Commons Sitting of 23 June 1988

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

    SOUTHERN WATER AUTHORITY BILL (By Order)
    Order for Third Reading read.
    Queen"s Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.
    Read the Third time, and passed.

    SOUTHERN WATER AUTHORITY BILL (By Order)

      LONDON REGIONAL TRANSPORT BILL (By Order)
      Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [10 December], That the Bill be now considered.
      Debate further adjourned till Thursday 30 June.

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

                AVON LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT BILL [Lords] (By Order)
                Orders for Second Reading read.
                To be read a Second time upon Thursday 30 June.

                AVON LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT BILL [Lords] (By Order)

                NORTH KILLINGHOLME CARGO TERMINAL BILL (By Order)
                Order for resuming adjourned debate on Question [22 June], That the Bill be now read a Second time.
                Debate further adjourned till Thursday 30 June.

Oral Answers to Questions
  HOME DEPARTMENT

    Satellite Television
    Mr. Grocott: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what machinery he proposes to ensure that programmes provided by satellite will be of a comparable standard to those provided currently by the British Broadcasting Corporation and independent television.
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Tim Renton): The service that British Satellite Broadcasting Limited plans to launch next year will be an IBA service, and will be regulated in accordance with the 1984 Act. Satellite services relayed via cable fall to be regulated by the Cable Authority. We are considering extending the authority"s remit to all non-DBS services uplinked from the United Kingdom, whether or not relayed via cable. As to services uplinked from other countries, we are pressing for effective agreements that will cover those uplinked from Europe.
    Mr. Grocott: Is the Minister aware that the Home Secretary"s speech last night will be greeted with dismay by everyone who believes that British public sector broadcasting is a model that is aspired to throughout the world? Can he explain the logic of a policy which, on the one hand, consistently criticises and interferes with BBC and ITV television and, on the other hand, proposes to give freedom in satellite television to the likes of Mr. Murdoch? Is it not an appalling prospect if the standards of the British press are to be the model for British broadcasting?
    Mr. Renton: The speech by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary last night was excellent and I am not saying that just because he is sitting beside me. My right hon. Friend explored some of the avenues that could be opened during the 1990s as we move into a different and changing ecology in the broadcasting world. It was in that context that my right hon. Friend explored the possibility —no more than the possibility —that the IBA system and the ITV companies might be relieved of some of their public service broadcasting obligations as more satellite channels are launched in the sky. We welcome the coming of the satellite channels, because they will provide more competition and more choice for the consumer. It is a matter of pride that the first satellite will be run by a British consortium.
    Mr. McCrindle: Reverting to the original question, is there not an argument in a free society that if consumers choose to pay for a particular service, the level of control that is necessary over that service is not necessarily the same as that which applies to the four channels that are universally available?
    Mr. Renton: Yes, my hon. Friend has a good point. If people pay for a service, they are making a definite choice at the start that it is a service that they wish to receive. Therefore, the need to have quite as tight regulation over that service is probably diminished. Subscription, which is

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    what my hon. Friend was talking about, establishes a direct link between the consumer and the broadcasting authority.
    Mr. Fisher: Will the Minister explain how it came about that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Lord Young, held a press conference to announce that Channel 4 and BBC 2 would be allocated space on the DBS satellite? Is the Home Secretary still in charge of Government broadcasting policy? If he is, will he reassure the House that terrestrial broadcasting of BBC 2 and Channel 4 will not cease until everyone has access to satellite broadcasting?
    Mr. Renton: The hon. Gentleman believes too much of what he reads in the papers. The Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry held a joint meeting, at which I was also present, with the chairmen of the BBC, IBA and British Satellite Broadcasting on the exploratory proposition that they should consider the possibility of BBC 2 and Channel 4 going on to satellite and at the same time continuing to be broadcast terrestrially while the market for dishes is built up in this country.
    The Department of Trade and Industry has a role to play in spectrum management and in frequency allocation, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that all is sweetness and light between the Home Department and the Department of Trade and Industry, both up in the sky and down here on earth.
    Mr. Harris: The House will be assured by my hon. Friend"s reply, but what would be the advantage to the viewer of BBC 2 and Channel 4 going to satellite in the relatively short term, given that many people will be unable to afford a dish?
    Mr. Renton: That is a fair point. If BBC 2 and Channel 4 were to end up being broadcast on satellite only, that would free a good deal of frequency, which would be available for further terrestrial transmissions either nationally or regionally. If such transmission took place regionally, without universal coverage, there would be a great many more local television broadcasts.
    Mr. Hattersley: How is it that the Home Secretary chooses to make controversial speeches on this subject outside this House, but chooses not to answer questions on it this afternoon? [Interruption.] As the Minister of State has been told how to reply to that question, will he give us a straightforward answer to the fundamental question that arises from the Coningsby club speech of last night? Are the Government considering abolishing the licence fee, or not?
    Mr. Renton: If the right hon. Gentleman had read the Order Paper he would have seen that the question I am answering is limited, as it refers to programmes provided by satellite only. My right hon. Friend made it clear in his speech last night—an excellent and wide-ranging one—that he was putting forward the prospect that, at the end of the day, the BBC licence fee was "not immortal"—any more than the right hon. Gentleman is immortal as deputy leader of the Labour party. As there are more satellite channels, one of the possibilities that should be considered is whether the BBC should continue to be financed by licence fee only.

    Immigration
    Mr. Jack: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received on the effect of the imposition of visas on visitors to the United Kingdom from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ghana, and Nigeria upon the operations of the immigration service; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Irvine: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received on the effect of the imposition of visas on visitors to the United Kingdom from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ghana, and Nigeria upon the operations of the immigration service; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Renton: The House will be pleased to know that the position at the airports has been transformed. Congestion in terminal buildings has been eased and delays reduced. That has improved conditions for passengers, for relatives and friends meeting them, and for staff. The total number of persons refused entry has dropped from about 24,000 in 1986 to just over 19,000 in 1987. Difficult casework has been much reduced. Without the visa imposition, and with a 13 per cent. increase in passenger traffic in 1987, the pressure on the principal terminals dealing with passengers from the five countries would have been impossible.
    Mr. Jack: I thank my hon. Friend for his full and reassuring answer. Has the imposition of visas been welcomed on the Indian sub-continent?
    Mr. Renton: I saw our commissioner in Delhi only yesterday and he told me that, although there is some concern about the recent increase in settlement fees, Indians are pleased—now that the system is well established—that they can establish in advance of their journey whether they qualify for entry here. Those who come here often are pleased that they can get a multi-entry visa, and 90 per cent. of applications are processed within 24 hours of receipt.
    Mr. Irvine: My hon. Friend will be aware of recent articles in the national press that have exposed the existence of illegal networks smuggling immigrants into this country, particularly through East Anglian ports such as Ipswich and Felixstowe. Will my hon. Friend make use of the welcome reduction of pressure on the immigration service to put still greater effort into the task of eliminating such criminal networks and detecting illegal entrants?
    Mr. Renton: I assure my hon. Friend that the passage quoted in the press was a rather purple one. The figures for immigrants entering that way do not tally with figures in our immigration and nationality department.
    On my hon. Friend"s second point, I can give him the comfort that he seeks. More staff will be available for enforcement work, which is important. In 1987, a total of 2,200 illegal entrants were traced compared with 1,582 the previous year.
    Mr. Vaz: Bearing in mind the revelations in The Guardian this week that Home Office officials were keeping information from the Minister about asylum seekers, what assurance can he give that the information that he has just given is accurate? Is it not the reality that hon. Members with large amounts of immigration casework are receiving information from their constituents that single relatives seeking entry are refused permission?

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    Does the Minister accept the spirit of the words of early-day motion 996, signed by 81 hon. Members? Will he immediately initiate a public inquiry into his chaotic Department?
    Mr. Renton: I always thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind concern about my welfare. I assure him that all the information mentioned inaccurately in The Guardian has regularly been seen by me on a weekly basis.
    On the hon. Gentleman"s other point, because of the introduction of changes in the immigration rules, which the Opposition voted against earlier this year, we are now managing to deal with some of the backlog of cases in Lunar house. A great deal of work still has to be done, but it does mean that those arriving here with, for example, difficult entry cases, will be dealt with more quickly than in the past.
    Mr. James Lamond: Does the Minister agree that when a visitor"s visa has been refused and an appeal has been lodged, the applicant is frequently told that inquiries must be made, presumably by the Home Office? Lengthy delays occur, sometimes of more than a year. Indeed, did not the ombudsman point that out to the Minister following a case that I had referred to him and which he upheld? Will the Minister ensure that something is done to speed up inquiries in such cases?
    Mr. Renton: I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and that is why we introduced the rule changes earlier this year. I fail to understand why the Opposition voted against them.
    Mr. Budgen: Is my hon. Friend aware that those rule changes have been accepted, and even welcomed, by the large Asian community in Wolverhampton? Will he explain why the Government still insist that the taxpayer and the ratepayer employ the race relations industry, whose principal duty seems to be to complain frequently about any Government measures on immigration or race relations?
    Mr. Renton: I thank my hon. Friend for his support, which is always welcome. I am never sure when I will have it, but it is nice to receive it.
    The new chairman of the CRE is a well-respected figure. We keep close control of the money provided by the taxpayer for the United Kingdom immigration advisory service. It is right that there should be such a service to help with immigration cases, but I assure my hon. Friend that we keep a close eye on the budget.
    Mr. Randall: How does the Minister justify having insufficient staff to enter data into the Home Office computer that produces statistics on the fate of asylum-seekers refused entry to Britain? Is it because the Government really are doing a cover-up job, as suggested by The Guardian this week? Or is it another example of the gross incompetence of that part of the Home Office, as has been demonstrated by the shambles at Lunar house and the crisis at the passport office?
    Mr. Renton: The hon. Gentleman would know, if he had mastered his immigration brief better in the year in which he has been——
    Mr. Randall: Answer the question.
    Mr. Renton: I am answering it. If the hon. Gentleman will keep quiet for a second, I shall tell him about the port returns. The port returns, of which he has evidently
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    obtained a copy, show only immediate action taken. They may well be inaccurate one week or even one day later, because of subsequent action. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman, in my most helpful way, that he obtains his information from me rather than from leaked documents reported in The Guardian.

