      Mr. David Wilshire: I take this opportunity—the first since my election to the House—to make a general comment about Church matters. I enter this area with some trepidation because I am not an Anglican, and it is that which makes me want to speak. I am saddened that the long-awaited coming together of various Christian denominations should need the House's formal approval. My general point for the record is that the sooner there is

      1291
      disestablishment, the better—because Christianity is something that can work happily without politicians intervening.
      Mr. Simon Hughes: Does the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) accept that there is a strongly held view in the Anglican Church that disestablishment would be good for that Church, as it is for all the other denominations?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. I remind the House that in debating this narrow Measure, it is not in order to discuss disestablishment. I realise that the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) is still on his preamble, which is allowed before he speaks to the Measure.
      Mr. Wilshire: I am touched by your generosity, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I take your point, as I take that of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) with whom I do not disagree.
      I find it enormously encouraging—as I am sure all hon. Members present in the Chamber do—that this Measure is for our consideration tonight, because clearly the concept of Christian unity is alive and well, which is something we should welcome. I hope that all hon. Members of whatever denomination rejoice in the fact that the House is being asked to consider this Measure tonight. I too hope that it will win unanimous approval.
      10.13 pm
      Mr. David Alton: The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) said that it was possible for politicians to make points where none existed, and we are all guilty of that from time to time. But it would be wrong for a Measure of this importance to go through the House without hon. Members from every party making brief contributions to say why they support it.
      I welcome the Measure. It is almost paradoxical that just two hours after our debate on the tercentenary of 1688, in which we heard so much about the old prejudices, the old bigotry and even the old hatreds, the House is now putting behind it past injustice and persecution and the glorification of such events, and thinking instead of the future and considering how much progress we have already made towards the goal of Church unity and Christian reconciliation that so many hold dear.
      Many who were present at Canterbury when Pope John Paul and Archbishop Runcie came together in that historic meeting were very touched to see the culmination of a process of which the late Archbishop Ramsey was the major initiator. It is worth recalling that fact, just a week after the memorial service that was held for him in Westminster abbey.
      I come from a mixed marriage, with an Anglican father and a Catholic mother—and, in two and a half weeks' time, will consummate my own ecumenical act by marrying an Anglican, the daughter of a Church of England clergyman. The hon. Member for Birkenhead will be glad to know that she comes from the broad church that he describes—in the sense that I suppose she would regard herself as coming from the evangelical wing of the Anglican church, and her father from the Anglo-Catholic tradition.
      1292
      Sometimes, however, such labels can be misleading. In the Roman Catholic Church, people are often surprised at the breadth of thinking exemplified by the renewal movement of charismatics and evangelicals. We are debating this Measure in a week when the Roman Catholic Church has seen its first schism in over a century caused by those who hanker after the Tridentine rite. That split is the result of feeling among some people that progress has been too fast. Many of us feel that it has been too slow.
      I agree entirely with what the hon. Member for Birkenhead said about the difficult waters that lie ahead. It will be extremely difficult to bring every Christian towards the objective of Christian unity. While the hon. Gentleman reflected on the problems in his party, my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) and I reflected that we too knew something about the problems that a merger can create—vide the mess in the Liberal-SDP alliance. If anyone has any doubts about going for the lowest common denominator or easy merger options, let me say that I do not think that that is particularly to be commended. What is commendable is a respect for one another's traditions, and a recognition of the validity of each other's orders and rites of service.
      Although my Church has moved a long way in the 40 years since my parents were married, I was surprised to learn that I required dispensation to marry someone of a different religion. I had to ask permission to be married to an Anglican. I find that offensive, and I hope that it will not be long before it is changed.
      Mr. Harry Greenway: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands—if he does not, let me explain it to him—that the same is true in the other direction. When an Anglican is marrying a Roman Catholic he is required to sign over the children, which is very sad.
