Commons Sitting of 20 June 1988

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  PRIVATE BUSINESS
    DARTMOUTH-KINGSWEAR FLOATING BRIDGE BILL
    Lords amendments agree to.
Oral Answers to Questions
  TRANSPORT

    Tyre Treads
    Mr. Gregory: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what information he has as to how many European Community states conform with the draft directive for a minimum tread depth for tyres; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Peter Bottomley): First, I present the apologies of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who is at an important meeting of Transport Ministers in Europe.
    One, Luxembourg.
    Mr. Gregory: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that helpful information. How much longer are we going to wait before we agree to the EEC draft directive? Does it not make a shambles of the Government's policy of being seriously concerned about road safety when all the organisations concerned with road safety have said that a minimum tyre depth of 2 mm is appropriate—yet we shelter behind this lower figure? When will my hon. Friend take their representations into account?
    Mr. Bottomley: I apologise to my hon. Friend for the way in which I answered him the last time that we debated this issue. If any of these organisations want to send the safety case to me, we shall of course consider it.
    Mr. Dalyell: Many of my constituents work in Uniroyal. What is the cost of the Government's review of the safety regulations? What figures does the Minister have?
    Mr. Bottomley: The cost is estimated at about £70 million a year. The real question is what the benefit is. All the research has demonstrated that this may make a marginal difference at more than 50 miles an hour on roads with smooth surfaces; other than that, there is no safety advantage in having a lower or higher tread depth.
    Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. Is it not the case that many of the countries that have deeper tread depth requirements also have, as a
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    representative truth, far more days of snow a year that we do? Is that not a major consideration, and is not tread pattern in many cases of great importance, too—not just tread depth?
    Mr. Bottomley: There is a good deal in what my hon. Friend says. It is important to realise that a Government of any political persuasion in this country would want to do what is effective. Going for higher tread depth in this country would not be particularly effective. I have told my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Gregory) that if one of the tyre manufacturers wants to put forward a serious safety case we shall, of course, consider it.

    Transport Policy
    Mr. Fearn: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on his Department's policy towards quantifying the relative environmental, energy and safety advantages of rail transport and road transport in formulating transport policy.
    The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. David Mitchell): The Government's policy is to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness by increasing choice and competition and by removing distortions between transport modes so far as possible.
    Mr. Fearn: Is the Minister aware that some local authorities are now conducting studies to bring back rail links that were cut in the Beeching era? They include West Lancashire, Sefton and Lancashire county councils. If the hon. Gentleman is aware that they are endeavouring to carry out such studies, will the Government help with these initiatives, and if so, how?
    Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman is referring to the Burscough curves, which are the subject of a report that has been commissioned by the Lancashire county council from British Rail. The first part of that report has been delivered and the balance will be delivered early next month. It is a matter between British Rail and Lancashire county council.
    Mr. Adley: Does my hon. Friend recall telling me some time ago that he was satisfied that the investment criteria for rail were the same in this country as in France'? May I assume that he has studied article 14 of chapter 3 of the French Internal Transport Act 1982, with its stress on social and environmental issues as major factors in decisions on rail investment? How does he square his statement with that legislation?
    Mr. Mitchell: If my hon. Friend looks carefully, he will see that on that occasion I was referring to the TGV line which is proposed from Paris to the Channel tunnel mouth and to the Belgian border. It is a requirement of the French Government that it should be a commercially viable proposition.
    Mr. Cousins: Does the Minister agree that the advantages of rail depend upon long hauls without transhipment and without delay? In that respect, why does he not commit himself to through travel from the north of England to Europe via the Channel tunnel with customs clearance en route for both freight and people?
    Mr. Mitchell: That is a requirement of the Act for people and it will be implemented in due course. Under

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    section 40 of the Act, British Rail has embarked on a series of consultations designed to discover the best places for assembling freight for the very purpose about which the hon. Gentleman speaks.
    Mr. Key: Will my hon. Friend look carefully at the complex decision-making processes of investment in British Rail, such as apply to the line from Waterloo to Exeter via Salisbury? Is he aware that I and some of my hon. Friends discussed this matter with British Rail and were astonished to discover that when considering matters such as double tracking British Rail is not required to undergo any kind of cost-benefit analysis for investment criteria?
    Mr. Mitchell: I agree with my hon. Friend. Like him, I have a constituency interest in the circumstances affecting that line, which is below the standard that British Rail wishes to achieve. I am assured that an investment proposal will be put to me later this year. I look forward to it and hope that it will arrive as quickly as possible.
    Mr. Snape: Does the Minister accept that if environmental, energy and safety advantages of rail transport were accepted we would have a railway system as well financed as that in the rest of Europe? As our railways suffer from a supine and incompetent management, and a sponsoring Department that is largely indifferent to rail's advantages, the Minister's Department will continue to squander billions of pounds on supposed road improvements which will have the effect of moving a traffic jam a few miles further up the road.
    Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman alleges that the environmental benefits are not recognised by the Government. They are recognised through section 8 freight facilities grants. Rail transport can bring substantial environmental benefits, and section 8 is designed to get regular flows of unsuitable goods off the roads. Since 1983 there have been 62 grants worth over £26 million, and they have removed about 1 million lorry journeys a year off the roads. That is worth while and is an example of our recognition.

    Road Construction
    Mr. Couchman: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what efforts his Department takes to ensure that new roads are designed to be environmentally sensitive.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: We minimise the impact of new roads on the environment by careful design. We fit schemes into the landscape, plant tress and screen traffic. We take special measures to protect wildlife.
    Mr. Couchman: My hon. Friend will know of the laudable financial commitment of Kent county council, Gillingham borough council, the city council of Rochester and Medway, English Estates and the Rochester bridge trust to a new relief road running round the north side of the Medway towns. When his Department considers this proposal, will he recognise that the environmentally sensitive answer to crossing the Medway is a tunnel rather than a high-level bridge? Will he commit his Department to such a crossing, even if it is more expensive initially?
    Mr. Bottomley: I hope that we will get a touch of private funding for the Medway crossing. That has been a
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    tradition in the past. Of course, we shall take environmental considerations strongly into account. As today is the birthday of Professor Bell of Kew, of Professor Southwood the zoologist, and of my hon. Friend the Minister of State who leads the Department in "Transport and the Environment", we will take that very much to heart.
    Mr. Alfred Morris: The Minister recently had a deputation about the urgency of the need to improve road communications between Manchester and Sheffield. Is there anything that he can say about action to be taken on an issue of so much importance to both cities and to the north's gateway airport in Manchester?
    Mr. Bottomley: As I said to the right hon. Gentleman at our meeting, we want to improve the top road, and there are great worries about any proposals in the national park.
    Mr. Hanley: In expressing my gratitude to my hon. Friend for his original answer, and for the birthday greeting to my excellent constituent, Professor Bell, may I also mention a serious matter to him? The surface that is eventually put on the roads, especially motorways, in Britain, has a great bearing on the subsequent noise emissions from those roads. Does he insist on the quietest possible road surface, or does money come into the argument?
    Mr. Bottomley: No, and yes.

    Settle-Carlisle Line
    Mrs. Golding: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the organisations and individuals who expressed interest in buying the Settle to Carlisle railway line prior to 16 May.
    Mr. David Mitchell: No, Sir. Such information is commercially confidential. However, British Rail has adopted a positive attitude and has now appointed Mr. Chris Lewin to interface with those in the private sector who are interested.
    Mrs. Golding: I thank the Minister for his reply. I am sure he will be aware of how many hon. Members are seriously disturbed about the proposals to privatise that line and the effects not only on the people but on tourism in the area, and the possible knock-on effects on other lines used for tourism. May I remind him that on 26 May my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) asked whether the consultation period on the timetable could be extended for a year? Will he now consider that proposal?
    Mr. Mitchell: I wish to make two points to the hon. Lady. First, the period from now until, at the latest, November is for the Secretary of State's further consideration as to whether there is new evidence. After that there will be a further four months, so there is a long period.
    Secondly, I went on the line myself last Saturday and was one of the many people who enjoyed the benefits of a trip on it. I do not think that either I or the other people needed it to be subsidised.
    Mr. Waller: My hon. Friend should be congratulated on the personal and positive commitment that he showed on Saturday in travelling on that line with me and many other people. Given that that line is very different in its

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    nature and scale from other privately run railways, will he confirm that any private operator who came forward would not be required to conform with the slow running requirements involved in a light rail order?
    Mr. Mitchell: My hon. Friend has raised an interesting question. There are three alternative ways in which it will be possible for a private operator to operate. British Rail could set up a subsidiary for disposal to the private sector and the powers to operate the line could he transferred to that subsidiary. It could be transferred by a private Act, by order of the Secretary of State under the Transport Act 1981, or by a light rail order made by the Secretary of State. The 25 mph restriction to which my hon. Friend referred applies to the last of those three.
    Mr. Snape: Does the Minister accept that more than 22,000 objectors to the closure were deeply offended by the Minister's original comments when he made the deplorable announcement? They do not want to see a toy-town railway or someone playing with trains to amuse himself. That line forms an integral part of the transportation needs of an isolated part of the country and its closure will mean that many people will be deprived of any method of transportation for much of the year.
    Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman is well aware that that is referred to as a secondary line going north. It is a duplicate line. British Rail does not have duplicate lines for most of the network, and it does not need one here.

    Heavy Vehicles
    Mr. Chapman: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what progress he has made in taking action against overloaded foreign heavy vehicles entering the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: During the present financial year the Department's traffic examiners will weigh nearly 50 per cent. more foreign lorries than last year. In addition, we propose during the next few months to install automatic screening equipment at the major ferry ports.
    Mr. Chapman: I welcome that development. However, will my hon. Friend confirm that it still means that fewer than 5 per cent. of such lorries are weighed? Given that a recent survey showed that more than one in five are found to be overweight, would not the best deterrent be, not only more screening and weighbridge facilities, but for the courts to impose much more severe fines for what are serious and dangerous offences?
    Mr. Bottomley: Yes. It is worth recognising that most foreign lorries are regular visitors, so, even though the one in 20 figure is low, the chances of a regular visitor who overloads being caught are fairly high.
    I do not have ministerial responsibility for the sentences that magistrates impose, but I notice that the fine imposed, instead of the maximum £2,000 fine, is usually about 10 per cent. of that, so the deterrent value is not as high as a higher fine.
    Mr. Spearing: How far does the action that the Minister will take follow the recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee and the Auditor General's report? Will the automatic weighing be for every vehicle and every
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    axle, even if it is a coarse weight? Would it not be better to do that, and is it not sensible to weigh every axle as it comes off the boat?
    Mr. Bottomley: That is obviously true. The answer to the hon. Gentleman's first question is contained in the reply from the Department to the Committee.
    Mr. Irvine: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the new screening devices, which I am glad to hear he proposes to introduce, will weigh the vehicles in motion as they pass through the ports, so avoiding congestion?
    Mr. Bottomley: That is the point of screening.
    Mr. Cryer: Is not the administration involved in the screening and checking of on-road vehicles, which hon. Members on both sides of the House will endorse, an enormous expense? Would not the Government be better off spending money and effort in transferring road weights to rail, to make sure that the freight goes on rail in preference, and, in so doing, helping to keep railways, such as the Settle-Carlisle line, open? That is a magnificent main line route to the north and it can carry——
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I did not call the hon. Gentleman to ask a supplementary on the previous question.
    Mr. Bottomley: We recognise that the hon. Gentleman would have liked to get in on the previous question. In answer to this question— [Interruption.] The hooligan tendency is putting on a lot of pressure. The answer is that between the section 8 grants and the Channel tunnel there is more encouragement for heavy freight to use the railways for longer journeys, and that is to be welcomed.

    Motorway Roadworks
    Mr. Franks: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans have been made to limit the extent of motorway road works during the August bank holiday weekend 1988.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: Wherever possible, roadworks involving lane closures are suspended during bank holidays and other peak holiday periods. Some roadworks are unavoidable at these times. Sometimes temporary removal of a large contraflow can be more disruptive than leaving it in place.
    Mr. Franks: Is my hon. Friend aware that certain parts of the country, including my constituency, have local economies that are largely dependent on tourism? In granting further contracts for motorway repair and maintenance, will my hon. Friend bear that in mind?
    Mr. Bottomley: We shall go on doing the best that we can, and we hope that that will be better than previously.
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: Does the Minister understand the anger and frustration of hundreds of thousands of motorists caught in traffic jams over all holiday periods, not just the August bank holiday? People have complained to me about the incompetence of a Department that simply cannot get roadworks done in such a schedule as to allow holiday traffic to go to and fro at the busiest time of the year.
    Mr. Bottomley: Yes, but we have two advantages. First, we are spending money on doing some of this reconstruction. Secondly, we do not have the hon.

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    Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) saying that he wants all the money for some other mode of transport. We go for an effective balance.
    Mr. Simon Coombs: Does the answer that my hon. Friend has just given refer to the replacement of central barriers as well as lane repairs? I believe that the lane rental procedure does not operate for central barrier repairs, which are therefore taking a great deal longer.
    Mr. Bottomley: I should like to see reward and penalty extended to most aspects of work on roads, all the way from potholes through to major motorway reconstruction.

    Channel Tunnel
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has yet received the report from the safety advisory committee about the construction of the Channel tunnel; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. David Mitchell: My Department has formally received two annual reports, but no reports on specific questions. Reports from the safety authority can be made to the Government. In general, they have been made and will continue to be made to the Intergovernmental Commission.
    Mr. Taylor: Has my hon. Friend read the extraordinary report by Dr. Richard Haworth of the geological survey about the potential serious seismic risk which could affect the viability and safety of the Channel tunnel? Will he assure me that the safety advisory committee will examine the report? Secondly, will he assure us that the House will be told of the results of the inquiries?
    Mr. Mitchell: I have not read the report, although I have read some accounts of it. The authority will be considering this matter. If there is anything untoward that arises from it, I shall ensure that it is reported to the House.
    Mr. Tony Banks: Question No. 7 was not taken, but will the Minister tell me whether there will be any facilities for toads and hedgehogs to go down the Channel tunnel and cross the Channel safely?
    Mr. Mitchell: There are 150 toad crossings on various roads in Britain. I cannot help the hon. Gentleman about the Channel tunnel, where special steps will be taken to ensure that rabid toads are not able to cross.
    Mr. Adley: Will my hon. Friend give an assurance that in any discussions on safety within the advisory committee he will not be consulting Mr. James Sherwood or Sir Jeffrey Sterling?
    Mr. Mitchell: I can assure my hon. Friend that the machinery for consultation on safety, which was set out in the Channel Tunnel Bill, which was subsequently approved as an Act in this place, is being adhered to closely.
    Mr. Snape: Does the Minister recollect that way back in 1830— [Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was a Minister then. Does he recall that in that year Dr. Dionysus warned that anyone travelling through a tunnel at more than 30 mph would be asphyxiated? Will he assure
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    the House that Dr. Dionysus is alive and well and is representing English nationalism in Southend, albeit through an imported view from Glasgow?
    Mr. Mitchell: I note what the hon. Gentleman says. The belief that passengers passing through Brunel's tunnels to the west country would be made deaf were proved to be wrong, and fears about safety will be proved wrong in this instance.
    Dr. Marek: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what amount of room the various statutory authorities will need reserved for their purposes in an international train using the Channel tunnel; and whether this will have any implications for rolling stock construction.
    Mr. David Mitchell: Customs and Immigration authorities are currently discussing their requirements with British Rail. Any agreed on-train requirements will be taken into account in the specification for the Channel tunnel rolling stock.
    Dr. Marek: Will the Minister give the House an assurance that there will be on-board inspection on all trains using the Channel tunnel? Will he confirm, or deny, unconfirmed reports that Customs and Excise and immigration authorities require the equivalent of two carriages for their various tea rooms, searching rooms and interview rooms? Will he persuade them to conduct inter-frontier controls in the way in which they take place between France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and other continental countries, where their equivalents of Customs and Excise and immigration have about 35 places, not 150?
    Mr. Mitchell: It is a requirement that there should be facilities for searches on trains travelling to the north of London, subject to agreement between British Rail and the authorities concerned. It has been our view until now that the appropriate way of proceeding with trains travelling south through Waterloo would be to provide the necessary facilities at Waterloo itself.
    The United Kingdom concentrates its checking at its frontiers. We do not have identity cards, as most continental countries do, and we do not carry out internal spot checks as they do. For that reason, our demands are somewhat more than those of continental countries.
    Mr. Watts: Will my hon. Friend explain to the Customs and Excise and immigration authorities that there is no need to make passengers disembark to be checked? If on-board checking works perfectly well on the continent, surely it can be made to work equally well for our purposes.
    Mr. Mitchell: I note what my hon. Friend says.
    Mrs. Dunwoody: If there is any real difficulty, will the Minister explain to Customs and Excise that one way in which it can facilitate movement is by creating customs posts elsewhere, particularly in the north-west? I suggest that Crewe would be an excellent site.
    Mr. Mitchell: For freight, British Rail is in the process of consulting about bases in the north which would be suitable for inland clearance depots and for the collection of freight for shipment through the tunnel. I hope that the hon. Lady will take some encouragement from that.
    Mr. Ashby: Will my hon. Friend explain to Customs and Excise that there is now a Common Market, that there is a Single European Act, which comes into effect in 1992, that it is time it woke up to that fact and started to behave as we expect to be treated in other countries, and that it should start to be sensible about these things?
    Mr. Mitchell: Some controls will still be needed after 1992 to counter drug smuggling, terrorism and things of that sort.
    Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has received from British Rail on facilities for incoming travellers on trains using the Channel tunnel, or at the Waterloo station Channel tunnel station, or at terminals for Channel tunnel trains at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and Cardiff; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. David Mitchell: The chairman of British Rail has written to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State suggesting that the Government should consider the case for having on-train customs and immigration controls on those trains that will terminate at Waterloo, as well as arrangements as provided for in the Channel Tunnel Act on those trains serving destiations to the north of London. We are currently considering the matter in more detail with British Rail.
    Mr. Dalyell: Is the Minister aware that when the NUR group of Labour Members were the guests of the chairman of British Rail he produced an unanswerable case for the contents of that letter? Is it not the fact that, on this issue, Transport Ministers are foreseeing, prudent, wise, imaginative and understand the problems, and that the stick in the mud Home Office is being very unreasonable, but the Home Office is the senior Department and carries more clout than the Department of Transport?
    Mr. Mitchell: I cannot accept that description of the Home Office, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not expect me to. Having said that, I must say that I have noted the consensus in the House for more progress to be made more quickly on how on-train operations will be mounted.

    British Rail (Privatisation)
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent representations he has received concerning the privatisation of British Rail.
    Mr. David Mitchell: Three letters. I am making it clear to correspondents that I have no plans at present, but I am considering long-term options for the future, and the possibilities of privatisation are not ruled out.
    Mr. Bennett: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. Will he bear in mind the recent privatisation of the Japanese state railway, which means that it now joins the other 11 private companies in Japan that are run by free enterprise? If that is going too far, will my hon. Friend consider establishing some form of track authority, so that we can at least have some private competition back on British Rail?
    Mr. Mitchell: I am sure that experience in Japan will be taken into account, but there is a property feature, which is somewhat unique, in that case which may not be
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    appropriate to British Rail. The possibility of having a track authority will be examined with British Rail if we decide to go down that line.
    Mrs. Margaret Ewing: What negotiations is the Minister having about the possible impact of privatisation on rural communities, which are still suffering from the cuts made by the Beeching axe? Is he aware that we will refuse to accept any further cuts?
    Mr. Mitchell: There has not been any suggestion that the subsidy provided for the provincial network, including Scotland, should be at risk in any way. There have been substantial improvements in rural services, many of which now use modern, fast sprinter trains. When I travelled on some Scottish routes recently I found ScotRail's morale much higher than it was a few years ago and that the standard of service provided for the customer is much better. ScotRail is looking much better than it used to.
    Mr. David Curry: Does my hon. Friend agree that the urgent need is for British Rail to get out and sell the privatisation of the Settle-Carlisle line? Does he also agree that one chap sitting in an office hoping that somebody will turn up, knock on the door and ask whether he happens to have a railway to sell is not a substantial marketing effort? Will my hon. Friend ensure that BR sets out to succeed, bearing in mind that BR is in a heads-we-win tails-you-lose situation, because if the line is not privatised there is a risk of its being closed?
    Mr. Mitchell: I understand that British Rail intends to market and shortly to advertise for those interested to come forward. There are two potential ways forward. First, if the Secretary of State is minded to confirm his announcement, what I call in shorthand a "Mr. Big" might come along and develop the whole line commercially as a tourist project. Secondly, there might be some co-operative local effort to ensure the future operation of the line. If what I have characterised as a Mr. Big appears, it would be highly desirable for him to make his presence known as soon as possible, preferably within the next month.
    Mr. Hardy: Does the Secretary of State suspect that the prospect of privatisation is the reason why new seats have been placed on British Rail's main line stations from London to the north-east? Is he aware that all the seats are red, except at Grantham, where they are blue? Will he explain that phenomenon? If it is because of the Prime Minister's connection with that town, does he not feel that her attachment to the railway system is so meagre that it does not deserve consideration?
    Mr. Mitchell: The Prime Minister told me how much she enjoyed her journey on British Rail on one particular occasion. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to the improvement at stations along the east coast main line. I travelled along that line on Sunday and I was impressed by the smartening up of the stations and the general improvements.
    Mr. Paice: When considering privatisation, will my hon. Friend bear in mind the tremendous success during the last few years of the Government's investment in British Rail, especially in the sprinter services and the electrification of lines? Will he also bear in mind that there is a need for a dramatic increase in investment and that perhaps only a private entity could provide the level of funds required?
    Mr. Mitchell: My hon. Friend is being a little unfair to the Government. I have approved every investment proposal that British Rail has put to me since 1983. It is true that I had to send one back because I was not satisfied with it, but after British Rail reworked the arrangements for the operation of the Royston to Cambridge line I approved the proposal. Therefore, no proposals from British Rail for investment have not been approved. I do not believe that the private sector could have provided better investment. Of course, it is only by sucking it that we shall find out.
    Mr. Allen: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if there have been any discussions between his Department and British Rail staff concerning the possible sale of British Rail.
    Mr. David Mitchell: I have no plans for the privatisation of British Rail, but my Department is discussing long-term options with British Rail, including the possibilities of privatisation, and having regard to the need for systems of regulation and subsidy to loss-making services.
    Mr. Allen: Is the Minister aware that there is anxiety in the midlands about the future of the east coast line and fears that it may be privatised now that it has been electrified, which may lead to the midland line becoming defunct? Will he reassure all the people in Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham and elsewhere that the line to St. Pancras has a long-term future into the next century?
    Mr. Mitchell: I have no reason to believe that British Rail has any plans to downgrade the midland main line. The hon. Gentleman will know that that line has had substantial investment in resignalling and that the current HST service runs as fast as the track will allow. Electrification would not make it any faster.
    Mr. Gow: Although, in the past, many people may have believed that British Rail should remain in public ownership for all time, is my hon. Friend aware that the climate of opinion and the experience of recent years have transformed that belief? Is he further aware that many people would welcome the privatisation of British Rail? Will he bring forward a measure to that effect in the next Parliament?
    Mr. Mitchell: As I said earlier, we are examining long-term options for British Rail. Those options include the possibility of privatisation, but I cannot give my hon. Friend the answer that he seeks until the options have been properly and thoroughly investigated, and I certainly could not do so this week.
    Mr. Boyes: When considering the long-term future of British Rail, will the Minister join me in praising the efforts of the catering staff on trains? They are working in very difficult circumstances, often with a shortage of manpower, food and many things that customers want. The responsibility lies with the Government, because they are cutting back on the cash that enables British Rail to provide a proper service. It is unfair that the people at the sharp end are the catering staff, who are answerable for the Government, when they should not be.
    Mr. Mitchell: I am happy to join the hon. Gentleman in referring to the improvements that have taken place, not only in British Rail catering, but through the introduction
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    of private-sector trolley operations on many British Rail routes. Both give a good standard of service, substantially higher than it used to be. I made use of those services over the weekend and was much impressed by the facilities available at York station, on which I compliment British Rail.

  ATTORNEY-GENERAL

    Birmingham Pub Bombings
    Mr. Mullin: To ask the Attorney-General what action the Director of Public Prosecutions has taken following the completion of the investigations by the City of London police into contacts between the two principal Crown witnesses at the appeal of the six men convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings: and if he will make a statement.
    The Attorney-General (Sir Patrick Mayhew): As a result of information that came to his attention the Director wrote on 30 March to the Commissioner of Police for the City of London to ask him to make inquiries into two matters connected with the appeal of William Power and others, heard at the Central Criminal Court last November and December.
    The two matters were the disappearance of personal papers belonging to Dr. Skuse, one of the witnesses at the hearing, and the possibility that Dr. Skuse had discussed the case, before he had completed his evidence, with another witness who had already been released. The investigation into those matters has not revealed any evidence of criminal conduct.
    A further allegation has been made, by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), that during the course of the appeal hearing Dr. Skuse had been in contact with Police Sergeant Ray Paton, who gave evidence at the original trial of those convicted of the bombings but was not a witness at the appeal hearing. The hon. Gentleman's immediate source for that allegation has only recently been disclosed to the police, and accordingly the allegation is still being investigated.
    Mr. Mullin: Will the Attorney-General tell the House what explanation Dr. Skuse and Mr. Reade have offered for the two long telephone conversations that took place between them on the night of 17 November, very shortly after Dr. Skuse left the witness box? Does he agree that it is very unusual for the two principal Crown witnesses in a case of this magnitude to be liaising with each other?
    The Attorney-General: I can answer the hon. Gentleman to this extent. I understand that Dr. Skuse has said that the only matter relevant to the trial that was discussed on those two occasions was the whereabouts of papers that he had mislaid and later believed to have been stolen. It is normal for a witness, before he has finished his evidence, to be directed not to discuss the case if any substantial matter is involved. The hon. Gentleman will have noted that Dr. Skuse had completed his evidence on 17 November and was not subsequently recalled. It was a few minutes before midnight on that day that he made the first of the two telephone calls.
    Mr. Fraser: The Attorney-General says that there is no evidence of criminal conduct. If the telephone calls had been made to another witness, in breach of an injunction

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    by the court not to discuss the matter before giving evidence, that would, as I understand it, be contempt of court, and hence a matter that ought to be referred back to the Court of Appeal. Is that correct?
    The Attorney-General: The question is hypothetical in the light of the facts that have been established. Whether anything said in breach of an order made by a court would constitute contempt would depend on all the circumstances of the case, including what was said and the stage that the proceedings in question had reached.
    Mr. Andrew Smith: To ask the Attorney-General what were the terms of reference given by the Director of Public Prosecutions to the City of London police when asking them to inquire into contacts between the two principal Crown witnesses at the recent appeal hearing of the six men convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings.
    The Attorney-General: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I gave to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) on 17 June 1988, a copy of which is available in the Library of the House.
    Mr. Smith: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell the House whether he is satisfied with the way in which those terms of reference have been discharged? Does he agree that it is a tragedy that the commendable vigour and energy that my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) has put into pursuing the truth in this matter do not appear to have been equalled by those charged with the responsibility for conducting those inquiries? Will he tell the House specifically why the police did not interview the ITN journalist, Chris Jameson, who reported having seen Dr. Skuse and Superintendent Reade together? Does not this whole matter still leave profoundly important questions unanswered? Should not the right hon. and learned Gentleman ask the Director of Public Prosecutions to publish a detailed account of the inquiries that have been undertaken and the reasons why no prosecutions have been made?
    The Attorney-General: The Director of Public Prosecutions is satisfied with the way in which the investigations by the police into potentially criminal conduct have been carried out. I see no reason to dissent from the view formed by him. I reject the assertion that the inquiries have not been carried out with proper vigour. That is about as far as I need to go in answer to the question. I shall not dilate on the attitude of the hon. Member for Sunderland, South to the appeal hearing that was conducted over six or seven weeks in November of last year.

    Family Courts
    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: To ask the Attorney-General what recent information he has about the cost of introducing an integrated family court.
    The Solicitor-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell): I understand that the Lord Chancellor will shortly be receiving a copy of the report commissioned by the Family Courts Campaign examining the cost of a family court.
    Mrs. Bottomley: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that one of the needless costs of our present system is that it frequently exacerbates the human misery and difficulties associated with divorce and family break-up?
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    Can he confirm that the preliminary findings of the report of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy for the Family Courts Campaign show that substantial savings are to be made overall by the introduction of an integrated family court—largely in terms of legal aid and matrimonial care orders? More than that, will my hon. and learned Friend say when his Department will come forward with its costings, to show that it is serious in its intention to move towards an integrated family court?
    The Solicitor-General: As my hon. Friend knows, conciliation is currently the subject of research by Newcastle university, and studies are also in progress in the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor's Department into the requirements for staffing, resources and welfare expertise in relation to wardship and care proceedings at each court level. The report of the Cleveland inquiry is expected shortly and, following a study of that, the Government hope to come forward with further announcements on the development of a family court.
    Mr. Richard Shepherd: Is my understanding wrong? Did not the then Lord Chancellor, now Lord Havers, suggest last year that his Department hoped to produce conclusions on the prospective costs of the various options for a family court system? Was it not hoped that that report would be brought out by the beginning of the year? What has happened to that report, or has it already been produced?
    The Solicitor-General: I think that my hon. Friend has not really had an opportunity to keep up with developments. The Lord Chancellor made it clear that the first priority was to get the child care law right, but a number of studies have been in progress and he hopes to come forward with further announcements on the development of the family court following the receipt and study of the Cleveland inquiry report.

    Birmingham Pub Bombings
    Ms. Ruddock: To ask the Attorney-General for what reasons the Director of Public Prosecutions asked the Commissioner of the City of London police to establish an inquiry into contacts between the two principal Crown witnesses at the recent appeal by those found guilty of the Birmingham pub bombings.
    The Attorney-General: I refer the hon. Lady to the answer that I have given to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin).
    Ms. Ruddock: I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that answer. Further to the points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) and for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith), is the Attorney-General aware that the case is beginning to stain the entire fabric of our judicial system? Would it not be better for him to admit that British justice would be better served if he faced that fact and honestly admitted that something has gone seriously wrong in the Birmingham bombings case?
    The Attorney-General: I have dealt with the questions that I have been asked, save that I did not answer part of the last question on why, in the first instance, inquiries were not made in relation to Police Sergeant Paton. The

    839
    reason is that the immediate source of that information to the hon. Member for Sunderland, South was disclosed to the police only recently.
    On the latter part of the hon. Lady's question, my feeling is that the hon. Member for Sunderland, South might now usefully consider broadening his search for justice in this case by identifying those whom he claims he knows were responsible for the bombings and ensuring that steps can be taken to bring them to justice.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that many of us supported the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) in the appeal procedure? It was the longest appeal in the history of this country. Is anything to be gained by trying to disparage and discredit British justice? No one had a fairer trial. No one had a fairer appeal. Is it not time that the Opposition looked at the IRA, instead of being its greatest supporters.
    The Attorney-General: I regret efforts to undermine confidence in the outcome of an appeal that was conducted with all the qualities to which my hon. Friend referred.
    Dr. Reid: To ask the Attorney General what were the grounds for the Director of Public Prosecution's decision to ask the Commissioner of the City of London police for an inquiry into contacts between the two principal Crown witnesses at the recent appeal on the Birmingham pub bombings trial.
    The Attorney-General: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I have just given the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin).
    Dr. Reid: With respect to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, another question was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) and he did not answer it. It relates to why the witness to alleged collusion between two witnesses during the trial was not interviewed by the police. Will he assure the House that that witness will be interviewed? Do not the amply-sized nostrils of the Attorney-General's office even now begin to detect a whiff of scandal associated with the case? Is this not the fourth police inquiry into various aspects of the case without due result? Will the Attorney-General ask the Director of Public Prosecutions to publish the details of the investigations, so that Parliament and the public can be satisfied that British justice has been done in this case?
    The Attorney-General: There has been no witness—to use the hon. Gentleman's expression—to collusion between witnesses in this case. The immediate source of the information to which the hon. Member for Sunderland, South has drawn attention was identified recently. He has been away on holiday. He was interviewed today on his immediate return. That is why I said that investigations into the matter are continuing.
    On the more general part of the question, I greatly deprecate broad and general assertions that a carefully conducted inquiry, on the reference of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to the Court of Appeal, has been characterised by qualities that have not resulted in justice being carried out. That is much to be deprecated. Attempts to undermine confidence in the administration of justice in this country are harmful.
    On the remaining part of the question, it is not the practice of the Director of Public Prosecutions to publish the details of police investigations.

  OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

    Overseas Aid
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what was the value in current prices of Her Majesty's Government's overseas aid in 1979 and 1987.
    The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Chris Patten): Gross public expenditure on overseas aid, at current prices, amounted to £939 million in 1979, and £1,283 million in 1987.
    Mr. Lloyd: Will the Minister confirm that, in real terms, every year since 1979 the amount of aid has been below the 1979 level? Will he confirm that last year, at 0·28 per cent. of gross national product, the figure hit an all-time low? Why was that?
    Mr. Patten: If the hon. Gentleman had tabled a different question asking about constant rather than current prices, I should have given him the figures that he wanted. As it happens, I am pleased to confirm that the aid programme is increasing in real terms by 3·4 per cent. this year.
    Mr. Lester: Will my hon. Friend confirm that this week, in addition to those figures, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the structural facility of the IMF loan, in which Britain has given a sixth of the capital and has been the first to provide it? Will he further confirm that in the discussions of the Group of Seven conference any solution to Third world debt problems will be in addition to the aid programme?
    Mr. Patten: First, there is a difference between the position now and that of the late 1970s. In those days we were a main beneficiary from the IMF, whereas nowadays we are a main contributor to its programmes to help the most indebted countries. I confirm that the costs of our debt initiative would represent a net addition to the aid programme. I am delighted that we appear to be making good progress in Toronto, although we shall want to see the programme implemented in full as soon as possible. Nevertheless, progress seems to be good.
    Sir Russell Johnston: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has received a great deal of credit from both sides of the House for his initiative on this matter. Nevertheless, will the Minister assure us that this is not simply the Government facing up to writing off bad debt, but is an earnest of their intent to change the direction of their policy and to contribute more in future towards overseas aid than they have done to date?
    Mr. Patten: As I have confirmed now and previously, the costs of the extremely important debt initiative of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the most indebted countries in Africa will represent a net addition to the aid programme. We have made it clear again and again that there is no point in initiatives to deal with African debt unless one spends more money. The initiative that my right hon. Friend has launched, and for which he has deserved credit, covers re-scheduling and writing off aid loans, which we have already done to the tune of £260 million for 14 African countries. It also covers a cut in the interest rate

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    for countries pursuing sensible economic policies. I hope that we can reach agreement on an initiative along those lines at Toronto, or at the latest by the autumn.
    Mr. Wells: I congratulate my hon. Friend on the increase in the overseas development budget that he has managed to get from the Government. May I hope that he will redouble his efforts this year to ensure that we maintain that progress? Can he tell us how much of that increased budget he has allocated to Africa? In particular, can he say what difficulties he is experiencing in disbursing that increased aid, especially to countries such as Ethiopia?
    Mr. Patten: In answer to my hon. Friend's question before that on Ethiopia, I can tell him that we shall be spending most of our increase in aid this year on enhancing our programmes in Africa, particularly our support for structural adjustment and economic policy reform. Our major assistance to Ethiopia has been for the emergency, on which the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs has recently produced such a good report. In the past 18 months we have committed £45 million on that operation. I fear that the long-term weather forecasts suggest that we may have to spend a good deal more.
    Mr. Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he expects to reach the Pearson target for overseas aid and expenditure.
    Mr. Chris Patten: Her Majesty's Government accept in principle the United Nations' target for aid of 0·7 per cent. of gross national product, but, like previous Administrations, have not set a date for reaching it.
    Mr. Anderson: It is not very good for those in desperate need that the Government accept the target in principle. Before the Government get lyrical about this year's so-called increase, had they not better accept that that increase is on a record low and that they inherited a proportion in excess of 0·5 per cent. of gross domestic product, and rising? When the Minister next meets the Prime Minister—he will recall his predecessor's complaint on leaving office that he never met her—will he gently remind her that when she next gives a sermon in Scotland, or elsewhere, she might remember that loving one's neighbour includes one's neighbour in the Third world?
    Mr. Patten: On the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I am bound to say that confidence in the ability of a Labour Government to run the economy in a way that would enable them to support a large aid programme is not widespread. I am not sure whether such confidence is widespread on the Opposition Benches. As for the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I am delighted that this year we shall be spending about £95 million more than the likely outturn of our aid programme last year.
    Dame Peggy Fenner: As the direction and use of overseas aid are as valuable as the percentage, may I have my hon. Friend's assurance that part of it will be directed towards the burden shouldered by women in the developing countries?
    Mr. Patten: I wholly endorse what my hon. Friend said. Not only must we do all that we can to ensure that we support the role of women in development, but we must continue to support the poorest countries through our aid programme. As my hon. Friend will know, last year's OECD report commended us for spending more than the average spent by OECD countries on helping the poorest.
    Miss Lestor: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has as to which Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Countries' aid budget as a percentage of gross national product exceeds the figure of 0·28 per cent. in 1987, or in the latest available year.
    Mr. Chris Patten: In 1986, the latest year for which official estimates have been published, the net official development assistance of the following member countries of the OECD's development assistance committee represented more than 0·28 per cent. of their GNPs: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
    Miss Lestor: I thank the hon. Gentleman for the speed with which he read out the list of names, but I remind him that the figure of 0·28 per cent. is only slightly more than half the proportion of GNP spent on aid by the Labour Government, who left office in 1979. The Minister talks about the amount having been increased, but he omits to mention how that amount has fallen as a proportion of GNP. As Britain is now 15th or 16th in the list of OECD countries, and as the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer repeatedly stand at the Dispatch Box and say how well off the country is, could we not expect more of that wealth to go to the Third world? Instead, the amount is declining at a time when the countries that we visited are in desperate need.
    Mr. Patten: I am delighted that our economy is growing strongly enough to enable us to increase our aid programme in real terms. I am also delighted that our economy is sufficiently strong for us to make such a major contribution to the IMF's enhanced structural adjustment facility and for us to have taken the lead in dealing with the debt problems of the poorest African countries. W hen the Labour party was in government we borrowed money from the IMF, rather than lent it money to give to others.
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is unfortunate to measure aid in terms of percentage of GNP, because a British Government who produced a low GNP would inevitably create a higher figure?
    Mr. Patten: I have no doubt that, without increasing the aid programme, if the Labour party were in government there would be an increase in the percentage of GNP devoted to aid, since the growth rate would fall rapidly.

Council Tenants (Purchase Advice)
3.33 pm
Mr. John McAllion: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the need for Government advice to council tenants on the purchase of their houses in the light of the activity of property speculators."
Last Friday, Dundee's two daily newspapers—the Courier and Advertiser and the Evening Telegraph and Post—carried reports of an investigation which revealed growing concern that property speculators were attempting to take over the ownership of the homes of elderly council tenants in the city through manipulation of the Tenants' Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Act 1984.
The manipulation takes the form of speculators approaching elderly tenants—in one case a woman in her eighties who was living alone—with what appears on the surface to be a generous offer. The speculator promises to give the tenant the cash needed to purchase his or her council home under the Act. The tenant is then told that he or she can stay in the house, rent free, for the remainder of his or her natural life. In return, the speculator is guaranteed ownership of the house when the tenant dies.
A number of serious and important issues are raised by this matter, most importantly the prospect of property speculators preying upon elderly people whom the speculators believe do not have long to live. There is also the question whether such vultures are acting within the law. If they are, what do the Government intend to do about it? There is also the question of the abuse of the Tenants' Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Act, which was intended to provide massive public discounts to sitting tenants and not massive profits to property speculators at ratepayers' expense. Some of those speculators stand to pick up £22,000 council houses for as little as £7,000 by their methods. There is also the question of hard-pressed pensioners who have been on the receiving end of the recent rent and social security changes. They are particularly vulnerable to such sharp practice.
For those and for other reasons, Mr. Speaker, I beg you to recognise the urgency of the matter and to allow a debate so that the House can explore this issue fully and openly and resolve it in the interests of the people whom we were sent here to represent.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the need for Government advice to council tenants on the purchase of their houses in the light of the activity of property speculators."
I have listened with great care to what the hon. Gentleman has said about this matter, but I regret that I do not consider that it can be appropriately raised under Standing Order No. 20. Therefore, I cannot submit his application to the House, but I hope that he will seek other ways of keeping the matter before the House.

Points of Order
Mr. David Winnick: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have often deprecated reflections upon the integrity of hon. Members. You were in the Chair, Mr. Speaker, when the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark) referred, in an intervention, to Labour Members being among the biggest supporters of the IRA. We loathe the IRA, which is a murderous organisation. You will be aware that I, among others on the Labour Benches, have constantly attacked—and I will continue to do so—the terrorism of the IRA. Only last week we saw the sort of action in which the IRA indulges.
Would you be willing to accept, Mr. Speaker, that those of my hon. Friends who raise, rightly, what they believe to be a miscarriage of justice are in no way justifying the evil activities of the IRA? In those circumstances, is there not an obligation on the hon. Member for Selly Oak to withdraw immediately his accusation?
Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. My remark was prompted only by the sense of frustration when seven questions—obviously all done together—are tabled to draw attention to a matter that has been dealt with before. Does not the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) realise that the only people to whom such questions give comfort are members of the IRA? That is what I said, and that is what I meant.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I did not judge the comment of the hon. Member for Selly Oak as being a reflection upon the integrity of hon Members and it was not out of order. However, I fully accept that the language that we use in this House is very important and that no reflection upon the integrity of hon. Members should ever be made.
Mr. Tony Banks: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not believe that the hon. Member for Selly Oak can ascribe his frustration as being reason enough for suggesting that my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) and other Labour Members were giving aid and succour to the IRA. The hon. Member for Selly Oak is a fairly reasonable bloke, even though he writes for The Sun from time to time. I believe that you, Mr. Speaker, should invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his slur.
Mr. Edward Leigh: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. If it is the intention of the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) to seek to correct a miscarriage of justice and fight the IRA, is it not incumbent upon him to inform the Attorney-General of the names of those he believes to be guilty of the outrage?
Mr. Tam Dalyell rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. This is becoming an extension of Question Time. I hope that the hon. Member for Selly Oak was not impugning the honour of any hon. Member. If he was giving us his opinion that anything that happened here gave comfort to the IRA, that is one thing; but if he was impugning the honour of another hon. Member I am sure that he would wish to withdraw his remark.
Mr. Beaumont-Dark: I recognise that there is passionate regard for the issues that we all support from time to time. If any hon. Member, especially the hon. Member for Sunderland, South, assumes that I thought that he was an IRA supporter, let me say that that was furthest from my mind.
Ms. Joan Ruddock: Further to the point of order. Mr. Speaker. I do not find the statement that has just been made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark)——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman has made a withdrawal. We cannot allow an extension of Question Time.
Mr. Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Is it on another matter?
Mr. Dalyell: Yes, Mr. Speaker. It raises the general issue of scrutiny of the Law Officers in the House. With changing circumstances, is it not deeply unsatisfactory that the Attorney-General should be scrutinised for only 10 minutes and the Solicitor-General for Scotland and the Lord Advocate not at all in their individual capacities? Is there any way in which the general issue of the scrutiny of the Law Officers can be looked at, because surely a period of 10 minutes is deeply unsatisfactory, despite the great efforts that you have made, Mr. Speaker, to allow a full 10 minutes, which is appreciated?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member knows that I am not responsible for the allocation of Question Time. He should raise the matter through the usual channels, where it might be corrected.

BILL PRESENTED
  FOOD AND ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION ACT (AMENDMENT)
  Dr. David Clark, supported by Mr. Brynmor John, Mr. Ron Davies, Dr. Norman A. Godman, Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours, Ms. Joan Walley, Ms. Joan Ruddock and Mr. Martyn Jones, presented a Bill to amend section 1 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 to provide that all amendments or variations of emergency orders must be laid and expire unless approved by Parliament before coming into force: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 8 July and to be printed. [Bill 179.]
Orders of the Day
  Criminal Justice Bill [Lords]
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.
New clause 7

  USE OF VIDEO RECORDINGS IN CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS ABOUT SEXUAL OFFENCES AGAINST CHILDREN
  '. —(1) When a person is charged on indictment with an offence involving the sexual abuse or molestation of a child under the age of 14, a video recording of an interview with that child shall be admissible as evidence; provided that the Judge presiding over the trial of such a person shall after consultation with Counsel appearing for the defence and the prosecution determine how much of such a video recording shall be shown to the jury.
  (2) At the time the jury sees such a video recording the child who is alleged to have been the victim of such sexual abuse or molestation shall be present in a room in the vicinity of the court and shall be visible and audible to that jury by means of video-link; but the child himself shall not be able to see or hear the proceedings in the court.
  (3) For the purpose of enabling the accused person or Counsel for the defence or prosecution to test the evidence contained in the video recording, a prescribed officer of the court shall be present in the room with the child and shall, at the direction of the Judge, relay to that child questions that either of those Counsel with the consent of the Judge wish to put to him.
  (4) To enable these questions to be put to the child and his replies to be received within the hearing and vision of the jury, the prescribed officer shall be provided with—

  (a) an aural receiver through which he can hear the questions that Counsel wish him to relay to the child, and

  (b) such anatomical drawings or exhibits as the Judge shall order to be produced for the purpose of enabling the child to answer the questions put to him.

  (5) For the purpose of this section a prescribed officer of the court shall be a qualified social worker, child psychologist or probation officer.'.— [Sir Eldon Griffiths.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  3.41 pm
  Sir Eldon Griffiths: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Mr. Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take new clause 21— Admissibility of video recording as evidence—
  '. —(1) Video recordings shall be admissible as evidence in criminal proceedings concerning sexual offences against children from such day as the Secretary of State may appoint.
  (2) The Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument make such regulations as he thinks necessary regarding the use of such recordings.'.
  Sir Eldon Griffiths: The clause is in my name and those of hon. Members from all parties on both sides of the House.
  When we debated the Bill in the week before last, emotions were running high and they divided the House. This is another subject that is worthy of emotion, but I believe that those emotions unite the House.
  I should like to start with something close to one of those warnings that are issued by cinema companies and by some television companies when they broadcast matter that is perhaps hard for sensitive ears to hear. I should like to demonstrate to the House just how extensive and evil is

  847
  the problem of child abuse. I shall relay to the House some specific cases that have been researched for me by women members of the police service in all parts of the country. I have to warn those of a squeamish disposition that some of the evidence is disturbing.
  The first case that I want to draw to the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister is of a three-year-old child. The stepfather had been touching the child, who was a bright little girl and able to talk, and when interviewed she spoke using graphic language about this man
  "gobbling her and her gobbling him"
  and
  "pretending to f… her".
  She used very graphically the anatomical dolls that were provided to her for the purposes of the interview. That three-year-old child used the male doll on herself and lay down with the doll lying on top of her and put the doll's penis into her mouth.
  The case was thoroughly investigated by the police with the aid of the social workers. Unfortunately, it could not be taken to court because of the age of the child and the lack of an admission by the offender.
  The second case is of a little boy of four. The suspect was an adult male. The little boy graphically used the anatomical dolls and gave an explicit account of buggery. I remind the House that the child is four years of age. He inserted the male doll's penis into the boy doll's anus and he would not give up until it really went in. That four-year-old child spoke to the police officers about the male doll's penis not being as big as it should have been. This case, too, could not be brought to court because of the child's age.
  The third case is of a three-year-old boy who was persistently sexually abused by his mother and a female neighbour. There was evidence of physical abuse by cigarette burns on his body and of sexual abuse by having objects pushed into his anus. The mother and the neighbour were interviewed and refused to make any admission, but the medical evidence clearly substantiated the case. No prosecution was possible because of the age of the child.
  I have, from all parts of the country, hundreds of precise, researched, documented examples of the sexual abuse and even torture that is perpetrated on large numbers of our children, but little, if anything, can now be done about it because our laws and rules of evidence are inadequate.
  I turn now to some of the comments on these types of case that have been made by practising police officers and social workers who investigated them and took part in the original interviews with these abused toddlers. In this House, we rightly maintain a cool, clinical detachment; we examine these matters as we should, and form a judgment on what is right under the law. I thoroughly approve of that. However, I am sure that the House will understand that the policewomen who have to deal with the cases immediately cannot perhaps look at them quite as coolly.
  The first case, with the comment made on it, is that of a two-year-old child. Her parents are separated and her father had access at the weekends. While visiting her grandmother, this two-year-old baby was being bathed and said, "Don't touch me like daddy does." She then gave a graphic description of her father putting his fingers into her vagina and anus. The medical evidence substantiated
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  that complaint. When interviewed, the father would not admit the act, and the Crown Prosecution Service could not prosecute because of the age of the child. The police officer's comment was:
  "Video"—
  a recording of the child being interviewed—
  "would have shown the child describing very vividly what had occurred."
  Under our rules that evidence cannot be placed before the court.
  Another example with a police comment is of a three-year-old boy who was the subject of prolonged indecent assault by a 22-year-old female nanny who cared for him during the day. The assault included anal penetration. The medical evidence substantiated the allegation, but the CPS could not prosecute because of the lack of admission and the child's age. The police officer commented:
  "Video would have shown child describing what had occurred, and child could not have known of words and details"
  —he was only three—
  "if not personally experienced assault."
  I offer another example with a police comment. It concerns a four-year-old girl with gonorrhoea. She was admitted to hospital for tests because of a minor infection and gonorrhoea was duly diagnosed. The doctor stated that she had caught it through sexual transmission. Inquiries were made, persons were interviewed, and the cohabitee of the house in which the mother was living was discovered to have gonorrhoea. The child maintained that the cohabitee had put his penis beside her private parts —what the police describe as dry intercourse. The cohabitee was interviewed. There was no admission. There was only the medical evidence, and that was insufficient because the child was too young to testify. The comment of the police officer, in this case a senior officer, was that "video would have been superb."
  I shall give another example with a comment. It concerns a 13-year-old girl. She was the subject of buggery and incest by her father, with the mother aiding and abetting the offences. The medical evidence corroborated this, but there was no admission and, although the parents had been charged by the police, the Crown Prosecution Service would not take the case to court because in the view of the service the 13-year-old could not have stood up to cross-examination. I shall quote precisely the comment of the officer in charge of the case. He said:
  "Video recording would at least have ensured a prosecution."
  I could provide hundreds, indeed thousands, of examples of cases in which the view of highly experienced police officers—women police officers for the most part—and of the social workers who had interviewed the children as quickly as possible after the offences were discovered is that without video evidence such cases cannot be brought to court. The abuser gets away with it; the children continue to suffer.
  I shall conclude this part of my speech with one or two child abuse cases referred to a police station in one force area. The force area is Lancashire and the cases were referred to that one station during the months of January to March of this year. For reasons that the House will understand, I shall again obscure the details. During the first 12 weeks of this year this one police station had reported to it no fewer than 42 child abuse cases, and 14 of them led to court proceedings. Of the 28 cases that in the

  849
  end had to be marked, "No further action", the police are convinced that at least 17, of which 12 were very serious —11 of them committed against babies—could and would have been placed before the courts if video recordings had been admissible.
  I conclude this evidence with a few other cases in the Lancashire force. A four-and-a-half-year-old boy was masturbated by his stepfather while he was bathing him and he made the child return the masturbation. The medical evidence showed severe bruising of the child's private parts. The child was too young to give evidence and the comment reads, "Video would have helped."
  Lastly, I shall outline the case of a 12-year-old deaf and dumb girl. She had started to attend a special school but continued to live at home. She had not disclosed before what had been happening to her, but as soon as she was able to communicate she said that her father had been coming into her bedroom at night and touching her private parts. She was medically examined. She had bruising on the inside of her legs where force had been used. The Crown Prosecution Service would not prosecute because it said that the child, being deaf and dumb, would not make a suitable witness.
  The police believe that, in this case, a video would have allowed the child to convey to a jury and a court of law what she conveyed to the police and social workers. Even though that child cannot communicate, being deaf and dumb, she can and does use sign language. It can be but a matter of opinion that if that child had been, with the aid of a video, brought before the court, notwithstanding that she was deaf and dumb, the judgment of the police would have been vindicated and a prosecution could have been brought and would quite likely have succeeded.
  I have said more than enough about those cases. I also have cases from the Cheshire police, the Avon and Somerset police, the Greater Manchester police and the Metropolitan police; and so it goes on. We have a serious evil on our hands and the House has a duty to tackle it.
  I acknowledge the Government's efforts in outlawing the possession of pornographic material involving children, in checking the criminal records of many of those people in jobs with regular access to children and in improving liaison between the police and the caring agencies in investigating cases of child abuse.
  I very much welcome, on behalf of the police service, the clauses in the Bill that advance the cause of protecting innocent children. I welcome clause 31, which provides for children to give evidence via a live closed-circuit television link. Clause 33, which provides for the abolition of the requirement that the unsworn evidence of a child must be corroborated, is an important step forward. I welcome clause 44, which provides for an increase from two years to 10 years as the maximum prison term for the offence of child cruelty. I welcome clause 35 and its provision to enable the Attorney-General, with the leave of the Court of Appeal, to refer a case to it where the sentence appears to be unduly lenient. That could well be so in a case of child torture.
  The Government cannot be criticised for failing to address themselves to this serious problem, but, unfortunately, all the advice available to me is that those welcome moves simply will not do the trick. The crux of the problem, as the police service sees it, is that, since the decision in the stated case of Regina v. Wallwork in 1958, it has been virtually impossible for a charge to be brought where the prosecution would have to rely—I stress the
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  word "rely"—almost wholly on the evidence of a toddler. I quite understand and agree with the reasons that led that court to express its disapproval of bringing a child of tender years into court to give evidence, but I believe that, as the Police Federation says, the invention of video recording means that technology can now come to the aid of justice.
  The Home Office, to its credit, has consulted about the possibility of admitting video recordings and has taken a keen interest, as has my hon. Friend the Minister of State, in the Bexley experiment, which I need not describe to the House. He has seen that experiment, as have other hon. Members, but what has been the outcome of the consultations and the experiment?
  The response to the Home Office's consultative paper on that matter was overwhelmingly in favour of admitting video recordings. The police, the British Medical Association, the Council of Circuit Judges and 20 other respondents welcomed the proposal, and only three groups were against it. I can assure my hon. Friend that the chief superintendent in charge of the Bexley experiment believes intensely that the time has come to allow video recordings to be used, under proper safeguards, as the House will wish to ensure. It is worth quoting the conclusion of the Bexley experiment. Which was this:
  "Further consideration should be given to the introduction of legislation to permit the criminal courts to accept video recorded interviews of children as evidence."
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  I have spoken about the views of the police and will speak now about the views of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. I know that others more closely connected with it than I will want to refer to its comments. It says this:
  "Many perpetrators admit their guilt when confronted with the testimony of an early video recording of a child's evidence … The American experience suggests that this may occur in a very high proportion of cases … The video recording … could significantly minimise the accumulation of stress before the court hearing by reducing the number of times the child has to repeat her story … It may also lead to a reduction in the pressure on the child from other members of the family to change her evidence."
  There is considerable experience of children retracting their evidence when subjected to prolonged family pressure. The NSPCC says:
  "The children come under great stress … to sustain such strain, to delay the opportunity to begin treatment and to put bad experiences behind the child until after being called to give live evidence is to inflict great cruelty, risk permanent psychological scarring, and hazard the reliability of the evidence. It is far preferable to video record the child's story in a properly structured way as near as possible to the time of the incident."
  I agree with that.
  Originally I tabled this new clause on behalf of the policewomen, but it now has the unanimous support of the Police Federation and, I believe, the entire police service. We agonised and worried over it for nearly two years. I accept that anybody not blessed with the advice of parliamentary draftsmen will not get it right. I have been a Minister and I know the difference between amateurs and professionals when it comes to drafting.
  We have sought to achieve three aims. The first is to safeguard the rights of the accused. No man should be sentenced unless he can, through his counsel, test the evidence brought against him. I believe that my new clause achieves that. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I

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  want to safeguard the child against the traumas of court appearances and cross-examination and the possibility of division being struck between what he said at one stage and what he said at another. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister and in particular my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary feel deeply about that. It is to their credit that they do so. Thirdly, the new clause is structured to allow justice to be done and to bring evil men and women to court.
  Stage one of the process that I now propose is that, when a person is charged on indictment with an offence involving sexual abuse or molestation of a young child, a video recording of that child made as soon as possible after the event is discovered should be admissible as evidence, but it should not be admissible as evidence raw. Rather, the judge, the defence counsel and the prosecuting counsel in chambers should examine the video and determine what parts of it are extraneous and might involve other people, and what parts could properly be brought before the court. The judgment that has been made available to me is that, confronted with that evidence, many a defence counsel would change his client's plea to guilty, and the case would not need to go to the courts. Certainly that has been the experience of many of the states in America. That is the first stage of the judge and two counsel looking at the video and deciding which parts of it should go forward.
  Lest anyone should imagine that this is unprecedented, let me remind the House that some years ago we insisted that all police interrogations should be audio recorded. I resisted that move and I was wrong to do so. Now that all police interrogations are audio recorded, experience has shown that extraneous matter thrown into those interrogations by some old lag who will take the opportunity of aspersing a Minister or someone like that must be removed. It is removed by agreement beween defence and prosecution, with the concurrence of the judge. I propose exactly the same procedure in respect of video recordings.
  If the defence decided not to admit the offence and insisted that the case should go forward, as is the right of any accused, we have provided, in the remainder of the new clause, the means whereby a test can be made of the evidence. The jury would be able to see the video recording. The child would be in an adjoining room with one-way see-through glass so that the jury could see the child but the child would not be exposed to the panoply of the court. This, I can assure the House, is technically very easy to arrange. It is done all the time.
  It would then be possible for the defence, with the consent of the judge, to have questions put to that child, transmitted by a prescribed officer of the court, probably a social worker, with whom the child felt comfortable, and the jury could see those questions being put to the child. That would safeguard the proper interests of the accused. Above all, we should be dealing with justice.
  Let me now make a few comments on some of the arguments addused by my hon. Friend the Minister in his resistance to this new clause in the correspondence that he has courteously exchanged with me and the Police Federation. He said that he is not persuaded that material that has been
  "video recorded for investigative purposes should be routinely admissible."
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  We are talking not about it being routinely admissible, but about it being made available to the judge and the two counsel in chambers so that they may determine what shall or shall not be brought forward. It is our contention that this would lead to a number of guilty pleas.
  Secondly, my hon. Friend said something that I find hard to swallow. He feels that experienced prosecutors would find it more difficult to establish a rapport with the child if they cannot take the child through the entire story. He is a curiously experienced prosecutor if he is unable to do that. In any case, if he is the prosecutor, he would have the inestimable benefit of that best evidence, that fresh evidence, of the video recording. We have provided the interlocutor precisely to enable the rapport with the child to be maintained. That will be someone with whom the child is comfortable and whom it trusts. He or she will be able to put the questions to the child in a manner and in language that will not disorient or disturb it under the direction of the judge.
  At the heart of my hon. Friend's objection and that of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is the feeling that pressure on the child will be increased if small inconsistencies can be picked out between the child's video account, in the earlier stages, and the later account in court. That problem exists anyway. The child is, in any event, confronted with the original witness statement, which is the basis of the prosecution and such evidence as it is, one way or another, required to give in the court. The opportunity for the defence to divide the child's testament between what it said originally in a written statement and what it says in court is available to it in any event. The only difference is that a video recording would be virtually an unarguable account of events. It would be made not long after the commission of the crime and it would be subject to the judgment of the court, which means the judge and prosecuting counsel. None of the arguments of my hon. Friend is convincing to me.
  The House has been patient in listening to the log of appalling events that I have outlined. If the new clause is defective—probably it is—I shall be happy to withdraw it in favour of new clause 21, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims). New clause 21 is shorter and simpler and is an enabling provision. I should be prepared to withdraw new clause 7 in favour of any new clause or amendment that my hon. Friend the Minister might with to introduce.
  The Bill is passing through the House and we have a mischief in our land with which we must deal. Let the Government at least take powers within the Bill to introduce a system of the sort that I have outlined as, when or if the Home Secretary, after experiment, examination and consideration of the technicalities and the costs, is satisfied that it is ready. There is precedent for that. I resisted the introduction of audio recordings of police interrogations and the House insisted upon it. The Government reluctantly accepted the idea but said that they were not ready at that time to introduce such a system. They said, "We are not yet ready. We shall have to ascertain precisely how the system will operate." Six experiments were conducted throughout the country to ensure that audio recordings could be made fairly, objectively and efficiently. The power to introduce audio recordings was included in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
  I ask the Minister to insert in the Bill the power to allow video recordings to be admissible as and when he and my

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  right hon. Friend the Home Secretary are satisfied that such recordings can be made efficiently and well. I ask for this for innocent children, not on behalf of the NSPCC, which wants it, not on behalf of circuit judges, not on behalf of the media, which are behind it, and not as a response to the great mass of public opinion. We owe it to children. I ask the Government to back the sense, if not the language, of the new clause.
  Mr. Roger Sims: The House will be aware that I have the privilege of sitting on the central executive committee of the NSPCC, which warmly supports the proposal that video recordings should be accepted in the courts in child sexual abuse cases. If I do not develop the argument at great length, it is because my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) has already done so extremely effectively. The relative brevity of what I have to say should not be taken as a reflection of the strength of feeling within society, nor of my personal views on the issue.
  The Government have already recognised how difficult it is for a child to give evidence in court. The Bill establishes the principle of a video link, which we shall be discussing later. Surely the next logical step from that is to recognise the value of a video recording of an interview that is made soon after the offence has come to light.
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  My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds has given a number of dramatic examples. The problem is that we do not know the extent of child sexual abuse. We suspect that many cases are not reported. Father, stepfather, grandfather, uncle and sometimes even auntie involves the child in some sort of sexual activity and then says, "This is our secret." That is so often how it remains. It is extraordinary to note the number of adults who have, so to speak, surfaced and told of how they experienced child sexual abuse when they were young. This has happened in recent months since child sexual abuse has become much more widely discussed.
  Another reason for our lack of knowledge is the lack of a national register of the cases that come to light. A more limited register is kept by the NSPCC, which last week released some figures. The figures revealed that the number of cases of child sexual abuse that were added to its register in 1987 increased over 1986 by 21 per cent. The society estimates a national figure of about 7,000 cases a year. Whatever the figures and whatever the extent of the problem, once the offence—or offences; more often than not, it is a long story of offences—is committed the damage has been done. To what extent can the damage be repaired? That depends upon others apart from the court. Surely it is incumbent upon our society that we do all that we can to prevent a repetition of the offence once it has come to light. That will be achieved by the conviction of the offender and by a sentence that will preclude, or at least lessen, the chances of him reoffending.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds said, many suspected offenders are not even charged, let alone convicted, because the prosecution is unable to proceed without the most vital evidence, which is that of the child. There may be several reasons for this. A child's memory is naturally short and it may he as long as a year before the case comes to court. In the intervening period the child may be subjected to many family influences that are designed to persuade it to change its story. Even if that
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  is not the case, the child will probably have been treated by a social worker or someone of that sort, who will try to get the child to forget the experience to which it has been subjected. However, when several months have passed, it may be asked in court to remember certain incidents. However strong the suspicion or case against the person responsible for abuse of a child, the parents of the child may be unwilling to subject it to a court hearing. That is entirely understandable.
  Mr. Greg Knight: Is that a valid argument? Under the new clause the defendant would be entitled to cross-examine the child in any event. If for some reason the child is not willing to give evidence, the prosecution will be in difficulties in any event. Is my hon. Friend aware that, in cross-examination, the cross-examining counsel does not pick questions out of the air? One has to take witnesses, especially child witnesses, through a sequence of events. The comment that it would be less traumatic for the child if the proposals in the new clause were accepted does not hold water and I ask my hon. Friend to reflect on whether they are bogus. In cross-examination the child will be taken all the way through the allegations.
  Mr. Sims: I do not accept that it is necessary to do that, especially if there is a video recording. I accept that the ability to cross-examine may have to be available, and I shall come to that. That does not alter my argument that in the present circumstances parents are understandably reluctant to allow a child to appear before the courts. It is not difficult to imagine what the effect on the child is of the court setting, let alone being taken, as my hon. Friend suggested, in detail through the incidents which he or she has found so distressing. At the moment, after an offence has come to light, the child can be interviewed by a police officer and a written statement, which is available to the court, made. It is now possible for tape recorded material to be available to the court, so why not a video recording?
  The problem with a written statement was mentioned in the Bexley experiment, which reported:
  "Traditional methods of police interviewing, including the taking of a written statement, presented obvious difficulties. Even where the interviewer was able to develop sufficient rapport with a child to discover the nature of the offence, transposing the child's words into an acceptable form of written statement had evidential shortcomings, particularly where the child's vocabulary did not extend to recognised adult terminology. Police officers were often accused by defence lawyers of putting words into the child's mouth and interpreting the child's language incorrectly."
  That is the problem with written evidence. The great advantage of the video recording is that it captures the words the child uses and the gestures, expressions and the spontaneity with which he or she speaks. It enables the child to demonstrate what happened by using dolls far more effectively than is the case with words. Once a video has been done, it can be shown to others involved in the case who would otherwise have to subject the child to a series of similar interviews.
  It is argued that if a video is accepted as evidence, the child will have to be available for cross-examination. I accept that, but that is already the case with a written statement. I suggest, however, that a video would be far more difficult to challenge. The evidence from the United States is that a high proportion of offenders, when faced in

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  the early stages of an investigation with a video which they know can be produced in court, change their plea, thus avoiding the need for a trial.
  Using videos in court is now being introduced in Canada. Videos are already used here by the NSPCC, for example, other than for court cases. I have had an opportunity to see a couple of them. We have also had the Bexley experiment. It was interesting and enabled the police and social services to work together. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister has seen the Bexley experiment in action as well—I had the chance to see a video taken during an interview.
  The NSPCC and Bexley experiment videos have been extremely valuable for those trying to discover more detail about a case and pursuing it, but they cannot be used to secure a conviction. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds said, even though a case may be strong, there cannot be a conviction because a child is unable to give evidence.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds has set out in new clause 7 a detailed way in which the proposal could be implemented. He has tried to meet some of the legal and practical objections. I congratulate him and the Police Federation on their ingenuity, but I suspect that, when my hon. Friend the Minister replies, he will be able to draw attention to some technical imperfections. That is why I have tabled new clause 21, which is simply an enabling clause. It establishes that video recordings can be admissible as evidence, and it enables the Secretary of State to make relevant regulations.
  I suggest that my new clause offers the way for the Government to accept the principle while leaving them free to decide on the details of how videos should be made and used. Having had an opportunity to study the subject, and having visited the Bexley experiment and discussed it with officers, I realise that there are important details to be considered.
  There is the legal issue of how far leading questions are acceptable and how much of the video is acceptable. The judge can decide that having viewed the video beforehand. There are practical issues such as how many microphones there should be. It is not possible to keep a child still while giving an interview, and it is all very well to hide the microphone in a pot of flowers on a table, but the child may prefer to lie on the floor.
  It is probably a good thing to have more than one camera. One of the difficulties which emerged in the Bexley experiment is that a child often turns his or her back on the camera or it is unclear what the child did with the dolls to demonstrate the alleged offence. It is not always possible to see clearly the expression on the child's face. The camera does not necessarily cover the whole room, so it can be suggested that there is somebody outside the camera's view who is indicating the answers that the child is required to give.
  The ideal arrangement would be a fish-eye camera which covers the whole room and a separate camera, perhaps operated behind a one-way mirror, which is directed at the child's face and follows him or her. Both pictures could be shown on the screen. One could be superimposed or there could be a split screen.
  All of these matters can be considered at leisure so that, when regulations are drawn up, they cover every
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  eventuality. All that is needed at present is that the Secretary of State should take the necessary powers. I urge him to do so by accepting my new clause.
  Mrs. Llin Golding: Yet again I rise to speak on behalf of young children who are or have been subjected to sexual abuse and violence, of adults who have been scarred by the perverted desire of some men —and some women—to abuse small children, and of the families who suffer from the effects of these cruel abuses, and to ask that the House supports a change in the law which I and many informed people believe would redress the balance in favour of innocent children and those who have been wrongfully accused whose cases, because of our restrictive laws, are never brought to court.
  We should consider what the Bill provides to make it easier for young children to give evidence in court. It provides for the giving of evidence by live video link. At the moment, children must tell their stories in open court in the presence of the dependent. They often break down in tears or are struck dumb with fright. The video link would enable the child to give evidence from another room in the court. The court would be able to see the child, but the child would be able to see only the person who was speaking to him or her from the court.
  The Bill also abolishes the law on corroboration. At present, no court may convict on a young child's evidence, or even on the evidence of several young children who give the same story, unless it is corroborated by a person of an age that the court thinks makes that person capable of giving sworn evidence. By its very nature, sexual abuse often takes place in secret between a child and the perpetrator. The abolition of this rule is long overdue and will enable the child's evidence to be heard and considered by the court. The Government must be congratulated on making some important changes, but they should be seen as only small steps in the overall need to redress the balance and to protect the innocent.
  What else needs to be done? First, let us consider the case for the admission of video recordings as evidence. It seems obvious that a child's evidence is best obtained as soon as possible after the event. It would he a distinct advantage for a court to be able to see and to hear the child's first full coherent attempt to explain what he or she had been subjected to, with every hesitation, gesture and tone of voice safely recorded. Surely such evidence is as important in arriving at the truth as that given many months later by a child in open court, who may have forgotten some details or been influenced by suggestions. I am not one of those who believe that many children easily forget what has been done to them. I believe that they find it very hard indeed to forget.
  It has been suggested that a video recording would be detrimental to and increase the stress on a child. What is the reasoning behind that? The supposition is that it will be necessary for a number of tapes to be made—one for evidence, one for the social worker and one for the psychiatrist—thus causing the child to retell her story a number of times. In fact, that objection is unrealistic, because the child is already questioned repeatedly by the police, social workers, doctors, lawyers and so on.
  Need there be a number of tapes? Why does the Minister assume that there must be? Could not a tape be made that shows the child being put at ease and questions