    Birmingham Pub Bombings
    Mr. Wall: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he last met the Irish ambassador to discuss the case of the six men convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings; and if he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd): I met the ambassador on 13 June at his request. He repeated to me his Government"s concern about these convictions. I made it clear that I was bound to respect the recent confirmation of the original verdict after a full hearing by the Court of Appeal.
    Mr. Wall: Did the ambassador inform the Home Secretary of the widespread belief in Ireland that an Irishman accused of terrorist offences in Britain cannot expect a fair trial? Is not the Birmingham bombing case casting doubt on the whole judicial system in Britain? Will the Home Secretary find some way of ending the scandal once and for all?
    Mr. Hurd: The ambassador did not express himself in that way. I do not think that he would have become an ambassador if he had. The hon. Gentleman is simply feeding prejudice by passing on such criticism. After a lot of thought, I referred the case of the Birmingham bombers back to the Court of Appeal because there was new material which it seemed to me a court of law ought to consider. The Court of Appeal considered the case again and reaffirmed the original verdict and I have to respect that.
    Dame Jill Knight: There is very little point in my right hon. Friend meeting the Irish ambassador on any occasion to discuss this matter, since there is not the slightest doubt that the Birmingham bombers had a fair trial in the first place and had their case reviewed again and again. Those who suggest in their written works that other people were responsible might have the guts to come forward and identify them.
    Mr. Hurd: I agree with my hon. Friend"s second theme. If hon. Members or any other citizens have specific information on this or other cases, it is their duty to come forward and give it in the proper way to the proper people.
    Mr. Speaker: Mr. Mullin.
    Hon. Members: Name them.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Mullin.
    Mr. Mullin: Will the Home Secretary confirm that he has the power—and can choose to use it—to set up an independent review tribunal which could consider evidence inadmissible before a court of law, and that that has been done in other alleged serious miscarriages of justice?
    Mr. Hurd: I have the power to set up inquiries, but in this case I took a course which seemed much more

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    straightforward. I referred the new material to the Court of Appeal, which then, as the hon. Gentleman knows, had the right to look at all matters and to hear all arguments all over again. The Court of Appeal held a very long hearing. The hon. Gentleman has acknowledged that it was a hearing of record length, and, I would say, thoroughness. That was the straightforward way of handling the matter, and the original verdict was reaffirmed.
    Mr. Stanbrook: If the highest courts in the land are satisfied of the guilt of those men, what interest is served, except that of the IRA, in attempting to set aside their judgment?
    Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend knows from his long experience that in many cases throughout the history of this country people have continued to disagree with verdicts. In a country such as ours that disagreement can be satisfactorily resolved only by a court of law. That is what happened in this case.
    Mr. Hume: Will the Secretary of State confirm that neither the security authorities nor the prison authorities, both of which are subject to his Department, regard the people convicted of the Birmingham bombing as high-risk, high-security prisoners? That is evident in the handling of the Old Bailey hearings in comparison with other such hearings. It is also evident to anyone who has visited the men in prison. Does he agree that the fact that the prison authorities who know the men on a day-to-day basis do not regard them as dangerous tends to confirm the widespread opinion that they are innocent?
    Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman knows better than that. He knows that the secondhand, hearsay opinion held by prison officers is neither here nor there. The matter has been referred to the only people who, in a law-abiding country, are competent to make a decision, and that is those in a court of law. It has been examined thoroughly. There has been no serious criticism of the way in which it has been done, and the House, like myself, should respect the outcome of that process.
    Sir John Farr: May I ask my right hon. Friend to look at Thursday"s debate on the proposed new clause 2 of the Criminal Justice Bill? He will see that a good deal of unease was expressed on both sides of the House about the validity of the Birmingham Six convictions. In view of the widespread unease expressed by former Home Secretaries and other senior Ministers, will he look again, as some of his predecessors have done, to see whether it is his duty to establish a special review into the case of the Birmingham Six?
    Mr. Hurd: This morning I read the interesting and high-quality debate on the new clause to the Criminal Justice Bill. I recognise my hon. Friend"s deep-seated, persistent concern with this case. As I have said before, it is normal in a free country that people should have strongly differing views about verdicts in controversial cases such as this. I repeat that I believe—nothing in the debate altered my view—that the straightforward course was followed by me and others who handled the matter. I am bound to respect the confirmation of the original verdict reached in this thorough way, and the House should do the same.

    Prisoners (Statistics)
    Mr. Ron Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many convicted persons are currently held in English prisons; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hogg): On 30 April this year 39,625 convicted prisoners were held in prison department establishments in England and Wales. A total of 1,650 of those prisoners were unsentenced, 1,340 were sentenced females and 8,327 were sentenced male young offenders.
    Mr. Brown: If the recent parliamentary delegation to Iran is to have any chance of success, surely it is important to give some sort of concession, for example, releasing Iranian prisoners held in this country, remembering that some of them have changed their political views. Some who have been anti-Khomeini are now pro-Khomeini. Some concession is necessary. Even the Council of Europe argues for the exchange of prisoners. Why cannot the Government do that with the Iranian regime? Something has to be done if we want Terry Waite and others to go free. Now is the opportunity.
    Mr. Hogg: My impression of that question is that it is wide of the one that the hon. Gentleman tabled. However, I shall make two points. First, the hon. Gentleman might care to bear in mind that there are some 755 people in prison for criminal damage—that is damaging property. I should have thought that that would make criticism from the hon. Gentleman wholly inappropriate on subjects of this sort.
    On the other point, the idea that one bargains for the release of hostages is grotesque and absurd and I regret hearing it in the House.
    Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I thank my hon. Friend for the figures he has given. Does he agree that the prisons are overcrowded and that, as a result, many policemen are being forced to look after remand prisoners in police cells? Will he please take some urgent action to consider allowing remand prisoners to be kept in hostels run by authorities other than the Home Office?
    Mr. Hogg: My hon. Friend makes a very serious point. We have brought about a substantial reduction in the number of prisoners held in police cells. In March the number was about 1,500, but it is currently about 750, which is a substantial reduction. We have also put in place a number of measures designed to reduce substantially the number remanded in prisons. My hon. Friend is right when he says that it is a serious problem, but we are addressing it.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: While it remains the Minister"s judgment that in some cases prisoners must be kept in police cells, will he take special measures to ensure that they are not remanded hundred of miles from their homes and their legal advisers? Does the Minister recognise that this is causing great personal hardship and extreme difficulty in the preparation of cases for court?
    Mr. Hogg: A number of the measures that we have taken—in particular, the new camps—have reduced the problem to which the hon. and learned Member refers.

    Independent Television Programme Producers
    Mr. Greg Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps his Department is taking to promote the greater use of independent programme producers by the British Broadcasting Corporation and Independent Television.
    Mr. Renton: We have sought and received a commitment from the BBC and IBA that, subject to satisfaction on cost and quality, 25 per cent. of original television output covering a wide range of programmes will be commissioned from independent producers by the end of 1992. We attach great importance to the achievement of that target, and we shall continue to keep in touch with both broadcasters and independent producers, to satisfy ourselves about progress towards it.
    Mr. Knight: Can my hon. Friend tell the House to what extent the Government"s independent production initiative has helped reduce costs and increase efficiency in the television industry? Does my hon. Friend agree that, apart from the need for a fifth television channel, because the BBC is either unable or unwilling to broadcast programmes after midnight, there is an overwhelming case for directing the corporation to turn over its BBC1 and BBC2 transmitters to independent companies during late evening and early morning periods, so that a better public service may be provided?
    Mr. Renton: I have no doubt that our determination that independent producers shall have reasonable access to television screens throughout the country has been one reason why companies have been active in recent months in entering into new agreements with their work forces and taking new steps to use the latest technology and equipment, thus reducing their costs. I agree with my hon. Friend that, so far, there has been more initiative shown by Channel 4 and the ITV companies in using the night hours, although the BBC is now starting a subscription service during the night for doctors.
    James Thurber advised:
    "Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead."
    So far, the ITV companies are heeding that advice more than the BBC.
    Mr. Cryer: When considering the use of independent film producers, will the Minister ensure that the IBA exercises its duty under the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act 1973 and stops the practice of feature films being interrupted by advertisements in a highly arbitrary manner and not when natural breaks occur? Will the Minister ensure, too, that feature films made specifically for theatrical exhibition will not be interrupted in the devastatingly arbitrary way that the IBA permits, so breaching its statutory obligation?
    Mr. Renton: The hon. Member raises an interesting point. It is solely for the IBA to monitor the insertion of advertisements within feature films. The Council of Europe"s draft convention suggests that feature films should be interrupted only once during the whole course of their transmission. That proposal worries British advertisers, but it is one that we shall consider and argue about in the weeks ahead.
    Mr. Roger King: Is my hon. Friend aware that over the past few weeks we have been subjected by all the TV
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    channels to a diet of England losing at football and at cricket, but that when it came to England winning at Le Mans and Jaguar"s victory there for the first time in 32 years, there was no coverage because of the absence of any contractual arrangements between the media? We all look forward to independent producers who can bring success stories of that kind to our screens, which the public desperately want.
    Mr. Renton: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is interesting to note that at present independent producers are making a bid to handle the televising of Parliament, and I hope that that will be a success story as well.
    Mr. Worthington: It is clear that Britain can lead the world in this area of programme-making. Will the Minister get together with his colleagues in the Department of Trade and Industry to ensure that there is a thriving programme-making facility, not just in the south-east of England, but in the rest of the United Kingdom, particularly Scotland?
    Mr. Renton: I met members of the Independent Producers Association only yesterday. I assured them that we were anxious to ensure that regional production continues throughout the country—in Wales, Scotland and other parts of England—and is not just centred around WC2, with everyone taking lunch at the White Tower restaurant.
    Mr. Holt: Will my hon. Friend ensure that all these so-called drama producers are told that the vast majority of people are fed up with their television sets producing four-letter words, men urinating into lavatories, and buckets of blood, all in the name of so-called realism?
    Mr. Renton: Yes, Sir. It is precisely for that reason that we have set up the Broadcasting Standards Council and Sir William Rees-Mogg has taken on the difficult job of being its first chairman.
    Mr. Corbett: While I welcome the greater use of independent television producers to give variety to both national and regional stations, will the Minister encourage that on radio as well? To assist in the process, will the proposed new Channel 5 and the new commercial radio stations be run on the lines of Channel 4?
    Mr. Renton: When the hon. Gentleman refers to Channel 5, I take it that he is talking about television and not radio. The answer is that that will not necessarily be so. This is one of the matters that we are examining, and, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said in his speech last night, we must consider—outside the BBC—to what degree ITV channels and any new terrestrial channels should be subject to the same public service broadcasting obligations as now exist.