      Mr. Alton: That is true, although I should point out that there have been changes in the past 40 years. Forty years ago, people were expected to sign a declaration that they would bring up their children in the Catholic faith, and a partner on the other side of the mixed marriage was expected solemnly to sign such an undertaking. I am glad that that is no longer the case. I must add that the form to which I have referred does not refer to a partner's denomination, but classifies an Anglican as a person from another religion.
      Mr. Frank Field: In this case, as the hon. Gentleman is marrying an Anglican, surely he would not have to sign a declaration about bringing up the children in the Catholic faith, as the Anglican Church claims to be part of that faith.
      Mr. Alton: That is the point that I am making. Yet the declaration has to be made nevertheless. The form of words has been slightly mellowed from what it was 40 years ago. I have to give an undertaking that I will do my best to ensure that any children are brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. I find that difficult at this time, and I do not understand why, given the great movement that there has been, Christians cannot decide what is best for their children and ensure that they have the best possible education and are brought up with an understanding of both our traditions.
      I recall that the day after I was elected to the House, the late Airey Neave was assassinated in the precincts of the House of Commons. When I made my maiden speech a

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      couple of days later, just before the House was dissolved for the general election, I referred to my city of Liverpool. I pointed out that when I was first elected to the council in 1972 the old Protestant party still sat on the council. There was still sectarianism in that city, which has such a bitter past. Perhaps Belfast, particularly, can learn from the reconciliation that has occurred over the years in Liverpool
      In 1929, when the Catholic authorities tried to obtain planning permission to build its cathedral, the Protestant party on the council, in coalition with the Conservatives, turned down that application, after the revered Councillor Longbottom, the leader of the party, led a great campaign against the construction of the cathedral. The following year, the Labour party came to power and by just one vote it gave planning permission to build the cathedral, leading the Archbishop of Liverpool at that time, Archbishop Downing, to comment that it was better to win by a hair's breadth than to lose by a Longbottom.
      The city of Liverpool, its Archbishop, Dereck Warlock, and its Bishop, David Sheppard, have put the old hatreds behind them. Yet, as recently as 1949, Archbishop Warlock's predecessor, Archbishop Beck, wrote to The Times to say that he could not say the Lord's Prayer with an Anglican. He also refused to give a joint blessing with the Anglican Bishop of Winchester on the grounds that the bishop did not have valid orders and was only a layman.
      We have come a long way since then. We have come a long way since 1829 when, as a result of Daniel O'Connell's intervention in the County Clare by-election, he was able to force the Duke of Wellington's hand to give Catholics emancipation and allow them to sit in this place. However, there are still memories. Some of the churches in my constituency were built in the form of tithe barns so as not to give offence to the established Church. Yes, we have come a long way, but it seems slightly bizarre to me that a house of 650 hon. Members, all of them I am sure waiting outside in the Lobbies in case a Division is called, should be considering matters like this at all. Surely these matters are better resolved between Christians.
      I have some sympathy with the remarks of the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) about disestablishment. It is ironic that we are debating this Measure in the week when the Church of England Synod has been talking about women priests, an issue which will cause great problems and impede reconciliation in future. We cannot dodge the possible side effect of that in terms of Christian unity. Nothing should be done to restrict the most important task of all for Christians—reconciliation.
      The Measure is a useful step in that direction. One has only to look at Northern Ireland to see the scandal for Christianity when religion is used to set people at odds with one another. I pay particular tribute to the Rosstrevor community of the Church of Ireland, St. Columba house in Derry, which is run by a group of Catholics seeking reconciliation, and the Maranatha and Corrymeela groups and all those who are working in Northern Ireland trying to build bridges. It gives the lie to the atheist who points the finger and says, "See how these Christians love one another."
      I am arguing for a fulsome response to Measures such as this from Catholics in the country. Respect for each other's orders and rites and a willingness to pray, worship and celebrate the eucharist together does not seem unreasonable.
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      We are considering a Measure allowing for joint services, including services of holy communion presided over by a minister of any other participating Church. The problem is that even if we pass this Measure, as Roman Catholics we are not allowed to participate. However much I welcome such a Measure, until my Church recognises, as it does for the Greek Orthodox Church, the right for Catholics to receive the eucharist inside the Anglican tradition, such motions are simply measures of good will and expressions of hope, rather than anything that will bind our Churches closer together.