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  being asked by properly trained people who are acceptable to the court and aware of the use that will be made of the tape?
  4.30 pm
  Many people may wonder whether a training programme has been considered. It has, and much work has been done by social workers, police and doctors working together. A training programme has been introduced that includes self awareness in attitudes to joint working, sexual abuse, procedural and legal aspects of child sexual abuse and the technical skills of interviewing. Most of those who have attended that training programme feel strongly that a joint investigative approach reduces the trauma for a child.
  Is it not feasible for a judge, in conjunction with the prosecution and defence, and having seen the whole tape, to determine how much of the video recording should be shown to the jury as admissible evidence, but with the added safeguard that an unedited tape could be available to the prosecution, the defence and the judge?
  If a video tape is unclear it should be banned, but it is not an answer to ban all tapes including those done fairly. It is thought by some that a video recording would remove the right of the defence to cross-examine the child. Why should they think that? Is it that they do not realise that the video recording is only part of the evidence presented to the court and is not the whole case? Of course, the defence must maintain its right, under the direction of the judge, to cross-examine a witness. How could the interests of justice be served if that were not so? After all, it is justice that so many hon. Members on both sides of the House want, for both the child and the accused.
  It is said by some, including the Minister, that evidence given on a video recording could conflict in some details with the evidence given in court and therefore cause additional stress to the child while being cross-examined. If that is so, we must ask ourselves what is more stressful to the child. At present, she must repeat in court, from memory and without help, the story that she originally told to the police months earlier. The proposal is to use the original video statement in the child's own words, admissible to the court as part of the prosecution evidence and on which the child could be cross-examined. That is surely a fuller and more reliable statement than that which the child manages to utter in the witness box.
  People may be worried that the child giving live evidence could be cross-examined on discrepancies between what she said in court and what she said on a tape, but that is an evil already with us under the existing rules of evidence. Those who fear the planting of evidence by questioning on an uncontrolled video should consider whether a nine months' delay in the case coming to court should be a greater cause of concern because of the opportunities to plant evidence in that child's mind. Is not a video recording taken as soon as possible after the event, in a manner admissible to the court, a better protection for both the child and the accused? Surely it must be. Is it not more satisfactory, in seeking the truth, that a judge should be able to decide whether undue pressure was put on a child when she first told her story? Surely it must be. That is what a video recording will achieve.
  There has been much support for a change in the law. Of those who responded to the Home Office consultation paper issued in May 1987, only one organisation was positively against the proposals, and one person felt
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  unable to comment. The remainder were in favour. They included Baroness Lane-Fox, of the all-party children's group, John Spencer, tutor in law at Selwyn college, Cambridge, the British Medical Association, Cambridgeshire social services, the London Boroughs Association, the Council of Her Majesty's Circuit Judges, the Justices' Clerks Society, the Criminal Bar Association, the National Federation of Women's Institutes, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Children's Legal Centre, Dr. Barnardo's, the West Yorkshire police authority, the National Children's Home, Rotherham metropolitan council, the Inner-London Juvenile Courts Panel, the NSPCC, the National Council of Women of Great Britain, the National Children's Bureau, the Police Federation, the Association of Educational Psychologists, the British Psychological Society, the Association of County Councils, the Health Visitors Association, the Greater Manchester police authority, the British Paediatric Association, Somerset county council, the Metropolitan police and the London hospitals' college consultant in child and adolescent psychiatry. That is a great cross-section of people, but in fact many more individuals support the proposals.
  I want to deal with a child having questions put through a third person during cross-examination through a video link. Let us consider a six-year-old child whose private parts are covered in sexual warts. Her mother's brother, whom the child has alleged buggered her on several occasions while baby sitting, is also found to have the same type of sexual warts on his private parts. There is clear evidence that the mother's brother is molesting the child. The accused is aware of how frightened the child is of him, and also that unless he admits the offence there is no chance of the case being brought to court. Therefore, he does not admit the offence. The little girl is taken from her family and put into care, but the man is still at large, free to molest and infect other children.
  Where is the sense in a law that allows that to happen? Would it not be better to have a video recording of the child being gently questioned? It is to be hoped that the accused, having been shown the video and knowing that it would be acceptable to the court, would admit the offence, thus allowing treatment for him and giving the innocent child the opportunity to return to her home and family.
  In Texas, video recordings of children's evidence have been shown to the accused, of whom 221 out of 235 have consequently admitted the offence, thus saving the child any further stress. The American Bar Association Journal, volume 70, contains a report from the Minneapolis police stating that during the first two years of video tape interviews of child abuse cases it never lost a case and no child had to be called by the defence to testify. In the third year, 60 out of 75 defendants in cases of child abuse pleaded guilty as soon as they saw videos of the interviews.
  If the young child was nevertheless brought to court, would it not make sense to make some provision for questioning to be put through a third person by video link, at the discretion of the judge, if the judge found it difficult to put the questions to the child himself? I accept that the method proposed for third-party questioning in the new clause is not necessarily the best, but it nevertheless raises the need for consideration to be given to the matter.
  It is of course necessary to consider the question of competency. At present, under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, a child must understand the duty of speaking the truth as interpreted in Wallwork (1958) 42

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  Criminal Appeal Reports. That precludes the court from hearing any child of five or under and makes it very difficult to accept the evidence of a child under eight. That abstract idea of duty to speak the truth can, and does, present problems to a child who is old enough to describe her experiences, but too young to grasp a concept such as duty.
  It is time that we moved on from 1933 and scrapped the competency requirement. In Scotland the courts are able to listen to children down to the age of three. Why should that not apply in England and Wales as well? If the Government cannot bring themselves to go as far as that, the wording should be altered to make it easier for young children to be listened to. There is no evidence to support the idea that they are less capable of telling the truth than adults. Many adults are very good liars and will happily lie their heads off for their own ends, but no one ever suggests that they should not be allowed to give evidence. Why should the law make it more difficult for children?
  The law as it stands cannot be said to give justice to young children. No one knows better than the child who has been beaten, starved or sexually abused what was done to him, and by whom. All that my hon. Friends and I ask is that young children should have the chance to be listened to. We should make provision in the Bill to enable them to give their evidence, and to let the judge and jury decide on the guilt or innocence of the accused by hearing all the evidence. Surely that is what justice is about, and I beg the Minister for the sake of all our children to make provision for it in the Bill.
  Mr. John Wheeler: I wish to speak only briefly on this important debate.
  I followed the arguments presented by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding). It would indeed be difficult to find anyone who opposed the principle of the new clause. I also listened carefully to what was said by my hon. Friends the Members for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) and for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims). My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst and I are both magistrates. We understand that this is a complicated issue, and that we may do immense damage and defeat the very object that we are trying to secure if we are not careful. Immediately attractive though this idea is, I have serious doubts about it.
  There is a danger that what is being proposed may end up making things much harder for the child victim rather than improving his lot, which I know is very much on hon. Members' minds today. First, the use of the new technology in video recordings is still very much in its infancy, and the technology itself is changing almost by the month. We are contemplating a change in the law when the technology is not yet perfected. Secondly, associated with the change in technology is the need to ensure that the police are trained in its use, which is a very skilled technique. I very much doubt whether the criminal investigation departments of the 43 police forces in England and Wales will easily be able to absorb the changes that the new clause seeks to make.
  I believe that the way forward is as proposed by the Government, and that the proposal to enable young children to give evidence in an anteroom of the Crown
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  court by live television link, rather than in the court room itself, is a major and welcome advance. I am sure that the whole House will endorse that.
  4.45 pm
  The cardinal principle in proceedings before a jury in the Crown court is that those who seek to secure the prosecution must produce the evidence. I see no alternative, in certain circumstances, to the child being available to answer questions in the way that we now understand the jury system and Crown court procedure to operate. I do not see how that can be avoided.
  The Bexley experiment has been valuable. It has enabled the police and the social services department to work closely with others concerned for the welfare of the child. An interview thus obtained is probably natural, and suits both the needs and convenience of the variety of practitioners who have different parts to play in the proceedings and, in particular, the welfare of the child. If we change the nature of the interview, there is a danger that it will become more formal, because those recording it are bound to have in the back of their minds the knowledge that it could well be used in criminal proceedings before a Crown court jury. If it becomes more formal—as the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme has suggested—the whole purpose of the interview will be damaged, and that cannot be what we intend in wishing to improve the welfare of child victims.
  Such an interview would probably have to be edited to remove the part that would not be admissible as evidence before a jury. There would then be a problem over the editing. Learned counsel for the defence would be bound to say, "The bit that is missing is the vital bit that would help to secure the acquittal of my client." That conflict lies at the heart of the problem, and I do not see how it can be avoided.
  For all those reasons, I feel that my hon. Friend the Minister should think very carefully before agreeing to accept the new clause.
  Mr. Stuart Bell: Many of us were here late on Thursday night to follow a tantalising and fascinating debate, which I watched from the Strangers' Gallery. That was an extraordinary experience. This debate, while it may be calmer, is none the less extremely important.
  We are dealing with one of those problems and scourges of our time which may be ineradicable but which preoccupy us all. Having lived through the events in Cleveland last year, my knowledge and experience come from personal observation. At an early stage I set for myself a context in which to examine such issues. First, we had to prosecute the perpetrator; secondly, we had to protect the child; thirdly, we had to protect the innocent family. Those principles, not necessarily in that order, should be the goals and priorities of people considering the issues of child care law.
  This is a timely debate because, as the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) has said, the NSPCC issued its figures a few days ago. It is also a year ago this week that the Cleveland child abuse crisis broke across the nation, and in two or three weeks time we shall obtain from Lord Justice Butler-Sloss a report which, I am sure, is awaited with great interest by hon. Members on both sides of the House and by the public.

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  I am irritated by the number of false prophets who tell us what is in that report when it has hardly reached the Minister's desk. The only information to which I am privy is that it is 700 pages long in typescript; no doubt its size will be reduced in print. As far as I know, there are no leaks of the report. We are looking forward to the recommendations, which will be helpful to the Government. The child care reform White Paper issued in January 1987 provides further guidance. It is my earnest hope that the Government will produce a child care law incorporating the recommendations of Lord Justice Butler-Sloss and the recommendations and conclusions of the White Paper. I am grateful to Lord Justice Butler-Sloss for deciding to return to Cleveland to tell us her conclusions about what happened in 1987 and, it is to be hoped, how we may avoid a recurrence of those appalling events.
  As I said at the time, what happened in Cleveland was about a particular diagnosis of reflex anal dilatation and not about the issues of child abuse referred to by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths), who gave the House a series of categorical cases in chronological order to show what child abuse is about. In Cleveland, we were dealing with a controversial diagnosis, how that diagnosis was handled and what conclusions might be drawn from that. We await the report.
  In the meantime we are discussing the new clauses. It may help if I refer to some of the Cleveland families' experiences. During the long saga that afflicted both children and parents there were video sessions with children. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds was referring to the video that could be used in criminal proceedings. In Cleveland, we were considering videos that would be used in civil proceedings in giving evidence before the High Court. Children and social workers were confronted with a dilemma that was different from the one to which the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds referred. In the cases to which he referred, there was clear evidence of sexual abuse that the child had reported and the problem was how to collate it—whether on the basis of a police statement as at present or on the basis of a video that could be used before a court. In Cleveland, we had an extraordinary situation in which a medical diagnosis had been made and social workers were then called to obtain a disclosure from the child. That was extraordinarily difficult if, as happened in many cases that ended up before the High Court, the children were found not to have been sexually abused at all.
  One child of seven had about seven interviews, four of which were general interviews with a policewoman, one was with a consultant paediatrician and two involved non-directive play therapy. Three video recordings were made, of which two survived. A social worker destroyed the tapes rather than have them shown to a judge in a court. One can see how delicate and sensitive an issue video evidence is and how it must be treated with the utmost caution.
  On one of the videos a social worker was seen to suggest to a child who refused to make a disclosure that what happened in her family home might have happened to her while she was asleep. The social worker said:
  "You are going to be with foster parents for quite a while, OK, you know that, don't you? Whatever happens, you have got to he with foster parents. Even if they do not tell us, we are not going to let you go back. I'm going to fight really hard for you not to go back home, OK?"
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  One can imagine the feelings of a seven-year-old child in the world of video evidence with sometimes a police officer present and sometimes not, but with a social worker trying to make her feel at home. Even so the child felt terribly alone and isolated and insisted that she had not been abused by anyone. A girl who was described as having a sunny disposition became sullen and nervous as time passed. In a civil sense, the issue in Cleveland was who had control over the family—was it the social services or the doctors, or did control lie within the family unit?
  We have to disentangle the cases of clear sexual abuse that the hon. Members for Bury St. Edmunds and for Chislehurst and my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) described from those civil cases where the child categorically refuses to say that he has been interfered with, in which no evidence goes to court and the family is cleared.
  In another case in Cleveland, a boy was interviewed four times and a girl three times. There were several interviews before the first video recording was made—not counting the police interviews. There was an unwitnessed and unrecorded interview with a doctor and there were interviews with a child psychiatrist and a social worker. All of those took place before the child was led into the room where the video recording was to take place. One must ask what kind of pressure may be put on a child before he gets into the video room and before the video camera begins to record. What will a defence counsel make of that in court?
  The hon. Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler), who has experience as a magistrate, referred to those difficulties. It is incumbent upon a counsel to seek to elicit all the evidence in the interests of the accused whom he is defending. In Cleveland, there was a background of different interviews before the child entered the room in which the recording was to be made. There were cases in Cleveland when, regrettably, after six months of disclosure sessions a child would finally ask, "If I say my father did it, can I now go home?" That was recorded on the video.
  Most of the video evidence in Cleveland never saw the light of day in a court of law; once counsel for Cleveland county council saw the evidence, it was ruled inadmissible and it was withdrawn. One of the social services representatives in the cases that went before the court suggested that those cases would have been won if all the evidence had been presented, but the evidence could not be presented because it was inadmissible. There had been leading and menacing questions and the children had been threatened so that the whole exercise was inadmissible as evidence.
  In dealing with children's evidence, we need to understand its significance in a case wholly unrelated to the events in Cleveland. Three children had been sexually abused. When they disclosed this to their teacher at school they named the wrong perpetrator—their uncle rather than their stepfather. They did not want their stepfather to be removed from the family home. One child's evidence was very clear and the description of what had happened could not be refuted, but the child had given the wrong name. The man was arrested because the evidence was clear and only later, when the child was threatened with further abuse by the real perpetrator, did he say who had really committed the abuse. The consequences were dramatic. The man hanged himself in Durham gaol. That was the terrible tragic consequence of being wrongfully named by the child, who was seeking to protect his stepfather.

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  When we raise the emotive tone of our discussions of child abuse and consider the human drama experienced by the child, we must also consider the human drama of the parents, who may be entirely innocent but whose family life has come under serious attack.
  The hon. Member for Westminster, North referred also to technology. It may be that technology and the law are outstripping the skills of those who might carry out video recordings. The police and some social workers have such skills, but I notice that the new clause refers to qualified social workers. In Cleveland, there was a lack of skill, common sense, and proper approach to family life and children. There must be some doubt about whether the necessary skills exist at the moment.
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  It is rather nonchalant of me—I did not examine the Bill during all its stages—to make recommendations to the Government on how to handle the new clauses. I am grateful to my learned Friend the Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) for joining us. I read with interest his speeches on these matters in Committee. He urged caution. I have often referred to the Cleveland child abuse crisis in relation to the Salem witch-hunts of 1692, when innocent people were obliged not only to defend their innocence but to prove it before the people of Salem. Nineteen members of the Salem community were hanged by law and one pressed himself to death before the unhappy events came to an end. They came to an end because the puritan elders of Salem urged exquisite caution upon the citizens, the judiciary, and so on. I urge the Government to exercise exquisite caution when dealing with these matters.
  The Cleveland child abuse inquiry report will be available in two weeks. No doubt the video evidence that was used in the proceedings will be the subject of some recommendations. Although we all might welcome the extension of video evidence in relation to abused children and their traumas, my final word to the House is that exquisite caution might be the order of the day.
  Mr. John Watts: I am sure that the House will agree that the sexual abuse of children is one of the most evil crimes that society must face today.
  I listened with great interest and care to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell). I agree that there is a need for caution in these matters so that one does not lightly enter into prosecutions if there is no foundation. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that there is a clear distinction between circumstances in which no allegation has been made by a child but when, for misguided reasons, people actively look for cases of child abuse—that was the case in Cleveland—and the problem that was highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths), in which children may have made accusations and been investigated by the police, and the police are absolutely satisfied that the accusations are true, but our present judicial procedures prevent prosecution and conviction of those who are guilty of such evil crimes.
  My support for the new clause is based upon two or three cases in my constituency. They were brought to my attention by parents who were distraught at the knowledge that, because of our legal procedures, no prosecution could be brought against those who have perpetrated evil
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  crimes against their children. I concede that some of the measures within the Bill go a long way to facilitating prosecution when it is justified. In particular, I refer to the removal of the requirement for a child's evidence to be corroborated when the child is too young to give evidence on oath and the introduction of the facility for a child to give evidence through a live video link to avoid the distressing experience of having to give evidence in open court and facing the person who committed the offences.
  We should go one step further and admit into evidence a video recording of an interview in the police station, close to the time when the offence was reported—we may then have a contemporaneous account from the child—with the safeguards in the new clause, so that the admissibility of the video recording may be considered by a judge in chambers before it is shown to the jury. Also, there should be a facility for a child to be cross-examined, through the video link, on the evidence contained within the video recording.
  Mr. Gerald Birmingham: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there are two great dangers in having two films? The first set is made shortly after the event when the child is in a highly emotional state. He or she is wide open to suggestion, and is shown various things and makes various comments. A little while later, when he or she is over the trauma of whatever did or did not happen, the child is interviewed in respect of the court case, cross-examined by way of the video link, and so on. What will happen when the child is shown that there are glaring differences between the two sets of allegations? That is dangerous not only for the defendant but to the child in the long term.
  Mr. Watts: if in the initial interview a child made comments or accusations becase he was led or coerced, it would become apparent to the judge and counsel from viewing such evidence. If there were subsequent discrepancies between that evidence and that which was obtained at a later date, it would, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, cast doubt on the veracity and validity of the evidence. I do not resile from that.
  I approach these matters with the benefit of not being burdened by a legal background. My concern is that, when such crimes are committed, we should not so load the balance of our judicial system that prosecutions cannot be brought and convictions cannot be secured. With this Bill, the Government have gone a long way towards redressing the balance. I should like the Government to go a little further along the lines suggested by my hon. Friends the Members for Bury St. Edmunds and for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims). If we are serious about dealing with this evil crime, we must make sure that our judicial procedures permit prosecution and conviction.
  Mr. Tony Worthington: In this instance we should agree that the interests of the child are paramount. That is easily said. Various pieces of legislation dealing with children and adoption and fostering state that the interests of the child should be paramount. In the children's hearing system in Scotland the interests of the child are paramount, but in England the interests of children who may have been most bitterly and repulsively reviled are not paramount. That seems strange. If the interests of the child are paramount, justice is much more likely to be served. There may well be children who make false accusations and incorrect

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  statements, but they are also victims who need considerable assistance. What causes a child to make such accusations against people? We need to consider this matter consistently from the child's point of view.
  What would be the use of video recordings in proceedings about sexual offences against children? We must think about the physical surroundings of a court for a child and how intimidating and bewildering the proceedings are. That adds to the stress and complex emotions experienced by a child victim. During the debate hon. Members often seemed to imply that we are talking about isolated instances of sexual abuse that occur on a one-off basis. The normal pattern is of continuing abuse, which may go back for several years, and which may be endemic within the family. A court is an austere setting, with strange people in unfamiliar dress.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) spoke of the lack of skill of social workers. That may be true in some cases, but is it any wonder, considering that we attempt to train them for this complex task within one or two years? Perhaps we should talk more about the lack of skill among lawyers. They may well have been trained for many years, yet be singularly inept at using their professional skills to obtain the truth from a child.
  A child will find it difficult to understand the functions of all the people in the court, will not understand the proceedings and the language, and is likely to be intimidated by the objections, arguments and motions of counsel. Above all, the child will have to face the accused—the alleged perpetrator of the offence—which will be the most daunting experience. The child may be afraid of, or angry with, the accused. The child may even love the accused, or be bound up in all those complex emotions and feel intense guilt. It is intimidating to have to describe sexual experiences in front of the accused while feeling all those emotions. I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) describing various cases. To hear that language in this House and to realise how awkward it is here brought home to me how intimidating it must be for a child to find the appropriate words.
  The timing of a court hearing or trial will often be many months after the event, and it may be difficult for a child to open up after such a period, or to remember and repeat the details of the offence. If the interests of the child are to be paramount, it is important that the child should heal and recover from those experiences. If there is anything that we can do by not forcing the child, many months after the event, to open up those wounds again, we should take that opportunity.
  Mr. Tim Devlin: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is the defendant's right to cross-examine any witness in court? I have the most profound reservations about the new clause because it places an intermediary between counsel, the voice of the defendant and the voice of the prosecutor, and the child. Surely any person accused of these filthy crimes has every right to test the evidence, to put questions, and not to have them interpreted or changed by an intermediary.
  5.15 pm
  Mr. Worthington: This is a foul crime to be accused of and to have committed against one. The interests of the accused must seriously be taken into account and I agree that that would include the right to cross-examine. One of
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  the most powerful facts in convincing me that this is a good new clause is the number of trials that would not take place because the quality of the evidence of the child would make it clear to the accused that he did not have a chance of getting off. If we can avoid children being cross-examined unnecessarily because we can get better evidence, we shall be adding to the amount of justice in society.
  Many of the objections about the technology are stone age and Luddite. People who have become used to pen and paper will not accept that a better quality of evidence will be available through video. No doubt when, in the past, we were talking about written statements some lawyers said that this new-fangled thing, the slate, could not be accepted.
  The Scottish Law Commission has recently produced valuable research evidence on this theme. Kathleen Murray has looked at the use of videos in the United States of America, and she states:
  "The child's demeanour, facial expressions and gestures are preserved. If the interviewer's behaviour or the child's story is later questioned, the recording can provide a verbatim account of the early interview. The tape can be used by others involved in the case and thereby spare the child from repeating accounts of the alleged abuse."
  That is a powerful case.
  The advantages of the proposal is that the child would be in more sympathetic physical surroundings. I accept that the presence of video cameras is not automatically homely, but such surroundings would be considerably more homely and relaxed than the atmosphere of a court. I hope that a child would be interviewed in a room with child-sized chairs and removed from the awesomeness of wigged and gowned judges and counsel. The child would also be spared the intimidating nature of motions, objections and arguments.
  Lawyers may try to make people feel at ease, but inevitably when they play on home ground they constantly forget and lapse into language that is intimidating or obscure to others. Under the proposal, a child would be interviewed by a person specially trained for the purpose. That is extremely important. Those skills are precious and the interview needs to be done sensitively. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, in saying that many social workers do not have these skills, is making the point that it is a skilled business to get a child to relax and go over painful experiences. If skilled social workers do not exist in sufficient numbers, it is likely that others with such skills do not either.
  Another difficulty is that the memory required from a child in court is, in psychological terms, an advanced form of memory. It is asking the child to recall. Many small children do not have the skill—nor do many adults—to recall in logical order what occurred. It is a different skill from the skill of recognition or reconstruction, where the child's knowledge can be liberated if the surroundings or the stimuli are appropriate. We must create circumstances that will free the information held by the child, and intimidation and stress can reduce a person's willingness and ability to retrieve information from his memory.
  Mr. Bermingham: Why does my hon. Friend believe that a child who is videoed immediately after a dramatic event, who may have been removed from his home circumstances and who is suffering from considerable pressure and emotional upheaval will have a better memory than a child who has been allowed to get over the

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  shock of separation, is spoken to gently, is counselled and later asked to give evidence, perhaps by way of a video link to a separate room?
  Mr. Worthington: It is likely that the earlier the memory is called upon, the more it will be accurate. I have had only one experience of being in a court, when I was called as a witness to a drunken affray. Several months later, in court, I identified a distinguished member of the legal profession as one of the people who had committed the crime. That brought home to me the fallibility of memory over a long period. Especially with children, an account given soon after the incident is more likely to be accurate. But, of course, I take into account my hon. Friend's point about emotions.
  Mr. Devlin: Any practising member of the Bar would tell the hon. Gentleman that often people who are interviewed immediately after an event have a very jumbled idea of exactly what happened. I am sure that it would be even worse with children. The difficulty with the early video is that there will inevitably be questions which lawyers would have wished to ask, or points with which they would have taken issue, on which the child cannot be cross-examined.
  Mr. Worthington: We are after the most accurate reconstruction of events. If we can have the freshness of a video that is made at an early stage, it will add to the quality of evidence. In any event, the later recall can he tested in court. The vividness of the video that is recorded early will be very important.
  For years society has failed to consider seriously the evidence of children. We have given pre-eminence to legal practitioners and, as the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds said, allowed them, through their procedures, to cause massive injustices to occur. The advice given by legal practitioners about the quality of evidence that they will allow has caused massive injustice, especially to the most vulnerable and insecure. We must also acknowledge the commonly held belief that the evidence of children, especially girls, is less to be trusted than that of adults. Recent research discounts the arguments about the fantasies of children, but because some people have held those beliefs about fantasies, we have allowed injustice to occur.
  Taking Kathleen Murray's point, the Scottish Law Commission believes that the evidence from what has gone on in the United States and elsewhere is that interviews should take place as soon as possible, and that they should be as few as possible. That is another problem. I expect that many hon. Members used to play the party game where one has to tell a story, which then goes from person to person and one does not recognise the story that comes out at the end. That may occur if a child is asked to repeat a story many times. Its accuracy may diminish. We should also ensure that the interviews are carried out by trained people and, if possible, always by the same person.
  The Scottish Law Commission produced a discussion document containing two options that are currently being considered in Scotland. The first was:
  "Where an accused has been charged and a child is likely to be required to give evidence in a criminal trial the procurator fiscal should be entitled, at his discretion, to arrange for that child to be interviewed by an independent interviewer.
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  For this purpose the interviewer may be from any background, whether professional or otherwise, but should be skilled and experienced in suitable interviewing techniques, and should be approved for the purpose by the Sheriff Principal for the court district concerned.
  The interview should be conducted in a suitable room having a one-way glass screen on one wall. The accused and his lawyer, and the procurator fiscal, should be entitled to be behind this screen, out of sight of the child, but they should be able to communicate with the interviewer (using microphones and an ear receiver) so as to suggest desired lines of questioning to be put to the child.
  During the interview it should be possible, at the discretion of the interviewer, for the child to be accompanied by a parent or other adult.
  The whole interview should be video recorded."
  The alternative option would be to make the interview
  "admissible in lieu of more formal evidence by the child, but both the accused and the prosecutor would have an absolute right to require the child to give evidence in a more formal manner."
  The world is waiting for us to move on this issue. Our present court procedures are manifestly inadequate and cause a great deal of injustice. It is no use waiting for technology. We must make our decision now. There has been much evidence in recent years that children who have been sexually abused are then further abused by the courts. We should put that shame behind us.
  Mr. Ivan Lawrence: The remarks of the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) have stung me to intervene. Legal practitioners are not the cause of injustice in our society; the ill-thought-out laws and procedures that are laid down in this place are at the root of injustice. Legal practitioners, in common with Members of Parliament—although at a later stage in the proceedings—afford the only real protection to the individual against the injustices of the system, of the Establishment and of the machinery of government. To think otherwise is totally to misunderstand the role of the defence lawyer in our society.
  5.30 pm
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr. Watts) has already said, the problem is not the burden of a legal background, but that hon. Members do not realise the practical problems behind many of their well-meaning ideas. It is not just the impracticality of this proposal that causes me concern, but its possible counter-productivity.
  In practice it is extremely difficult to ask questions through an interpreter—that is what a "prescribed officer" would be. Juries do not want to do an injustice to defendants, however horrifying the crime with which they are charged. When a defendant is charged with a horrifying crime, a jury particularly wants to ensure that justice is done. From my experience, I know that juries will not want social workers, child psychologists or probation officers acting as a further barrier to an understanding between the questioner and the answerer. Even if good interpreters are always available in our courts whenever they are wanted, which I very much doubt, even if those interpreters want to do such work, which I very much doubt, and even if they could do it without emotion and with objectivity, which I doubt, new clause 7 would establish barriers in the process of persuading a jury of the guilt or innocence of the accused, and therefore I object to it. If too many barriers are erected between those acting for the accused and the child witness, the result will be not more convictions of the guilty, but, I fear, more acquittals of the guilty.
  Mr. Bermingham: I was saddened by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington). He normally applies terrific logic to what he says, but in his contribution tonight logic appears to have been lost in the sea of emotion. Although there is much to be said as to how we can best prosecute and secure the conviction of evil men and women for child abuse—it is not a male-only crime—we must, as I said in Committee, tread with caution.
  The hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), who has great experience in such matters, was right to say that if we erect too many barriers and raise too many questions we will run too great a risk of acquittals. Let us suppose that a child has been gently interviewed and videoed shortly after it has been taken into care. That is an emotive time and one of great stress. Arising from that video, questions may he asked by a social worker or police officer. For the sake of argument, let us assume that those individuals are extremely skilled. They can look for all the nuances and for all the evidential problems that may arise later. If that child breaks down in the course of that video recording, should we edit that video? Do we take such bits from the video film, which may take four, five, six, seven or eight hours to record? Which bits do we tape? The minute one begins to edit, one gives the defence an open sesame. The defence will cry "cheat" or "foul". It is bound to do so in the interest of its client, and such is the duty of the defending solicitor or counsel in any court room. I declare my interest in such matters.
  It is the duty of the defence to look for holes in the prosecution case. In our system one must never forget—and I do not seek to preach a sermon—that it is not for the defence to prove anything. It is for the Crown to prove its case. The defence is under no duty to give or to call evidence. It can spend the whole of its time asking questions, and, at the end, say, "Members of the jury, the Crown has failed to prove its case."
  There are some who would like the burden of proof to be shifted, and regrettably that tendency is growing. While we maintain a system that puts the burden of proof upon the Crown, the very introduction of the suggested preliminary stage creates an enormous hurdle for it. That hurdle is created because of the length of time it takes to make the video. It will not be shown in full to the court; it will be edited. Such a video may then be contrasted with a case where the child has refused to give evidence.
  Mr. Worthington: Does my hon. Friend agree that the statements that are put in front of the court are a heavily edited account of what occurred in terms, for example, of the police investigation of a case?
  Mr. Bermingham: That is not the case in the English system. A written statement is the means by which a person sets out his or her allegations. It is not edited. If it were found to be so, the unedited, unexpurgated version would be produced for the defence as a matter of law under the Attorney-General's guidelines relating to unused material. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) has a question, he should stand up and ask it and I will answer it. The hon. Gentleman should not seek to make a sedentary intervention, which is bad manners.
  Editing is unknown to our law. There have been experiments regarding tape, recordings where the whole tape untampered with and untouched, is delivered to the
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  defence. It may be that an agreed synopsis is produced, but it must be agreed. If it is not, the full version must be accepted.
  When tape recordings are made at a police station, tried and experienced officers ask the questions. New clause 7 provides not for the investigating authority or, in the ultimate stage, the prosecuting authority to ask questions, but rather for social workers or some other well-trained person to do so. I am not critical of that, but I am suggesting that one would be presented with a hostage to fortune. The minute that a third-party stage is introduced, one runs the risk of conflict of evidence and continuity of evidence as well as all sorts of other risks. In common with the hon. and learned Member for Burton, I suspect that one would run the even greater risk of the guilty going free. At this stage I am not prepared to accept that risk.
  In Committee I urged considerable caution. I am not averse to the idea of a child giving its evidence in a separate room within the court. I can see a lot of wisdom in that, as well as in a child being interviewed via a video link. At the Old Bailey, for example, it has been found that screens have worked in certain cases, and children have given their evidence freely and well.
  I looked with care at this new clause. The spirit behind it is the same as the spirit of those who seek to protect children. Those of us who oppose the new clause do not do so because we want to deny children their rights. We urge that we should proceed with great care so that ultimately every person who is prosecuted for such a heinous crime, where evidence exists against that person, will be convicted.
  In our land it is for the Crown to prove its case. We should not rush into untried or experimental systems. We should not set them in tablets of stone, as we do in this place, and then leave it to others to sort out. That is why I was saddened by the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie about lawyers. It should not be left to the lawyers to scrabble around in a morass and say, "How on earth can we protect the citizens of this state?" The spirit of the new clause is good, but its construction and drafting are appalling. I ask the House to vote against it.
  Mr. Richard Holt: Before I came into the Chamber I was reading my local newspaper, the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette, in which there is a story of a young lady who claimed that she had been raped. There was a hue and cry and, according to the report, 20 detectives were involved. After a few days, the lady changed her mind. It was all a hoax—but it could have all been video-recorded.
  As the Member of Parliament whose constituency includes one third of Middlesbrough, I have been deeply involved in what has happened over child sex abuse there, although my colleague on the Labour Benches, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell), carried the weight. At the height of the problems one of my constituents, a social worker, went missing for a few days, and it was thought that she might have taken her own life. Fortunately, that was not so. She returned and is now all right. But the pressures on that social worker caused that problem. I should be absolutely appalled if I thought that the House would pass the new clause.
  I hear comments that we must look after the interests of the children. I believe that we must look after the interests of justice, and the Criminal Justice Bill is for that purpose.