    Crime Prevention
    Mr. Sumberg: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further plans he has to involve the private sector in collaborative schemes of crime prevention following his recent initiative.
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. John Patten): Crime Concern, the new national organisation for crime prevention, was launched on 23 May. One of its tasks will

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    be to provide a national focus for private sector support for crime prevention. We shall also be expecting to see continued private sector support for individual local crime prevention projects, including some that will be established under the safer cities programme, and crime prevention panels have an important role too.
    Mr. Sumberg: I welcome my hon. Friend"s initiative in this important matter. Will he in turn send a message of support to the Bury police, who have recently established in my constituency the Bury crime prevention panel, which will involve the community and the private sector in police activities? Is that not the sort of action that will translate his good intentions into good deeds?
    Mr. Patten: The Bury police are showing a lead, and I shall write to them this afternoon.
    Mr. John Greenway: Is my hon. Friend aware of the insurance schemes with low premiums for members of good neighbour and neighbourhood watch schemes, which have recently been introduced? Does he agree that such schemes provide a very good spur to membership of neighbourhood watch, and to crime prevention in general?
    Mr. Patten: I welcome the actions of insurance companies that are giving a discount to householders and flat dwellers who live in the areas covered by neighbourhood watches of which they are members. I only wish that more insurance companies, would do the same.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Will the Minister ensure that those private sector schemes do not follow the arrangements that were set up for the collection of parked vehicles in Brighton? A tin-pot little company from the back end of Brighton was given a substantial contract and will now make a quarter of a million pounds a year collecting vehicles. That could have been done by the local police authority, and the ratepayer would have been the beneficiary. Why does the Minister not ensure that authorities keep such services in the public sector, so that the money can go to the real people, not just to a small group of people?
    Mr. Patten: The private sector is more cost-efficient and cost-effective. That is why we welcome the involvement of more and more private sector companies in sponsoring crime prevention schemes.
    Mrs. Ann Taylor: While the Minister is considering the role of the private sector in crime prevention, will he be having new discussions with the brewers? As the Home Secretary and the Ministers have fulfilled their side of the bargain and delivered the Licensing Bill to the brewers, will he now, although late in the day, be having discussions with the brewers about alcohol-related problems and, in particular, about their pricing policy in public houses, which artificially inflates the cost of low-alcohol and non-alcoholic drinks? Surely the events of recent weeks prove that the Government were wrong to push ahead with the Licensing Bill before tackling any of the problems of alcohol abuse.
    Mr. Patten: I find it amazing that the hon. Lady seems to have overlooked the stiffening by the Licensing Bill of the provisions for the sale of alcohol. I thought that she welcomed that in the Standing Committee on the Bill. I also thought that the hon. Lady would want to join us in
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    encouraging magistrates and licensing benches throughout the country to use the powers they already have to ensure that licenses are given only where they are appropriate.

    Bail Hostels
    Mr. Atkinson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has received any recent representations on the provision of local public consultation on the establishment of bail hostels and similar residences for offenders in premises which do not require a change of use.
    Mr. John Patten: I have received representations about the decision by the Dorset probation committee to purchase The Pines hotel, Cecil road, Boscombe, Bournemouth, for conversion to use as a bail hostel.
    Mr. Atkinson: The location of bail hostels, which is bound to be a sensitive issue in any locality, will incur greater opposition only where there has been no public consultation. Will my hon. Friend, therefore, consider issuing new guidelines to the probation service pointing out that it is essential to consult the local planning authority as well as the police authority on the location of such residences?
    Mr. Patten: I shall certainly consider my hon. Friend"s constructive suggestion, but we have 101 probation hostels of this sort in the country and it is a very long time since we have had any complaint at all from local residents about them. However, I appreciate the concern that is felt in his constituency and will certainly consider the very constructive suggestion that he has made.

    Police Forces (Restructuring)
    Mr. Cran: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he has taken to encourage police forces to restructure their administrative systems in order that police officers" time might be used more efficiently.
    Mr. Hurd: My Department has produced practical suggestions for reducing the administrative burden on operational police officers, both by streamlining procedures and by introducing specialist support units. The West Midlands police increased the operational availability of police officers by 12·5 per cent. in one sub-division by such means and are extending the process. A number of other forces, including Humberside, have also made significant gains in efficiency. The recent Audit Commission report acknowledges that this approach has
    "captured the imagination of almost the entire police service."
    Mr. Cran: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, while it is desirable to lighten the administrative burden on police officers—which will perforce mean that they will spend more time on the beat—it will not solve entirely the problem of the 94 per cent. increase in crime on Humberside in the last 10 years, against which there has been a 1·5 per cent. increase in the police establishment? The community would like more police on Humberside. Can he hold out any hope?
    Mr. Hurd: The rise in crime on Humberside has been well above the national average, which my hon. Friend will have been glad to see has been decreasing. Only part of the answer lies in increased numbers of police and, although

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    his figure about establishment is accurate, he will have noted that the strength of the force—the number of police and civilians available—has gone up by 235, which is just about 10 per cent.
    Ms. Armstrong: Does the Home Secretary not think that the answer to his hon. Friend fits ill with the recent decision in respect of Durham county constabulary, where the county police committee saved enough money to employ 12 new officers on the beat and the right hon. Gentleman then refused permission so to use the money?
    Mr. Hurd: As the hon. Lady knows, we are in the middle of a further programme of expanding the police forces in England and Wales, which are now at a record level and steadily increasing. I recently announced, on top of the 300 extra police for London, 500 extra for the non-metropolitan forces. I am in touch with my colleagues about the right number for next year.

    Sunday Trading
    Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received about the proposed reform of Sunday trading.
    Mr. Hurd: Between 1 January and 14 June we received 153 written representations broadly in favour of Sunday trading, and 110 against. Ministers have also received various deputations, some for and some against Sunday trading.
    Mr. Marshall: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a law that allows shopkeepers to sell gin but not dried milk, pornography but not the Bible, fresh fish but not canned sardines, is illogical, indefensible, frequently breached and rarely enforced? Does he agree that it is high time the law was changed?
    Mr. Hurd: I agree with my hon. Friend. I remember using similar examples two years ago when I tried to persuade the House to agree to the logical solution, which is deregulation. The House would not have it at that time. Now we are searching around to see whether opinion has changed about deregulation or whether there is some way in which we can move forward out of the intolerable position that my hon. Friend has described in a way that is acceptable to both Houses of Parliament.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Mr. Charles Powell
    Ql. Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Prime Minister what assessment was made, when Mr. Charles Powell was seconded to her Office as her private secretary for overseas affairs, of the implications of his role and authority in that capacity for his effectiveness in any future posting on his eventual return to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; and if she will make a statement.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): None, Sir.
    Mr. Dalyell: Did Mr. Powell really fail to tell the Prime Minister about the role of the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in the Westland Law Officer"s leaked letter before the inquiry had reported?
    The Prime Minister: As I have told the hon. Gentleman many times, I have nothing to add to the many answers and statements that I have given on this matter.
    Mr. Cash: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the batty question asked by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) shows that he has no clue about the qualities that are needed for such appointments? He knows perfectly well that he has no justification for the allegations he has been putting down on the Order Paper, which are a grave misuse of the procedure of the House.
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Fatchett: Is it not about time that the Prime Minister came clean with my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and the House and told the whole truth about the Westland affair, particularly in the light of the journal report this week which suggested that the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), who was then Secretary of State for Defence, had made it abundantly clear that the Prime Minister was responsible for the leaked letter? Is it not time that the Prime Minister commented on that and told us the truth? It is her integrity that is being challenged by these proceedings and by the right hon. Gentleman"s comments.
    The Prime Minister: I have answered innumerable questions and given extensive replies. I have nothing further to add.
    Sir Bernard Braine: When my right hon. Friend rightly drew a sharp contrast between the orderly and civilised city of Toronto——
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I hesitate to interrupt the Father of the House, but this is a definitive question.