      We sometimes fool ourselves into believing that great strides have been made in accepting and respecting the beliefs of other Christian traditions. There is still hostility and suspicion. Ecumenism is sometimes only skin deep. I feel a growing sense of anger and frustration at the narrowness of vision and the obsession with Church positions which place strict limits on how far Christian laymen may go in terms of reconciliation. Arcane rules and restrictions on worship cause bewilderment, pain and hurt. It is Christianity at its worst.
      These Measures are a movement in the right direction, but they are a long way short of reconciling two traditions which have so much to offer to each other. I hope that it will not be long before the right hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) will introduce other Measures which will truly bring our Churches much closer together.
      10.24 pm
      Mr. David Nicholson: I associate myself with my hon. Friends, if I may so term them, on both sides of the House who welcome the Measure. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) referred to future controversies and no doubt we shall look forward to debating them. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) referred to earlier debates today on an anniversary of a subject of political and religious controversy. As you will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, since you are a neighbour, my constituency has reason to recall from 300 and 303 years ago events such as the battle of Sedgemoor and Judge Jeffreys and the Bloody Assize—examples of political and religious intolerance and not, as an Opposition Member remarked earlier, myths. They were facts and realities.
      This year we are celebrating another great anniversary—the defeat of the Spanish Armada. I believe that I am right in saying that today the university of Cambridge—not an institution with which I am closely acquainted or associated—gave honorary degrees to the King and Queen of Spain in respect of their great contributions to history and democracy in recent years. A particular college flew the Spanish royal standard today because it was established by King Philip and Queen Mary some 400 years ago. That shows how time can heal these great historical rifts which many of us were told in our schooldays were almost impossible to heal. This evening we must remember and recommend that lesson.
      For those reasons I am pleased to speak briefly in this short debate and welcome the Measure.
      10.27 pm
      Mr. Michael J. Martin: I apologise for not being present for the opening speeches, but I had an appointment outside the House and, unfortunately, I could not find a taxi.

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      As a practising Catholic, I welcome the Measure. Like Liverpool, Glasgow inherited an Irish tradition from both sides of the divide—from Ulster and Eire. In my grandfather's time there was a great deal of bigotry. In my parents' time, some of that had died down. In my young days when a Catholic girl and a Protestant boy were going out with one another it caused anger and arguments in the families about which Church they would be married in.
      I clearly remember an argument in the street between two future mothers-in-law. The son at the centre of the problem went up and said to them, "Perhaps we should discuss this out of the gaze of all the neighbours." He was told to go away and mind his own business as it had nothing to do with him. Fortunately, that was back in the 1950s. When my wife, who is a Protestant, and I were married both families were happy. I have an excellent relationship with my father-in-law and mother-in-law which meant that there was no bitterness at the wedding. That attitude exists in Glasgow at the moment. It has meant that our children have a different outlook on religion. They have more respect for other people's religions and for their parents, and that is a very good thing.
      Nowadays, blatant discrimination has gone. People are not discriminated against in employment and promotion as they used to be, and companies no longer have a policy of employing only Protestants or only Catholics. Some small and, in my opinion, stupid things remain to be ironed out. When I first came to this place I heard debate about whether the heir to the throne should be entitled to marry a Catholic. I was asked to sign an early-day motion. I said, "I have an even bigger problem. There's a bowling club down the road from me, which is 150 years old and it has not had a Catholic member in all that time." These stupid things cause aggravation and small-minded people would allow them to continue.
      Since I came to the House I have considered myself to have two parish churches—my parish church at home and the parish church here in Westminster, at which I have regularly attended services shared by hon. Members from all parties. That means that I now know the true meaning of the ecumenical movement. Even with all the differences of opinion that we have in this place—it is right and fitting that we do—every month or so we can meet as Christians and share in a common bond and belief which builds up our friendship.