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  It would be wrong and foolish of the House at this stage to pass the new clause without a specialist authority with a wider remit looking at the concept of video recording——
  Mr. Terry Dicks: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Holt: No, because I have been asked to make a brief speech.
  That should happen whether it is for child sex abuse, rape or any other concept. The House would be misled if it agreed to the new clause.
  The idea of a qualified social worker being an intermediary frightens the life out of me. I have been at the heart of the child sex abuse problems in Cleveland, and one thing that we do not want is the intermediary in a child sex abuse case to be a "qualified social worker"——
  Sir Eldon Griffiths: The new clause does not say that.
  Mr. Holt: With respect, the new clause says:
  "a prescribed officer of the court shall be a qualified social worker".
  That is what we are being asked to agree to and that is what I am opposing. So far, no one has been asked to learn the skills of conducting an interview when it is video-recorded. Yet hon. Members are proposing that, under the law, a qualified person without those skills should conduct the interview.
  I was asked to speak briefly. However, one does not need to speak at length to make a point that should carry weight with the House, especially with hon. Members such as my colleague the hon. Member for Middlesbrough and my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin), who also represents part of Middlesbrough. Those of us who come from that area would find it difficult to face our constituents and all those who have been deeply involved if we supported the new clause. I ask all those who are concerned about justice for everybody, not only the child, but all the relatives and perhaps the accused person, to think long and hard before supporting such a loose and woolly new clause.
  Dr. Norman A. Godman: In contrast to the hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt), I believe that many children throughout the United Kingdom have been saved from a pretty miserable and horrible fate by the intervention of a qualified and deeply compassionate social worker. That should not be forgotten.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) seems to have been subjected to some quite severe criticism today because he argued that the interests of the child must be paramount. I have a great deal of sympathy for that viewpoint, but I suppose that the law must reconcile the interests of the child with those of the accused. The two principal promoters of the new clauses, the hon. Members for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) and for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims), have sought to attain the most difficult of objectives. In my view, the criminal investigation of such cases must require the most humane and compassionate treatment of the children involved. In too many cases, interviews are inflicted upon the children, which places an intolerable strain on them. Another dreadful strain
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  inflicted upon the children in such cases is the knowledge that, if they tell the truth, in all probability they will wreck their own family. I believe that such knowledge reduces many children to silence.
  5.45 pm
  The whole procedure must become more humane. I compliment the hon. Members for Bury St. Edmunds and for Chislehurst, and those who have supported the new clauses, on seeking to develop that trend, but I have a couple of reservations about both new clauses and some questions for their promoters. For example, does new clause 7 allow for the accused and his or her counsel to ask the court to declare the video recording inadmissible as evidence?
  Secondly, would the accused and his or her counsel have the absolute right to require that the child give evidence in a more formal or structured way? I hasten to add that I have a great deal of sympathy for the new clauses. I attempted to introduce similar amendments to extant Scottish legislation, but I failed in my endeavours.
  Thirdly, would the jury be allowed to take the video recording to the jury room to examine sections of it or to view it again in its entirety when it makes its deliberations? That is an important question which was raised by the Scottish Law Commission in the recently published document to which my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie referred.
  Sir Eldon Griffiths: I imagine that it would fall to the discretion of the judge to respond to such a request from the jury.
  Dr. Godman: That partially answers the question, but I feel that there are too many ambiguities in the new clause. I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman said about his lack of experience of parliamentary draftsmanship, which I share.
  As I said, despite my questions, I have a great deal of sympathy with the new clauses. However, I would raise the upper age limit to 16 years from 14, which is far too low. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds and his supporters talked about sexual abuse and molestation. Do those terms include sexual exploitation—for example, introducing or manipulating a child into child pornography or prostitution?
  If we are to talk about video recordings, we should talk about pre-trial deposition proceedings, which would involve the formal cross-examination of the child by counsel in a room away from the austere surroundings of the average court room. I think that I am right in saying that one of the most modern court rooms in the United Kingdom is the new sheriff court in Glasgow. I visited it recently and discovered that in such a case a child in that most modern of courts could be sitting or standing less than 9 ft away from the accused in the dock. The architectural design of that court room in Glasgow is an abysmal failure. When bringing a child into a small court room it must be remembered that the proximity of the accused might frighten the child into silence.
  Mr. Bermingham: We have already agreed that children could give their evidence on video in a separate room. Does that not meet my hon. Friend's objection?
  Dr. Godman: It does to a certain extent. The judge should oversee these proceedings in as informal an ambience as possible. Failing that, they should be presided over by an official appointed by the court.
  The proceedings should take place in a room whose design and layout present a pleasing prospect for the child to enter and stay in for some time. If the Bill meets that requirement, I shall be pleased to hear about it. The surroundings should be as informal as possible. The judge, counsel and child—plus what we call in Scotland the befriender—should be seated around a table. The befriender's status derives from the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968.
  The accused should be present but concealed from the child by means of a two-way mirror or closed circuit television. A child advocate should be appointed to protect the interests of the child who is a principal witness in such a case We could expand the role of the safeguarder, which was created 20 years ago in the legislation introduced by Willie Ross, as he then was.
  Perhaps the way ahead lies in the use of closed circuit television, with the child placed in a room close to the court room, but I intend to reserve my remarks about that for a later debate.
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: We have had an interesting debate on a significant subject. We can all agree that every abuse of a child, sexual or otherwise, is a vicious crime, not least because such abuse deprives the child of the security that should be the right of all children. We can all agree that we should spare no effort to provide them all with that security. One of the things to look for in the new clauses is whether they will contribute to that.
  The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) said that the debate was worthy of emotion. When we speak we must control our comments, because we all feel extremely strongly about people who commit these vicious crimes. However, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, it would be equally wrong for us to be too cool, clinical and detached—because we are discussing serious difficulties. Anyone who has spoken to the parents of children who have been abused knows that feelings run high on the subject. That must be taken into account when we discuss such a sensitive issue.
  When we discussed this matter in Committee, we all agreed that clause 31 was an important step forward. It is the clause to which my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) referred a few moments ago when he spoke of children giving evidence on a closed circuit television link. He outlined problems in the design of courts which mean that children must be close to the person who has committed the crime against them. That has caused a great deal of concern, and I and my hon. Friends think that the provisions of clause 31 will go a long way towards easing the problem and relieving the strain on children. We know of cases that have broken down recently because of the strain under which children have been put through being able to see the accused in court. We all want an end to that, and we welcome clause 31 because it makes significant progress towards solving the problem.
  The common aim that we all share is that of making it as easy as possible for the child in what must be a difficult situation. Everyone agrees that the child's interests must come first. As my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) said, there may be false
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  accusations because a child has been pushed into a corner and feels that that is the way in which to make progress. My hon. Friend pointed out the difficulties that arise when children give the answers that they feel are expected of them. When we discussed clause 31 in Committee, even though we all agreed with it in principle, Opposition Members believed that many questions still had to be answered and that guidelines needed to be laid down to ensure consistency in the way in which the courts operated the new procedures so that everyone knew what the child's rights and the defendant's—or his counsel's—rights were. The Minister was open-minded about the need for guidelines and took on board many of the points that we made during one of the most constructive debates that we had in Committee.
  Many difficulties are involved in the role of the pre-recorded interviews that are proposed in the new clause. We all hope that such interviews may have a role to play in certain circumstances, but if they have, it will be limited. If pre-recorded interviews have a use, it may not be limited to cases of child sexual abuse. Perhaps they could be used in cases of rape and in other cases in which witnesses are reluctant to give evidence or feel that they would rather discuss what happened away from the court room.
  Some of the arguments in favour of pre-recorded interviews have exaggerated the contribution that they might make to relieving the anguish of children in this situation. Too often the case has been presented too simplistically and hopes have been raised that pre-recorded interviews might produce more good than they ever could. They are in no way a panacea. At best they will have a limited contribution to make in certain specific cases.
  I agree with hon. Members on both sides of the House who have said that we should proceed with caution. There are many pitfalls in this path—and some potential advantages. If, at some stage in the future, we were to adopt a system in which pre-recorded interviews could be used as evidence in court, we should need strict guidelines and clear codes of practice, because we would be changing the rules of evidence in a fundamental and significant way.
  The one way in which pre-recorded interviews might have a role to play—to judge from all the evidence I have seen—is in cases in which the person who is accused is guilty and, having seen the child giving evidence on a video recording, is caused to change his mind and plead guilty, so that the social workers and everyone involved in the case can make some progress. That might avoid the lengthy and tortuous experience of a contested court case that would be very difficult for the child and its family.
  That may happen, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough said, the Cleveland experience shows that children and parents will sometimes give the answer that is wanted because they hope that that will lead to a breakthrough and a progression of the case when a log-jam occurs and social workers or the police are convinced that abuse has taken place. That may lead to children being persuaded to make accusations, or it may lead to parents, relatives or the person accused being persuaded to admit to some sort of abuse in order to make progress. In some cases that may be done in order to allow children to go home.
  6 pm
  Mr. Holt: Does the hon. Lady agree that if that thesis were carried through, the opposite should also be the case? I have a letter from the Cleveland social services department which says that a life-sized rubber doll of a man was used in a child sex abuse case. When a sweet was placed in a specific place on the doll the child went into the room and took the sweet, and that was taken as absolute evidence that the child had been sexually abused. Does the hon. Lady agree that in such a case a person could be found not guilty?
  Mrs. Taylor: I agree that such evidence and such experiments could be interpreted in many different ways. We must be cautious about all these matters, and one of the lessons that everyone will learn from the Cleveland experience is that there is still a long way to go before procedures on a whole range of matters are considered adequate and before we can have full confidence in them.
  I have some questions for the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds, but perhaps the Minister will deal with them in his winding-up speech so that it will not be necessary to ask them twice. Obviously, there are many difficulties in dealing with such cases. Hon. Members have put forward a strong case for saying that interviews should be held as quickly as possible after the abuse has taken place. However, we must be realistic about this and understand that very often abuse takes place over many weeks, months and sometimes years. For that reason, a delay of a week or two may not make the difference that is sometimes suggested. If it is a question of one incident of abuse, or indeed of rape, it is useful and beneficial for interviews to be conducted as quickly as possible. Where there has been prolonged abuse, perhaps an early interview is not as important as ensuring that the interview takes place in the right context, with the right people present, and in the right atmosphere.
  Interviews of very young children conducted by social workers and police officers—I know that many women police officers are extremely experienced and good at conducting such interviews—are not for evidential purposes. They are for counselling purposes, for drawing out the child's experiences and for starting to help the child to recover. It would be quite legitimate for the people conducting the interview to lead the child, to draw out the story and even to suggest what might have happened in a way that would normally go against all the rules of evidence. We should be quite clear that such interviews will not be used later as evidence in court. However, if social workers and police officers have that fact at the back of their minds, they might be less good at counselling the child in the first instance.
  My second point on the practicalities is about where video interviews should take place. Will they take place in a police station, in a hospital, in a social worker's office or in the child's home? From the point of view of the child's recovery, the best place for the interview may not be the best place for recording the experiences of the child, when more than one camera may be needed. Certainly we could not have cameras invading a child's home to take evidence.
  Mr. Devlin: Does the hon. Lady agree that the best place for such interviews would be the new family court buildings, one of which would be built in each town? Such buildings would be properly financed and would be part of a national change in procedures. That is long overdue.
  Mrs. Taylor: We welcome support for the principle of family courts. The Minister makes noises about the cost, but it is a cost that is well worth bearing. If the Government want to make a contribution to the welfare of children, not just to those who have been abused in this way, but to children involved in divorce proceedings and so on, they should introduce family courts. We would support legislation on that and should like to see it introduced as soon as possible.
  The problem of cross-examination was briefly raised by some hon. Members who are lawyers. The new clause allows for cross-examination. A child who is to be cross-examined in court will not attract the benefit of an early and quick recorded interview that will be presented in court with the idea that that will be the end of the matter. It is clear that if a child is cross-examined about what he said in one or more interviews some weeks or months before, it would put not less, but probably more, strain on the child. That will create great difficulties. Although the child will give evidence from a different room, it will be the duty of defence counsel to trip up the child or to find inconsistencies between what the child has said in the recording and his answers in court.
  I am not trying to knock holes in the case or to say that there is no role at all for video recordings. I stress that the simplistic answer that is sometimes put forward is fraught with many difficulties. It could be counter-productive if a clever counsel for the defendant destroyed the child in court. That might happen if proceedings went ahead in the way that I have suggested. An early interview of the child that could be shown to the defendant might lead to a plea of guilty. However, as soon as the defendant obtained access to a lawyer—which might be after charges are preferred and after he, the defendant, has seen the video—his legal advisers might suggest a change of plea. In such a case a lawyer might then find it even more necessary to destroy the child's evidence, and in so doing he might destroy the child as well.
  Although we all want to reduce stress on the child and to help him, we must be sure that we do not create new stresses and new problems for the child. My hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) talked about a child's memory and said that interviews immediately after an incident might be far more helpful than later asking the child to repeat the story time and again. Immediately after an incident there could be a great deal of confusion in a child's mind. Children who have worked out the sequence of events in their mind are extremely accurate when recalling the very tiny details of many events. That would often happen in cases such as those that we are talking about.
  We all share the same objective. We want to make it as easy as possible for the child to explain what has happened to it and for the responsible authority to prosecute somebody who has committed an abuse. We want to ensure that those who deserve conviction are convicted, but we must ensure that there is full justice, that the defendant's rights are preserved and that we do not take a step that could create more problems than it solves. I hope that the Government will consider those matters, but will not rush into a system of giving evidence that we have not fully examined in this country and that might be fraught with difficulties. We welcome the changes so far. We fully supported clause 31 in Committee and believe that it is a

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  significant step forward, but there are some difficulties in the new clause and we hope that the Government will consider it further in greater detail.
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. John Patten): The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) has counselled caution and been even-handed in her approach. Her speech has been characteristic of speeches made on both sides of the argument in the two and half hours of debate this afternoon. If anyone had come to listen to the debate this afternoon, he or she would have heard two things: first, an extremely measured form of debate and, secondly, a form of debate that was neither party nor partisan. I do not think that non-party and non-partisan debates are necessarily good or particularly interesting to listen to, but this afternoon the intensity of debate and the care with which hon. Members have deployed their arguments has been exemplary. If anyone had been listening and trying to keep track of the voices on both sides of the argument, and whether, if there should be a Division, it should be restricted to those people who have spoken, he or she would agree that it is a cliff-hanger, on a knife edge, because the arguments on both sides have been so balanced.
  We have heard the most powerful advocacy from my hon. Friends the Members for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) and for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) in the interests of obtaining better justice for children. They have been supported in equally powerful speeches by the hon. Members for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) and for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) and others. On the other hand, we have heard, across the party divide, hon. Members counselling caution, as in the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler), in his short and forceful intervention, and, perhaps most notably of all, in the case of the three hon. Members who represent Cleveland—the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) and my hon. Friends the Members for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin) and for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt).
  That note of caution was present throughout our debates in Committee. I agree with the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme that those debates were most constructive. Since then, I have taken every opportunity to consult those people who wished to see me, on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, to discuss those issues. I have, of course, consulted my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds and representatives of the police and acknowledge their formidable argument. I have spoken to my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst and to the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) who accompanied a delegation from the NSPCC. That was a most useful meeting, and I wish to pay tribute to the work done by the NSPCC in experiments on video recordings. I also met my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham), together with representatives of the National Children's Bureau.
  In anticipating the spirit of the debate this afternoon —my hopes have been borne out—I have made known my views as openly as possible, in advance of the debate, in the letters that I have sent to everyone who has corresponded with me. Those letters included a weighty appendix in which I tried to weigh the pros and cons, but, at the end of the debate, I am left with two big question marks in my
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  mind: what happens in the trial itself and what happens in the period before the trial? I shall try to deal with each of those questions in turn.
  First, at present, in a trial, the first person to examine a child witness is prosecution counsel, who will take the child step by step through its evidence-in-chief. That will be a friendly face with which the child is familiar. If video recordings were admitted, the first person against—the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North—would be defence counsel. In his client's interest, quite properly, defence counsel's aim is to try to expose holes in the child's story. We must remember that the child is anonymous, whereas the accused person is not and he is on trial for his reputation and faces a possible prison sentence.
  6.15 pm
  We then come to the important concept introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds—that there should be a video recording, and that many of the issues could be overcome by an interlocutor, from the caring or legal professions, putting the points to the child on behalf of the defendant. That is where we come to the question raised so powerfully in Committee by the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham). I recommend hon. Members to read the hon. Gentleman's speech in Committee. He said that it is surely a defendant's right—not everyone accused of child abuse is guilty by any means—to have the counsel of his or, more rarely, her choice putting the questions on his or her behalf. That is a substantial principle.
  However, I am worried that, if the child's friend is drawn from the caring or legal professions, he or she will have attempted to establish a relationship with the child beforehand to set him or her at ease. On the other hand, we must also consider what would happen to the child when he or she suddenly found that friend, in the specially designed informal room off the court room, saying, "Why did you say this? Why did you say that? Why is there a difference between what you said then and what you say now?" Will that be in the child's interests? We must consider the question raised by the hon. Member for St. Helens, South both in the way that he put it and in the way that I have tried to extend the argument.
  Secondly, most people recognise that video recordings of children are taken for a number of purposes. I have been to Bexley and seen the excellent experiments. The chief superintendent, social workers and others who have co-operated have performed a singular service for all those people involved with child abuse. The video recordings are made for evidential and investigative purposes by the police who want to try to find out what happened. They are made for therapeutic purposes, because the child needs to be helped, and it is important for the social worker or the doctor to help the child by talking the terrible experience out of his system. The recordings are also used for investigative medical purposes by the doctor or, more rarely, by the social worker to try to tease out what happened. We all know, from evidence given in recent cases, how difficult that can be.
  We all agree that the child should be spared the trauma of having to give his or her evidence very often. One or more recordings to try to encompass all that would lead to considerable pre-trial editorial problems, as was pointed out by the hon. Members for Dewsbury and for St. Helens, South and by my hon Friend the Member for

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  Westminster, North. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds also recognises those points, because we have had the chance to discuss them.
  I believe that those problems need careful consideration. That is why I am pleased to announce that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has decided that we should look more deeply at the use of video recordings for the evidence not just of children but of others who are witnesses in trials—rape victims, the disabled and those who suffer in a number of different ways from a number of disadvantages. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has invited, and his invitation has been accepted by, the Common Serjeant in the City of London, Judge Thomas Pigot, who is a most experienced Crown court judge, to inquire into these issues. He will be assisted by representatives of the police force and the social work world and by a barrister. The inquiry will look as quickly as possible at the evidential difficulties of using video recordings and will report back to my right hon Friend as soon as possible.
  I hope that that move will meet the general approval of many hon. Members. I hope, too, that with that undertaking, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds will feel inclined to withdraw his new clause.
  Sir Eldon Griffiths: I am naturally disappointed that my hon. Friend the Minister has not been able to accept my new clause, although I am not surprised. He has been fair and generous. The Pigot inquiry, which he has just announced, will, in all the circumstances, be able to examine this matter. I hope that it will do so quickly. I am delighted that it will have, as one of its assessors, an experienced police officer. I hope, too, that my hon. Friend will accept some suggestions along the lines of the new clause. Equally, it must be right that he includes within that commission someone from the caring services and an experienced barrister.
  I hope that I heard my hon. Friend clearly, and that the inquiry will examine not just the difficulties of using video recordings, but the possibilities and the opportunities. I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary here. On the understanding that he wants to see this matter progress speedily, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
  Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New clause 8

  POWER TO SEARCH
  `(1) A police constable may search any person whom he suspects of possessing a prohibited or offensive weapon, if that officer fears that the use of such a weapon will endanger his personal safety or that of any other person;
  (2) If a search conducted under subsection (1) of this section leads to the discovery of a prohibited or offensive weapon concealed on the person of the suspect, a Constable may arrest that suspected person without a warrant.'.— [Sir Eldon Griffiths.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Sir Eldon Griffiths: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  I hope that I can be equally brief on this. On Second Reading my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said that he was proposing a radical change in the law on the
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  carrying of knives, and that the danger was overwhelmingly the concealed carrying of such weapons. There is no doubt that many crimes are committed with the aid of knives—muggings, assaults, rapes and so on. Therefore, the Government are quite right to tackle that problem as they have. However, they leave the police service with one difficulty, which is that unless one can search for a concealed knife, it is difficult to bring into play the powers that the Bill will now provide, including the reversing of the burden of proof.
  I make it clear that neither I nor the Police Federation have any wish to return to sus. That is not my objective. However, I wish to raise with the Government the narrower point of the code of guidance that is set out in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which is too restrictive and makes for some difficulties. It says that a reasonable suspicion is needed to justify a search and it must be founded on fact. There must be some concrete basis for the officer's belief, related to the individual concerned, which can be considered and evaluated by an objective third person. The difficulty is that in many cases it is a one-to-one situation and it is extremely difficult for a police officer, faced with someone whom he suspects may be carrying a concealed knife, to establish the degree of fact that will justify the search on reasonable suspicion.
  My design in moving the new clause is not to take us back in time. It is simply to ask the Government whether they will examine the code of practice, and if they find that the police case—that it is not working satisfactorily—is a good one, they will take steps to revise it.
  Mr. Stuart Randall: When I first looked at the new clause, I was inclined to look for a motive behind it. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) has made it clear that his intention is not to increase the powers of the police, although he referred to the restrictions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Nevertheless, I hope that hon. Members will emphatically reject the new clause, because it is inevitably bound to be regressive. In particular, I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can believe what he has written here.
  The hon. Gentleman has a great reputation, and hon. Members on both sides of the House recognise that during his time as parliamentary representative of the Police Federation he has carried out his duties in an energetic way. Sometimes we have been annoyed at the way in which he has done it, because he has been so persistent, but I cannot believe that he wants the House to introduce such legislation.
  Sir Eldon Griffiths: To ease the hon. Gentleman's anxieties, I assure him that I have no intention of pressing this matter to a vote. I simply want to explore the statutory code of guidance in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and this is the only way to do it. The hon. Gentleman need not worry about asking his hon. Friends to repudiate what I am doing—I shall do so myself by withdrawing the new clause.
  Mr. Randall: The hon. Gentleman had the opportunity to withdraw the new clause if he felt that he could not accept it. He did not say clearly that he could not accept the new clause. As he has said that he wants to use new clause 8 to debate the existing powers, it is worth hon. Members on both sides of the House talking about parts of the new clause, in particular subsection (1), which says:

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  "A police constable may search any person whom he suspects".
  That could be construed as a return to sus. We would then be returning to 1824 and the passing of the Vagrancy Act.
  Mr. Bermingham: As the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) has said that in view of my hon. Friend's powerful oratory he will withdraw the new clause, would it not be better if he did so as soon as possible?
  Mr. Randall: That is a matter for the business managers. Like the horse in "Animal Farm", I plod away and do the job that is needed of me.
  6.30 pm
  Under the terms of the 1824 Act, sus was an offence. The scope of that Act was extraordinary. I refer the House to page 103 of the report of the Home Affairs Sub-Committee on Race Relations and Immigration, dated 13 March 1980. The relevant passage reads:
  Section 4 of the Vagrancy Act 1824, includes an offence (known colloquially as 'sus') which prohibits 'every suspected person or reputed thief from … frequenting or loitering about in any river, canal or navigable stream, dock or basin, or any quay, wharf or warehouse near or adjoining thereto, or any street, highway or avenue leading thereto, or any place of public resort, or any avenue leading thereto, or any street or highway, or any place adjacent to a street or a highway, with intent to commit an arrestable offence."
  The Act was intrusive. It impinged very much upon the liberty of the citizen. Until section 4 of the Act was repealed in 1981, police forces in various parts of the country used the sus offence. The consequences were serious.
  The Select Committee on Home Affairs repudiated sus in 1980 and stated that it had been bad for race relations. I think that we were all pleased with the Criminal Attempts Act 1981, which repealed the sus provisions. The strength of feeling of the members of that Committee was profound. The Committee stated that if the Government failed to produce the required legislation, it would promote it.
  I am a strong supporter of the police force. I believe that it is fundamental to our democracy. The throwing of grenades—metaphorically—at the police is to be deplored. I accept, however, that the police are not perfect. Members of the police force are a cross-section of the community, as we are in this place. My main concern—it was shared by many others—was that imperfect people were free to exercise wide-ranging provisions.
  There was a feeling that some police officers abused the law. There are many blacks and Asian people in our inner cities, and strong feelings were aroused in them because of the abuses that took place. There were "fishing expeditions". Those were bad at times. The police had a power that led to much damage being committed, especially in our inner cities and areas of deprivation generally. We heard stories of police officers entering Indian restaurants, placing people against the wall and telling them to put up their hands. There were horrific stories and, irrespective of whether they were true, strong feelings were aroused within the community. All that was detrimental to race and community relations.
  We believe that stop-and-search powers should be exerciseable only if there is reasonable suspicion. The powers of stop and search were defined in section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Subsection (3) states:
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  "This section does not give a constable power to search a person or vehicle or anything in or on a vehicle unless he has reasonable grounds for suspecting that he will find stolen or prohibited articles."
  The definition of those articles includes offensive weapons, and subsection (9) defines offensive weapons.
  The second part of the new clause refers to the discovery of knives as a result of a search. We arc all for finding and dealing with those who carry knives and other offensive weapons. That does not need to be said, because it is obvious. We all want the provisions in our legislation that allow that to happen to be as effective as possible. We are concerned, however, about increasing the powers of the police where there is merely a suspicion. The concept that that is a ground for taking action is anathema to the notion of liberty. We are entirely opposed to it.
  The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds has been assiduous in his service to the Police Federation, and we respect him for that. I have read that when the Royal Commission met before the new legislation was introduced it was aware that the police had asked for the retention of the sus powers. The House decided in its wisdom that it would have the section 1 powers of the 1984 Act, which introduced reasonable suspicion rather than giving the police wide powers that would enable them to proceed merely on suspecting someone.
  The new clause should be taken seriously. I see it as a desperate measure. We have the highest crime figures in Britain's history and we have a Government whose crime policy is failing miserably. If we consider all classes of crime, it is clear that crime generally is on the increase. There have been massive increases in crime rates in certain categories and I suggest that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds is clutching at straws. He knows that the Government's crime policy is in a mess. A serious manifestation of that is the football hooligans and their awful activities in Frankfurt, Stuttgart and other German cities. The Government's policies have led to a society that lacks decency. Consequently, we have a selfish and greedy society. Nasty things are coming home to roost. When contemplation is given to this sort of new clause at a time when crime figures are so serious, it is clear that the hon. Gentleman is clutching at straws.
  Mr. David Sumberg: How does the hon. Gentleman explain the paradox that, when unemployment was rising, the Labour party blamed it on Government policies, but now that unemployment is declining and the Government's policies are working he is blaming wealth creation?
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. The new clause concerns powers of search. I ask hon. Members to stay with that.
  Mr. Randall: The powers of stop and search, known as sus, were used in inner cities, or what I prefer to refer to as areas of deprivation. There is a strong correlation between crime and deprivation. When those powers were available, people were discriminated against. Blacks and Asians, who are already deprived by income, by unemployment, by inadequate housing and by inadequate hospital services, were the victims of stop and search. They would be affected again if new clause 8 were agreed to. It is important to put that on the record.
  As the Select Committee report said, those people do not have equal rights before the law. They do not have

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  equal representation in court, they do not enjoy the same legal aid as others and they tend to be given custodial sentences.
  The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds understands the police force well. Knowing what sort of man he is, I cannot believe that he would want to damage community relations, and it is therefore inconceivable that the new clause will be agreed to. I shall therefore not present any more arguments against it.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hogg): My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) focused on the code, so I shall concentrate exclusively on it. He articulated his concern that the code as drafted contains too strict a definition and interpretation of the concept of reasonable suspicion. In that, he reflects the anxiety of the police service.
  I understand the force of my hon. Friend's arguments —that is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has commissioned a review of the code. We hope to have comments in by the end of October, which will enable us to decide whether we should redraft the code to give a different interpretation of the concept of reasonable suspicion. The points made by my hon. Friend and by the police service will be kept fully in mind during the review. I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for the way in which he moved the new clause.
  Sir Eldon Griffiths: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
  Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 16

  EXEMPTION FROM JURY SERVICE
  `At the end of Schedule 1 to the Juries Act 1974 there shall be added "those who object on grounds of religious belief to serving on juries.".' — [Mr. Peter Archer.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  6.45 pm
  Mr. Peter Archer: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  This is a proposal which I believe transcends party differences and I should like to acknowledge the indications of support that I have received from parliamentary colleagues in all parts of the House.
  I should like also to acknowledge the vigilance of the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop). As originally set down, the new clause referred to the Juries Act 1984. That error escaped everyone but the hon. Gentleman. The draft was taken, as I had fully intended, from the Official Report of our proceedings in Committee. Although we debated the Juries Act 1974, it was transcribed as the Juries Act 1984 in the Official Report. I say that only by way of explanation. I fully understand the Official Report's difficulties. Indeed, because we so rarely find a mistake we come to rely on it uncritically.
  I should like to seize this opportunity to correct one other misconception. Dr. Bryan Wilson of All Souls—who I understand is the distinguished constituent of the Minister—to whom we are all indebted for having drawn attention to this problem in the first instance, also pointed out to me that, following the Official Report of our debate
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  in Committee at column 881 on what was then new clause 65, there is a reference, in column 893, to new schedule 65, which is reported as having been added to the Bill. I understand that this has led to some genuine misconceptions. I should like to place it on record, lest anyone be misled, that, unhappily, as I believe, nothing was added to the Bill relating to this matter. It was left that the Minister would investigate some of the examples that had been given and that he would write to me. That is an undertaking which he very properly observed.
  I believe that most hon. Members take the view that, in return for the privilege of living in a democratic society, citizens should be prepared to undertake their share of the burdens entailed in its working. I would not wish to question that principle, but it sometimes happens that a good conscientious citizen says, "Although I am normally prepared to shoulder my share of the burdens, this one is not one in which I can conscientiously participate." It may be an obligation to undertake military service or an obligation to return a census form. There may be other obligations about which that could be said.
  I believe that, at that stage, every tolerant society says not, "We must automatically respect this objection," but, "We must balance the equation—we must balance the consequences, if the objection is allowed, against the respect we would normally accord to an individual conscience." There may be circumstances in which to allow an objection would tempt large numbers of other citizens to take a similar objection and, in what I think is the common terminology, open the flood gates. If someone had a conscientious objection to paying his income tax, I would not recommend that we give effect to that objection. But that will not happen in this case. Vast numbers of people will not rush off to become Exclusive Brethren to avoid jury service. I am always impressed by the readiness of members of the public to drop all their other concerns and apply themselves with great concentration to assisting the administration of justice.
  On the other side of the equation, there is the respect that our country has traditionally accorded to those with conscientious scruples, especially those who do not usually seek to avoid their obligations as citizens and are good and conscientious members of the community. The brethren objection is to sitting in judgment as a member of a jury, because that is the interpretation that they accord to certain scriptural texts. I do not share their conclusions, but I respect them and am totally persuaded of the sincerity with which they hold those views. Of course, in any particular case it may be an issue whether someone summoned for jury service really holds such views or is merely seeking an excuse to avoid his obligations.
  The House will have noticed that this new clause is narrowly drafted. It does not seek to provide an excusal as of right for anyone who objects on the ground of conscience; it is an excusal for those who object on religious grounds. An excusal on grounds of conscience might present a court with a difficult issue to resolve. But the new clause should not provide any difficulties. Usually all that would be required would be a letter from a local pastor saying, "Mr. X is a member of my congregation and attends my church regularly. He plays a full part in our activities. I am satisfied that he genuinely believes our teachings. What our church teaches on this issue is …" Usually, nothing more would be required. If it were, I have no doubt that the pastor would attend court and expound

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  on that and answer any questions. Excusal as of right would not, in principle, provide any difficulties for the administration.
  There is also a good, pragmatic reason for allowing an objection as of right. The brethren's objection is to sitting in judgment with others. So if one of them applies to be exempted and that application is refused and he has to serve on the jury, he will stand aside from the discussions in the jury room. He will write down his individual verdict and request the foreman or the usher to deliver it to the judge. Not surprisingly, that would place the judge in a difficult position because he is not allowed to receive an individual verdict. That cannot be a way of effecting justice. Most judges would prefer not to have a reluctant juror. It is better for everyone to have 12 jurors, participating willingly. Where, in addition, one juror is not willing to discuss the case with the other jurors, that does not effect justice.
  Schedule 1 to the Juries Act 1974 lists certain categories of people exempted as of right. Section 9 provides that, in certain circumstances, the appropriate officer has a discretionary power to exempt from jury service someone not exempt as of right. If that officer does not grant the exemption, there is a right of appeal to the judge.
  It is not the first time that there have been proposals to add those with religious objections to the category of those exempted as of right. In 1965, Lord Morris's committee on jury service considered the proposal that those with religious scruples should be added to that category. It concluded that that was not necessary and, in para 153 of its report, said:
  "We recognise that there are people whose religious scruples would make it genuinely distressing for them to serve on a jury but we cannot think that excusal as of right would be an appropriate way of dealing with this problem. In our view such persons should apply for excusal in the normal way, and we have no doubt that summoning officers and courts will deal with the applications sympathetically."
  The committee was right: it would have been better to deal with them in that way. Over the years, tolerance, sympathy and common sense have worked well and there has been no need to discuss amendments to legislation. However, recently in a few specific courts a number of members of the Exclusive Brethren have applied for exemption and been refused. It is a problem that has arisen only——
  Mr. Kenneth Hind: Like the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I am aware of the Coventry cases where judges have said no. Bearing in mind that the judges have a discretion and that, in some cases, that discretion has worked in favour of the Exclusive Brethren and the Plymouth Brethren and so on, does he feel that this problem should be dealt with not by legislation but by the Lord Chancellor sending a circular to all circuit judges and recorders alerting them to the problem and making them aware of the strong, heartfelt feelings of the Exclusive Brethren?
  Mr. Archer: I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying and I would have agreed with him had it not been for the fact that that has already been tried. In a moment I shall try to explain what has gone wrong. The problem has arisen in only a few courts—although more than just one—and it has given rise to a great deal of distress and, I suspect, to some real anxiety among those on trial about whether justice really has been achieved. Their problem is that they do not know what happened in the jury room, so they do not know whether they received justice.
  Mr. Bermingham: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, as the deliberations in the jury room are for ever silent and secret, if one of the Exclusive Brethren opts out any contribution that he may have made is withdrawn from the general discussion of the jury? There will always be a question mark in the minds of both the defendant and, in the case of acquittal, the Crown that had there been a 12-man rather than an 11 or 10-man jury the verdict might have gone the other way.
  Mr. Archer: I agree with my hon. Friend and would not seek to improve on the way that he put it. We do not know whether it has affected the outcome in any particular case. But we know that if the proper procedures are not followed someone will be left unhappy.
  As usual, one problem left unresolved leads to others. Some people have applied for exemption and been rejected—somewhat peremptorily, I am told—by a judge without what they would regard as a proper hearing. They then asked to appear by counsel to put their case and explain their reasons, but that was also rejected. I understand that consideration is now being given to an application for judicial review of that decision. If nothing is done, this will grow into a major issue and everybody will make a meal of it, and that is not what the brethren want.
  The Minister said in Committee that the Lord Chancellor's Department had written to the court service asking it to
  "place on record the specific concerns of the Exclusive Brethren and the Plymouth Brethren, to draw them to the attention of the judiciary and to remind the courts of the relevant laws and procedures." — [Official Report, Standing Committee H, 29 March 1988; c.885.]
  7 pm
  I have not seen the circular and I would not ask for it, but I wonder whether it made itself understood. I am told that recently a member of the Exclusive Brethren telephoned the office at Acton which deals with the selection and summoning of jurors in London and was told that the Lord Chancellor's Department had said that applicants should not be excused jury service on grounds of their religious belief. When he telephoned the Lord Chancellor's Department and expressed surprise, he was told that no such guidance had been given. Whether he misunderstood what was said to him by the Acton office or whether the Lord Chancellor's circular, in attempting to help, had merely created confusion is a matter on which I, at least, can shed no light. Perhaps the Minister can. I would have agreed with the hon. Member for Yorkshire, South—
  Mr. Hind: Lancashire, West.
  Mr. Archer: Geography was never my strongest subject.
  I would have agreed with the hon. Gentleman that the circular should be tried if it had not already created confusion. In Committee, the Minister very fairly said that he would investigate some of the cases and write to me. He did so, and I understand that the problem is that, as no record is kept when an application is made for exclusion from jury service, it cannot be investigated. Perhaps one day such records will be kept: to do so surely would not impose an inordinate burden on the courts.
  I do not propose to elaborate on the matter at great length. In my view, the case makes itself. If we are all agreed that a genuine religious conviction should be

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  respected, that a reluctant juror who will not discuss the case with the rest of the jury is not conducive to effecting justice, that deciding who has a legitimate claim would entail the simplest and briefest of investigations and that this would not open the floodgates to a host of applications for exemption by newly enrolled Exclusive Brethren, what is the objection? If there is no objection, why should we not remove all the difficulties and prevent the escalation of problems by writing the new clause into the Bill?
  Mr. William Cash: My constituency contains a number of Exclusive Brethren, but the issue is not confined to them. It concerns a point of principle, and goes back to a practice direction made in 1973 by Lord Widgery, then Lord Chief Justice. He said that a juror may be excused
  "at the discretion of the judge on grounds of personal hardship or conscientious objection to jury service."
  He went on to say:
  "It is contrary to established practice for jurors to be excused on more general grounds such as race, religion or political beliefs or occupation."
  Since then the Juries Act 1974 has become law. As the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) stated in his cogent speech, section 9 prescribes that
  "If any person summoned under this Act shows to the satisfaction of the appropriate officer that there is good reason why he should be excused from attending … the appropriate officer may excuse him from so attending and shall do so"
  if the person falls within the various categories specified in schedule 1. Schedule 1 makes exemptions for, among others, vowed members of religous orders. There is a category specifically related to the clergy and to exemptions which appear to all intents and purposes to be made on religious grounds. If the practice direction has been overtaken by a discretion conferred by Parliament under the 1974 Act—which I believe could be argued—and the only basis for the obligation to exempt is contained in section 9 and the schedule that includes religious exemption, the words "good reason" must include a basis not exclusively related to the practice direction.
  Surely, in all conscience, it is reasonable for us to make provision in the Bill to ensure that we do not get into the tangle of difficulties mentioned by the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West. There is inconsistency, on the evidence that I have seen, in the way in which the matter is being handled by different courts. There is a good case in principle for excluding those with genuine religious convictions. It will not lead to a rash of applications. It would be sensible to bring the Juries Act 1974 up to date with what I regard as reasonable and proper practice, in the interests not only of the Exclusive Brethren but of others who hold similar convictions. That would also deal with what I fear could also be difficulty in the case of majority verdicts under section 17 of the 1974 Act. If people were effectively exempting themselves from participating in a majority verdict, it would be a very difficult problem for the courts.
  Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: My hon. Friend is legally qualified and I am not. Can he tell me what happens under the existing law if someone who believes that he ought not to serve as a juror turns up but refuses to take the jurors' oath or affirmation?
  Mr. Cash: That is governed by a subsequent section in the Juries Act which deals with the various offences of failure to comply with a summons. Section 20(4) provides:
  "A person shall not be liable to be punished under the preceding provisions of this section if he can show some reasonable cause for his failure to comply with the summons".
  Although he may have technically committed the offence, such a person may be able to excuse himself on the basis of "reasonable cause". We return again and again to the question: what is "reasonable cause" or "good reason"?
  We should clarify the matter by passing the new clause. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will give reasonable consideration to the arguments which I have advanced and which, no doubt, others will put forward.
  Mr. Bermingham: A long time ago there was talk in the land that anyone who was a conscientious objector went to prison. That was during the first world war. Then suddenly people began to think about the issue, and began to have some sense. People such as the Quakers, for whom I have infinite respect, served in the second world war not as soldiersߞbecause they were conscientious objectors—but as ambulance men for the field hospital in which my father served. After the war he said that they were the bravest men that he had ever known. When people have a conscientious objection to something, it is because of a profoundly held belief. The Exclusive Brethren have a profoundly held belief that they should not serve in judgment on others.
  For once I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash), who showed us the dichotomy that arose between a practice direction and a section of a subsequent Act. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee unanimity of practice in this country, no matter how we try, as was rightly pointed out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer). What do we find—the events that took place in Coventry. We find that certain other judges take a robust view. I have had the misfortune to fall foul of such a robust view. We were told, "The man must serve," and serve he did. A disagreement arose and when the final note came after three or four hours' deliberationߞwe had the practice direction in two hours, 10 minutes—it was a majority verdict. We were told, "Nine of us are for, two of us are against, and one won't say because he objects to sitting in judgment." That was the man who had been forced to serve.
  What did we do? The defendant had to stand trial again; the jury was locked. Are we seeking to put people of conscience—whose conscience we respect—in such a position that they know that because they stand by their conscience they may affect the livelihood or way of life of another? Let us consider the case that I mentioned. That person had to stand trial again. The outcome on the first or second occasion matters not. The point is that more than one person suffered. The witnesses, the defendant, the state, and the man who stood by his conscience all suffered. Do we really want that to happen? The Lord Chancellor's Department sent out an advice but one cannot enforce an advice.
  What are we asking the House to do? The new clause seeks to turn back the clock to Lord Widgery's direction, which said that if a matter of conscience is involved a juror should not serve. A provision later in the Bill removes the right of peremptory challenge; it is a provision with which I violently disagree. We shall leave the right to challenge for cause. As a practising lawyer, I know what I shall do.