    Engagements
    Mr. Ron Davies: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 June.
    The Prime Minister: This morning I returned from Canada. I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today, including one with the President of West Germany.
    Mr. Davies: Will the Prime Minister confirm a report in The Daily Telegraph of yesterday that she informed the Ottawa summit that she was now of the opinion that private affluence did not necessarily solve all society"s problems? If that conversion is true, will she have a word with her hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) before she makes a complete fool of herself and the Tory party by her attempts to legitimise and justify the disgraceful actions of the ticket touts at Wimbledon?
    The Prime Minister: First, the summit was not in Ottawa, but in Toronto. I do not know of anyone who thinks that affluence will solve all problems. People cannot know anything about human nature if they think that. Ticket touts at Wimbledon are not a matter for me.
    Sir Peter Blaker: Bearing in mind that today is the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the 10-month blockade of West Berlin by the Soviet Union, which led to the signing of the North Atlantic treaty, will my right hon. Friend

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    affirm that, in spite of the changes in the Soviet Union under Mr. Gorbachev, a strong NATO remains as essential as ever?
    The Prime Minister: Yes. A strong NATO is our only sure defence. One of the reasons why we are able to welcome the bold actions of Mr. Gorbachev in trying to change the Soviet Union is that, whatever happens, our defence under NATO will be sure.
    Dr. Owen: Will the Prime Minister support in Hanover next week the proposed study by the central bankers for a European independent central bank? Does she agree that that would be the mechanism whereby the freeing of capital flows would be a success, so that in the longer term United Kingdom domestic interest rates might come down to the OECD average?
    The Prime Minister: No, not precisely that. Other things need doing, which I shall refer to in a moment. We can have a European central bank only when there is a united states of Europe under one sovereign Government, not under 12, and when all the countries have the same economic policy. That not being on the cards, I see no point in anyone studying a European central bank. There are points in having a number of central bankers and possibly Finance Ministers considering the composition of reserves and greater use of the ecu, but that is a different proposition from the one which the right hon. Gentleman has put, which would come about only with the dissolution of this House, among others.
    Mr. Colvin: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Colvin: Will my right hon. Friend find time today to read the ruling of the European Court on rates of value added tax in the United Kingdom? Is this not another example of the loss of sovereignty that is part of the price that we have to pay for membership of the EEC? In view of her concern about the need to crack down on alcohol abuse, will my right hon. Friend take note that if there is harmonisation of taxes on alcoholic drinks, 18p will come off a pint of beer, the price of a bottle of wine will drop by 25 per cent. and a bottle of whisky will be a full third cheaper? What would that do for the sobriety of the nation?
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend is aware, following a statement in the House on Tuesday, that VAT judgment arose from a 1977 directive which must have gone through the House, or not have been objected to by the House, for it to become a directive. Therefore, the court was re-interpreting existing law. With regard to drink taxation, the Commission"s harmonisation proposals would require the unanimous agreement of all member states and could not be imposed against the will of the United Kingdom Government. We believe that these attempts to harmonise duties are misconceived and unnecessary, and we shall oppose them.
    Mr. Kinnock: Is the Prime Minister aware that after the interest rate rise yesterday Mr. John Bannan of the CBI said:
    "We do not believe the present medicine will have the desired results. It will have very serious side effects."
    Does the Prime Minister think that he is wrong?
    The Prime Minister: The most important thing is what the Chancellor said in his Budget speech:
    "Short-term interest rates remain the essential instrument of monetary policy. Within a continuous and comprehensive assessment of monetary conditions, I will continue to set interest rates at the level necessary to ensure downward pressure on inflation."—[Official Report, 15 March 1988; Vol. 129, c. 997.]
    Most industrialists agree that the worst thing for them would be a return of inflation. My right hon. Friend took steps to prevent that.
    Mr. Kinnock: Clearly, the Prime Minister thinks that Mr. Banham and all who agree with him are wrong. Is it not obvious that the further increase in interest rates came because the Government have completely lost control of credit? [Interruption.] Having completely lost control of credit, the Prime Minister is making British industry pay the price, as usual. Why does she always do that? Is it any wonder, given those policies, that British industry has lost 20 per cent. of the international market and 30 per cent. of the British market? Why does the Prime Minister not give our producers a chance for a change?
    The Prime Minister: Short-term interest rates are the essential instrument of monetary policy. If the right hon. Gentleman has no such instruments to control it, how does he ever expect to be able to keep inflation down? But then, of course, he never did. With regard to industry, may I make it absolutely clear that a 1 per cent. increase in wages costs industry four times as much as a 1 per cent. increase in interest rates. Wages went up by over 8½ per cent. last year.
    Mr. Kinnock: If it is short-term interest rates that concern the Prime Minister, why have interest rates been higher for longer under her Government than under any other Government?
    The Prime Minister: And inflation has been lower than the right hon. Gentleman"s party ever achieved in Government.
    Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Marshall: Yesterday in Moscow I was asked to thank the Prime Minister—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us hear it.
    Mr. Marshall: I was asked to thank the Prime Minister for the support that she has given the refusenik community. In doing so, may I ask her, in the course of her busy day—[Hon. MEMBERS: "Reading"] —to consider the plight of Vladimir Kislik who has been fighting for an exit visa since 1973? Does she agree that his condition is intolerable, and will she press the Russians to give him an exit visa?
    The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for passing on those thanks. I am pleased to receive the message. Official consultations on human rights questions are taking place in Moscow today and the plight of Soviet refuseniks will, of course, be among the matters that are discussed. Our officials will be handing over a list of cases, which includes the case of Vladimir Kislik. His name was also on the list handed to Mr. Shevardnadze last year.

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    Despite recent improvements in emigration arrangements, many Soviet Jews are still waiting to leave. We shall not forget them and we shall continue to raise their plight.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the repely that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Hughes: Will the Prime Minister explain this? A reply dated 9 June 1987 from her Office, on her personal notepaper, to a Mr. St. John from south London. described the system under which council tenants could have their tenancies transferred. She said that that would happen only if the majority of tenants expressed their support for it. Is she aware that the Housing Bill now before the House blatantly contradicts that commitment and allows a transfer even if the majority do not express their support? Will the Prime Minister honour her commitment of last year, reverse the U-turn and make sure that tenants" transfer is conducted under a democratic and proper system of voting?
    The Prime Minister: I thought that we had arranged that it was a majority of those voting—either for tenants" co-operatives or for a possible transfer to housing associations. The hon. Gentleman will be referring to housing action trusts—[Interruption.] In that case, may I have another look at it? I think that we have arranged for a block to be transferred only with a majority of those voting and for those who do not wish to be transferred to remain under existing ownership.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 23 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Will my right hon. Friend accept that one of the most important rights that people have in this country is the resort to justice? The problem that arises is that if one is poor enough one may get legal aid, and if one is rich enough one may pursue a case to the end of one"s pocket. However, if one is in the middle, which the great majority of people are, one has little hope or right to justice because, unless one is willing to impoverish one"s family at a cost of a hundreds of thousands of pounds —as have some hon. Members—one cannot get it. Will my right hon. Friend accept, at long last, that this one great monopoly should fall, as other monopolies have fallen, because she believes that justice should he done for all?
    The Prime Minister: Legal aid is widely available, often to those with incomes well above the national average. I think it is right that we should have a place where we draw the line. It would be quite wrong for everyone, automatically, regardless of means, to be able to get legal aid. A report of the review body on civil justice was published on 7 June. It has made recommendations that would make justice quicker, simpler, more cost-effective and more accessible to the public. The Lord Chancellor is at present consulting on those suggestions.