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      That principle should be extended into the community as a whole. One thing that being a Member of this place has taught me is that people are willing to come together to try to break down barriers, and I am thankful for that.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Resolved,
      That the Church of England (Ecumenical Relations) Measure, passed by the General Synod of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.

      Church of England (Ecumenical Relations) Measure
        STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
        Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.)
        STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
          TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING
          That the draft Town and Country Planning (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988, which were laid before this House on 14th June be approved.
          HIGHWAYS
          That the draft Highways (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988, which were laid before this House on 17th June 1988, be approved.
          HARBOURS, DOCKS PIERS AND FERRIES
          That the draft Harbour Works (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988, which were laid before this House on 24th June 1988, be approved.
          CUSTOMS AND EXCISE
          That the Customs Duties (ECSC) (Amendment No. 1) Order 1988 (S.I., 1988, No. 1065), dated 16th June 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 17th June 1988, be approved.

          RATING AND VALUATION
          That the Docks and Harbours (Rateable Values) (Amendment) Order 1988, dated 31st May 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 10th June, be approved.[Mr. Boscawen.]
          Question agreed to.

          WELSH GRAND COMMITTEE
          Ordered,
          That during the proceedings on the matter of the Effect of Government Legislation on the People of Wales the Welsh Grand Committee has leave to sit twice on the first day on which it shall meet, and that, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 88 (Meetings of standing committees), the second such sitting shall not commence before Four o'clock nor continue after the Committee has considered the matter for two hours at the sitting. —[Mr. Boseawen.]

      School Building (Cornwall)
      Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Boscawen]
      10.33 pm
      Mr. Robert Hicks: Through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I thank Mr. Speaker for allowing me the opportunity to raise again so soon the important subject of Cornwall's school building requirements. As you, Sir, will know, I was to have raised this matter some three weeks ago, but unfortunately the day nominated for the debate does not exist in the annals of this House; it was Wednesday 15 June.
      I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his kind attendance this evening, and take this opportunity to thank him publicly for the support that he has given me over the years in respect of schools in Cornwall. He has certainly been as supportive as the restraints imposed by other Government Departments would allow him to be. From a so-called Tory wet to one who is not normally associated with my ilk in the party, that is praise indeed.
      My principal reason for asking for the debate is to persuade the Department of Education and Science to recognise Cornwall's need for a meaningful capital allocation which allows the county to sustain a rolling programme of new school building—to accommodate rising numbers—and bring about a replacement and improvement programme for existing school stock. I appreciate the fact that my hon. Friend the Minister cannot give commitments about the level of future capital funding, but I want him to acknowledge publicly Cornwall's school building requirements over the next five years and assure me that his Department recognises our specific needs.
      I wish to concentrate on the primary school sector, but should like first to draw attention to three other specific matters. The first concerns secondary schools, of which there are 33 in Cornwall. Nine, including Liskeard in my constituency, still occupy split sites. Clearly, that is not cost-effective. We are not making maximum use of our scarce financial and human resources. It is a waste of time and of valuable resources.
      In 1973, I took a delegation to see Lord Belstead, who was then Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science. We emphasised the need for an integrated secondary school development at Liskeard. Alas, 15 years later, all the problems and frustrations associated with a split site at Liskeard still remain.
      My second point is about post-16 education in the county. In recent years, there has been a tremendous expansion, albeit starting from a low base. Over the past six years, there has been significant further education provision in Saltash, the largest town in my constituency. So far, there has been a two-phase programme, with a capital injection of £1·5 million. There is enormous demand, which represents unfulfilled potential. We need developments and extensions of the progress that we have made. I remind my hon. Friend the Minister that the money for these much-needed projects must come out of the same capital allocation.
      My third point relates to the new building regulations, which are to be introduced in 1991, governing school premises. Hitherto such regulations have applied only to new school buildings. After 1991, all schools should comply with the provisions in the regulations. Cornwall's
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      estimate of the cost of implementing the new regulations to bring all existing schools up to standard is between £70 million and £80 million. That shows the scale of the financial requirements.