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  Every time someone says, "I'm from the Exclusive Brethren" I shall challenge for cause for all the reasons given by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West. [Interruption.] It is all right for the hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind), whom we nearly exported to Yorkshire, to say that that is his right, but do we really want to start building up challenges for cause in which we test a person's religious belief to justify the challenge?
  Mr. David Ashby: The hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) has illustrated the point that I wanted to make. He has shown the farcical nature of challenge for cause. We have been told that there is no need to have peremptory challenge because one can challenge for cause, but if one challenges for cause in Coventry, will that be held to be a good challenge for cause by the judge who insisted that those people should sit on a jury?
  Mr. Bermingham: The hon. Gentleman has made a valid and strong point with which I entirely agree. I sought to argue that, if the matter is left to the lottery of the individual choice of judges, whether it be on challenge for cause or under the Juries Act 1974, we shall get different results. We shall get a different outcome in Coventry from that in Snaresbrook or elsewhere.
  Mr. Hind: The hon. Gentleman knows my view on peremptory challenge. Is it not clear that we shall build up a body of law on challenge for cause that will inevitably be tested by the Court of Appeal time and again? We shall extend the time that cases will take to try as a result.
  Mr. Bermingham: I have just realised why I did not export the hon. Gentleman to Yorkshire: I agree with what he has just said. He has made a valid point showing the shortsightedness of the Bill in removing the right of peremptory challenge and leaving only challenge for cause. He is right in saying that if we are not careful we shall go down the American road; it takes four of five days to empanel a jury in America. The Minister may tell me that I am seeing mountains where there are none. If he opposes the new clause, I shall merely tell him that he has given me my first 20 or 30 challenges for cause. I shall challenge for cause on the ground that a person has a right not to serve as a matter of conscience.
  I shall seek to detain the House no longer. I hope that the Minister will listen to the voices crying from both sides of the House, and in particular to the voice of justice, which cries that the jury must be free in its deliberations and that no one in the jury room must be reluctant, whether for religious or other reasons. If a juror is reluctant, he will not play the full part that is so necessary in trial by jury and to the future of the person on trial. In conscience, I ask the Minister to use his conscience and to support the new clause.
  7.15 pm
  Mr. Lawrence: If the Government do not like the new clause, they have only themselves to blame. Many of us, especially those who are lawyers, warned the Government that if they abolished peremptory challenge something like this was bound to happen. At present following the practice direction, the judge, in his discretion, may excuse the Exclusive Brethren or anyone for reasons of conscience from serving on the jury. If he fails to do so, it is never in
  890
  the interests of counsel—either prosecution or defence—to allow to serve on the jury someone who clearly does not want to serve and who has no interest in contributing to justice. Under the rule of peremptory challenge, the Exclusive Brethren, the Plymouth Brethren or the conscientious objector is nearly always challenged. That is one of the safety valves provided by peremptory challenge. Now that that is being abolished, the Exclusive Brethren and those who are concerned about conscientious objection are rightly worried.
  We now have to choose between the complicated procedure of challenging for cause, which no one would welcome, and the new clause, which will give those under the pressure of conscientious objection the right to say, "No; I do not want to serve on the jury." Conscientious objection is a traditional privilege that the citizen of Britain has always been able to enjoy in a whole range of activities. It is a mark of a free society and we should not forbid it.
  Although I should not have supported this change in any other circumstances, because I should have thought it entirely unnecessary, the stubborn determination of the Government to carry on with the proposal to abolish peremptory challenge leaves me no alternative but to support the new clause to ensure justice and protect the tradition of exclusion for conscientious objectors.
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones (Ynys Môn): I do not intend to detain the House unduly because from the speeches made thus far it is fairly clear that there is a general welcome for the new clause. It is right that I should place on record, as other hon. Members have, the fact that in normal circumstances it is the duty of the citizen to submit himself to jury service. It is part of the price that we pay for living in a democracy, as the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) said.
  In my experience of working in the legal profession, it never failed to surprise me how readily people submit themselves for jury service. Some are prepared to wait for days on end before being called. When they are called to serve, they do so willingly, and regard it as part of life in a free society. We all subscribe to that view.
  I confess that I was extremely worried when I read of the reports that have been referred to. In some courts in England, members of the Exclusive Brethren were denied the right not to serve on juries on religious grounds. That was a step back from the position that pertained many years ago. As we have heard, it is only recently that difficulties have arisen about not serving on juries on religious grounds. Most hon. Members who have expressed an interest in the matter have received copies of the arguments that were used by the Exclusive Brethren and the Plymouth Brethren in seeking to be excused, and the arguments used by the courts to deny them that right. That disturbed me. In the past, courts allowed exclusion for that reason, but, suddenly, a spate of applications were refused and so I came to the view that the system was breaking down.
  It has already been mentioned that the right to peremptory challenge is to be withdrawn when the Bill becomes law. Then this clause will be the only way in which people can be excused on religious grounds. Essentially, it is a matter of principle—a right that people with conscientious objections should be able to exercise.
  I come from a Welsh tradition of nonconformity. Over generations and centuries people fought hard to achieve

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  religious freedoms and rights. It is right that hon. Members continue to uphold such principles. When we consider that such rights are being denied, we should uphold them.
  As I stated, the arguments have been well rehearsed. In view of the clear support for this small but important measure, I sincerely hope that the Government will accept the new clause.
  Sir George Young: As a non-lawyer, I intervene briefly to speak against the new clause. I am delighted to see the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) in the Chamber. The parallel with conscientious objection against war was not convincing. Those who objected were against war in principle. In this case, those who seek exemption are not against justice. It was not a direct parallel.
  We must determine whether there is a good case for exempting from jury service people who are able, intelligent and conscientious and examine the problems that we face nowadays in getting good juries. We saw recent cases of intimidation of jurors in Birmingham. There is growing evidence that many cases are becoming complex. We must now think carefully before introducing a blanket exemption on religious grounds.
  The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) spoke about the brethren. Of course, the new clause does not mention the brethren at all—it mentions religious belief. Quite frankly, the sort of cross-examination that the hon. Gentleman envisaged taking place before a jury is sworn fills me with apprehension about clogging up the system of justice. He envisaged a vicar being cross-examined on whether someone was a church attender or a church member. To go through that sort of rigmarole when one is trying to swear in a jury will slow down rather than accelerate the jury process.
  Mr. Archer: The hon. Gentleman is entitled to deploy his argument, but he is not entitled to attribute to me things that I did not say. I certainly did not paint a picture of a long cross-examination of a pastor or minister of religion about whether someone attended his church. How long could cross-examination on that point conceivably last?
  Sir George Young: I thought that the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that he was sure that the pastor would give evidence. We shall find out from Hansard whether he said that. A pastor could give evidence about the religious beliefs of an individual who had been called to jury service. That would slow down the process of jury service. I do not share the view that no one would abuse the exemption. I can think of many people who would like an excuse not to serve on a jury. As the new clause is drafted, it would be perfectly possible for anybody to claim, "I have a religious belief that protects me against jury service. I wish to be exempt." I do not accept that that is a sensible way to make progress.
  Mr. Max Madden: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Sir George Young: I shall not give way. My remarks will be brief.
  Each time a parliamentary problem arises, I am, like other hon. Members, lobbied by the brethren. On previous
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  occasions, I was swayed by the force of their argument. In 1979, I supported my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) in the case that he deployed against rating. On the occasion when I was visited at my advice bureau, I was struck by the fragility of the argument, and I said so to those who came to see me, and explained that I would speak against it. I did not like their phrase "yoked to unbelievers". There is a risk of enshrining in statute a questionable approach to one's fellow citizens. When one is swearing in a jury, the basic question is whether they are able people who would perform their task. Like the rest of us, the brethren benefit from the imprisonment of criminals and the protection of society that our judicial system offers. I was not persuaded that being yoked to unbelievers was a sufficient cause for exemption.
  Mr. Cash: Does my hon. Friend agree that, in principle, there is little between what he just objected to and, for example, pacifists? They may take a similar line because they regard an issue of principle in the same way.
  Sir George Young: I tried to deal with that matter in a sentence at the beginning of my speech. Those who seek protection behind the new clause are in favour of justice and the judicial process, and they want criminals to be put in prison. Those who objected to war were against war. That is why I do not accept that there is a direct parallel with conscientious objection.
  Some obligations of citizenship are indivisible. Tax paying is one and sitting on a jury is another. I should be gravely disturbed if the Government are minded to accept new clause 16.
  Mr. Menzies Campbell: Like other right hon. and hon. Members, I have been subject to a great deal of canvassing on this subject. To use a word that has already been mentioned, some of it has been rather robust, to the point at which it almost persuaded me to be less than sympathetic to the proposal. I am convinced by the strength of the belief of those who have sought to enlist my support that this is a measure that, in turn, I should support.
  I was interested in a phrase used by the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young). He took exception to the expression, "yoked to unbelievers." I do not share all the beliefs of the Exclusive Brethren. If this were an argument about doctrine, I could think of several points that I would like robustly to put to them. But I do not for a moment want to detract from their right to believe as they do. This is a matter of conscience. If their consciences drive them in a certain direction, it is not my right to seek to alter that or to drive them in another direction. The truth is that the issue is inextricably linked to the right of peremptory challenge. It is proposed that that should be abolished, although, happily, north of the Tweed it still exists.
  My experience of peremptory challenge has always been that when one arrives in court the court officer or usher has inevitably, by the intelligence system that operates on these occasions, found out who might wish to be excused and for what reason. Therefore, the peremptory challenge is frequently an informed one, based on the knowledge that there is a person who has a substantial objection to service.
  If the proposal is enacted there may be a slowing up in the administration of justice to the extent that the depth of

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  a person's religious belief will have to be examined. However, I cannot help thinking that a recognised form will soon be achieved which will satisfy the judges.
  7.30 pm
  What if the administration of justice is slowed up? Is that not a legitimate price to pay if, as a consequence, one is ensuring that a person who has a conscience against serving on a jury is entitled not to do so? To have people serving on juries whose conscience so divides them from those with whom they must serve and makes their contribution to the work of the jury impossible cannot strengthen the jury system or the system of justice.
  The proposal is right in principle, and, if enacted, it will avoid the evils of practice which might otherwise arise. For those reasons, it should commend itself to the whole House.
  Mr. Teddy Taylor: First, I hope that the Government will accept this new clause, which I have signed, or make some positive move in that direction. We all accept that it is not the job of Parliament or the Government to make provision for people's strange views. I do not like wearing seat belts, and we all object in particular to things of that sort. But it would be wrong to consider this matter in that regard. There is no doubt that we are dealing with a deeply held religious belief, of which all hon. Members who have spoken to the brethren and who have observed their rites in our communities must be aware.
  Secondly, the Government must be aware that the present circumstances in some instances cause great offence and distress to those involved.
  Thirdly, we must bear in mind that in this case we are dealing not with an anti-social group of people who cause social problems, but with a group who lead good lives as good citizens whom we would not wish to condemn in any way.
  Finally, I hope that the Government will think about the problem in so far as it affects the courts. How does it help the judicial process to have reluctant jurors? Will it not simply be a prescription for injustice to the defendant? It seems unreasonable that the Government cannot make some move in this direction.
  I am sorry that the excellent amendment No. 2, which I and some hon. Friends tabled, is not being debated with this new clause. It calls upon the Government to give guidance in statute to the courts to exercise their discretion so that religious beliefs and deeply held convictions are taken into account. That would be not an instruction to judges, but some sort of guidance on how they should exercise their discretion.
  I hope that the Government will appreciate that we are dealing with a matter that is important to the administration of justice and the respect that the House should have for the deeply held religious views of a group within our community.
  Dr. Lewis Moonie: Two matters are of particular interest in this debate. The first is the inordinate number of lawyers on both sides of the House who seem to turn out for an interesting legal point. The second is that this is one of the few occasions on which we can all truly say that we have no self-interest whatever in the matter under discussion.
  894
  Members of the sects to whom we are referring not only do not wish to serve on juries, but do not vote, join political parties or take part in many aspects of collective decision making. Surely that is their right.
  It is not a question of whether we resent some group being allowed to wriggle out of jury service. We are considering two different questions. First, are the interests of justice served by forcing a member of a sect to serve on a jury? If a person by definition will not play his or her proper part in arriving at a collective decision with other jurors, is it in the interests of justice or of the defendant? It is not.
  Secondly, does the present rule cover the matter adequately? The Government will no doubt argue that it does. From the many cases cited tonight, the answer, again, must be no. It allows the awkward or robust judge, if we are to use those various euphemisms, through his discretion, to circumvent the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. Therefore, we should consider the new clause as a reasonable means of ensuring that people with strong religious beliefs and conscientious objections against serving on a jury are not forced to do so.
  Mr. Michael Shersby: Those of my constituents who are members of the Exclusive Brethren have made the point to me that they are obliged to rely on the provisions of section 9 of the Juries Act 1974 to be excused from jury service. As the House has heard from several hon. Members, it is clear that that discretion does not operate uniformly. Often those who object on conscientious grounds are excused without difficulty, but on several occasions, which have been reported to all hon. Members interested in this matter, one judge or another has clearly not felt able to excuse a person who has been summoned for jury service.
  I was interested to read the report of Lord Morris's committee which considered this matter in 1965. The committee decided that it was better to deal with the question of being excused from jury service on a common sense basis rather than by statutory exemption. In his report, Lord Morris said:
  "we have no doubt that summoning officers and courts will deal with their applications sympathetically."
  Unfortunately, that does not always happen. Clearly that causes distress to members of the Plymouth and Exclusive Brethren, and they have asked me and others to support this new clause.
  In reply to my constituents, I quoted the words of my hon. Friend the Minister who is in charge of the Bill. In Committee, he said:
  "We must not open loopholes through which others can drive a coach and horses. In the end it is a matter of judgment."
  We know that this is a matter of judgment, but it does not seem to be working as we might hope. My hon. Friend went on to say that between the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor's Department there was unanimity of view, and
  "that the Lord Chancellor's Department should write to the court service in December 1987 to place on record the specific concerns of the Exclusive Brethren and the Plymouth Brethren, to draw them to the attention of the judiciary and to remind the courts of the relevant laws and procedures." —[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 29 March 1988; c. 883–85.]
  Was that letter sent by the Lord Chancellor's Department in December 1987, and is the Minister satisfied that it has worked as intended and is working

  895
  uniformly? The House has a choice to pass this new clause or to continue to rely on the discretionary procedure. That is the crux of the matter.
  To help me to make up my mind whether to support the new clause, I ask my hon. Friend to tell me whether the provisions of schedule 1 to the Juries Act 1974, especially the part which refers to people being excused on grounds of conscience, still operates. It says that a person shall be excused if he is
  "a vowed member of any religious order living in a monastery, convent or other religious community."
  Do the Exclusive Brethren who live in the religious community in my constituency qualify for exemption under that schedule? What is the definition of a religious community? I suspect that we are getting near to an agreement that people who are vowed members of a religious community, whether it be residential or non-residential, should be exempt from jury service.
  If my hon. Friend cannot accept the new clause, will he ask the Lord Chancellor to issue further guidance, requests or instructions to the judiciary to have regard to the genuinely held religious scruples that have been demonstrated by the Exclusive Brethren so as to achieve the uniformity of practice that so many hon. Members have made clear is greatly to be desired?
  Mr. Worthington: I have listened with great interest to hon. Members who have much experience in the courts. One might have thought that the objection to the new clause would be the difficulty in obtaining good juries and the fact that a coach and horses can be driven through the present exemptions, or the floodgates can be opened, or whatever image one wishes to use. But apparently that argument is not being used. The system seems to work reasonably well, although I believe that there are exemptions for holidays, which would be much more prone to having a coach and horses driven through them. It is difficult to accept that the new clause would cause major problems to the courts. The Minister will have to find stronger grounds than that.
  It will not be difficult for the courts to establish the strength of a claim to conscientious objection on the ground of religious belief. Some time ago a Member of the House was named because he objected to the presence of others at Prayers. It would be difficult for some us to make a similar claim to a long pattern of religious belief as the ground upon which one should be excluded. It is difficult to pretend that one has been a member of a faith for a long time.
  We have heard what was said by the judge who saw the brethren who were claiming exemption. He said:
  "I have your letter. I notice you refer to the scriptures. Have you considered the gospels where it says 'Render to Caesar what is Caesar's'? Have you got anything to say?"
  The reply was, "I respect the court." The judge then left. It is difficult to accept that as a mature consideration of the case. The judge also said:
  "If we went by this, I would be out of a job. You are a British citizen with privileges like voting; you therefore need to be included also in services. You will have to serve."
  When one member of the Plymouth Brethren referred to the scriptural background, the judge said:
  "No, that's enough. There are other scriptures in the New Testament which refer to Pharisees. I suggest that you have a
  896
  look at those as well. Your reasons are not sufficient. You will have to decide when it comes to the day whether to attend or pay the penalty."
  The worst example was the clerk of the court saying:
  "The judge has no time for conscientious objection."
  Those actions by judges do far more to weaken the English legal system than anything that we may do today by allowing conscientious objection. That is why I hope that the House will support the new clause.
  7.45 pm
  Mr. David Wilshire: Like many hon. Members, I became involved in this matter because members of the brethren came to see me. Having read all that they gave me, I have come to the conclusion that new clause 16 is fundamentally wrong. First, it is wrong in principle. Secondly, even if the House finds the principle acceptable, the wording is wrong.
  The principle at stake is that of being able to opt out of jury service on the grounds of religious belief. What justification have we been offered? The letter from the brethren to the Minister of State dated 15 April this year states that their conscience is governed
  "by conviction based on the holy scriptures".
  The first belief is that it is wrong to judge, while the second is that it is wrong to sit with unbelievers. There are difficult implications for all of us in both beliefs. If we accept the point that it is wrong to judge, does that mean juries only, or judges, too? Either way, it undermines our concept of the rule of law. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) said, the belief that it is wrong to sit with unbelievers postulates two classes of citizens: brethren and others. We enshrine that concept in the statute book at our peril.
  Mr. Cash: My hon. Friend may recall that one of the most important British constitutional cases was that of Bradlaugh in the 19th century. That dealt with whether a Member of this House should be allowed to take his seat on the basis of his religious conviction that he would not swear an oath but would affirm. That case reverberated throughout the House for a long time and was decided in Bradlaugh's favour. My hon. Friend is dealing with an issue that goes to the centre of gravity of the constitution of the House and the country.
  Mr. Wilshire: Time is against me, Madam Deputy Speaker. Were it not, I would happily enter into a long debate about the significance of religious belief and how it is translated into freedom of action, which are two different concepts. For my purposes, I see the relevance in the judge saying:
  "Render to Caesar what is Caesar's."
  We are all citizens of the United Kindom. We receive things from it and it grants us rights and privileges. In return, we all have civic duties and responsibilities, one of which is jury service.
  There is a danger in trying to legislate via biblical quotations. I shall explain where it leads using a simple example. The Children of God are a fringe Christian sect who believe sincerely that the saying in the New Testament,
  "I will make you fishers of men,"
  means that their young women members should become prostitutes to recruit new members. Will that be entered as a defence against a charge of soliciting in the future?
  The wording of new clause 16 raises two problems. First, it does not define religious belief, and, secondly, it

  897
  provides no test of the genuineness of religious belief. The only definition to hand is that offered by the brethren in their letter to the Ministerߞthat it should be based upon holy scripture. Whose holy scripture is relevant? We are on a dangerous path.
  I have with me a book that looks exactly like the Bible. To the Children of God that book contains divinely inspired words. In that book, however, there are detailed instructions on how to be a prostitute and it advocates sex betwen children and adults.
  I believe that to try to establish the genuineness of religious belief is dangerous. Will it simply be enough to say, "I do not believe in jury service"? If so, that will provide everyone with a cop-out. I hope that new clause 16 will be rejected. Like it or not, we are all part of British society.
  Mr. Madden rose——
  Mr. Wilshire: I shall not give way, because time is against me.
  We all benefit from being part of that society and we owe it something in return. We fulfil our calling when we play our proper part in making it work.
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: I hesitate to follow the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) down some of the paths he was travelling. Some of his arguments would be extremely dangerous were they applied to other areas upon which we legislate.
  I wish to make a brief speech because hon. Members generally are in agreement and most of us would like to move to a vote. I want juries to consist of as wide a cross-section of the public as possible. I believe that that hope is common ground among most hon. Members. I believe that we would all agree that members of the public should not be excused from jury service lightly. That should occur only when there is good reason for it. There are two arguments that I should like to make to emphasise to the Minister the seriousness with which we consider this new clause.
  The first argument relates to the principle of religious belief. If people have a strongly held religious belief that precludes them from certain activities, even though they are desirable civic duties, we should respect their right to opt out. If the Exclusive Brethren find it offensive to sit on juries because it is against their religous principles, we should make provision for their exclusion from such service.
  The hon. Member for Spelthorne has misled the House. We do not have to accept people's religious beliefs to respect them. We now live in a multi-cultural, multi-religious country and it is dangerous to criticise other people's religious beliefs in the way that the hon. Member for Spelthorne has sought to do. We believe that one should respect religious beliefs even though one does not agree with them. We believe that the Exclusive Brethren have a strong case and we shall support the new clause that was moved by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer).
  The second important argument for the Minister to considerߞit was made in Committee and has been repeated todayߞis that a reluctant juror is not an asset to justice. The Minister acknowledged that in Committee, and if he plans to resist the new clause he must explain to the House how he can square that circle. It will not be in the interest of justice for reluctant jurors to sit on juries.
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  I hope that on those grounds and on the ground of respecting religious beliefs the Minister will accept the new clause.
  Mr. John Patten: I am sure that all of us would agree that we want to have the widest possible pool of jurors from whom to pick. The Bill widens the pool from which that selection takes place because it will make it possible for those between the ages of 65 and 70 who wish to serve on juries to do so. I believe that that has been widely welcomed.
  It is clear from this debate and the powerful speeches that we face a collision between principle and practice regarding the operation of jury selection—a collision between strongly held religious convictions, which I appreciate and agree are those that a free society should mark, and the demands of good citizenship. I am sure that all of us would recognise that we are on a collision course and that it is not an easy problem to solve. My hon. Friends the Members for Stafford (Mr. Cash) and for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) and others have tried to deal with the problem in an extremely helpful way.
  Whatever scheme is introduced it is clear that, in the end, it is not a mechanistic test. It is not like sticking a piece of litmus paper into a solution to see what colour it turns. Someone must decide whether a person is a conscientious objector or whether he should serve in the armed forces. In Australia someone must decide whether someone has a proper reason not to vote. In this connection we must decide whether someone has a genuine, conscientiously held religious conviction that should persuade the summoning officer for the jury that that person, be he a Jehovah's Witness, a member of the Select Brethren or a member of the Roman Catholic, Jewish or Anglican faiths, should not serve on the jury. There is no easy way of doing that. A human being must decide whether another human being has such a conviction. There is no magic formula.
  The formula suggested by the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) does not save a human being from having to judge whether another human being has strongly held religious convictions and to decide whether that should exempt him from jury service. Such arguments exercised the Morris committee. I do not believe it is necessary for us to go over the findings of that committee and what it considered was and was not in the public interest.
  Mr. Cash: Does my hon. Friend agree that when dealing with the manner in which discretion is exercised the problem is that there are insufficient criteria to determine the question in one direction or another? That is what leads to inconsistency and, in the absence of peremptory challenge, it will lead to reluctant jurors. That will create chaos in our legal system.
  Mr. Patten: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I am discussing the general principles at the moment rather than learned judges' practical applications of the rules and practice guidelines handed down. The points that my hon. Friend has raised are similar to those raised by my distinguished constitutent, Mr. Bryan Wilson, who is a fellow of All Souls. He is not a member of the Select Brethren or a Jehovah's Witness, but he has given a lot of the intellectual underpinning to the argument. Nothing sharpens up a Minister more than to have a prominent

  899
  constituent leading the campaign—especially if he keeps the cellar at All Souls. There are fearful sanctions that he could exercise against me should the vote go against me.
  Mr. Hind: Does my hon. Friend agree that something could be taken from the recommendations of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash), who cited Lord Widgery's practice direction to the judges on how to deal with cases where there was some true reason for the citizen not taking part in jury service? Perhaps that is the way to resolve this matter. The Lord Chancellor could make a direction for circulation to judges so that they could interpret section 9 of the Juries Act 1974.
  Mr. Patten: My hon. Friend has made an extremely helpful suggestion; he has put his finger on it. For the sake of argument, let us suppose that we voted in favour of the new clause. That would not stop Jehovah's Witnesses or members of the Select Brethren or other religions arguing their cases to the jury summoning officer or the judge of appeal. The new clause would not get the summoning officer or the judge of appeal out of making the difficult decision on whether a person's conscientious objections were genuinely held.
  Mr. Peter Griffiths: Does not my hon. Friend accept that, in addition to those who are excluded from jury service at the moment, there are those who are specifically permitted to seek to be excused from jury service? They simply tell the officer who requests their service the reason for that. All that we are seeking is a simple extension of the rule to a relatively small number of people. Is it not as simple as that?
  8 pm
  Mr. Patten: I do not think that my hon. Friend is quite right. It is perfectly simple. If one has a series of exemptions from the public duty of a citizen to serve on a jury which is based on a profession, such as being a Member of Parliament or a barrister, that class is easily identifiable. It is slightly different—I do not think that I am logic chopping—for someone to turn up and say that he is a member of Jehovahs' Witnesses, the Roman Catholic Church or the Jewish faith and to show something from his rabbi, bishop or pastor to attest that that is so. It may be easy in the case of those mainstream faiths, but my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) is right in saying that many organisations call themselves religions and, under certain circumstances, from each of those organisations there could come arguments about strongly held religious convictions. I do not want to exaggerate the importance of that, but it would ill behove the House to dismiss it as if it were a problem that would never arise.
  Mr. Ashby: My hon. Friend will appreciate that we are concerned only about these two sects and it would be obnoxious to spell them out in the legislation. As the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) said, would it not be possible for the summoning officer to have a letter from the pastor saying that the person belonged to that sect? If the summoning officer was not satisfied, all that he would have to do would be to refer the matter to the judge. Judges are highly paid. They are highly qualified to do just this—to judge. Why do we not let them judge? That is their job.
  Mr. Patten: It is exactly that process of judgment by judges that is being criticised. My hon. Friend is right in intimating that it would be obnoxious to enshrine in legislation the names of one, two, three or more faiths. The trouble is that if one does not do that, not next year, but the year after or the year after that, one could well find other people coming forward and using that as a perfectly legitimate excuse.
  Mr. Harry Greenway: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Patten: I must answer the Uxbridge question.
  Mr. Archer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Patten: I am just answering the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby). As he said, those who are ineligible include ministers of religion and, in the words of the statute,
  "A vowed member of any religious order living in a monastery, convent or other religious community"
  —"living in" being the key words. Those people are in a slightly different category. They are ineligible for jury service on the ground that their vocation and position in the community are incompatible with jury service. The question before us is the slightly different one whether adherence to a particular religion but living in the community should be treated in the same way. That is where the line needs to be drawn.
  Since the Committee debate, I have discussed the matter further with my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor. It would not be proper for either him or me to comment on the three cases that have arisen in this calendar year and say whether they were correctly or incorrectly treated. Those matters are within the discretion of the court and would remain so should the new clause be passed.
  I should like to answer a highly pertinent question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge. The Lord Chancellor is considering whether the December guidance on the law and practice relating to jury service should be supplemented. That is happening at the moment. My noble and learned Friend and I share the hopeߞit is important that I put these words on the record —that applications for excusal from jury service based on genuine conscientious scruples should be sensitively and sympathetically considered by the courts within the discretion that the law allows them. My noble and learned Friend will not hesitate to issue further directions along those lines should he judge it necessary to do so. I hope that the House will agree on reflection that that is the right way to proceed.
  Mr. Shersby: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)Order. Has the Minister finished his speech?
  Mr. Patten: I am afraid I have.
  Mr. Madden: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I appreciate that you have only just arrived in the Chair, but my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) moved the new clause at 6.46 pm and there seems to have been a great deal of unanimity of view. I sense that many hon. Members wish to vote. Will you accept a motion, That the Question be now put?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I shall consider it later.
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I shall overlook the unusual discourtesy of my hon. Friend the Minister in rising to speak while colleagues of his who have sat through the debate were still trying to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It means that my hon. Friend will have to ask your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to reply to points that have yet to be made in the debate.
  There is only one point that I wish to make. It is quite clear that the new clause does not refer only to the Exclusive Brethren. It is general rather than particular. It is also clear that it could be abused for economic reasons by those who have no authentic religious belief. Therefore, the question must be: how does one protect those who have an authentic religious belief while eliminating as far as possible those who would wish to make a spurious claim of religious belief for their own economic advantage to avoid jury service? That is a real problem, and I doubt not that it is one that taxes the Government, and reasonably so.
  Reference has been made by the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) to the fact that it is usual in wartime for those who successfully plead conscientious objection nevertheless to serve the community, often in peril of their lives— [Interruption.] Will the Government Whip on duty allow the Minister to listen to what I am saying? I thank him. I should have thought that the problem could be avoided in the following way. If the new clause were carried, and then when it went to another place an amendment were made to it that those who claim exemption rather than excuse on the grounds of religious belief should have to be present at the court building, although not necessarily in the court proceedings, for the duration of the trial, the conscientious objection would be met, but those involved would secure no economic advantage from it. I should have thought that that would protect those of genuine conscience and at the same time protect the judicial system from abuse of the conscientious claim for the economic, commercial or unworthy advantage of spurious claimants.
  Mr. Mike Woodcock: The argument is fairly simple. It cannot be just for people to be forced to serve on juries when they have strong religious objections. It cannot be just for the accused to have reluctant jurors. The tradition of the House is to defend the right of conscience and religious freedom. Present interpretations of the law are not serving those causes. In the absence of a clear commitment and clearer directions to judges, we should amend the law. This is a sensible new clause and we should support it.
  Mr. Ashby: As we do not have jury challenge, we could now have jurors who cannot read, which will cause problems in cases in which there are large numbers of documents. We shall now have jurors who perhaps cannot speak or understand English. Yet we are told that people who do not want to participate in jury service will be forced to do so.
  In this Chamber there are many lawyers with a wealth of experience. They have given their views, but been completely ignored by the Minister. This new clause is not open to abuse, and to say that it is is nonsense. It would be obnoxious if an amendment named the Plymouth Brethren. A juror should come along and give his
  902
  objection and a judge should then decide whether that objection is genuine. For those reasons, I support the new clause.
  Mr. Harry Greenway: I shall always respect a Christian's right to conscientious objection, which is what the clause is really about. I welcome what the Minister said, and, as a non-lawyer, ask the right hon.and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) to clarify something for me. Would a judge betake a specifically legal view when considering whether to excuse a juror, or would he, as a Christian member of the Church of England or of the Church of Rome—a body other than the Plymouth or Exclusive Brethrenߞmake a Christian judgment of the individual who was seeking to be excused jury service in certain circumstances? If he did that, he might take the view that the individual concerned should be part of the leaven of society, share its burdens, and therefore undertake jury service.
  Mr. Watts: The mood of the House and the balance of the debate has been overwhelmingly in favour of the new clause, so I find it unnecessary to reiterate the points that have been fully and persuasively made by other hon. Members. However, I have one question for my hon. Friend the Minister, which I would have made in an intervention had he not sat down so quickly.
  The Minister said that it was his wish that all who have a genuine religious objection to jury service should be released from that obligation. If that is his intention and that of his right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, in view of the poor past performance of the guidance for achieving that objective, why does he still seek to rely on further guidance notes? Can he not accept that there is an overwhelming case for accepting the new clause so that a right is enshrined in law that would make it much more difficult for judges, such as those who have been cited by Opposition Members, to say that they do not believe in religious objection?
  Mr. Archer: I want briefly to reply to two questions that I have been asked. The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) asked whether a judge would decide this matter as a Christian. He will decide as a judge. He will decide, as a simple question of fact, whether the applicant has a genuine objection on religious grounds to serving on a jury. He will do that, one hopes, in the interests of tolerance and of justice.
  The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) raised the difficulty of deciding whether an applicant genuinely had a religious objection or whether he might be motivated by economic considerations. I would be content to leave the amendment that he proposed to be discussed in another place. I can see the argument, but I am not sure that the House needs to resolve it tonight.
  The issue tonight is: will it be too difficult for a court to decide whether someone has genuine religious objections? I am sure the Minister will recognise that when I opened the debate I tried to face the objections to the new clause. If I were persuaded that any of them were valid and had been established, I would not persist in calling a Division. But the only objection that has been ventilated is the apparent difficulty that a court might have in deciding whether an objection is genuine. I do not see how that could be a difficulty for a court. If a person says he has genuine religious objections, he will have to establish that he is a regular member of a congregation. I cannot believe

  903
  that anyone will attend a congregation, Sunday after Sunday for years on end, because one day he might be called for jury service and would not want to do it. There can be no doubt about whether someone has attended a congregation. It can easily be resolved.
  The only remaining issue is whether a congregation genuinely holds this doctrine. There is no difficulty in calling someone in authority from the congregation to say that that is its doctrine. I cannot foresee any problems for the courts.
  Mr. Cash: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the point that he has just made is equally applicable in principle in the case of religious communities?
  Mr. Archer: I should have thought that it was. I fully take the hon. Gentleman's earlier point, but at the moment I cannot amend the new clause further. This is a limited amendment, and there can be no problem about this aspect of it.
  None of the arguments would benefit from being repeated. I have respected the Minister's approach throughout our debates on the Bill. He has usually tried to address his mind to the matters that we have raised. On this one, for reasons that I do not follow, he has raised objections that do not exist. This is a sad day for British justice and tolerance. We propose to proceed to a Division.
  Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 205, Noes 209.