Economic Summit (Toronto)
3.30 pm
The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the economic summit held in Toronto on 19–21 June, which I attended with my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Copies of the economic and political declarations issued by the summit have been placed in the Library of the House.
The Toronto summit marked the end of the second seven-year cycle of these meetings. In contrast to the first cycle, which was characterised by short-term policies and expedients, which led only to high inflation and low growth, this second cycle of meetings followed a different approach. We concentrated on fundamentals, like sound financial policies to get inflation down, coupled with incentives to encourage enterprise and reforms to remove barriers to growth. These policies have led to sustained growth, with low inflation, higher investment and new jobs. The Toronto summit was therefore able to confirm that our countries are achieving unprecedented economic success.
Our economic discussion took place under four main headings—macroeconomic policies, trade, agriculture and the debt problems of the poorest countries.
First, on macroeconomic policies, Heads of Government committed themselves to continue the fiscal, monetary and structural policies which have brought non-inflationary growth. We shall all maintain vigilance against any resurgence of inflation. Countries with budgetary deficits will continue their efforts to reduce them. Those with large external surpluses will continue to sustain the momentum of domestic demand. We shall all continue to carry through structural reforms aimed at removing unnecessary regulations and burdens on business.
Secondly, on trade, the summit Governments renewed their commitments to resist new measures of protection and steadily to reduce the present barriers to trade. We attached major importance to strengthening the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade itself by ensuring that member states carry out their obligations, and that disputes over trade are resolved speedily, effectively and equitably. We urge the newly industrialising countries to accept more obligations in the GATT.
We committed ourselves to ensure more open markets for the exports of developing countries, many of which need trade as much as they need aid. We want to see progress on all these matters at the mid-term review meeting of the GATT negotiations in Montreal in December.
Thirdly, on agriculture, in furtherance of our agreement at the Tokyo and Venice summits, we pledged ourselves to take further steps to make the agricultural sector more responsive to the needs of the market. We agreed on an approach to international negotiations in the GATT which should steadily reduce agricultural subsidies and protection in all our countries. We hope that this will lead to decisions covering both short-term steps and longer-term objectives at the Montreal meeting.
Fourthly, debt. Our discussions concentrated on the debt problems of the poorest and most heavily indebted countries, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa.
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I pay tribute to the way in which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has taken the lead over the past 14 months in pressing for action to ease the debt service burden of those countries. His proposals, and subsequent variations by other countries, were welcomed at Toronto and we were able to agree on action to put them into effect.
First, on trade debts, we agreed that creditor countries should choose between concessionary interest rates, longer repayment periods and partial write-offs, with the details to be worked out at the Paris Club. That relief is conditional on the debtor countries agreeing a programme of reform with the International Monetary Fund. It will offer major additional benefits to the poorest countries which could build up to $500 million a year. Secondly, on aid debts, we welcomed the action that the United Kingdom and others have taken to write off old aid loans and we urged countries to give further aid to the poorest in the form of grants, as the United Kingdom already does.
Heads of Government also discussed a number of political issues which are covered in the political declaration. On East-West relations, we congratulated President Reagan on what he had accomplished, together with Mr. Gorbachev, at the recent Moscow summit. We reasserted our belief that our security will continue to depend on a combination of nuclear deterrence and adequate conventional strength. We pledged our continued support for further negotiations to reduce United States and Soviet strategic weapons, as well as to reduce the threat posed by the Warsaw pact"s massive superiority in conventional forces. We urged the Soviet Union to enshrine in law the recent advances on human rights matters and to remove obstacles to emigration. We encouraged the countries of eastern Europe to open up their economies and societies.
The statement also approved important steps to improve international co-operation in the fight against drugs, including measures to deal with laundering of drug money. Heads of Government reiterated the strong stand taken at earlier summits against all forms of terrorism and hi-jacking. We appealed to all countries that are not party to the international conventions on civil aviation security to accede to those conventions.
I should like to pay tribute to the very skilled and effective chairmanship of the summit by the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr. Mulroney.
The message from the Toronto summit was one of achievement and of confidence in the future, coupled with a commitment that the sound policies which have brought us success will continue and that new progress will be made on current problems. Those are the policies that the Government have consistently followed for more than nine years and, as a result, Britain has been able to give a lead in securing rising living standards and a better world.
Mr. Neil Kinnock: I welcome the further steps taken by the summit leaders and their countries to co-operate in combating terrorism, in attacking the evil of international drug trafficking and in punishing those who profit by such horrific trade. I welcome the commitment at the summit to continue the efforts to improve international economic policy co-ordination. What will be the consequences of the Prime Minister"s commitment in endorsing the objective of reducing spending in countries with large external deficits, particularly as Britain is now just such a country?

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The statement on debt rescheduling for some of the poorest countries is evidence of progress, and I note with satisfaction that the communiqué urged countries to maintain a high grant element in their future assistance to the poorest. In the light of that, will the Prime Minister now reverse the reductions in Britain"s overseas aid development programme, reductions that have cut the value of our programme in half since she came to power?
Why did the Prime Minister insist on weakening the summit statement on the Sharpeville Six by resisting the efforts of other leaders, including Mr. Mulroney, to impose real pressures on Pretoria by including the threat of sanctions against apartheid? Does that not discredit the right hon. Lady"s calls for clemency?
The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what he said about the points with which he agrees. It is much easier to obtain international economic policy co-ordination when all the members of the summit countries are running their economies soundly —which they are and which they have been. They are running their economies in a way that is very similar to the policy that we are pursuing.
As for the reduction in spending in countries with large external deficits, our external deficit at present is very small indeed, compared with our gross domestic product. It is one of the smallest among all countries. I am glad, nevertheless, to hear that we have in the right hon. Gentleman a convert to reducing public spending. Is that not good? Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will tell us how he intends to reduce it, or will all the reductions be on defence?
As for a high grant element in aid to the poorest countries, that is absolutely right. The number of loans that have been given could not possibly have been repaid, so it is better to be quite bold and give them that help in the form of grants. What was the last thing—[Interruption.] I am so sorry: South Africa. I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that no proposal for sanctions against South Africa ever came before the Heads of Government.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have to have regard to the fact that this is an Opposition day and that there is to be an important debate on Wales. I shall allow questions on the Prime Minister"s statement to continue until 4 o"clock and then we must move on to the business statement. Therefore, I ask hon. Members for brief questions, please.
Sir Peter Hordern: Was there genuine concern at the summit conference about the risk of inflation and was there a general agreement to increase interest rates?
The Prime Minister: There was no general agreement to increase interest rates. My hon. Friend is aware that there are a number of instruments for keeping down inflation. One of the most important of those is interest rates; another is to keep down public spending and deficits—in preference, having a Budget surplus—as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has done. My hon. Friend will have seen a sentence in the economic communiqué that states that we must continue to be vigilant and ensure that there is no resurgence of inflation, so we are aware of the problem and we are taking steps to deal with it.
Mr. Robert Maclennan: While one welcomes any steps that improve international economic co-operation, why did the Prime Minister fail to draw attention to the historic imbalance in current accounts and to the historic yo-yoing of the exchange rates, towards the correction of which this summit appears to have done nothing? While one bears in mind the disparities between the Federal Republic of Germany and ourselves, why is the Prime Minister so hostile to the co-ordination of central bank activities, as she expressed it in her earlier answer at Question Time to the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen)?
The Prime Minister: The right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) was not asking about the co-ordination of central bank activities. I gave two examples where I thought greater co-ordination could come about. He referred to setting up a European central bank. That can be set up when there is only one Government in Europe. As for the yo-yos of inflation, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the revaluation of the yen was one of the very important events that led to the reduction of Japan"s external trade balance.
Sir Fergus Montgomery: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the support on these Benches for the agreement reached at the summit for the continuation of the fight against illegal drug dealers? Will she confirm that the work started at the summit will include greater international co-operation over the confiscation of the assets of drug barons?
The Prime Minister: Yes, that has been very much in our minds. A new special task force has been set up and we hope that it will make strenuous efforts to trace the ill-gotten gains of those who deal in drugs. We have already signed a number of agreements, including an agreement with the United States and Canada. It is a reciprocal agreement that follows on the powers that we took under the Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1986. Under that Act we can take advantage of the powers in one another"s courts to trace the money of drugs dealers with a view to confiscating it, if they have been convicted. We can also trace the many actions that have led to the laundering of drugs money, which thereby obscures where that money went. The two agreements that we have already signed will help us to achieve these aims We are now negotiating with about 20 other countries, so we should be very much better able to take action against those who deal in this terrible traffic.
Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: May I follow the question of the right hon. Lady"s hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Sir P. Hordern) and ask, in view of the deterioration in the outlook for inflation and the importance that she clearly attaches to short-term interest rate increases as a means of countering it, why did she not at least encourage a discussion on co-ordinating interest rate increases?
The Prime Minister: The way in which we are dealing with international co-ordination is by each of us running our economies in a sound way; by each of us having as our main objective keeping inflation down; by each of us trying to reduce deficits—we have already reduced ours to nil; by keeping our spending on a thoroughly sound basis; and by structural changes, among them tax incentives for