      In 1988–89, Cornwall's capital allocation to the primary school sector was £6·4 million. All parties on the county council, all my parliamentary colleagues who represent Cornwall constituencies and I were pleased with arid grateful for this allocation.
      I am reminded that two years ago—I do not want the House to think that I spend all my time taking delegations to see Education Ministers—the late David Penhaligon and I went to see the then Secretary of State for Education and Science, Keith Joseph, to emphasise the needs and requirements of Cornwall. We took with us the chairman of the county council, the then chief education officer, and the former chairman of the education committee. I like to think that, on that occasion, the late David Penhaligon and I paved at least some ground and made some headway in emphasising the needs of Cornwall.
      I do not wish to be ungracious, but there is a need for the £6·4 milllion not only to be sustained, but also to be improved on if the rolling programme, to which I have referred, is to be achieved.
      In 1992, Cornwall's primary school population will exceed 40,000 which will be the highest number in its history. Furthermore, in 1987, the birth rate in Cornwall was the highest since the 1960s. That surely shows that movement into our county is responsible for the increased school population, and that there is also population growth within the county.
      Our county chief education officer estimates that there are some 50 projects, of which 50 per cent. can be classified as major—in other words, projects involving more than £200,000-worth of work—that would merit urgent priority if there were sufficient funds. Most of those 50 projects would involve a substantial element of rebuild, replacement and improvement.
      I will give two examples in my constituency—Pensilva and the St. Blazey-Biscovey area. Pensilva is a village that has grown significantly over the past decade or so. Five of its six classes have been housed in temporary accommodation since 1980. The old main building of the original school is in a bad state of repair. Cornwall is caught in a chicken and egg situation, because naturally it is reluctant to spend on upkeep and maintenance—although there is a very real need because the buildings are deteriorating—because it hopes that sooner rather than later funds will be available for a new primary school at Pensilva. It is an excellent school. The staff do a superb job in difficult circumstances, and the parents are very supportive.
      Another typical example is in the St. Blazey-Biscovey area. The St. Blazey primary school is on a very restricted site, adjacent to a main road, and with very limited playing space, all of which is tarmacadam—indeed, it is the classic 19th-century Victorian school. In another part of the town, there is the Lodge Hill junior school. It is overcrowded. There is no hall or dining space. It also has a hard play area, and the nearest field for play and sport is 15 minutes away. The number of pupils is growing. None the less, it is a well run and happy environment, and all credit is due to the staff and pupils, who are well supported by an active parent-teachers association.
      The problems were acknowledged in 1970. The then chief education officer wrote to the then chairman of school governers, "Something must be done," yet

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      relatively little progress has been made. The irony is that we have a new site for a school. If it were built soon, we would realise the valuable assests of the two existing sites, and by building one school serving the St. Blaxey-Biscovey area we would satify the aspirations of two schools which are on the waiting list.
      I can only describe the situation in Landrake as a saga. I have had the honour to be the local Member of Parliament for 18 years, and Landrake has featured in my regular mailing list and correspondence files since 1970, and I imagine it was on those of my predecessor. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to say that we are making progress. It is a voluntary-aided school. St. Germans and Stoke Climsland are also in desperate need of a new primary school.
      Many requirements arise as a result of the combination of a growing school population and the need to upgrade existing buildings. The problem is especially acute in the Plymouth travel-to-work area. In the three major towns in the easternmost part of my constituency—Saltash, Torpoint and Callington—there will be a need for new schools or major extensions to existing ones in the foreseeable future because of the growth in population.
      In the surrounding villages, which we might call the growth villages of the Plymouth travel-to-work area, of Landrake, Stoke Climsland and St. Germans, there is tremendous pressure on existing primary schools. Cornwall has allocated all of them as sites for new primary schools, but unfortunately resources are not available.
      The Cornwall education authority faces an almost impossible—some might say invidious—task each year when determining priorities. Naturally, every community believes that its school should be top of the list. I appreciate that the problems are magnified by the fact that, during the 1950s and 1960s, relatively little was spent by a somewhat mean Cornwall county council on improving and extending school buildings—hence the backlog today.