  Division No. 366]

  [8.16 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Allen, Graham

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Corbett, Robin

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Ashby, David

  Cousins, Jim

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Cryer, Bob

  Ashton, Joe

  Cummings, John

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Barron, Kevin

  Dalyell, Tam

  Battle, John

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Beckett, Margaret

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

  Bell, Stuart

  Dewar, Donald

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Dixon, Don

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

  Dobson, Frank

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Doran, Frank

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Dover, Den

  Blair, Tony

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Blunkett, David

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Boateng, Paul

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Boyes, Roland

  Eadie, Alexander

  Bradley, Keith

  Eastham, Ken

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Buchan, Norman

  Fatchett, Derek

  Buckley, George J.

  Faulds, Andrew

  Caborn, Richard

  Fearn, Ronald

  Callaghan, Jim

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

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Flannery, Martin

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Flynn, Paul

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Foster, Derek

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Fraser, John

  Clay, Bob

  Fyfe, Maria

  Clelland, David

  Galbraith, Sam

  Cohen, Harry

  Galloway, George

  Coleman, Donald

  Gardiner, George

  904

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Mullin, Chris

  Gordon, Mildred

  Murphy, Paul

  Graham, Thomas

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  O'Brien, William

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Parry, Robert

  Grocott, Bruce

  Patchett, Terry

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Pendry, Tom

  Henderson, Doug

  Pike, Peter L.

  Hinchliffe, David

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Prescott, John

  Home Robertson, John

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Hood, Jimmy

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Radice, Giles

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

  Randall, Stuart

  Hoyle, Doug

  Redmond, Martin

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Reid, Dr John

  Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

  Richardson, Jo

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Rogers, Allan

  Illsley, Eric

  Rooker, Jeff

  Irvine, Michael

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Janner, Greville

  Rowlands, Ted

  John, Brynmor

  Ruddock, Joan

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)

  Sheerman, Barry

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Kennedy, Charles

  Short, Clare

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  Skinner, Dennis

  Lambie, David

  Snape, Peter

  Lamond, James

  Spearing, Nigel

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Leighton, Ron

  Stott, Roger

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Strang, Gavin

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Straw, Jack

  Lewis, Terry

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Litherland, Robert

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Turner, Dennis

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  McAllion, John

  Vaz, Keith

  McCartney, Ian

  Wall, Pat

  McKelvey, William

  Wallace, James

  McLeish, Henry

  Walley, Joan

  McNamara, Kevin

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  McTaggart, Bob

  Watts, John

  Madden, Max

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan

  Marek, Dr John

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Wilson, Brian

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Winnick, David

  Martlew, Eric

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Maxton, John

  Woodcock, Mike

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Worthington, Tony

  Meacher, Michael

  Wray, Jimmy

  Meale, Alan

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Michael, Alun

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

  Mr. Allen McKay and

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Mr. Frank Haynes.

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

  NOES

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Atkins, Robert

  Alexander, Richard

  Atkinson, David

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Allason, Rupert

  Baldry, Tony

  Amess, David

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Amos, Alan

  Batiste, Spencer

  Arbuthnot, James

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Bellingham, Henry

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Bendall, Vivian

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  905

  Benyon, W.

  Hayward, Robert

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Biggs-Davison, Sir John

  Hill, James

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Hind, Kenneth

  Body, Sir Richard

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Holt, Richard

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Boswell, Tim

  Howard, Michael

  Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

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

  Bowis, John

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Brazier, Julian

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Bright, Graham

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

  Irving, Charles

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

  Jack, Michael

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Jackson, Robert

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Janman, Tim

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Jessel, Toby

  Burns, Simon

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Burt, Alistair

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Butcher, John

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Butler, Chris

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Butterfill, John

  Key, Robert

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Carrington, Matthew

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Carttiss, Michael

  Knapman, Roger

  Chapman, Sydney

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Knowles, Michael

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Lilley, Peter

  Cormack, Patrick

  Lord, Michael

  Couchman, James

  Luce, Rt Hon Richard

  Cran, James

  McCrindle, Robert

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Maclean, David

  Curry, David

  McLoughlin, Patrick

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

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Day, Stephen

  Madel, David

  Devlin, Tim

  Malins, Humfrey

  Dicks, Terry

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Dunn, Bob

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Durant, Tony

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Mills, Iain

  Evennett, David

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Fallon, Michael

  Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

  Favell, Tony

  Moate, Roger

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Forman, Nigel

  Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Moss, Malcolm

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Franks, Cecil

  Mudd, David

  Freeman, Roger

  Neubert, Michael

  French, Douglas

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Fry, Peter

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Gale, Roger

  Paice, James

  Gill, Christopher

  Patnick, Irvine

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Patten, John (Oxford W)

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Renton, Tim

  Gow, Ian

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Riddick, Graham

  Gregory, Conal

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

  Rost, Peter

  Grist, Ian

  Rowe, Andrew

  Ground, Patrick

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Shersby, Michael

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Sims, Roger

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

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

  Squire, Robin

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Harris, David

  Steen, Anthony

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Stern, Michael

  Hayes, Jerry

  Stevens, Lewis

  906

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Waller, Gary

  Sumberg, David

  Ward, John

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Wells, Bowen

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Wilshire, David

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Wood, Timothy

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Yeo, Tim

  Tracey, Richard

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Trippier, David

  Trotter, Neville

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle and

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Mr. David Lightbown

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Sir Anthony Grant: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have to report to you that, in the last Division, the Division bell did not ring in St. Stephen's Tower, where my office is located. I should be grateful if you would cause an inquiry to be made into why it did not ring.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I shall ask the Serjeant at Arms to make inquiries into the failure of the Division bell.

New Clause 18

  SALE OF KNIVES TO JUVENILES
  `. (1) Any person who sells to a person under the age of sixteen an article to which section 132 of this Act applies shall be guilty of an offence.
  (2) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) above shall be liable on summary conviction to a line not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.'.— [Mrs. Ann Taylor.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  8.30 pm
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may take the following new clauses:
  No. 19ߞ Advertising of knives ߞ
  '(1) Any person who sells, hires or offers for sale or hire with verbal, written or graphic reference to its potential offensive or defensive use an article to which section 132 of this Act applies shall be guilty of an offence.
  (2) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) above shall be liable on summary conviction to a tine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.'.
  No. 29— Sale of knives to juveniles (No. 2)ߞ
  `. (1) Any person who sells to a person under the age of eighteen an article to which section 132 of this Act applies shall be guilty of an offence.
  (2) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) above shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.'.
  No. 45— Sale of offensive weapons to children ߞ
  `No person shall supply, offer to supply or agree to supply any items referred to in section 134 of this Act to any person apparently under the age of 16 years.'.
  No. 46— Advertising of offensive weapons ߞ
  `(1) No object which is an offensive weapon within the meaning of section 134 of this Act may be sold, hired or offered for sale with verbal, written or graphic reference to its potential offensive use.
  (2) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale.'.
  Mrs. Taylor: Following the last interesting debate and very close vote, I hope that the Government will take a great deal of notice of the arguments to be marshalled in later debates, because the more Conservative Members listen to the arguments, the more they are willing to vote against the Government. I hope that the Government will take that on board and perhaps consider the points raised in the last debate and other ways of dealing with the problems that we discussed.
  New clause 18 deals with another important issue—the problem of knives and the carrying of knives and, particularly, the sale of knives to juveniles and the way in which knives and other offensive weapons are advertised in this country. New clause 18 would ban the sale of knives to young people under age 16. Some people have suggested that we should ban the sale of knives to people under 18. We shall be happy to discuss what would be an appropriate age, but we have suggested banning the sale of knives to young people under 16 because knives are extremely dangerous weapons and are being used increasingly.
  We must act quickly to counteract the serious knife-carrying sub-culture that appears to have developed, particularly among young people and in certain parts of the country. That is primarily, but not exclusively, a problem in London and, like many other problems that started in London, it is now being exported elsewhere. Perhaps the violence that we have seen recently in Essex and other rural parts of the country will make the Government realise that violent crime is not just an urban problem. It has pervaded the whole country and must be taken more seriously.
  The carrying and use of knives has become increasingly commonplace. Between 1985 and 1986 the number of street robberies in London involving the use of knives rose by one third. In 1986, knives were used in 650 muggings and 1,100 violent attacks in Lambeth alone. We know that young people are increasingly involved in crime generally and that many of the offenders involved in street crime are young people.
  The Minister of State, who is not here at present, told us in Committee that the peak age for offending is now 15, for both boys and girls. Many of us may well be surprised when we first learn at what age young people start to carry knives. In a recent police amnesty on playground weapons, knives were handed in from children as young as 11 or 12. When we discussed that problem in Committee, I quoted the case of a head teacher in my area of West Yorkshire who had confiscated many knives from youngsters in his school and handed them to the police during the amnesty and was quite rightly appalled to see even more offensive weapons, and weapons described as offensive, on sale to anyone.
  In new clause 18 we are trying to make it as difficult as possible for youngsters to get hold of weapons. We must try to halt the trend for carrying knives by hitting at the root of the problem. If it is easy for young people to obtain knives, it is all too easy for them to carry and use them. We realise that simply by saying that weapons should not be sold to young people we shall not see the end of the problem. Youngsters will continue to obtain weapons from friends and parents, and some may steal them. But we should still try to put as many obstacles as possible in the way of children who try to obtain and use knives.
  We have all heard about the events in Europe last week with the English soccer fans. I do not want to dwell on that
  908
  now, but one incident involved a young West German who was stabbed by English supporters in one of the several fights that took place. It is clear, not just from events abroad, that carrying knives has become fashionable—strangely fashionable to those of us who are a little older —among young men wanting to promote a macho image. What develops as a fashion then becomes a necessity. Young people need to be convinced that it is silly and dangerous to carry knives.
  Mr. David Winnick: I apologise for not being here for the start of my hon. Friend's speech. Is she aware of reports that there are certain gangs that will not allow a youth to join unless he has a knife on him and, in some cases, unless he can say that the knife has been used? Such is the knife culture in our sick society.
  Mrs. Taylor: My hon. Friend is right to describe such a culture as part of a sick society. We have seen too many gangs of youngsters egging each other on and encouraging each other to use violence. That is a dangerous state of affairs.
  We believe that the way to prevent the spread of that knife-carrying culture and of the groups to which my hon. Friend referred is to discourage people from as early an age as possible from carrying knives. At present, any young person can get hold of a knife or other dangerous weapon, and the new clause seeks to make that task much more difficult.
  It was disturbing to read in newspaper reports last week that children as young as 10 or 11 are now carrying knives in London, out of fear. The problem was identified by a number of community and police consultative groups in a joint letter to the press, which said:
  "The carrying of knives must be curbed before it spreads uncontrollably—for when one set of youths carries knives out of bravado, the next set carries them out of fear, for self-defence (which so easily results, not in security, but in the giving or receiving of injuries). Youths need to be persuaded that it is foolish not glamorous or protective to carry knives."
  The police officer involved in the south London campaign to reduce the carrying of knives by the young there said that knife carrying was no longer simply for machismo or robbery, but because young people were afraid to walk the streets without protection.
  Ms. Joan Ruddock: I am aware of that campaign in south London because my constituency is affected by the knife culture. I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that many young people who carry knives for protection end up being injured by those knives. Because they have protection, they get into a conflict, and the knife that they are carrying to protect themselves is used to injure them. That is an immense danger of which young people should be made aware.
  Mrs. Taylor: My hon. Friend makes the valid point that knives are dangerous to the carrier as well as to the potential victim. As she says, the knife may be carried not as an offensive weapon but as a defensive weapon. That is a salutary point that should be emphasised to young people. A vicious circle of weapon carrying is being created, and we are trying to break it with our new clause.
  Mr. Winnick: Especially if there is drink.
  Mrs. Taylor: As my hon. Friend rightly says, this is especially so if drink is involved. That point relates to other amendments to this and other legislation that we

  909
  shall discuss at a later stage. The combination of knife carrying and the consumption of alcohol is extremely dangerous. It is something that young people who are under the age for drinking, and who should, we argue, be under the age for buying weapons, ought to bear in mind and have emphasised to them as part of their general education.
  Young people fear that others may be carrying knives, so they themselves carry weapons for protection. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms. Ruddock) said, that does not always have the desired effect. We want to break this dangerous habit of young people carrying offensive weapons for defensive reasons.
  In Committee we welcomed and supported clause 132, and we accepted, with some reluctance but out of necessity, clause 133, which extends the powers of the police to stop people who are carrying knives and alters the onus of proof. The Government have argued that a ban on the sale of weapons such as that suggested in new clause 18 would be difficult to implement and would be ineffective. The Home Office has said:
  "Nor does the Home Secretary believe that much would be achieved by banning the sales of knives to people under the age of 16. Many of the knives carried by young people are found in every home and imposing age restrictions on their sale could not prevent young people from getting hold of them."
  The legislation banning the sale of solvent glues and of fireworks to children has not always prevented young people from getting hold of those commodities, but that does not invalidate the benefits of such legislation. It has reduced the number of children who get hold of such items without parental supervision. Extending such a ban increases parental guidance and authority over what children are doing. In view of some of the Government's comments on other matters, I should have thought that they would be interested in this. It has been argued that it is difficult for shopkeepers to tell the age of young people who are trying to buy knives. This is a problem, but it is one that will always exist. Such problems have not stopped the introduction of bans on the sale to juveniles of solvents, fireworks, cigarettes and alcohol.
  We must stop the developing culture of weapons carrying among the young, and one of the best ways to do that is to make it more difficult for young people to obtain these weapons. We do not claim that the new clause will immediately stop the sale of knives to those under 16.Some youngsters look older than their years, but others will be discouraged from trying to buy weapons, or will find that they are refused when they try to do so and the responsible shopkeepers challenge them as to their age.
  8.45 pm
  We know that the Government are aware of the problems of the use of knives, but they have concentrated their efforts on making the possession of a knife without good reason the offence. We support that move and the ban on the sale of martial arts weapons. The new clause, which would ban the sale of knives to juveniles, would complement the steps being taken by the Government. If the Government were to accept the new clause, it would contribute towards breaking the culture of knife carrying.
  New clause 19 seeks to control the advertising of knives and other offensive weapons. The Government see the possession of knives as the main problem, but we believe that this is only part of the problem. The growing sub-culture that encourages possession is one of the main
  910
  difficulties that we face. Part of this may be due to fear, but a major part of the problem is the easy availability of knives and the way in which they are advertised. Action is needed to counter the sub-culture by reducing the glamour associated with it, which the advertisers of the knives encourage. The advertising of knives as offensive weapons must be stopped if we are to combat the problem of knife-carrying youths. The problem is particularly prevalent in gun and survivalist magazines, which often offer for mail order purchase offensive weapons and knives that can be dangerous.
  In a letter to the Lambeth police consultative group the Home Secretary said:
  "It would be difficult to seek to prohibit the advertising of weapons which can be purchased legally, nor do we believe that statutory controls would be a suitable means of attempting to influence such advertisements. The British code of advertising practice, however, exercises a voluntary control, and we have entered into discussion with the Advertising Standards Authority, which administers the code, to see whether there is scope for developing further guidance in relation to the advertising of weapons."
  Progress on those lines is not adequate, but it seems doubtful that the manufacturers, the wholesalers and the retailers who advertise an object as having a defensive use will wish to be bound by a voluntary code. Given that the criminal law is to be changed to make it an offence to carry a knife or other implement in a public place, it seems only logical to place statutory controls over how such items are advertised. It makes a mockery of the law that, while it is illegal to have knives as offensive weapons in a public place, it is not illegal to have them advertised in a way that suggests that they have a use as a defensive weapon in a public place.
  If the Government are serious about wanting to deal with the problem of knife carrying and the use of knives as an offensive weapon, they should accept the new clause to ban the advertising of such knives. The glamour of weaponry should be discouraged. The macho knife-carrying culture is something that advertising encourages, and we would like to see the problem tackled. I hope the Government will acknowledge that this is a real problem and accept our new clauses as constructive suggestions on how to deal with it.
  Mr. Tony Favell: I shall direct my remarks to new clause 29, which stands in my name. Like the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), I want to prohibit the sale of knives to young people. The difference between us is that I want to prohibit sale to those under 18 years as opposed to those under 16.
  Like the hon. Lady, I am seriously worried by the increasing number of young people who carry knives I agree that there is a spiral effect. Young people carry knives to project a macho image. I agree that the next step is for young people to carry them as a form of self-defence. I speak from personal experience. My son is now 19 years of age, and I recall that when he was 15 or 16 he asked me whether I thought that he should carry a knife for his self-defence. Fortunately, he came to me. I would have considered it a serious matter if a shopkeeper had sold him a knife. It would not have been an offence at that time, nor is it an offence now. For that reason, I have tabled new clause 29.
  It is unfortunate that figures on the use of knives are so scanty. However, as the hon. Member for Dewsbury said, during the first half of 1987 the number of robberies, or street robberies involving the use of knives, or sharp

  911
  instruments, increased by almost one third in London. Many of those offences involved young people. It was suggested in another place by Lord Caithness, Minister of State, Department of the Environment, that many youths in some parts of the country carry knives as everyday wear. At Burnage high school in Manchester, which is not far from my constituency, there was a horrendous murder of a young coloured child, resulting from the carrying of knives in the playground.
  It has been estimated that 13 or 14 per cent. of all offences of violence are committed by persons under the age of 16 years. The figure increases to 25 per cent. when we include offences committed by those under the age of 18 years.
  Like the hon. Member for Dewsbury, I welcome clause 132, which introduces the new offence of carrying a knife without lawful excuse. I have pressed for such a provision ever since I was elected to this place. I should like to see the clause go further, as the new clause suggests. If it were not an offence to sell tobacco to a person under 16 years of age, more would smoke even though it is not an offence to do so. If it were not an offence to sell liquor to someone under 18 years of age, I think that more would drink. If it were not an offence to supply drugs to persons of any age, more people would take drugs. More people will use knives, especially young people, if it is not an offence to sell such items to them.
  Mr. John Fraser: I support the provisions in the Bill relating to offensive weapons, including knives. I support also the new clauses that have been tabled by my right hon. and hon. Friends, which I prefer to the two new clauses of a similar nature which I tabled. I want to strengthen still further the controls that are set out in the Bill. In saying that, I am representing the views of constituents in all walks of life. As I represent a multiracial constituency, I can say that I represent the views of all races as well.
  My constituents, both as individuals and members of organisations within the community, are sickened by the injury, maiming and slaughter resulting from the use of dangerous implements, especially knives. Sometimes a knife is used in temper. That, of course, does not mitigate the results of that action for the victims. If a knife is carried, what might have resulted in a bloody nose can extend to the severing of an artery or the puncturing of a lung. What might have involved a bruise becomes a serious laceration. In other circumstances, knives are used for the cold and calculating creation of terror in the course of robbery or other crimes.
  In the past year or so I can think of about six unlawful killings that have taken place in my constituency. It is true that not all of them have resulted in convictions for murder. Sometimes those who have committed the offences have not been apprehended. Alternatively, of those who have appeared before the courts, some have been found not guilty. However, that toll of unlawful killings is extremely high in one constituency over about a year.
  We in Lambeth have been very much reinforced in our attitudes by the hard work that has been undertaken by those who have campaigned against knives. I refer especially to Jean Hayley and David Green, who have been associated with a campaign called WHY, which has
  912
  operated in my constituency and beyond. The campaign has received the full co-operation of Lambeth borough council, including its recent leader. It has used our libraries to mount exhibitions of the sort of weapons that are used. Photographs have been shown of the ghastly results of the use of knives. This has helped to turn public opinion against knives. Of course, those who have supported WHY have not been the only ones to campaign, and my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) referred to the local police-community consultative committee. The local authority has been active, and that is true also of the local newspapers.
  The results of this activity have been interesting. Many parts of the community have got together—tenants' associations, the WHY campaign, the police-community consultative committee and both black and white organisations have worked side by side—and there has been a fundamental change in public opinion. There is widespread disapproval among adults and older people of the carrying of knives, and that has started to cause a reduction in the habit. That is the only way in which crime can be fought effectively. If people in clubs and pubs disapprove of a course of action—in this instance, the carrying of knives—and if that view is taken by people in one's street, block or the house next door, eventually that course of conduct tends to diminish. That is the result if the view is taken generally by those with whom one lives, plays and works. It becomes less fashionable and less of a culture, with the result that the crime tends to diminish. That is the only way in which we can effectively control crime.
  There are many examples. Harsh penalties have been introduced for heinous offences, including terrorism. If there is emotional, material and spiritual support within a community for particular types of crime, those crimes will continue to be committed, no matter how harsh the penalties, the punishment, the vigour of the pursuit of detection and the controls that are introduced.
  In my constituency, the general expression of public disapproval is having an effect on the carrying of knives and the views that young people have of them. They are now receiving a different message from their parents, pals and what sociologists call their peer groups. If the House accepts my analysis—that the most powerful and cheapest weapon is public opinion and social and peer group pressure—it must back up the community. It is no good our doing all these things and not being backed up by legislation and the Government.
  We have to work against encouragements which operate in a different direction such as advertisements, shop displays and pictures in magazines. My objection is not that the displays or advertisements are neutral, but that the context is of illegal use. The atmosphere implies that the weapon should be used as an illegal weapon of offence or defence.
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: Does my hon. Friend agree that some of these weapons seem to have very little lawful use? Indeed, they are designed and decorated to look offensive and frightening. The advertiser makes them look offensive. That is part of the culture about which we are talking.
  Mr. Fraser: I am sure that that is right.
  The Bill divides weapons into two classes. One class consists of those with no inherent useful purpose, such as death stars and certain types of flail. I take it that if they

  913
  are banned outright, their advertisement and display will also become illegal. The second class includes knives. It is true that there is some ambivalence about their use, but the advertising or display about which I am speaking makes it clear that the intention of the advertiser or the person displaying the knives is that they should be used unlawfully.
  9 pm
  It is no use the community working its guts out to reduce the use of knives when they are glamorised in magazines. People know what instincts they are pandering to when they sell them. Knives are sold by mail order to people, irrespective of age, attitude or mentality who the vendors do not meet. We should assert that the advertisement of weapons and knives in that way should be illegal.
  If the House acts, it will not be so difficult for newspapers and the Advertising Standards Authority to follow our lead and to ensure that, by following the honest, decent, legal and truthful code, they can operate administratively to control advertisements for such weapons.
  We must also bar advertisements by means of display. Such advertisements would not automatically be illegal. There are shops which sell little other than knives and weapons and which display them in circumstances which make it clear that they are intended for aggressive purposes. There is a shop in Rye lane one half of which is devoted to the display and advertisement of the most lethal-looking sheath knives and clasp knives. They are displayed in a context which makes it clear that their use is likely to be illegal.
  Knives, chisels and other sharp instruments are displayed in hardware shops or builders' merchants, but in a context where their use is likely to be useful and lawful. Those who go to the kitchen department of a multiple store will see knives and canteens of cutlery on display, but in an atmosphere where their use is likely to be legal. Perhaps the amendments on armoury shops are a more appropriate vehicle than those which concern advertisement, but I object most strongly to knives being sold in a context which is not associated with a useful purpose. That is bound to inspire the wrong motives in buyers. I think that we ought to apply the test of intention and likely use. The House should prevent the advertisement and display of such weapons in the circumstances that I have described.
  A new clause which bans the sale of knives to juveniles will not, of course, prevent some juveniles from being able to get hold of knives. They will still be able to go into the kitchen department of a multiple store and buy knives, but an amendment would add care and prudence to the sale. New clause 29 would prevent juveniles from buying knives in kitchen departments or hardware shops.
  We should put a seal of disapproval on the purchase and possession of knives. We should say that people should be prudent and worried when a knife is sold to a young person. If a knife is really needed a parent or responsible adult should buy it; it should not be sold to a juvenile. It would not cost very much to do that. There are many examples in legislation of a ban on the supply of goods or products to young people. It has been conspicuously successful in the sale of solvents and glue, which has caused a monstrous problem in my part of London. That problem is now diminishing because of the
  914
  lead given by the House, after long hesitation. I am sure that the same will be true of knives. I hope that the House will reinforce the air of disapproval that has developed in my community.
  As the new clauses are linked to clause 132, I should like to know whether the Minister will consider how it will operate. It appears to allow two defences. First, it will be a defence if there is a lawful excuse for carrying a knife in a public place. Secondly, and without prejudice to the generality of the clause, there is a particular defence of using a knife for religious or work purposes. The problem is that when someone is charged with the offence of possessing a knife in a public place, he always seems to have a lawful excuse. The Government should reconsider clause 132 so that the new clauses, if they are agreed to, will be effective.
  My father-in-law is a farrier, so it would be a lawful use of a knife if he were paring the hoof of a horse in the street. That would be part of his work. However, a frequent excuse for carrying a knife is that the person is a chef or a butcher. Clause 132 should make such a defence much more difficult. A knife should be carried to work in a way that ensures that it cannot instantly be used. For example, a carpenter would have it locked in his tool box. That would help to prove the reasonable excuse that the knife was being carried for the purpose of work.
  Clause 132 should include a provision that if a knife or weapon is not in immediate use—for example, paring the hoof of a horse—it should be an offence to carry it unless it is firmly wrapped up or locked away and cannot immediately be used. Without that provision, there will continue to be a long trail of defences. Somehow, people coming out of bars, dance halls, football grounds or discotheques always seem to be on their way to a fishing expedition, to repair a window or to cut some string.
  I ask the Government to reinforce the weight and wave of public opinion against the use of knives by accepting the new clauses.
  Mr. Alex Carlile: I support the new clauses and wish to make two short, but fairly important, points. The first relates to the increasing use of knives by young people, to which reference has already been made and with which the new clauses seek to deal as far as is possible.
  The use by so many young people of such a shocking number of knives leads to the use of other weapons. As has been demonstrated in many court cases, when young people are outside a pub of discotheque there is an expectation that some of them will have knives, and that undoubtedly leads to others bringing bottles and glasses out of the pub or discotheque and using them. The use of knives has a knock-on effect that leads to the use of what can sometimes be far more dangerous weapons, which can often cause even more disabling injury. In my view, the new clauses can make a valuable contribution to reducing the number of knives in circulation, and therefore reducing the number of other weapons used in an allegedly defensive response to the carrying of knives.
  My second point is one that I have made before in the House. It relates to what is euphemistically called "survivalism". It seems to me that young people and, indeed, older people, if they want to enjoy aggressive outdoor pursuits—even pursuits of a somewhat militaristic nature—can do so quite successfully without the use of knives, machetes, bayonets and other vicious weapons that

  915
  can be bought in shops, and even obtained by mail order. It is shocking that so many such shops have sprung up in this country—there is one on the Euston station concourse, where some pretty vicious weapons can be bought on British Rail premises—and have been able to sell items that can only have an offensive and illegitimate purpose. They are doing so under the guise of survivalism.
  It is even more shocking that publications now abound in which similar weapons are advertised for sale. Some of the publications are aimed at adults, but many are aimed specifically at foolish young people whose aggression can be channelled into the lethal weapons that they advertise, possession of which can never really be justified.
  I welcome clauses 132 and 134. Like the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), I recognise, albeit reluctantly, the necessity for clause 133, but I feel that in accepting the new clauses—or, perhaps, more elegantly drafted versions of them—we would be tackling further and more meaningfully the two problems that I have put to the House.
  Mr. Douglas Hogg: I am afraid that I cannot commend any of the new clauses to the House.
  The debate has essentially revolved around two issues. The first is whether it should be an offence to sell a sharp bladed or pointed instrument to a young person—the age limit has varied, depending slightly on the speaker. The second is whether we can apply the criminal code to advertisements.
  Let me deal first with the question of sale, not only of knives, but of sharp bladed and pointed instruments. It is important to emphasise that the new clause is not confined to the sale of knives, but applies to any article that falls within the scope of clause 132. For understandable reasons, hon. Members who have spoken have tended to focus on knives, although clearly the matter goes much further.
  It is right to say that the carrying of knives in a public place is a matter of considerable concern. I stress that it is the carrying of knives in a public place rather than possession qua possession—which may be in a private place—that is the essential cause of concern. It is because the Government recognise that the carrying of knives in a public place is a grave matter that it was they who brought forward clause 132. In essence, the clause provides that a person carrying a bladed or sharp pointed instrument will be deemed to be committing a criminal offence unless he can establish the existence of a good reason.
  That, in essence, is the offence. There are two important points. First, we are dealing with the carrying of pointed or bladed instruments in public placesߞthat is the mischief. Secondly, we have to accept that good and lawful reasons exist for the possession of such instruments, and those lawful reasons can exist for young people as well as for adults.
  9.15 pm
  When one looks at the scope of clause 132, one immediately appreciates the reason. All bladed and pointed instruments fall within the scope of that clause. Scissors, mathematical dividers, any old piece of household cutlery, gardening and agricultural tools, carpentry tools, craft or hobby equipment and sports equipment all inevitably fall within the scope of clause 132.
  916
  The question is whether we wish to say that young people can never lawfully purchase for themselves or by themselves the articles to which I have referred. I do not believe that the House would be justified in asserting that proposition. It is true that we should tackle the problem of possession in a public place, but it does not follow from that that we should prohibit the sale to under-aged persons of articles that they properly and legitimately require for their own use in a private place. I believe that that goes much too far.
  My final point is essentially a drafting one, but as we are talking, not about principle but about legislation, it is right that I should make it. The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) and I have served on various Committees in the past and most recently on the Committee considering the Licensing Bill. May I say how much I enjoyed that privilege. We discussed the sale of alcohol to under-aged persons, and I remember that she stressed her opposition to the concept of the absolute offence and asserted the need to provide a trader with a defence in the event of a bona fide mistake. I do not rest my argument on a drafting point. I would merely mention that the hon. Lady has created an absolute offence and has failed to provide a defence for the bona fide trader acting in good faith. I think that that was a slip and is inconsistent with her attitude to the Licensing Bill.
  Another matter to be considered is the question of advertisements, and again I wish to stress my opposition. It seems to me that one element of criminal law is that it should be reasonably precise in its meaning and capable of reasonable recognition and certain interpretation. The new clause is very subjective in judgment. I cannot readily call to mind any offence concerning the content of advertisements other than those that contravene race relations legislation. I oppose the new clause on the grounds that it is too subjective, too imprecise and is incapable of certain meaning.
  Mr. Winnick: Does the Minister recognise that we are dealing with the continuing use of knives, as illustrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser), who said that in his constituency, in the course of a year, there were six deaths following the use of knives? In view of that, do the Government not recognise that we are faced with an emergency? The Minister's remarks do not seem to recognise the deep anxiety of the Opposition about the continuing use of knives and the knife culture that unfortunately exists among many of our young people.
  Mr. Hogg: There are at least two answers to the hon. Gentleman's points. First, the existence of a major problem does not justify the House passing bad legislation. If my criticism of the advertising clause is right, the legislation is bad, and, notwithstanding the existence of the problem, we should not do it.
  Mr. Fraser: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hogg: I shall finish this point and then give way.
  Secondly, the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) would be well advised to remind himself that clause 132 is the Government's response to the problem. It was not anybody else who brought it forward; it was the Government.
  Mr. Winnick: After pressure.
  Mr. Hogg: No. The hon. Gentleman is wholly wrong on that point. I have a great familiarity with the clause because, before my hon. Friend the Minister took responsibility for the Criminal Justice Bill, I was heavily involved in the formulation of this offence. I can tell the House with absolute certainty that the Government came forward with this proposal to deal with precisely the problem to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
  Mr. Fraser: The Trade Descriptions Act 1972 makes it a criminal offence to publish certain misleading advertisements. The Act is difficult to enforce and there are problems. In practice, there is an arrangement between trading standards officers and the Advertising Standards Authority. The authority is able to translate what we want into a code of practice that it administers—for most of the time without the intervention of the criminal law. It would be extremely helpful if the Minister would do something to give legal support to the Advertising Standards Authority in constructing a code of practice which as a matter of practice, if not as a matter of the operation of the criminal law, will outlaw that type of advertisement.
  Mr. Hogg: That subject is not referred to in the new clause, as the hon. Gentleman will bear in mind. Under the Trade Descriptions Act the court is concerned with whether a statement is misleading. In the end, that is a matter of fact. We are now concerned with the subjective interpretation of the content of an advertisement, and that is different in kind.
  There is scope for discussions between the Home Office and the Advertising Standards Authority. As the hon. Member for Dewsbury, who read out a letter from my right hon. Friend, has made plain, we are doing that. In the end, the major problem is the carrying of knives in a public place. It is that matter to which the House needs to devote its attention.
  Mr. Favell: I have listened carefully to my hon. Friend speaking about the difficulty of forbidding the sale of all items that will be covered by clause 132. I am disappointed that, apparently, the Government will not accept the amendment. Will my hon. Friend monitor whether, when clause 132 becomes part of the Act, it reduces the number of offences involving the use of knives? Unfortunately, at the moment Home Office figures about the use of knives are scanty. They show the number of offences of violence, but not those offences involving the use of knives. It would be helpful if the figures were available in case further legislation is to be brought forward.
  Mr. Hogg: If the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis were to conclude that the legislation reflected in what is now clause 132 was inadequate, he would tell us without much delay. That is perhaps the most effective way of responding to the concern that my hon. Friend has voiced. We are concerned specifically with the carrying of sharp bladed instruments in public places. Clause 132 is an effective response to that problem, and I would not commend any of the new clauses to the House.
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: The Minister has shown a remarkable degree of complacency about this important and significant problem. Earlier we were all in agreement—certainly some Conservative Members agreed with us—that the increase in violence was extremely worrying. It is not simply a London problem, as the Minister seemed to imply when he said that he would listen to the
  918
  Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis; it is a much wider problem. It affects not only all our major cities, but many large towns and, over recent weeks, rural areas, too. I should have thought that that would bring home to the Government how extensive some of these difficulties are.
  The Minister is complacent because he is suggesting that the major problem is simply the carrying of knives in public places. It is far more complex and difficult than that. I should have thought that it was obvious that if we restricted the sale of knives there would be fewer knives to carry in public places. The Minister has not taken on board our arguments and anxiety about violent crime.
  Mr. Winnick: When the Minister said that the Government acted without any pressure, would it be useful to remind him that in this Parliament my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner) introduced an Adjournment debate on the subject, the response to which was along the lines that no action could be taken? It was as a result of renewed public pressure at about this time last year and the way that the Metropolitan police, for example, displayed a number of knives being used that the Government decided to act, and we now have clause 132.
  Mrs. Taylor: My hon. Friend has put his finger on a significant point. Before I was in this House, many Opposition Members were pressing for far stricter controls on the sale, use and carriage of knives. Yet it is only in the past year or so that the Government have recognised this problem.
  The Minister did not give an answer to the problem of violent crime. He simply concentrated on the carrying of weapons. He did not, for example, deal with the point that the peak age for offenders is now 15 years. In other words, the largest single age group of offenders are of the young age of 15. They would be covered by a ban on the sale of knives such as we are proposing. If they are covered, that would surely help to reduce—it would not completely solve the problem—the number of young people who carry and attempt to use knives.
  The Minister gave as reasons for rejecting the new clause several problems. He said that the ban would be difficult to implement and we all know of those difficulties. But they did not extend to glue sniffing and the problems that the Government saw in acting on that.
  Mr. Douglas Hogg: The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) have been chiding the Government for late conversion, but I am sure that they both studied the Conservative manifesto with considerable attention. It made a positive commitment to strengthening the law dealing with the sale and possession of offensive weapons, of which this is a reflection, not a late conversion.
  Mrs. Taylor: I am sure that the Minister will be aware that the Labour party's document, "Protecting Our Children", which was published six months before the general election, advocated even tougher controls on the sale of knives. Obviously the Minister learnt from reading our policy documents and I shall send him copies of many others in the hope that he will learn a great deal more.
  9.30 pm
  The Minister has been extremely complacent about the matter. It must be obvious to any lay person what is more dangerous—solvents, glue, fireworks, or knives and

  919
  sharp-edged weapons. If the Government can bring themselves to control the sale of glue, solvents, fireworks, cigarettes and alcohol to young people, they should control the sale of dangerous weapons. Until we take strong action, the influence of the knife culture will increase and there will be more crimes of violence on our streets.
  We welcome clause 132, but it is not sufficient and I urge the House to vote for the new clause.
  Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:ߞߞ
  The House divided: Ayes 132, Noes 218.