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enterprise. Japan, for example, certainly needs to increase demand in its domestic economy. That is a structural change.
We have a framework of running our economies soundly. We all agree that the most important thing is to keep inflation down. One can use several instruments to achieve that, but one does not make the instrument the objective. The instrument is a method of reaching another objective—the objective being to keep inflation down.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: While I warmly applaud the amazingly positive contribution that the Prime Minister made to the summit in Toronto, not least on terrorism and drugs, and the example which the United Kingdom has set in dealing with inflation, does my right hon. Friend accept that some people are concerned about interest rates, not least because they penalise industry, which is, of course, a major source of wealth creation? Is she not therefore concerned that increasing interest rates in the United Kingdom could cause a problem for United Kingdom industry?
The Prime Minister: As I said at Question Time, a resurgence of inflation would cause a far bigger problem for industry. That would be the very worst thing, so the objective must be to keep inflation down.
With regard to the actual increase in costs when interest rates rise by a small amount, again, as I have said, a 1 per cent. increase in wage rates costs industry four times as much as a 1 per cent. increase in interest rates. As those who complain now have seen average increases in wages and salaries of 8·5 per cent. during the past year, it ill behoves them to complain about an interest rate increase of 0·5 per cent.
Mr. James Molyneaux: While writing off the loans will not undo the damage that they have done to the economic and social fabric of Third-world countries, will the Prime Minister assure us that everything will be done to prevent such mistakes being repeated?
The Prime Minister: I have described what we are trying to do to help Third-world countries. It was agreed, and we are trying to ensure, that the burden is shared equally between the member countries at the summit. That will be done through the Paris Club. We shall do our level best to ensure that those countries get on a sound economic footing because that is the condition for both writing off their aid loans and for helping them with trade loans. The right hon. Gentleman will be pleased by the degree of co-operation between the Western industrialised countries and the poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
Mr. Timothy Raison: May I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the section in the economic declaration on the debt of the poorest countries? What timetable does my right hon. Friend envisage for the implementation of the new measures to relieve debt? Will she confirm that, if there are additional resource requirements from the United Kingdom, they will be provided from funds which are additional to the current aid programme rather than out of it?
The Prime Minister: As my right hon. Friend is aware, the current aid programme is increasing in real terms, although I know that he would like more. The length of time that it will take will, to some extent, depend on the recipient countries themselves because they will have to agree programmes with the IMF. There is no point in giving them extra help if they are just going to continue with the ways that have got them into a great deal of trouble. Some are agreeing their programmes, and some have already agreed them, and it will be quicker to operate with those.
We shall then try to undertake to negotiate—we are prepared to negotiate quickly in the Paris Club—and that should not take a great deal of time. However, if the methods that separate countries choose are very varied, obviously they have to make a coherent whole. It might take some months to make certain that that happens.
Miss Joan Lestor: Bearing in mind that the initiative to turn loans into grants was started by Dame Judith Hart, as she then was, in this House, those of us who follow this matter closely are pleased that, at last, the Government have taken it on. In the communiqué that the Prime Minister read out, she said that Third-world countries
"need trade as much as they need aid."
But the reverse is equally true. Therefore, was she not somewhat embarrassed to find that Britain"s aid is at an all-time low at 0·28 per cent., which places us one from the bottom of the countries which were meeting at Toronto? I would have thought that that would have been discussed, since the leader in the Financial Times is highly critical of the promises yet to become deeds.
The Prime Minister: When the last Labour Government had a higher percentage of their gross national product in aid, they had, of course, a very much lower gross national product. I sometimes feel that Opposition Members would prefer a lower GNP even though that meant lower aid and lower social services. The amount involved now is a slightly lower percentage of GNP, but we are steadily increasing aid. This year"s budget, excluding aid administration, is £1·3 billion, which is scheduled to increase by £70 million next year and by more the following year. Those figures represent an increase over expenditure in 1987–88 of some 4 per cent. in real terms.
Mr. David Howell: While I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on her role in a most successful summit and, through her, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on his excellent initiative for solving the debt problem, does she recall that it was the failure of communication between some of the Finance Ministers of the Western countries back in October last year that led to the collapse of confidence and the great stock market crash? Will she at least reassure us that, at the Toronto summit, better communication on interest rate policy and monetary policy was maintained and that she will use her considerable influence in the future to see that that co-ordination is further strengthened?
The Prime Minister: First, I thank my right hon. Friend for what he said about the debt problem. May I acknowledge—I did not do so when answering the previous question, and I should have done—that the

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Labour Government started to change from aid loans to aid grants, and also wrote off a considerable amount of debt. We are continuing that policy most successfully.
I do not believe that the October stock exchange crash was caused by a failure of communication between Governments; rather, it was the fundamentally sound policies that we had been following through previous years that enabled the world to ride that sudden loss of price. I remember that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, myself and many other people—either Heads of Government or Finance Ministers—went on television and radio to say that there was no justification for fear in the future because our policies were fundamentally sound. It was that soundness that enabled us to ride the storm. That soundness has come partly from meeting at economic summits when we have discussed such matters together and from getting all our policies on a sound basis.
Mr. James Lamond: When the Prime Minister"s speech writers were preparing her for the meeting, did they remind her of her remarks at Question Time on 8 December 1983 when she was rather angry with the United States because it was running what she described as
"a fantastic balance of trade deficit"—[Official Report, 8 December 1983; Vol. 50, c. 462.]
which caused high interest rates, which were extremely damaging to this country? She said that she was very glad indeed that this country had a surplus of £1·2 billion, which placed us in a strong position, and she forecast that the United states would be in trouble within 12 months. Did she say that all again to President Reagan, bearing in mind that the situation is very much worse now than it was five years ago?
The Prime Minister: The United States budget deficit is now falling and the trade deficit is also falling, which is good news for us all.
Mr. Quentin Davies: During the years that my right hon. Friend has been attending summits, has she noted a growing admiration for the economic performance of, and an increased national confidence in, this country? Is she aware that throughout the world she is being given a large measure of credit for that remarkable turnround?
The Prime Minister: Yes, my right hon. Friend the present Chancellor and the former Chancellor and are constantly congratulated on the way in which Britain"s economy has turned around from being the lowest growth economy in Europe to being the highest and one of the strongest. That is because of the sound policies that we have been pursuing. I know that the Opposition do not like them, but they are sound policies and most countries are now following them.
Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas: May I ask the Prime Minister to turn to the third of her economic topics, which has not yet been covered, that of agriculture? Can she explain where she stands as between the United States Administration, which is calling for agricultural support and protection to be rapidly phased out, and the European Community, which is rather more protective both of protection and of the social objectives of agricultural support?
The Prime Minister: We made it clear that we did not think it possible in any way to abolish all agricultural
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subsidies in 10 years, or by the end of this century. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman will have noted from the communiqué that negotiators are to set a long-term framework for steadily reducing those subsidies, which are great distortions to trade. Therefore, short-term steps may be taken with those long-term steps in view.
The hon. Gentleman will know that we took steps, in Europe to try to deal with the agricultural problem, and that has reduced surpluses substantially. Nevertheless, he will also know that the subsidies are really very high indeed. We must measure them by the figure for the producer subsidy equivalent—which attempts to look at all kinds of protection, whether subsidies or other forms —and compare them by taking the proportion of income that farmers receive from the subsidy. This shows that, in 1986, the OECD farmer on average received 47 per cent. of his income from some sort of support; in Japan it was 75 per cent.; in the EC it was still 49 per cent.; in Canada it was 46 per cent.; and in the United States it was 35 per cent. Obviously, those figures are such that we still have quite a long way to go to reduce them to a rate that farmers can take.
Sir Ian Lloyd: Shortly before the summit convened, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment published a most detailed, devastating and convincing report on the so-called star wars programme. Was that subject raised at the summit? Did the President attempt to deal with those attacks on his strategic programme? Was my right hon. Friend convinced by the replies? Is there not a great danger that acceptance of 100 per cent. defence against a missile attack will lead to a massive and dangerous diversion of Western defence resources?
The Prime Minister: We did not, in fact, discuss that report, but I do not know of anyone who would think that the strategic defence initiative would or could be a 100 per cent. defence. I do not know anyone who believes that. It would be a substantial defence, just as a defence weapon has been developed against every attack weapon throughout history. I view the SDI in that light.
We also learned a great deal of new technology and science from pursuing that programme. I think that my hon. Friend will be the first to agree that being ahead on technology and scientific research is a very powerful deterrent indeed. In fact, if that had not been the case in the last war, other people might have had the atomic weapon first.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: When the right hon. Lady was discussing terrorism with President Reagan, did it cross her mind that perhaps she should have raised with President Reagan the attitude of the United States towards supporting the Contras and the other anti-democratic forces, Governments and reactionary dictatorships that the United States supports? Has it ever crossed her mind that she has a double standard in quite rightly saying that there should be freedom in the Soviet Union, but never asking President Reagan where he and his Government stand in relation to freedom in other countries where they constantly interfere in the internal affairs of people who are struggling for their rights?
The Prime Minister: I seem to remember answering a similar question from the hon. Gentleman just a few days

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ago, and pointing out clearly that we would not like to live under a Government such as that of the Sandinistas. It hardly equates with his idea of democracy, or mine.
Mr. Tony Baldry: Does my right hon. Friend agree that anyone who has seen famine in sub-Saharan Africa will warmly applaud the initiative that she and our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer have taken? Will she make it clear that creditor countries not only expect debtor nations to negotiate some of their economic policies in line with discussions with the IMF, but also spend a large proportion of their GNP on arms to prosecute border disputes and pointless civil wars against each other, all of which could be much better resolved by peaceful negotiation? A lot less of the budget in sub-Saharan Africa should go on wasting money on arms, but should be spent on people.
The Prime Minister: I understand precisely what my hon. Friend is saying. But he will be the first to know that countries such as Mozambique face a very real problem from RENAMO. Obviously, that country must have the means to resist the attacks from those people, for which they need a certain amount of training and help. We have to consider it case by case.
Mr. Nigel Griffiths: Is the Prime Minister aware that people in this country from all backgrounds and supporting all political parties view with great distress her statement on Third-world aid—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] But facts are chiels which winna ding. [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the hon. Gentleman be brief, please?
Mr. Griffiths: The facts are there. They were given in the Financial Times today—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the hon. Gentleman ask a question?
Mr. Griffiths: Is the Prime Minister aware that, for the first time in history, overseas aid from the Government has dropped below 0·3 per cent.—to 0·28 per cent.? In the past
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year it has dropped by 2·8 per cent. in sterling terms and by 7 per cent. in volume terms, and many people from all backgrounds are concerned that the Government do not care about poverty in the Third world and are doing nothing to alleviate it.
The Prime Minister: In absolute terms, our aid programme remains substantial. It is the seventh largest among Western donors. It is of high quality, it is focused on the poorest countries and it is now growing in real terms. This year"s budget is 5·7 per cent. up on last year in cash terms, and the programme is now scheduled to grow by some 4 per cent. in real terms compared with expenditure in 1987–88.
I have not found anything like the reception that the hon. Gentleman mentioned; quite the contrary. Most people are extremely pleased with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor"s initiative and sad that it took such a long time for other countries to take it up. Not only is it writing off the loans; it is giving substantial help to some of the trade debtors. We are doing so alongside the six other members of the summit seven. That is a very good advance, and it is far greater than anything previously achieved.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. As a matter of balance, I shall call one Government Member.
Mr. John Browne: Does my right hon. Friend accept that one of the greatest challenges now facing Western leaders is the management of strategic peace in an era when the peace of deterrence may be replaced by the peace of detente? Will she accept that one result of the summit is that the risk that any perceived weakness or division on our part, leading to war is now greatly reduced and there is a much better chance that peace will be maintained as a result?
The Prime Minister: I think that there is a clear political communiqué, that we must keep up our guard. Weakness is the most dangerous and damaging thing and would put our liberty in jeopardy. We can be highly co-operative with the Soviet Union and what it is trying to do in changing its whole system and giving more personal responsibility and initiative precisely because our defence will be strong and liberty will not he in danger.