      I have not mentioned the 70 primary schools which still have outside toilets. I hope that I have conveyed to my hon. Friend the Minister the need for expenditure, whether it be on new schools or on the remodelling of existing ones. A tremendous task lies before the Cornwall education committee. It is essential that the Department of Education and Science recognises our requirements and provides sufficient resources to enable a meaningful rolling programme to be established in Cornwall.
      10.49 pm
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Bob Dunn): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, South-East (Mr. Hicks) on his success in obtaining this Adjournment debate on Cornwall's school building requirements. From his excellent speech, his correspondence to me and the questions that he has put to me over the years I recognise that it is an issue which has stimulated a good deal of local interest, concern and discussion.
      I begin by reminding the House that since, 1980, control of local education authority expenditure has been exercised through the block allocation system introduced by the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980.
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      Before that legislation, the Department of Education and Science produced lists of individual named projects to be started in a particular year.
      My hon. Friend will be aware that allocations are not grants. They represent limits on the capital spending that local education authorities can undertake. They can finance projects from revenue or by borrowing. Such expenditure, including loan charges, is assisted by central Government through the rate support grant mechanism.
      Again, the House will be aware that allocations are made for each of six services—education, housing, transport, social services, urban aid and other environmental services. The education allocation covers all sections of education and includes expenditure on furniture, equipment, plant and machinery, land and professional fees, as well as actual construction costs.
      Local authorities are, of course, free to apply their allocations as they wish. They may move resources between services, and to a limited extent between years, but may not exceed the total of their allocations except by the application of a specific proportion—30 per cent. in 1988–89—of their accumulated capital receipts, and in a few other special circumstances.
      At the same time as allocations are made to local education authorities, allocations are also made for governors' expenditure at aided and special agreement schools. These are also spending limits, but 85 per cent. of governors' expenditure is reimbursed through grant aid by the Department and, except for minor works, the Department lists those projects that can start in a particular year.
      I assure my hon. Friend that the Government are well aware of the particular problems faced by Cornwall—in particular, that it retains a large number of schools housed in aging, pre-1903 buildings. Furthermore, we recognise that the school-age population in Cornwall is beginning generally to increase, especially in towns such as Liskeard and Saltash where large housing developments are planned. Consequently, there are likely to be an increasing number of "basic need" cases in the county, and these projects will, of course, be given the most careful consideration by the Department of Education and Science, along with other school improvement projects in the county, when the capital expenditure allocations for 1989–90 are decided on later this year.
      I should also like to indulge myself by mentioning the level of allocations that Cornwall LEA has received in recent years, particularly in respect of "prescribed" expenditure on county and voluntary controlled schools. In 1988–89, for example, the notional schools element of the authority's prescribed allocation—at £6·274 million—is 18 per cent. higher than that of the previous year and represents 78 per cent. of its total plans, compared to a national average of 47 per cent. Furthermore, the national average was exceeded in both the two previous financial years—my hon. Friend was good enough to recognise that. In 1986–87 the authority secured 53 per cent. of its plans compared with 51 per cent. nationally and in 1987–88 it secured 77 per cent. of its plans, compared with a national average of 46 per cent.
      I assure my hon. Friend that projects at aided schools will continue to be looked at sympathetically. I know that accommodation problems at the aided school at Landrake are giving rise to much concern locally. Statutory proposals relating to the school were, I understand, published on 10 June. Should those proposals he approved

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      by my right hon. Friend in clue course, the required building work would, of course, automatically receive an allocation, as the promoters would be under a duty to implement them.
      My hon. Friend will, I hope, accept my assurances that I have listened carefully to what has been said tonight and that I have fully noted his concerns. The points that he has raised so well will be taken into account, along with any other representations that we may receive, before a
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      decision is reached later this year upon the capital expenditure allocation to be provided for Cornwall in 1989–90.
      I congratulate my hon. Friend on his speech and on his determination, at the second attempt, to secure this debate.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Adjourned accordingly at five minutes to Eleven o'clock.