  Division No. 367]

  [9.30 pm

  AYES

  Anderson, Donald

  Gould, Bryan

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Graham, Thomas

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Ashton, Joe

  Grocott, Bruce

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Battle, John

  Henderson, Doug

  Beckett, Margaret

  Hinchliffe, David

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

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Home Robertson, John

  Blunkett, David

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

  Boateng, Paul

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Boyes, Roland

  Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

  Bradley, Keith

  Janner, Greville

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)

  Buchan, Norman

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

  Buckley, George J.

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Caborn, Richard

  Lambie, David

  Callaghan, Jim

  Lamond, James

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Lewis, Terry

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Litherland, Robert

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Livingstone, Ken

  Clay, Bob

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Cohen, Harry

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  McCartney, Ian

  Corbett, Robin

  McNamara, Kevin

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Cousins, Jim

  Marek, Dr John

  Cryer, Bob

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Maxton, John

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Meacher, Michael

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

  Meale, Alan

  Dewar, Donald

  Michael, Alun

  Dixon, Don

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Eadie, Alexander

  Mullin, Chris

  Eastham, Ken

  Murphy, Paul

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  O'Brien, William

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Fatchett, Derek

  Parry, Robert

  Faulds, Andrew

  Patchett, Terry

  Fearn, Ronald

  Pike, Peter L.

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

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

  Prescott, John

  Flannery, Martin

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Flynn, Paul

  Reid, Dr John

  Foster, Derek

  Richardson, Jo

  Fraser, John

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Fyfe, Maria

  Rooker, Jeff

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Rowlands, Ted

  George, Bruce

  Ruddock, Joan

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Skinner, Dennis

  Gordon, Mildred

  Snape, Peter

  920

  Spearing, Nigel

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Winnick, David

  Strang, Gavin

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Worthington, Tony

  Vaz, Keith

  Wray, Jimmy

  Wall, Pat

  Wallace, James

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Walley, Joan

  Mr. Frank Haynes and

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Mr. Allen McKay.

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Favell, Tony

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Alexander, Richard

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Amess, David

  Forman, Nigel

  Amos, Alan

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Arbuthnot, James

  Franks, Cecil

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Freeman, Roger

  Ashby, David

  French, Douglas

  Atkins, Robert

  Fry, Peter

  Atkinson, David

  Gale, Roger

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Gardiner, George

  Baldry, Tony

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Batiste, Spencer

  Gill, Christopher

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Benyon, W.

  Gow, Ian

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Biggs-Davison, Sir John

  Gregory, Conal

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Grist, Ian

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Ground, Patrick

  Boswell, Tim

  Grylls, Michael

  Bottomley, Peter

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Bowis, John

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

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Harris, David

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Brazier, Julian

  Hayward, Robert

  Bright, Graham

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

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

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Hill, James

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Hind, Kenneth

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Burns, Simon

  Holt, Richard

  Burt, Alistair

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Butcher, John

  Howard, Michael

  Butler, Chris

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Butterfill, John

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Carrington, Matthew

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Carttiss, Michael

  Hunter, Andrew

  Cash, William

  Irvine, Michael

  Chapman, Sydney

  Irving, Charles

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Jack, Michael

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Jackson, Robert

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Janman, Tim

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Jessel, Toby

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Couchman, James

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Cran, James

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Key, Robert

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

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Day, Stephen

  Knapman, Roger

  Devlin, Tim

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Knowles, Michael

  Dicks, Terry

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Lang, Ian

  Dover, Den

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Dunn, Bob

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Durant, Tony

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Fallon, Michael

  Lightbown, David

  921

  Lilley, Peter

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Lord, Michael

  Steen, Anthony

  Luce, Rt Hon Richard

  Stern, Michael

  McCrindle, Robert

  Stevens, Lewis

  Maclean, David

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Sumberg, David

  Madel, David

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Malins, Humfrey

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Maples, John

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Mills, Iain

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Tracey, Richard

  Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

  Trippier, David

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Trotter, Neville

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Moss, Malcolm

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Waller, Gary

  Neubert, Michael

  Ward, John

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Watts, John

  Paice, James

  Wells, Bowen

  Patnick, Irvine

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Patten, John (Oxford W)

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Wilshire, David

  Renton, Tim

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Wolfson, Mark

  Riddick, Graham

  Wood, Timothy

  Rowe, Andrew

  Yeo, Tim

  Ryder, Richard

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Shersby, Michael

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Mr. Alan Howarth and

  Squire, Robin

  Mr. Stephen Dorrell.

  Question accordingly negatived.

New Clause 60

  PROSTITUTION (OPTION OF CUSTODY)
  `The court may impose a custodial sentence on a prostitute convicted of soliciting when it does not consider a fine an appropriate deterrent.'.— [Mrs. Maureen Hicks.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Mrs. Maureen Hicks: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  I thank Mr. Speaker for judging my new clause worthy of debate. It would restore to the courts the ability to imprison prostitutes found guilty of persistent soliciting where fines have not been considered an effective deterrent. Such is the magnitude of the problem in the town of Wolverhampton, part of which I represent, and the other red light centres that have been regularly featured in some horrific television programmes recently that I felt moved to table this, my first ever, new clause. That surely reflects the gravity of the problem which, I believe, needs to be urgently resolved for the sake of those who live with it on their doorstep.
  Had I been called to speak last Thursday evening, I should have expressed my personal fear that, unless the Government took urgent steps to address themselves to the growing problem of street prostitute soliciting and residents living within the same neighbourhood, those directly affected in Wolverhampton would resort to taking the law into their own hands, as people have done in Birmingham in recent months. It is with great sadness that
  922
  I have to report that on Friday, by sheer coincidence, that is exactly what happened. One group of residents who suffer particularly from the problem had reached the end of their tether. They called a meeting at which they decided to form their own vice patrols to get rid of the problem themselves. In addition, they threatened to withhold payment of their rates. I am glad to say that swift action by the local police in co-operating with them has resolved the problem temporarily. They have agreed to postpone their actions, but warned that if the police fail to get rid of the prostitutes they will go ahead with their plansߞwhich only serves to increase my anxiety.
  I ask the House to recognise that the Criminal Justice Act 1982, which removed the option of imprisonment, has proved unsuccessful. Far from having limitedߞlet alone eliminated—the problem of soliciting, the 1982 Act has merely served to increase it. In places such as Wolverhampton it has opened the floodgates to what can only be called a thriving business, to the detriment of local residents who unfortunately now realise that they are living in a town with the reputation of the vice centre of the west midlands.
  9.45 Pm
  In Wolverhampton, from January to May of this yearߞonly a five-month period—there were 683 arrests, which was nearly the same as the total for 12 months in 1983, the year after imprisonment was removed, when there were only 737. Such high figures speak for themselves, and there are still seven months to go.
  This large increase is not confined to my area. Nationally, in 1986, the latest year for which figures are available, 9,098 prostitutes were found guilty of street soliciting. That compares with 1982, when only 5,811 were found guilty. So how can anyone argue that the legislation that we endorsed has succeeded in checking the rise?
  It is easy for us, debating statistics in the Chamber, but I am concerned about the human effect on the people who are touched by the problem. They are the people who must live with the problem on their doorsteps night and day, and naturally they are running out of patience. They feel imprisoned: they can no longer live with the problem, but they cannot sell their homes because it would be commercially unrealistic to do so. It might be easy for hon. Members from leafier suburbs, who talk liberally about letting the prostitutes live—as long as they do so in other people's back yards. But if we had to look out of our front windows every day, only to be confronted by prostitutes visibly touting for business, we might see the problem differently. If hon. Ladies knew that when they went to their local bus stop they stood a good chance of being stopped by a kerb crawler who might assume that they were on the game—for that is the assumption made about all ladies in these areas—they might see it differently, too.
  How would we feel about bringing up children in an environment in which it is commonplace to see scantily dressed, provocative females, whose appearance is designed to entice and excite would-be customers? I have a nine-year-old child, and I would like to think that he was at home doing his homework or playing with his toys in the evening. So imagine my sadness when Wolverhampton ended up in the national newspapers in a story about a little girl of eight who had been enticed by a prostitute to become involved in sexual activity with a male customer.

  923
  I hear reports from residents of 13-year-old boys being used as pimps to stop kerb crawlers and get them round the corner to do business with prostitutes.
  Often, things must be seen to be believed. In the early days, when I was a candidate, I thought that the problem might be exaggerated and I made up my mind to go out on a night patrol with the vice squad for a complete shift. That experience convinced me that if I ever got into the House, however unpopular the subject might be, it would be my duty to do something about the most serious problem that confronts my town. What I saw that night on patrol was an absolute farce. The prostitutes seemed to mushroom as the night went on and the police were forced to take them in. The police were so regularly taking them in that they were on Christian name terms. They laughed at me, assuming that I must also be on the game. The police knew that within half an hour of paying a small fine the prostitutes would be back on the streets trying to get business.
  Prostitutes know that the courts have at their disposal only a modest fine to impose, and the police say that, if the fines do anything, they encourage the prostitutes to work even harder. As the House knows, mounting fines are commonplace, and only two years ago Birmingham recorded that it had £40,000 worth of outstanding fines! On that patrol night the prostitutes were laughing and saw the whole thing as a joke. We had to break off playing cat and mouse round the streets to look for two young children who had been missing for days. It increased the seriousness of the matter for me when the police had to stop looking for those children because they were needed again in the vice squad area. That brought home to me whether this was the best use of police resources in a town that puts many demands on its police. But obviously we have a duty to answer the demands of the people who have to live with the problem.
  The time has come for the House to recognise that we might not have known best and that fines are not a deterrent. We have frustrated police officers, frustrated magistrates, frustrated residents and a frustrated council all of whom feel that they are banging their heads against a brick wall. In addition, magistrates now lack the power to impose even a community service order. They could have done that when imprisonment was an option. It may sound strange to the House when I say that it is considered that community service orders were used successfully in the past.
  Time prevents me from developing arguments about the role of the pimp and other matters, but I should like to pose some questions. We have in my town a vigilant police force and a chief superintendent who recognises the priority of the problem. He has increased manpower accordingly, often at the expense of other areas. That police force is frustrated and engaged on a soulless task, and the only penalty is a fine. If the fear of AIDS and drug-related problems has no effect, if improved lighting and road management schemes have merely served often to move people from one street to the other when roads have been blocked off, if the Sexual Offences Act 1985, which made kerb-crawling an offence in the hope that it would reduce the problem, and if letters sent to the families of known kerb-crawlers and publicity have failed to contain, let alone reduce, the problem, we have a duty to
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  legislate immediately to provide a deterrent, to give the police the back-up for which they are crying out and to improve the quality of life for long-suffering residents.
  Mr. Robin Corbett: Is the hon. Lady aware that since the law was changed in 1983 to make soliciting not an imprisonable offence more prostitutes have ended up in prison because they have been unable to pay the fines?
  Mrs. Hicks: I am aware of that, but I am also aware that it has become a farce in Birmingham. Prostitutes on whom mounting fines have been imposed merely sit at the back of the court for an hour or two, and that is the end of £400, £500 or £600 worth of fines. I cannot agree that it has proved to be a deterrent. First, the Minister must say to prostitutes that if they continue to cock a snook at the law they will face imprisonment.
  Secondly, I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to review the kerb-crawling legislation in the light of two years' experience as, to date, it has proved very difficult to enforce. Police officers invariably talk of having pages of evidence and of following kerb-crawlers for hours, yet those kerb-crawlers are still let off because there is difficulty in defining what constitutes the word "persistent".
  Given the number of kerb-crawlers that must be around, as it takes both a prostitute and a customer to participate in an activity, we must ask why so few men are being prosecuted. Although we have been successful in Wolverhampton in 1986–87, during which time 47 kerb-crawlers were prosecuted, how is it that, in London, which has the biggest problem, but where only one third of all prosecutions for prostitution come from the Metropolitan police area, a grand total of only three kerb-crawlers were convicted in 1986? The total national figure, in the light of that law which was intended to deter, reveals only 189 prosecutions in England and Wales and 161 convictions.
  Thirdly, I ask my hon. Friend to give further consideration to community orders as another possibility for deterring persistent offenders.
  I hope that the Minister will have taken on board the seriousness and urgency of my case. It might be worth considering that, in 1959, when such blatant street soliciting existed, it was considered that the normal, decent citizen should be able to go about the streets without affront to his or her decency. To achieve that, it was agreed that imprisonment would be introduced as an option to the courts for persistent offenders. The sharp fall in street soliciting after that decision, I believe, speaks for itself.
  Ms. Jo Richardson: The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Hicks) is, in my opinion and that of my party, going down a dangerous road in proposing the new clause. I shall read the report of her speech with care tomorrow, but I did not catch a word about the causes of prostitution and the reasons why women go into prostitution, nor did I catch very many words about the role of men in that, except in her reference to the lack of prosecutions for kerb-crawling.
  In 1983, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) mentioned, Parliament took a progressive step in attempting to keep women out of prison by imposing fines rather than custodial sentences. I well recall the successfully persuasive words of a member of the hon. Lady's party, who is no

  925
  longer a Member of this House—Mr. Matthew Parris—who argued that soliciting should not be an imprisonable offence. Since that came into force, more women have been put in prison for prostitution, but under the guise of unpaid fines, than were in prison for the offence of soliciting. If the hon. Lady consults her figures, I am sure that she will be able to confirm that.
  I am sorry that that is happening because I do not believe that it is right to put those women in prison and I do not believe that it is a deterrent. The hon. Lady's proposal is a backward step and will increase overcrowding in our already overcrowded prisons. The hon. Lady wants to institutionalise that trend by transferring the non-payment of fines sentence into a sentence for soliciting. I hope that the House will resist her proposal.
  Has the hon. Lady been to Holloway prison recently? I suggest that she goes there. It is extremely overcrowded, as are other women's prisons. If she talked to the governor and the prison officers, she would find that they would not welcome what she is proposing, because they are having enough difficulty in coping with the prison population, which includes many women on remand. Apart from the women who are imprisoned for serious offences, there are a number of women in Holloway who are imprisoned for trivial offences, such as shoplifting. This is not the best way to deal with such offences. Before the hon. Lady puts into the minds of magistrates that they have the option, which many of them would useߞߞ
  It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That, at this day's sitting, the Criminal Justice Bill [Lord] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.— [Mr. Alan Howarth]

  Criminal Justice Bill [Lords]
  As amended, again considered.
  Question again proposed, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Ms. Richardson: Before the hon. Lady goes down this road, she should discuss the matter with some of the people who have to operate our prisons and who would not welcome her move.
  Mrs. Maureen Hicks: Although I have not been to Holloway, I have discussed this problem with other prison officers. I hope that that reassures the hon. Lady.
  Ms. Richardson: The hon. Lady may reassure me, but she does not tell me what they said. I am not convinced that they will have said, "Yes, yes, please. We would open our doors if you would propose in Parliament a clause making custodial offences and institutionalising and soliciting once more."
  Miss Ann Widdecombe: Is it not more likely that prison governors would say that they are worried about the overcrowding of prisons in general, but would not express a view about certain types of offences, which are extremely serious to those who suffer from them, if not to those who represent happier constituencies? Have prison governors truly said that there are certain offences for which they do not wish to see imprisonment, rather than speak in general about the numbers?
  Ms. Richardson: In the discussions that I have had with the prison officers, I have not heard that view expressed. I have not heard that they would think it was a good idea to overcrowd their prisons with women convicted of what many of them would regard as a trivial offence. Many prison officers are overstretched in looking after people who have committed serious offences. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East has mentioned people who live in areas where there is prostitution, but prostitution is a victimless crime. It is not a crime from which somebody who is involved in its operation actually suffers. The hon. Lady would have done her constituents a better service by examining some of the reasons why women are driven into prostitution.
  By and large, women go into prostitution because they are poor and because the Government have taken away such economic power as they had—they did not have much before. Women who are single parents, white women, single women, black women, young women and even older women, women who are hit by poor housing, large gas and electricity bills, the inability to care for their families, by the depression which overcomes them because they cannot support their children in the way that they want to do, turn to prostitution. It would become the hon. Lady much better if she recognised that women are the majority of the low paid in this country and in the world. If she asked the Government to adopt policies that did not hit women so hard and instead supported the work that women are trying to do, training schemes for women and women who want to earn a living, she would do a much better service to the constituents who complained to her about the problems caused by prostitution. Instead, the hon. Lady attacks prostitutes, and that will not achieve what she wants.
  Mr. Jeremy Hanley: The hon. Lady seems to be concentrating on female prostitution. Does she believe that male prostitution is no problem?
  Ms. Richardson: I believe that male prostitution is a problem as well. Insofar as I know much about it, often young male prostitutes are driven into prostitution through the lack of money. I have concentrated on women because it happens to be my job to speak for women on behalf of the Opposition, but I am not denying that there are male prostitutes. As I have said, I am sure that many of them have been driven into prostitution because they are poor, badly trained or lack training. If they are poorly trained or untrained, they will lack the ability to take on a variety of jobs. That is something that should be tackled by the Government. The Government should be encouraging employers to pay decent wages.
  Many young girls, young women and young boys go to large cities, in some instances to find jobs. Others wish to get away from difficult home circumstances. Such young people cannot always find jobs. They are often driven into prostitution because they are ill trained and cannot find the variety of jobs that should be available to them to choose from.
  Ms. Mildred Gordon: Does my hon. Friend agree that in some respects the state is pimping on prostitutes? I used to be a visiting teacher at Holloway prison, where I met prostitute women who could not pay the huge fines that were being demanded of them repeatedly. They were often single mothers who went on the game because they could not pay the bills. When they

  927
  were fined repeatedly, there was no way that they could come off it. We need a better benefit system so that these women will not get in that mess in the first place.
  Ms. Richardson: I was about to talk about older women but, first, I shall address myself specifically to young girls.
  Prostitution is a tragedy for girls and young women. However, my hon. Friend is right. I do not have any statistics, but it is probably true that the majority of prostitutes have children and have homes to look after. The only way that they can obtain a decent income is to go on the game. They cannot look to the social security system for that income. I do not think that that is a good thing, but the choice is theirs. I wish that they would find other courses of action preferable so that they could make their contribution in a different way.
  Mr. Bermingham: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the greatest problems when young girls are loose in large cities, if I might put it in that way, is that they often fall prey to the pimp, and once in his hands they are exploited? If the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Hicks) were to have her way, many more prostitutes would find their way into prison. The prostitute has to pay the pimp, and if she cannot pay the fine she will end up in prison. She will go to prison rather than default on the pimp, who often has great physical power over her.
  Ms. Richardson: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. There are young girls, and presumably young boys too, who are under the power of pimps. They get themselves increasingly into difficulties from which they cannot escape because there is no alternative.
  I watched a moving film on television a few weeks ago —I think that it was a repeat—about a husband and wife who were looking for their 15-year-old daughter who had disappeared two years earlier. It was not a documentary. Eventually the father found her in the big city. Although it was not stated explicitly, she was a prostitute. I did not see the problems that faced the father and the problems that faced the daughter that led her to leave home. She wanted to get away and she could not find a job. We know that that happens. We must provide the sort of society that will not cause women to resort to that way of life.
  Miss Widdecombe: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way a second time. She has painted a picture of girls who think that they are forced, through economic circumstances, to go on the game, but how do so many single parents who also maintain homes manage not to do that? Will the hon. Lady consider the cumulative nuisance of prostitution rather than stories of young girls who apparently cannot manage when hundreds of thousands of their counterparts can?
  Ms. Richardson: I do not know where the hon. Lady has been, but I wish that she would come to my surgery. She is right to say that hundreds of thousands of single parents and women with partners try to manage without becoming prostitutes, but they are doing it with the utmost difficulty. It is a constant problem to pay bills.
  I am afraid that the question is rhetorical, but does not the hon. Lady have people coming to her surgery saying that their gas or electricity is about to be cut off, that they are buying cheaper food than they want to buy because
  928
  they cannot get a job which pays a decent wage or because they cannot get decent income support out of the rotten social security system that has recently been introduced?
  The hon. Lady asked why I do not pay attention to the pleas of women constituents of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East. Of course I have sympathy for people who feel that some offence is being committed which is a nuisance to them. All I am saying is that imprisoning them is not a deterrent. They will go to prison and, when they come out, if they still do not have a job or some proper and dignified means of supporting themselves and their families, they will return to prostitution. The hon. Lady is merely ensuring that prisons are fuller than ever. She can be sure that, if magistrates have the option, they will send them straight to prison rather than impose a fine.
  We want a decent policy against poverty for men and women. There should be a decent sentencing policy which ensures that the most serious offences are properly punished but that trivial ones are not. That is how to look after the nuisance, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East calls it, caused to some people in some residential areas. Imprisoning the women concerned is not the answer, and I hope either that the hon. Lady will withdraw her new clause or that the House will defeat it.
  Mr. Douglas Hogg: My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Hicks) has highlighted a considerable social mischief in her constituency, and her constituents will be extremely grateful to her for that, but I cannot commend the new clause to the House. There are four considerations that may influence my hon. Friend and persuade her not to press the clause to a Division.
  The first is a slight drafting difficulty. We are not resting on principle todayߞwe are dealing with a proposed inclusion in a Bill. The problem with the new clause is that it does not prescribe a maximum penalty of imprisonment.
  Mr. Corbett: Life.
  Mr. Hogg: As the hon. Gentleman says, there is no upper limit. That causes a slight difficulty, because courts in some areas might impose a 10 or 15-year sentence. That would be within the scope of the new clause, and I do not think that my hon. Friend intended that.
  10.15 pm
  I shall now deal with the substantive matters. Secondly, this category of offence should not attract a prison sentence. We are trying to confine prison sentences to serious crime—defined, perhaps, as crimes of violence or serious crimes against property. I accept that my hon. Friend has made it plain that prostitution is a serious social mischief, but it is not a crime that should attract a prison sentence. I have no desire for our prisons to be full of prostitutes.
  Thirdly, imprisonment has never served as a deterrent to any prostitute. Until 1982 a sentence of imprisonment was available to the courts, and it was also available at the time of the Wolfenden report. Prostitutes roamed the streets, and the courts were full of them. There is no reason to believe that the problem has become worse since then.
  The fourth consideration that will weigh with the House, if not with my hon. Friend, is the little matter of sexual equality. If we lock up a number of female prostitutes, what will we do about the rent boys? Surely

  929
  they will also have to be locked up. The mind boggles at the prospect of Brixton and Pentonville full of rent boys. That would do nothing for good order and discipline. It would also have a serious effect on the incidence of AIDS in prisons— [interruption.] I have even persuaded my hon. Friend the Minister of State, whose name I was about to invoke because he is shortly to publish a consultative document about alternative punishments in the community. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East is understandably worried that prostitutes cannot be sentenced to community service. She may wish to make some representations to my hon. Friend the Minister of State in the context of that consultative document.
  Mr. Bermingham: I hope that the Minister is not serious. I know that it is late at night, but this is a serious subject. Those of us who were around in the 1970s will remember that those convicted of prostitution and soliciting were sent to prison, which caused enormous problems. We have sought to avoid any hint of imprisonment, so it has been with great sadness that many of us have noted the use of punitive fines as a backdoor method of imprisonment. I hope that the Minister is suggesting only in a jocular way that community service should be an alternative to imprisonment, because that always carries a penal sanction for breach.
  Mr. Hogg: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is being serious. It is important that there is an ultimate sanction against those who persistently and deliberately refuse to pay a fine. It is right that the courts should have the power to impose a sentence of imprisonment on prostitutes in breach. I make no apology for that.
  I was explaining to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East that it would be appropriate
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  to make representations in the context of the consultative document. I am not saying that the Government would respond favourably; I am merely responding to a specific comment. My hon. Friend should be aware of her ability to make such representations. I recognise that in Wolverhampton and elsewhere prostitution is a serious social mischief, but I do not believe that imprisonment is a proper solution. I hope that, on reflection, my hon. Friend will not wish to press the clause to a Division.
  Mrs. Maureen Hicks: I thank my hon. Friend for those comments, but obviously I am bitterly disappointed. lie has offered few crumbs of comfort to those who must live with the problem. I hope that he will in due course reflect on its seriousness and, in the light of any future escalation, consider the matter further. I also hope that he will monitor the position carefully, with due regard to what I have said.
  I suppose that I must thank my hon. Friend at least for telling the people that he intends to issue a consultative document, and I shall of course make myself au fait with the contents. I hope to make a contribution to the arrangements for alternative punishments in the community, as he suggests. In the light of that small but beneficial offer, I shall bow to his judgment and not press the new clause to a Division. I assure him, however, that I intend to monitor the situation carefully, because of my heartfelt sorrow for those who live with it. I have seen the extreme effect that it has on them.
  I have tried tonight to highlight the problems of those who suffer, but the problems of prostitutes themselves are a matter for debate on another occasion. I thank my hon. Friend for his courtesy in listening to me.
  Question put and negatived.

New Clause 63

  INCOME-RELATED FINES
  `A court imposing a fine on an offender convicted of an indictable offence shall, so far as the disposable income of the offender appears or is known to the court, impose a fine of the number of days' disposable income which it appears to the court that the seriousness of the offence and the culpability of the offender require.'.— [Mr. Worthington.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Mr. Worthington: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  The new clause proposes to increase the credibility of the fine systems by ensuring that fines are related more directly to the ability to pay. This is known as the day-fine system, and there are two sides to it. One is to ensure that those with limited incomes are not threatened with an overwhelming fine that is not related to their ability to pay. The other is to ensure that the fines imposed on those with sizeable incomes make an impact on them.
  Day-fine systems have been introduced, and have apparently worked well, in a number of countries, including West Germany, Sweden and Austria. The amount of the fine is arrived at by multiplying a number reflecting the gravity of the offence by a sum that varies in proportion to the offender's income. It is a kind of tariff system, which I think is much fairer.
  This needs to be seen in the context of the general crime position in this country, and also the problem of overcrowding in our prisons. Fines are the principal non-custodial sentence that is imposed. Although they have fallen proportionately in recent years, they still form 39 per cent. of the penalties imposed for all indictable offences.
  As a Scottish Member, I am especially pleased to move the new clause. Scotland has a particular problem of fine defaulting—even larger than the problem in England and Wales. In 1985, half of all admissions to Scottish prisons were due to fine defaulting. Only 6 per cent. of all offenders in prison at any one time were fine defaulters, but their impact on the prison system is colossal, because the overwhelming majority of such sentences are short-term. There are over 400 movements in and out of Barlinnie prison in Glasgow each day, and a significant proportion of those prisoners are fine defaulters. That imposes a considerable logistical problem on the prison. It means that many of the staff can be used not for positive duties, but simply for duties involved in maintaining the prison.
  We wish to consider fines in the context of all other disposals. It is important that those who commit offences receive the appropiate punishment. Sometimes fines are imposed when it is inappropriate, and that leads to people ending up in prison. The opening of a designated place for drink offenders in Albyn house, Aberdeen, had an almost miraculous effect. In the previous year there had been 600 prosecutions for drunkenness. After the opening of Albyn house there were only three, and that meant that there was a significant reduction in the number of fine defaulters.
  Our proposal for day fines is linked to the need to ensure that fines are not imposed inappropriately. I am sure that there is common ground on that. We wish to ensure that there are appropriate disposals for those with drink problems, that the probation service is developed to its full and useful extent, that community service orders are used and that day attendance centres receive more attention than they have done previously.
  Mr. Hanley: Will the hon. Gentleman turn his attention to the serious problem of assessing a person's income if he is self-employed? Would it be assessed on the previous year's income as declared for taxation? Would it be assessed before, or after, business expenses have been considered, and would it include factors that are not allowed for taxation, such as depreciation? Would the present year's income be considered for a person in employment, and, if so, is the hon. Gentleman not further discriminating against people who are assessed under schedule E?
  Mr. Worthington: Before I answer that question, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us how income is assessed at present.
  Mr. Hanley: I shall not answer that question, for the simple reason that I know how to assess an income for tax purposes. I am asking the hon. Gentleman to tell us how he will get an accurate assessment of a person's income for the purpose of fines.
  Mr. Worthington: The reason why I asked the hon. Gentleman to intervene again is that at present there seems to be a limited system for calculating whether people can afford to pay the fine that is imposed. We should move to a system that gives a clearer appreciation of a person's disposable income so that magistrates and Crown courts can be more aware of people's ability to pay. It is sheer foolishness to take a sum out of the air and impose it if the consequence of that will be a waste of public resources. The average cost of maintaining someone in prison is about £250 a week—it ranges from £150 to £500 a week. That is what it costs to imprison people who have defaulted on fines which are on average about £100. It is folly not to examine the size of fines much more closely than we do at present in terms of public resources.
  Mr. Hanley: I merely suggest that the hon. Gentleman should perhaps look to a reform of the taxation system before a reform of the fine system.
  Mr. Worthington: I am working simultaneously on this Bill and the Finance Bill. I am thus attempting to deal with the fine and taxation system at the same time. I assure the hon. Gentleman that if my proposals for a taxation system were adopted many more people at the bottom end of the income scale would be in a position to pay their fines.
  10.30 pm
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: Does my hon. Friend agree that, at any specific time, it is relatively simple to determine someone's disposable income? If all courts had the debt counselling system that the Government have advocated, and which Opposition Members would certainly support, we could help people who find it difficult to pay their fines and develop the expertise for working out people's disposable income when a fine is about to be imposed.
  Mr. Worthington: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. As I said earlier, we hope that, following acceptance of our proposal for day fines, there will also evolve a much more satisfactory system of ensuring that fines are paid, by making sure that the proper social services support or money advice is available. At the moment it seems to be a hit and miss system.
  It would not be sensible to impose a large fine on someone on social security without taking into account all