Business of the House
4.4 pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Wakeham): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the business for next week:
MONDAY 27 JuNE—Completion of remaining stages of the Housing Bill.
TUESDAY 28 JUNE—Completion of remaining stages of the Criminal Justice Bill [Lords].
WEDNESDAY 29 JUNE—Motion on the Northern Ireland Act 1974 (Interim Period Extension) Order.
Motion on the Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order.
THURSDAY 3o JuNE—There will be a debate on foreign affairs, on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
FRIDAY I JuLY—There will be a debate on the White Paper on fair employment in Northern Ireland (Cm. 380), on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
MONDAY 4 JULY—Estimates Day (2nd Allotted Day). There will be debates on defence (class I, vote 1), housing, England (class IX, vote 1), and local environmental and planning services, etc. England (class X, vote 1). Details will be given in the Official Report.
[Estimates to he considered on Monday 4 July:
Class I, vote 1 (Defence: personnel costs etc of the armed forces and civilians, stores, supplies and miscellaneous services), so far as it relates to the defence requirement for merchant shipping and civil aircraft:
Class IX, vote 1 (Housing, England), so far as it relates to the provision of bed and breakfast accommodation for the homeless;
Class X, vote 1 (Local environmental and planning services etc, England), so far as it relates to grants to local authorities far the provision of gipsy sites.]
Mr. Frank Dobson: I thank the Lord President for his statement, and in particular for the extra day that he has conceded for debate on the Housing Bill without a guillotine and the extra day that he has conceded for debate on the Criminal Justice Bill without a guillotine. Perhaps on reflection the Leader of the House will accept that a bit more give and a bit less take by the Government would lead to more orderly debate and fewer Government Back Benchers being kept up all night.
May I also thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving us the long-promised debate on foreign affairs. Long before he promised a debate on foreign affairs, the Lord President said that he would use his best endeavours to get his hon. Friends to serve on the Scottish Affairs Select Committee. When does he expect them to do their duty? Does he think that there is no chance of Tory Members being prepared to carry out that task? Surely if the Scottish economy were doing as well as the Prime Minister and the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) claim, Tory Members would be flocking to the colours to serve on that Committee.
Will the Leader of the House tell us when we can expect an announcement about the Government"s proposals to reform, and we hope curtail, the Official Secrets Act 1911? No doubt the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason) will have a personal interest in that.
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Finally, as a number of Opposition Members have pointed out, as the proportion of our national output devoted to overseas aid has sunk to an all-time low, can we expect an early debate on that shameful record, or, better still, a statement that British aid will be increased?
Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman asked me questions about housing and foreign affairs. I shall answer his questions in the order in which they were asked. First, in regard to the Housing Bill, I do not believe that there is any point in rehearsing the events of last week. I am sure that it is better to proceed without a guillotine, and I am pleased that it has been possible to reach another agreement through the usual channels that the Housing Bill should be completed at a reasonable hour on Monday.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he said about the foreign affairs debate which I promised would be arranged in the near future and I am glad that I have been able to fit it in.
With regard to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, as I said last week, I regret that the proposals that I put to the Opposition parties for the establishment of the Select Committee did not prove acceptable to them. I saw the Chairman of the Committee of Selection yesterday. I understand that he is to discuss with his colleagues whether there is any generally acceptable basis on which to set up that Select Committee.
I have said that the Government are proposing to publish a White Paper about official secrets, and that we shall be arranging a debate. I stand by what I have said on that subject.
I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman was listening to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said about overseas aid. She said that the amount of overseas aid is increasing. Perhaps that could be fitted into the foreign affairs debate next week.
Sir Bernard Braine: My right hon. Friend will recall that the recent statement by the Prime Minister contrasted the orderly and civilised city of Toronto with what is happening in many towns and cities in Britain. No doubt she was aware that Canada is outstanding among nations in its alcohol control policies. Should we not have a debate before the House rises for the summer recess about the growing problem in Britain and the steps that are being taken by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary"s departmental committee to resolve it?
Mr. Wakeham: I recognise the long and well-known interest of my right hon. Friend and others in these matters. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is considering the issues urgently. We shall need to look at all the problems, including the difficulties the police have had in tackling them and the contribution made by heavy drinking. On the role of alcohol, I have asked for a report to be made at the next meeting of the ministerial group on alcohol misuse, which I chair.
Mr. James Wallace: I would not expect the right hon. Gentleman to divulge the detail of the conversation he had with the Chairman of the Committee of Selection, but was anything said that gave him any hope that when the Chairman meets the Committee next week there will be some positive move forward in setting up the Scottish Select Committee? If that proves impossible, which would be regrettable, will he consider the proposal in early-day motion 1270 about setting up a Joint

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Committee of both Houses where he could use his noble Friends in another place to fill the gaps that his hon. Friends in this House are unwilling to fill?
[That this House notes with dismay the lack of sufficient Conservative honourable Members willing to accept nomination to the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, thereby frustrating the setting up of the Committee; expresses its belief in the need for a Committee with powers to call for persons and papers to ensure effective scrutiny of the Scottish Office and Scottish public affairs; and calls on the Leader of the House urgently to initiate procedures which will lead to the early constitution of a Joint Committee of both Houses.]
Mr. Wakeham: That would not be an adequate solution. There are considerable difficulties, but I prefer to say nothing until I have heard from the Chairman of the Committee of Selection.
Sir John Stokes: There are rumours in the press about what is happening or not happening in the Committee discussing the televising of the proceedings of the House. Will there be an official statement before the recess?
Mr. Wakeham: I cannot imagine that there will be an official statement before the recess. However, that depends when the recess comes. The Committee, which I chair, has a difficult job to do. We are working hard and it is not surprising that, from time to time, there are problems to overcome. I believe that we will overcome them and report to the House in due course.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Will the Leader of the House turn his attention to a growing menace in the House —the private Bill procedure? Is he aware that that has been corrupted during the past two or three years? There used to be a system whereby it was easy to distinguish between private Bills and Government Bills. Now that distinction has become blurred with the Associated British Ports Bills, the North Killingholme Cargo Terminal Bill and the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Bill. Surely it is high time that was stopped. To some extent, it would be in his interest, in terms of getting Government business through the House, to ensure that we do not clog up the private Bill system. Bills used to be geographically constrained but now affect every hon. Member. Private Bill Committees used to be manned by people who had no interest in those Bills. Yet the Bills before the House tonight involve South African coal with blood on it being imported into this country. Surely there is no hon. Member who, in some way or another, is not affected politically by that Bill. It is time it was stopped.
Mr. Wakeham: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman"s question was supposed to be helpful. As he knows, the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure is currently considering that matter and other matters to do with private Bills. I understand that it intends to publish a report before the end of the Session. It would be better to wait until the House has received the report before considering how best to proceed.
Mr. Tim Devlin: As our noble Friend the Lord Chancellor has announced the results of the Cleveland child abuse inquiry, not in the other place but in
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another country, will my right hon. Friend take urgent steps to ensure that copies of the report are given to Cleveland Members of Parliament for their consideration and that a statement is made at an early opportunity?
Mr. Wakeham: I am not sure where my hon. Friend obtains his information. I can assure him that the speech given in Lisbon by my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor was delivered to the organisers of the conference some time in March, long before the Cleveland report was produced. The speech had to be there in advance so that it could be translated into Portuguese and other languages. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has said that the report to which my hon. Friend referred will be published early in July. I see no reason to bring that date forward.
Mr. Harry Cohen: Can we have a statement or debate on the shameful Government decision to reverse their proposed ban on imports of fur from animals caught in the cruel steel-jaw trap? Was that proposal reversed to smooth the Prime Minister"s way in Toronto or to sell submarines? Does it not show that the Prime Minister would sell her own grandmother to further the arms race?
Mr. Wakeham: If we can strip the fuzz from the hon. Gentleman"s question, which is a serious one in spite of the way in which he put it, I can tell him that my hon. Friend the Minister for Trade is considering the matter and that an announcement will be made in due course.
Mr. Nicholas Soames: Will my right hon. Friend consider allowing the House time to debate some of the conditions in the prison service in view of the intransigent and irresponsible behaviour of a hard core of prison officers and the difficulty that the Government appear to be having in running the prison service? Is it not time we had a debate so that we can discuss those matters at some length?
Mr. Wakeham: I appreciate my hon. Friend"s rightly held concern about our prisons. As he will realise, this is a particularly busy time of year and I cannot promise a debate in the near future.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: Will the Leader of the House accept that the continuing wishy-washy statements about problems in setting up the Scottish Select Committee will be greeted with dismay by Opposition Members and those in Scotland? Is it not appalling that more than one year after the general election the Scottish Select Committee is the only Select Committee that is not up and working? Will he give a straight yes or no answer: will there be a Scottish Select Committee this Session?
Mr. Wakeham: I regret it, too, and if the Opposition parties had accepted my proposals we could have made some progress. I have told the House before—I stand by it—that there will be a debate, whether or not the Select Committee is formed.
Mr. Spencer Batiste: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the importance to the Yorkshire and Humberside region of rapid rail transit through the Channel tunnel when it is opened and the number of issues that have arisen that are causing doubt and concern relating to customs and immigration clearance on the