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  the other outgoings that that person may have, particularly in the present circumstances. Two of the Government's measures will increase the problems of those on social security. One such measure is the poll tax, which will mean that at least 20 per cent. of the country's average poll tax will be paid by people on social security. If anyone imagines that the Government will increase the amount of benefit to compensate for that, he is slightly more naive than I am.
  Mr. Alex Carlile: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the point that was made by the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley). Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, every day, courts are in the business of assessing defendants' disposable income and that that is done for single applications for legal aid? The criminal legal aid form applies a test that is aimed at finding out a person's disposable income. The term "disposable income" is used in the new clause. Therefore, there is no difficulty in assessing disposable income.
  Mr. Worthington: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for his intervention. Of course that is so. As always, the worst possible case has been presented, that of the self-employed person, but the vast majority of people who come before the courts are likely to have no difficulty in declaring their disposable income. It is a familiar request. It is made on numerous occasions in respect of income tax or benefits. It is not a major obstacle.
  This proposal reflects a social fact. The value of money is not the same to everybody. A fiver to one person is not the same as a fiver to another person. Fifty pounds to one person is one family's disposable income for a week. To another person, £50 is lunch. We would not treat offences with the same seriousness if we were to impose the same lines upon people.
  Unfortunately, some judges and magistrates have lost touch with the value of money to those who are poorer than they are and impose fines that are out of all proportion to the ability to pay. One would want to set limits for those in the social security system and never require them to pay back more than £1·50, or some such sum, per week.
  I mentioned that the poll tax is one imposition on people with limited incomes. The social fund is another. Those who find it necessary to use the social fund will have to repay whatever loans they receive from that benefit. It is unrealistic to impose a hefty fine on that family, who may also have fuel debts. It is easy to forget that we are largely talking about the impact of fines as they affect families, because behind every fine defaulter there is a family in difficulty.
  Before fines are imposed, much more information should be available to the courts about the disposable income of the offender. Instead of a standard rate tariff there should be a sliding rate according to the ability to pay. That would make for a much fairer system and ensure that our prisons were not filled with people who should not be there—a goal which I know the Minister shares.
  Mr. Cash: What the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) said was dangerous. If people guilty of the most appalling crimes could escape with a small fine because they did not have many resources, we would have a most appalling mess in no time.
  934
  Recently a magistrates court fined a student £1,100 for a driving offence, which by any reasonable standards was incredible. During the proceedings an examination—not an effective one as it turned out—was made of his income, and, although the facts were examined, they did not seem to bear any weight with the magistrates. Not only did they ban him from driving for 18 months, but they imposed a fine of £1,100. The student, deciding that he had not had a fair trial, appeared in person before the Crown court and managed to get his fine reduced to £400. A sensible judge, in a formal sensible proceeding, reduced the fine, with the result that the student could pay. Everything was done as it should have been done and a reasonable result ensued.
  Mr. Alex Carlile: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that what he is saying is a strong argument for the proposal of the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington)?
  Mr. Cash: I was about to say that, although l have grave doubts about a sliding tariff, which is what the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie proposed, there is some merit in the notion that when courts are considering such questions they should, and often do, have regard to the requirements and circumstances of the offender. I suspect that my hon. Friend the Minister may wish to say something about that.
  The hon. Gentleman made a further important pointߞ that the punishment should fit the crime. There is a prison in my constituency, Stafford. We are anxious, as is the prison service as a whole and the Home Office, not to fill prisons with people who are not suited to be there. Too many people are being given the wrong punishment.
  I have much respect and time for my hon. Friend the Minister, who performs a distinguished service to the country. We have not yet had an opportunity to read his new proposals, but no doubt we shall in time. Then we may be able to congratulate him on his proposals for hard labourߞ [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) and others laugh at the thought of hard labour, but hooligans—especially football hooligans—should not be allowed to get away with fines when hard labour should be meted out to them. I do not mean indiscriminate, mindless hard labour, but effective hard labour that would make them think twice. It would go a long way towards solving the problems on the terraces.
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: We were smiling at the phrase "hard labour," because the Government are schizophrenic in their attitude to community service. They say that they appreciate the work that is done as part of community service orders, many of which entail very hard work. But the term "hard labour"—certainly as employed by some Conservative Back-Bench Membersߞhas negative connotations. The Minister is trying to ride two horses: he is trying to be constructive and support the community service scheme, and he is also trying to use language that will appeal to some of the backwoodsmen behind him.
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not follow the hon. Lady down that road. We are discussing fines.
  Mr. Alex Carlile: She started it.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. It is a matter not of who started it, but who finishes it. The buck stops here.
  Mr. Cash: Fines are appropriate on some occasions. The hon. Lady has fallen straight into the Socialist trap. It is what I call Socialist claptrap: confusing an important matter with Socialist middle-speak. She forgets that the expression "hard labour" means something, and in the contextߞߞ
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I asked the hon. Gentleman not to follow that road. I am a most tolerant individual in the Chair, but my tolerance has now expired. We must return to the new clause.
  Mr. Cash: I agree absolutely, Madam Deputy Speaker.
  There is much merit in what the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie said, and I look forward to the speech of my hon. Friend the Minister. I suspect that he will have some important statements to make.
  Mr. Alex Carlile: I apologise for flippantly taking the Chair in vain a little earlier, but I was perplexed as to how hard labour related to a day fine system.
  The problem with fines is that, proportionally, they tend to be much higher for the lower-paid. Courts are embarrassed in two respects. First, they are embarrassed by imposing what appear to be extremely high fines, albeit on people who may have extremely high incomes. However, who could say that it was unjust for the person who earns £100,000 a year to pay a fine of £3,000 and for the person who earns £10,000 to pay a fine of 300 for the same offence? That must be elementary justice. The courts also appear embarrassed to impose low fines on the low-paid. A fine of £300 may sound little for a fairly serious offence, yet it may be imposed on someone whose net income is only £300 a month. The new clause seeks to strike justice, so that high-earners and low-earners can be fined by the same set of standards.
  This proposal is not a kite that is being flown out of the imagination of the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington). He has pointed out that countries in northern and central Europe successfully operate a day fine system. They use simple forms to assess people's income and there is no difficulty in doing so. Those who falsely declare their income are committing the extremely serious offence of perverting the course of public justice. That offence is always punished by imprisonment.
  10.45 pm
  Mr. Hanley: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman believe that a custodial sentence should be imposed in proportion to the length of life that the accused has had upon the earth or in proportion to a person's life expectancy? Should one impose a hard labour sentence according to the strength of the individual? Where does the argument end?
  Mr. Carlile: The hon. Gentleman demonstrates his lack of experience in such matters. If a 70-year-old man is charged with a serious offence, he will generally get a much lesser sentence than a 25-year-old man who has committed the same offence—unless the sentence is fixed by law. If a sick man is convicted of a serious offence, he will receive a lighter sentence than a healthy man who has committed the same offence. That is only fair and just.
  Sentencing is not merely an objective exercise; it has a strong individualised element. The day fine system is a
  936
  simple and fair way to ensure that fines are such that they strike that balance between the objective and the subjective at which every sentencer should be aiming.
  Sentencers have a public duty to perform—the duty to impose a sentence that, broadly speaking, fits the category for which the crime calls. They also have a duty to perform by the accused that involves sentencing that person within the broad framework in a way that is not unduly harsh on that individual.
  The two embarrassments of which I spoke would be removed if a court was able to use the day fine system. I do not support the argument that courts should use only the day fine system. In many instances small, standard monetary fines for everyone convicted of a particular offence—for example, a byelaw offence—are justified.
  Mr. John Patten: Where would the hon. and learned Gentleman draw the line between the common use of the day fine and the use of other forms of set fines?
  Mr. Carlile: I believe that the court should have available to it a day fine system. It could choose between fixing a monetary fine and imposing a day fine.
  Courts often face the problem of ascertaining at the hearing the precise earnings of the accused, especially if that person is unrepresented. Those practising solicitors who are in the Chamber know that they can face such a problem in court. It is not always easy for solicitors to ascertain, at the moment of sentence, the precise earnings of their client. If a court, faced with such a dilemma, was able to say, "We impose a fine of five days' or five weeks' disposable income", it would enable the appropriate inquiry to be made afterwards if necessary. In that way the precise figure for the fine could be assessed.
  I urge the Minister, either now or during the review, to which we look forward with great interest, to study closely the possibility of introducing a practical and also pragmatic measure that would make life for sentencers much simpler and the consequences for criminals much fairer.
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) that the measure has considerable practical and pragmatic appeal, but it is also right in principle that punishments should mean the same to each person who is being punished for roughly the same offence. If we had a system of day fines, or income-related fines, that would be fairer, because each person would be punished according to the extent to which the punishment hurt him, was meaningful and affected his everyday life.
  As the hon. and learned Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) said, it would have the practical consequence of reducing prison overcrowding, because many of those who are in prison for the non-payment of fines are there because they cannot pay the fines imposed on them, not because they wilfully refuse to do so. That imposes an undue burden on our prison system, because the vast majority of fine defaulters spend a short time in the prison system, and the administration that is caused by that creates considerable difficulties.
  We should all try to seek systems by which fewer people end up in prison because of defaulting on fines. We must also be realistic and recall that many women end up in prison because they cannot afford to pay their fines. The

  937
  day-fine system that we suggest is particularly appropriate to many women, because many of them have a low disposable income. That should be taken into account.
  The new clause outlines the situation clearly and should deal with some of the concerns raised by Conservative Members, although often from sedentary positions. The new clause makes it clear that we are talking about disposable income and that the seriousness of the offence is to be taken into account by the court. It would be helpful if the court had that as an option, although I should like to go slightly further than the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery and hope that if it were introduced it would not be left simply to the courts, but that clear guidelines would be issued as to when it was considered appropriate to use the system.
  I hope that the Minister will clarify the Government's thinking on the issue.
  Mr. Hanley: My hon. Friend is always clear.
  Mrs. Taylor: The Minister's hon. Friend accuses him of always being clear, but I have to tell the House that in Committee the Minister resisted our amendment on this topic, but the Home Secretary, when he made his statement on overcrowding in prisons, hinted that he would like to move towards an income-related fine system. It appears that the Home Secretary has slightly more of an open mind than has the Minister of State. Perhaps we shall hear tonight that the Home Secretary has been able to open up the Minister of State's mind a bit further. Perhaps, along with my hon. Friends, the Home Secretary will have given the Minister cause for thought. I hope that we shall have a more favourable response now than we did in Committee.
  Mr. John Patten: As the then Prime Minister of France, M. Fabius, said when there was a dispute about whether there was any disagreement between him and the President of the Republic, M. Mitterrand, there was not a centimetre's difference between his position as Prime Minister and that of the President of the fifth Republic. I can say exactly the same. There is not a centimetre's difference in policy between my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and myself. I have combed the statements by my right hon. Friend in reference to the point made by the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), and he has never said that he wishes to see the introduction of a day-fine system. What he has said clearly, which I think is common ground across the Floor of the House, is that he wishes to see the fine system related to income. As with M. Fabius and President Mitterrand, so with the Home Secretary and his junior Minister.
  The hon. Lady gave notice in Committee that she wanted to pursue this point. This evening it has been pursued by the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington), who is a glutton for punishment. He is serving on the Committee examining the Finance Bill, and he has come to take part in this debate, too. I share his aim: we do not want inappropriate fines to be imposed on offenders.
  The courts are already encouraged to take full account of means when determining the size of fines. The problem is that it is said that they sometimes do not—hence the sort of problems that emerged in the speech by the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie, and the example given by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash).
  938
  Sometimes people who default on fines go to gaol. The numbers who go to gaol are still higher than the Government want. That is a strain on prison administration. We can take only a little comfort from the figures. It might interest the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie if I gave him the most recently available figures. In 1982 there were 24,500 receptions into prison following fine default. By 1986, that had fallen to about 19,000—a substantial, although not astounding, reduction. Equally, and probably more importantly, the average number of people in prison at any given time for fine default fell from about 900 in 1982 to about 500 in 1986.
  We are by no means unsympathetic to the thinking behind the new clause. But we doubt whether the pure day-fine system, as operated in some western European countries, would work well here. That system requires the courts to express the fine as a number of units on all or most occasions. Courts impose fines on more than a million occasions a year, so this would be a considerable strain on the court system.
  We think that the system would be unduly mechanistic. It could be rigid, and it would certainly be bureaucratic. There are all sorts of practical problems. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) put his finger on them earlier. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford also pointed to the sort of problems that can arise. The essence of the day-fine idea should be explored and promoted, if that essence has to do with ability to pay.
  This is why, as I said in Committee, we are setting up some experimental projects in several parts of the country. They are designed to do exactly what the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), with all his experience as a deputy recorder and the times that he has appeared in Mold Crown court—the centre of the United Kingdom judicial universe—rightly wants us to do: to examine the possibility of relating fines to income We are introducing the projects to devise a systematic way of relating fines to the means of offenders. As part of the experiment, we shall introduce a new form, which will make for consistent decision taking about fine levels across the country. The aim is to establish a procedure that is not unduly bureaucratic—which a strict day-fine system, whether compulsory or available at the discretion of the court, might well be—but which will relate fines more closely to income.
  In Committee, I said that we hope to have two of these experimental schemes quite soon. One will be in Bradford and the other in Swansea. I can announce to the House that, with the agreement of the court authorities, we will be able to have a further experiment, which will begin almost immediately, in Teesside. Therefore, there will he three experiments—one naturally in Wales, one in Bradford and one in Teesside. These experiments will run for six months and the Home Office will get reports about the findings not in 1995 but in 1989.
  11 pm
  I think that in trying to relate fines much more closely to income we are travelling along much the same road as the Opposition. However, we think that the day-fine system is too rigid and too bureaucratic, at least for the moment, and would prefer to experiment on the basis that I have described.

  939
  In view of what I have said, I hope that the hon. Member for Dewsbury and her hon. Friends will be content to leave matters as they are and not press the new clause to a Division.
  Mr. Worthington: We wish to press ahead with the new clause. Before I sum up, I should like, on behalf of the Opposition, to apologise to the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), because we should have added his name to the list of proposers of the new clause. That was an omission.
  I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) for telling me that she knew the Minister would not accept the new clause. She has worked out his body language and knows that when he is about to say no he has his arms folded. My hon. Friend has never persuaded him to say yes. We are also grateful to the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) for the moment of exquisite pain that he inflicted on the Minister when he used the term "hard labour". The Minister tries to be loved by everybody and the term "punishment in the community" is exquisitely balanced but is hardly how the Minister wanted to see his new proposal described.
  None of the Conservative Members who spoke tackled seriously enough the problem that I posed in proposing the new clause. It is that in Scotland 50 per cent. of the admissions to prison are for fine default. In England and Wales it is about half that, about 25 to 30 per cent. That is an enormous problem for the prisons. The Minister said that our proposals would impose a strain on the court system. What on earth does he think the present procedures impose on the prison system?
  We must tackle the problem of some unpaid fines being disposed of by an inappropriate, short sentence. We accept that that is a difficult problem because, while over 90 per cent. of fines are paid, it is quite difficult to identify the fines which will not be paid and which, because of their large number, create a considerable problem for the prison system. We must press the new clause because we think that it would make the courts much more systematic than they are at present.
  As I said, there are two sides to this argument. Someone who has committed an offence should have imposed upon him a penalty that makes him think about the serious consequences of his actions. The penalty should be such that it causes people to say that society seriously disapproves of their actions. There is no doubt that if a substantial fine is imposed upon a poor person he will get that message. If one imposes a moderate fine on a wealthy person, one has not penalised him. Therefore, there should be more substantial fines, or disposals, which have an impact on the life of that person.
  Mrs. Ann Taylor: Does my hon. Friend recall the support that the Home Secretary gave to this concept, when he said in the House that the answer to many of the problems outlined by my hon. Friend
  "is to make the level of fine realistic in the first place"? —[Official Report, 30 March 1988; Vol. 130, c. 1090.]
  Mr. Worthington: The Home Secretary has said some sensible things, and I wish that they could be codified into a day-fine system.
  As the Minister knows, we have the massive problem that in England and Wales we imprison more people than
  940
  are imprisoned almost anywhere else in Europe. I am delighted to see present the Under-Secretary with responsibility for prisons in Scotland, because the problem is even worse there. Only the record in Turkey exceeds the number of people who are imprisoned in Scotland.
  We shall never be able to deal with this problem unless we can tackle the supply side. There is also the problem, which in a way is a good one, that the judiciary is independent and is not the judicial arm of the political system. We must ensure that there are no rogue courts that are taking up more of the country's resources than they should by imposing fines or other disposables, with the result that people are being sent to prison needlessly.
  A good court will have an informal day-fine system anyway, and a good judge will take into account people's ability to pay, but all the experience is that we cannot simply leave it to good practice. There has to be a codified system of day fines, which lays down on a formula basis how fines should be calculated, taking into account both the seriousness of the offence and the ability to pay if we are both to use the fining system sensibly and avoid the needless use of our prison space.
  Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:ߞߞ
  The House divided: Ayes 72, Noes 197.

  Division No. 368]

  [11.7 pm

  AYES

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Home Robertson, John

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Hoyle, Doug

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Battle, John

  Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)

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

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Lewis, Terry

  Boateng, Paul

  Livingstone, Ken

  Boyes, Roland

  Livsey, Richard

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  McCartney, Ian

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  McNamara, Kevin

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Maxton, John

  Clelland, David

  Michael, Alun

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Murphy, Paul

  Cohen, Harry

  Nellist, Dave

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  O'Brien, William

  Corbett, Robin

  Parry, Robert

  Cousins, Jim

  Patchett, Terry

  Cryer, Bob

  Pike, Peter L.

  Dalyell, Tam

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Primarolo, Dawn

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

  Rooker, Jeff

  Dewar, Donald

  Rowlands, Ted

  Dixon, Don

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Eadie, Alexander

  Skinner, Dennis

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

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

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Faulds, Andrew

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Fearn, Ronald

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Flynn, Paul

  Wallace, James

  Foster, Derek

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Gordon, Mildred

  Worthington, Tony

  Graham, Thomas

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Mr. Frank Haynes and

  Mr. Allen McKay.

  NOES

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Arbuthnot, James

  Alexander, Richard

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Amess, David

  Ashby, David

  Amos, Alan

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  941

  Baldry, Tony

  French, Douglas

  Batiste, Spencer

  Gale, Roger

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Gill, Christopher

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Gow, Ian

  Boswell, Tim

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Bottomley, Peter

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Gregory, Conal

  Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

  Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Bowis, John

  Grist, Ian

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Ground, Patrick

  Brazier, Julian

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Bright, Graham

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

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

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

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Harris, David

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Hayward, Robert

  Burns, Simon

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Burt, Alistair

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Butcher, John

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Butler, Chris

  Hind, Kenneth

  Butterfill, John

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Holt, Richard

  Carrington, Matthew

  Howard, Michael

  Carttiss, Michael

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

  Cash, William

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Chope, Christopher

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Irvine, Michael

  Couchman, James

  Jack, Michael

  Cran, James

  Jackson, Robert

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Janman, Tim

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

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Day, Stephen

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Devlin, Tim

  Key, Robert

  Dorrell, Stephen

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Dover, Den

  Knapman, Roger

  Dunn, Bob

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Durant, Tony

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Knowles, Michael

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Fallon, Michael

  Lang, Ian

  Favell, Tony

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Forman, Nigel

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Lilley, Peter

  Franks, Cecil

  Lord, Michael

  Freeman, Roger

  Lyell, Sir Nicholas

  942

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Stevens, Lewis

  Maclean, David

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Summerson, Hugo

  Madel, David

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Malins, Humfrey

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end F.)

  Maples, John

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Tracey, Richard

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Trippier, David

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Trotter, Neville

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Mills, Iain

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Waller, Gary

  Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Warren, Kenneth

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Whitney, Ray

  Moss, Malcolm

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Neubert, Michael

  Wilshire, David

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Paice, James

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Patten, John (Oxford W)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Rowe, Andrew

  Wood, Timothy

  Ryder, Richard

  Yeo, Tim

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Squire, Robin

  Mr. David Lightbown and

  Steen, Anthony

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle.

  Stern, Michael

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Further consideration of the Bill adjourned. ߞ [Mr. Dorrell.]
  Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be further considered tomorrow.

  SOCIAL SERVICES
  Ordered,
  That Mr. Terry Patchett be discharged from the Social Services Committee and Mr. Andrew Smith he added to the Committee— [Mr. Ray Powell, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

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

  ANTARCTICA
  That the draft Antarctic Treaty (Agreed Measures) (No. 2) Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 13th May, be approved— [Mr. Darrell.]
  Question agreed to.

  Psychological Operations (Northern Ireland)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Dorrell]
  11.21 pm
  Mr. Ken Livingstone: I have sought to raise this matter on the Adjournment because, quite frankly, it has become impossible to gain through questioning the Government on the Order Paper any detailed answers to the points that I wish to raise.
  I shall deal with the questions and answers which have been exchanged between myself and the Government during the past few months and which clearly demonstrate a complete evasion by the Government on the nature of the psychological operations and the warfare in Northern Ireland.
  On 27 October 1976, The Irish Times quoted an internal Army document, "An Introduction to Psychological Operations", that set out the nature and scope of such activities. Those activities were confirmed at that time—following a question tabled by the late Tom Litterick—by the then Under-Secretary of State in the Labour Government. The reply was clear:
  "The syllabus consists of the study and analysis of propaganda techniques and their countermeasures; elementary psychology and community relations."—[Official Report, 4 November 1976; Vol. 918, c. 693–94.]
  Yet when I asked the current Secretary of State for Defence to publish the syllabus of courses in psychological warfare operations in the United Kingdom from 1972 to date, the answer was simply "No". If the syllabus could be published in 1976, why not now? Is it that the Government have something to hide of which the then Labour Government were not aware?
  On 7 March, answering my question on the number of armed forces and Civil Service personnel trained in psychological warfare from 1972 to 1987, the Under-Secretary of State told the House that information was not available prior to 1983. That was not the case. The numbers involved for the years 1973–74 and 1974–75—a total of more than 200 individualsߞwere made available in a written reply in Hansard on 4 November 1976. Once again, it was strange that the information available to the Government could not even stretch to checking previous editions of Hansard.
  Following a further written question by myself, the information appears for the period 1973 to 1976, but the Under-Secretary of State now states that the figures for 1976 to 1982 are no longer available. How convenient, how amazingߞjust the figures that they do not want us to have.
  That policy of disinformation towards the House continued when I asked the Secretary of State for Defence
  "Where courses have been held on psychological warfare and psychological operations in which his Department was involved in each year from 1972 to the current date, in the United Kingdom and the United States of America."
  Following a delay through a holding reply, the Under-Secretary's answer fell into two parts: first, information for the United Kingdom was made available only up to 1982. As to post-1982, the reply stated:
  "Since 1982 responsibility for the courses has transferred to MOD central staff."
  That avoided answering the question. Why are the Government so keen not to reveal the location? Is it
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  because it would mean admitting that the current location for such courses is the joint intelligence centre, where the Army co-ordinates all intelligence operations, including the covert activities of MI5 and MI6, or is it because they would also be admitting to Parliament that psychological operations are an integral part of the state's secret intelligence function?
  It is not surprising, therefore, that when the Secretary of State was later asked what his policy has been since 1982 towards holding courses on psychological warfare and psychological operations at the joint intelligence centre, his answer was simply to refer to the reply given on 6 May.
  The second issue raised concerned courses in the United States of America. The Minister replied:
  "With regard to courses in the USA, I have nothing to add to the answer I gave on 7 March."—[Official Report, 6 May 1988; Vol. 132, c. 622.]
  Yet the question on 7 March was:
  "how many members of the armed forces and civil servants from his Department were engaged in psychological warfare in Northern Ireland each year from 1972 to 1987."—[Official Report,7 March 1988; Vol. 129, c. 59.]
  I was asking about the location of training in the USA, not about the numbers involved. Why was a reply provided for the United Kingdom but not for the USA when it had previously been provided by the then Labour Under-Secretary in Hansard in 1976? The answer may lie in the fact that the Government do not want to admit that courses are currently being provided at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where psychological operations training is heavily influenced by experiences in Vietnam and specially oriented towards catering for special forces such as the SAS. They involve instruction on kidnapping, explosive booby-trapping and assassination techniques. They were put into operation during the USA assassination campaign called Operation Phoenix in the Vietnam war. It is no wonder, therefore, that the Minister refused to provide a straight answer as well as refusing to comment on the details of course content, especially those provided in the USA.
  According to one study, "Britain's Military Strategy in Ireland" by Roger Faligot, in October 1972 Keith Belbin, from the publicity agency Colman, Prentice and Varley, then handling the election account of the Tory party, was present. Also present was Alan Protheroe, a major in army intelligence, who later became assistant director-general of the BBC and is currently working for the Ministry of Defence. In 1979, BBC news editor and Radio 3 controller Ian McIntyre was present.
  I asked on 6 May how many employees of the BBC attended psychological operation courses, only to be told by the same Minister:
  "The present courses arc only open to students from Ministry of Defence and NATO military and civilian staffs." —[Official Report, 6 May 1988, Vol.132, c. 622.]
  He thus avoided the question by answering one that I had not asked. Perhaps we can speculate that as the security services were intent on destabilising the legitmately elected Government during the 1970s, the BBC management could prove a useful ally.
  On 14 June I asked the Secretary of State for Defence
  "what are the precise details and responsibilities of the Army information services in Northern Ireland?"
  The ever-ubiquitous Under-Secretary evaded an honest reply by saying:

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  "The role …is to represent the Army (including the UDR, TA and Cadets) in Northern Ireland in all matters relating to publicity and the media.—[Official Report, 14 June 1988; Vol. 135, c. 121–22.]
  That employs a total of more than 40 press officers. What his reply failed to confirm when considering psychological operations in Ireland was the covert role played by the Army information policy department, set up in September 1971, later to become a separate, militarily-staffed information unit within the Army information services. The Government refuse to confirm the unit's existence. It has functioned under different names. From 1970 to 1971 it was the information liaison unit; from 1971 to 1975 it was the information policy unit; in 1975 it became the information planning unit. According to Mr. Peter Broderick, employed as chief information officer at Army headquarters Northern Ireland from 1973 to 1974, his brief was to
  "use psychological means to assist operations strategically and tactically."
  Mr. Colin Wallace, a senior information officer at that time, was a key figure in the operation of the unit. According to a statement by the IPCS in October 1975, in addition to ordinary public relations duties Wallace was required to engage in secret black propaganda disinformation activities as part of his official duties. That, of course, required a secret job description on the basis of psychological operations. To comply with Civil Service regulations, a false job cover description was put out by the Ministry of Defence. That has been repeatedly denied by the Government.
  The IPCS stated that Wallace's responsibilities included the
  "unattributable briefing of journalists which included the revelation of 'privileged and sensitive information' …
  operations to discredit individuals and cause dissension within organisation …
  operations designed to result in a 'favourable press' for the Department and the Government, by countering hostile propaganda."
  Thus Wallace claims that he was unlawfully employed by the MOD Army information services and used by the intelligence services to disseminate information and disinformation designed to discredit key political personalities, particularly during the 1974 general election —a topic dealt with in Mr. Peter Wright's book.
  The growth of psychological warfare dates back to the publication of "Low Intensity Operations" by Frank Kitson. Indeed, prior to that the Army published "Land Operations—Counter Revolutionary Operations" endorsing and committing the Army to the use of those methods.
  On 28 March I asked the Secretary of State for Defence about the use of forged CIA documents by the armed forces in Northern Ireland from 1971 to that date. The Minister replied:
  "I am unaware of any evidence that such documents have been used at any time by the armed forces in Northern Ireland."—[Official Report, 28 March 1988; Vol 130, c. 362.]
  Following a holding answer, he replied on 6 May to a question concerning the policy of the Ministry of Defence to the forging of documents by Army printing presses in Northern Ireland in connection with covert operations:
  "It is not the practice to comment on operational mattters." —[Official Report, 6 May 1988; Vol 132, c. 620.]
  Once again, it was not a denial, which is wise given the mounting evidence to the contrary.
  I have a photostat of the CIA forged document of authority that Colin Wallace sent to the Prime Minister
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  asking her to investigate how he came to be in possession of such an item. I am not at all surprised that the Minister does not wish to deny its existence.
  A current assistant chief public relations officer at the Ministry of Defence, Mr. Chris Whitehead, also carried a false CIA card. Members of the Army information service masqueraded as members of a paramilitary group with captured terrorist weapons and explosives at Belfast airport in 1974. I shall be interested to know whether the Minister can give a categorical denial of that.
  The leaking of the plans formulated by the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees), to set up a special community police force to try to bridge the gap between the communities was leaked in order to wreck those plans. That was admitted by my right hon. Friend in March 1987 on Ulster Television. The leak was conducted by the Army information servicesߞsupposedly at that time loyal servants of the Government, who would not be expected to leak information to derail their policies.
  In addition, in his book "A Personal View", the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland admits to the existence of
  "Freelance attempts by the Army information people to use black propaganda."
  Clockwork Orange, the plan to discredit politicians and the legitimately elected Government, formulated and activated by the unit working within the Army information services in Northern Ireland, reached its climax in the mid-1970s. In reply to a question about the nature of Clockwork Orange, I was fobbed off by the Minister, who referred to a previous answer stating that all allegations made by Mr. Wallace had been carefully investigated. This was in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), and appeared in Hansard on 20 July and did not state the precise nature of those investigations. Subsequent questions about this matter have repeatedly failed to elicit the information—particularly information as to who initiated such a project. I hope that the Government will state clearly how many investigations were conducted, by whom, who was interviewed, what the investigations cost, to whom they were reported and who has seen them apart from the Ministers concerned.
  Major General Sir Peter Leng, a former commander of land forces in Northern Ireland in 1973–74 when his unit was active, admitted the existence of Clockwork Orange in an article in The Listener, entitled "A Wilderness of Mirrors", on 6 August 1987. I shall be interested to hear whether the Government formally deny that such a project ever took place.
  When on 6 May I asked what percentage of officers commanding the information policy unit, the information liaison unit and the information planning unit in Northern Ireland underwent training at home or abroad in psychological warfare, after a delay the Minister, referring to a previous answer, said:
  "It is not the policy to comment on operational matters." —[Official Report, 7 March 1988; Vol. 129, c. 59.]
  That was inconsistent as details had previously been given about the individuals who had been "trained". Such details were given by the Prime Minister in Hansard on 7 March 1988. Furthermore, the question was not about operational details. Once again the Government were failing to answer the question by answering another

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  question. As there is dual involvement of the Ministry of Defence and the Northern Ireland Office, it has been difficult to ascertain the exact nature of the relationship, although the Prime Minister stated that the Secretary of State for Defence was ultimately responsible.
  That is interesting, given that a question to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland took nearly a month to answer concerning his Department's policy towards Psyops from 1972 was not directly and automatically referred to the Ministry of Defence. The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office replied:
  "It is not the general practice to comment on detailed matters of security policy."—[Official Report, 23 May 1988; Vol. 134, c. 36.]
  There is a need to explain the link between the psychological operations, Lisburn army information services and the small covert unit working within it. Those links have continually been denied. Does the Secretary of State for Defence retain ultimate responsibility, or does it go higher? My right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South was asked on Ulster Television in March 1987 whether he knew of a Psyops unit in Army HQ. He stated that he did not know of its existence until late 1974, and then took steps to disband it.
  It is important to know that the Information Research Department, a sinister body set up by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and later disbanded by the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), was formed to monitor "Left-wing" activities and was involved in information policy in the 1970s. It should also be noted that the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office stated on 6 May 1987 that allegations made by Mr. Wallace were indeed matters for the defence Ministers. The Minister assured the House that
  "these allegations have been fully and carefully investigated and that there is not a shred of evidence to substantiate any of them. I am satisfied."—[Official Report, 6 May 1987; Vol. 115, c. 808]
  In addition, the Prime Minister, when asked about
  "false job descriptions, psychological warfare and propaganda",
  following information received from the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee, stated that all the allegations had been
  "fully and carefully investigated and no evidence had been found to substantiate any of them,"—[Official Report, 26 April 1988; Vol. 132, c. 96.]
  Furthermore, on 6 May 1988 the Secretary of State for Defence was asked if he would make a statement as to which officials in charge of Army information services had been interviewed by any inquiries into psychological operations. It is important to remember that, according to the Prime Minister, Psyops falls under his responsibility. He replied that he does not comment on specific individuals. When he was asked on 14 June 1988 how many individuals were interviewed, the same evasion was provided:
  "We have been assured repeatedly that full investigations have been undertaken, but no information has been forthcoming as to their nature and scope."
  Even more amazing, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, when asked whether Wallace was ever interviewed concerning Psyops, political disinformation or alleged use of forged documentation, replied:
  "Not as far as I am aware."
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  In fact, none of Mr. Wallace's former colleagues has ever been interviewed by MOD or NIO about these allegations. In particular, this includes the key accuser Colin Wallace.
  If that is what passes for full and careful investigation by the Government, we are in a sorry state. Should we be surprised by the answers provided? Obviously not, given the political embarrassment that would inevitably result —particularly as they dovetail with what Peter Wright has been saying in his book. I also note that Mr. Wright has made it clear on television in the last few weeks that there are 10 major secrets that he did not reveal because they would be so damaging. I have not the slightest doubt that the almost complete absence in the book of any mention of what has been going on in Ireland reflects his desire to save the Government from much more devastating embarrassing revelations than could ever have been the case from anything else that he has written.
  We shall not have a safe and secure democracy in this country until we can be satisfied that an elected Government are not undermined by their own security services, and that those services do not operate as cowboys pursuing their own plans and strategies irrespective of loyalty to the elected Government of the day.
  11.39 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Roger Freeman): The hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) has spoken for 19 minutes. I am sure that he realises that he has somewhat limited my opportunity to respond. I shall certainly study the Hansard record of what he has said tonight and, as I am unable to cover the ground that I had originally intended, I shall then respond to any points that require a detailed reply.
  The hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of so-called psychological warfare operations in Northern Ireland—based in part, I believe, on a number of allegations made to him about events that are alleged to have taken place in the Province more than a decade ago. I know from their presence tonight that several other hon. Members have interested themselves in this general issue, and, indeed, in the specific cases lying behind the hon. Gentleman's allegations.
  It has been the general practice of successive Governments not to comment on detailed matters of security policy. I need hardly stress the importance of adhering to that practice where operations in Northern Ireland are concerned, and I have no intention of departing from it this evening. The Government are committed to pursue their efforts to restore peace and order in Northern Ireland, and, in keeping with the security policy that has been followed by successive Governments, are determined to fight terrorism, with all appropriate resources, under the rule of law.
  The hon. Gentleman has made several allegations about so-called psychological warfare operations and alleged criminal activities committed by the security forces in Northern Ireland. These allegations appear to stem from two individuals, Mr. Colin Wallace and a former Army officer, Captain Fred Holroyd, who both left Northern Ireland over a decade ago.
  The position rests as I described it in my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) on 3 March 1987, at column 577. The various allegations made by Captain Holroyd and Mr. Colin Wallace over many years about the conduct of the security forces in

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  Northern Ireland have been fully and carefully investigated since they brought them to the attention of the authorities some years after they left the Province in 1975. No evidence has been discovered, as a result of those investigations, to substantiate any of their allegations. If the hon. Member for Brent, East believes that he has new evidence of illegal activities by the security forces—and nothing that I have heard tonight suggests that—he should bring it to the attention of the proper authorities, as I have made clear to him before.
  Mr. Tarn Dalyell: Who has done the careful investigation of Colin Wallace?
  Mr. Freeman: I regret that, in the time available to me, it is not possible to deal with the points raised by the hon. Member for Brent, East, or the points that he may have cared to raise, if this were anything but an Adjournment debate, about the allegations of Mr. Colin Wallace. I shall write to the hon. Member for Brent, East tomorrow and put in the Library a copy of my letter, with fuller remarks about the allegations raised by Mr. Colin Wallace and Captain Fred Holroyd.
  The hon. Member for Brent, East raised a plethora of points about parliamentary answers that I and other Ministes have given. If he is not satisfied with the answers that he has received, I invite him to table further questions, and I shall do my duty and answer them promptly.
  11.43 pm
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: In the time available I shall add to the powerful case that was deployed by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone). Like several of my colleagues, I have seen Colin Wallace and Fred Holroyd. It would be presumptuous and impertinent to pretend that I can come to any final judgment on extremely complex intelligence matters. I can only say that, starting from a position of sceptism, by the end of the third hour I was convinced that there was a formidable case to be answered relating to Colin Wallace. I am extremely sceptical about whether any real effort has been made to carry out a careful, thorough and detailed investigation. I should have thought that the Minister's answer would contain some details of the nature of the investigation. I listened carefully to my hon. Friend and to the Minister's reply. My hon. Friend has put the more heavyweight argument tonight. The matter cannot be left as it is.
  11.44 pm
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: It is now 14 months since I led a long debate on this matter and raised all the issues in some detail. I shall ask the Minister a
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  question that I know he will not answer from the Dispatch Box, but he might reflect upon it. It is a simple question. Does he know the truth? Does he know what exactly happened? If he does not know the truth, does he think that it is right that he should stand at the Dispatch. Box tonight and reply to the debate?
  Mr. Gerald Howarth: Many Conservative Members will be disgusted by what the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) has said tonight. It is open to any hon. Member to challenge the workings and actions of the Government. It is often the case that the hon. Gentleman seeks to obtain information which must be calculated at least to undermine the efforts of the Government in pursuing a difficult and dangerous counter-insurgency war in Northern Ireland, for that is what it is. The hon. Gentleman, amusing and personable though he is and having friends on both sides of the House, in raising this debate must give cause for concern about his motives: whether to obtain information that the security forces have not been acting within the law, or to undermine the efforts of the security forces—our constituents' sons, daughters and fathers—who are fighting a war against a vicious, brutal, nasty and inhuman enemy who is constantly destroying the lives of Innocent people.
  I hope that the hon. Gentleman and others, in holding themselves up as the great champions of democracy and in seeking to take on the might of Government to expose Government wrongdoing, will bear in mind that as hon. Members we enjoy privileges and bear an enormous responsibility to ensure that we do not undermine the work of our security services in trying to defend the democracy that we profess to uphold and which is more seriously under threat in Northern Ireland than elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
  Mr. Dalyell: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is a most curious Adjournment debate. The Minister complained that my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) had taken 19 minutes, so he had only a short time in which to answer. Then, lo and behold, the Minister sits down, leaving plenty of time to others. He cannot have it both ways. Was there ever any intention to answer the debate? The Minister has time to answer that question.
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): That is a question that the Chair cannot answer. It is not my responsibility.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes to Twelve o'clock.