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trains to locations at inland depots. Can my right hon. Friend offer an opportunity to the House to debate those important issues in time so that decisions can follow?
Mr. Wakeham: I answered a question on that subject a week or so ago. It is an important subject but this is a busy time of year and I regret that I cannot immediately find time for a debate. I shall bear it in mind.
Mr. Ray Powell: Will the Leader of the House consider allowing a debate next week on early-day motion 792?
[That this House deplores the increasing frequency of grandparents being deprived of the right of access to, care, fostering or adoption of their grandchildren; notes with alarm the attitude of some social services employees; and calls on Her Majesty"s Government to introduce early legislation to give legal rights to grandparents providing immediate right of access before children are taken into care and the right to be present or legally represented at any official hearing or inquiry regarding future access to, care, fostering and adoption of their grandchild or grandchildren.]
This is one of the rare occasions since 1922 when an early-day motion has been signed by a majority of hon. Members. Surely it deserves time for debate. If not, the Bill that I presented to the House should be supported by the Government, given that the majority of hon. Members have declared their support for it. Will he ensure that time is given for those matters to be debated or accept my proposals as a fait accompli and introduce legislation?
Mr. Wakeham: I cannot promise the hon. Gentleman time, but I hope that these remarks may encourage him. Grandparents may already be made parties to adoption, and further rights are provided in amending legislation to be implemented this year. The Government will give careful consideration to the early-day motion"s proposals when framing the child care and family services legislation for which the 1987 White Paper provides.
Mr. Ian Gow: Did my right hon. Friend tell the House that agreement had been reached with the Opposition that the Housing Bill would be completed at a "reasonable hour on Monday"? What did he mean by the words "reasonable hour"? How confident is he that any agreement reached will be honoured?
Mr. Wakeham: I chose my words carefully because they had been agreed through the usual channels. I do not know that I should go wider, but, to me, a "reasonable hour on Monday" means on Monday.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Andrew Faulds.
Mr. Tony Banks: What about me?
Mr. Andrew Faulds: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are so many intrusive little worms around the Chamber. To revert to a matter that was raised earlier by the hon. and gallant Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Sir J. Stokes), for whom we all have great affection——
Mr. Tony Banks: Speak for yourself.
Mr. Faulds: I am speaking for myself, and for most of my colleagues. Will the Leader of the House, as Chairman of the Select Committee on the Televising of Proceedings
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of the House, be prepared to consider another demonstration, much better publicised than was the previous one, at which not only the members of the Select Committee but most of the M embers of the House can see what the imposition, the intrusion of lights and cameras in this Chamber will do to their comfort, to their convenience and to their conduct in the proceedings of the House? Does he not agree that it is quite disgraceful that on the majority of the Members of the House, who do not know what is going to hit them, there should be imposed this range of inconveniences without their knowing what is going to happen?
Mr. Wakeham: I shall certainly refer the hon. Gentleman"s helpful suggestion to the Select Committee, which will consider it. I am glad to see the hon. Gentleman looking so well. He was looking a little tired last week—perhaps he has had a little more sleep.
Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: Will the Leader of the House consider an early debate on the broad question of law and order? A debate would serve to remind the House, prison officers and criminals that imprisonment is meant to reform, deter and punish. During the debate we could also explore why the Home Office keeps casting its beady eye on good industrial sites for new prisons, such as in Oldham and Rochdale in my own constituency. We build North sea oil rigs the size of hotels, so why can we not put prisoners out to sea, on islands? Let prisoners understand that no longer are we prepared to tolerate misbehaviour. If we do that, we shall come to grips with law and order.
Mr. Wakeham: If my hon. Friend can keep a secret, I may tell him that there is to be a debate on the Criminal Justice Bill next Tuesday. Provided he does not make too long a speech and gets it in order, he may be able to make some of his points on that occasion.
Mr. Max Madden: Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State for Social Services to make an early statement next week about the non-help that is available to those people losing more than £2·50 a week in housing benefit? Bradford council"s computer records identified more than 17,000 people in that city who could claim such help, but on asking the Glasgow unit for 17,000 application forms the council was told that it could be given only 1,000. Advice agencies have asked for 100 forms but have been given only one copy. The Glasgow unit is in shambolic disarray. Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State to tell the House what he is doing to ensure that all those who are eligible for help receive it?
Mr. Wakeham: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman"s comments. The transitional scheme has been designed for people above income support level, because those on income support will continue receiving maximum housing benefit. If the hon. Gentleman has any particular cases in mind, he should bring them to the attention of DHSS Ministers for them to study.
Mr. Harry Greenway: Will my right hon. Friend arrange an early debate on gipsies and travellers, so that the House may consider their behaviour around the country, and especially in my constituency, where large groups of them have been terrorising residents with their dogs and their behaviour—particularly at

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Perivale hospital and Brentside high school? Something must be done on both a national and local basis, particularly in areas where sites have been properly designated and where gipsies should not camp illegally anyway.
Mr. Wakeham: I recognise that this is a problem—particularly in constituencies such as my hon. Friend"s and my own. I cannot promise an early debate but perhaps my hon. Friend could arrange an Adjournment debate on the subject.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: May I ask the Leader of the House a very helpful question? Is he aware that on Monday week I shall have an Adjournment debate on the valuation of Richmond yard? Will he ensure that the Minister who answers that debate at the Dispatch Box is the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Chope), the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment?
Mr. Wakeham: I cannot guarantee that, but I recognise the strength of the hon. Gentleman"s point.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: He is the one who told the lies.
Mr. Wakeham: I totally reject that allegation, and I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would be the first to withdraw it.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Unhappily, I was distracted, but I understand that the hon. Gentleman may have used unparliamentary language. Will he please withdraw his comment?
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I will withdraw it pending the debate a week on Monday.
Mr. Speaker: Please withdraw it now, absolutely.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I withdraw it for the purposes of today"s proceedings.
Mr. Wakeham: I shall do my best to ensure that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, who has excellent answers to the questions which have been raised, personally answers that debate.
Miss Ann Widdecombe: My right hon. Friend is aware that in every week"s business there are two opportunities for private Members" legislation under the ten-minute Bill procedure. He will also be aware that the procedures governing the obtaining of ten-minute Bills are enshrined in tradition rather than in informal procedures. Uncertainty about the procedures involved has recently given cause for confusion, although it was averted because of the grace and tact of my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mrs. Shephard). Will my right hon. Friend avoid such problems in the future by referring the matter to the Select Committee on Procedure, and arrange for interim negotiations through the usual channels?
Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend raises a point that I know is a cause for concern. The matters that the Select Committee on Procedure choose to consider are for it to select according to their importance. I recognise the strength of my hon. Friend"s comments and shall speak to my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary to ascertain whether anything can be done. My hon. Friend will know
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that there has been trouble over the years. The first occasion was when my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) got there first and secured the whole of the ten-minute Bill allocation for one year.
Mr. George Galloway: The Leader of the House has been playing cat and mouse with this Chamber long enough in respect of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. What started out looking like honest endeavours are now sounding very much like weasel words. Will the right hon. Gentleman deal straight with the people of Scotland? Will he accept the momentous consequences of an admission that a governing party cannot muster five hon. Members to man a Select Committee overseeing the Government"s own administration of a country that is a part of this state?
Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman has not long been a Member, and had he been here longer he would know that there were many times when his own party, when in government, did not set up a Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. My answer is straightforward: if the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends will accept the very reasonable offer I made, we can set up the Select Committee. If they do not, there will be difficulties and I shall proceed in the way I suggested.
Sir Anthony Grant: Has my right hon. Friend any news for the House about limitations on the length of speeches, which is becoming necessary in view of the current prevalence of verbal diarrhoea on both sides of the House?
Mr. Wakeham: I recognise the strength of my hon. Friend"s point, and I hope that I can manage to arrange a debate before the summer recess. I cannot guarantee it, but I shall do my best.
Mr. William McKelvey: The right hon. Gentleman"s answers to my colleagues about the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs cause grave offence to me, and to many other hon. Members. The offer that he made was certainly not a fair one. The truth of the matter—and it is the truth that we should be seeking—is that the Government are either unwilling or unable to find Back Benchers to man the Select Committee.
If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to retain an honourable position on the matter, as he is unable or unwilling to put names forward to assist in the setting up of the Committee, will he at least attempt to assist financially the committee that has been set up today by the Opposition parties to fill the vacuum created by the lack of Government inspiration, or at least give us a Clerk to run the Committee?
Mr. Wakeham: I must say that the hon. Gentleman is less than fair. It was I who moved a motion two nights ago to give substantial financial assistance to the Opposition, in spite of misgivings by some of my hon. Friends. I reckon that I have played my part.
I recognise the strength of feeling about the Scottish Select Committee on both sides of the House. I have shown the way forward, and I have said that there will be a debate which will give everyone an opportunity to express points of view. That is the way in which we proceed in the House, and I believe that it is the right way to proceed.
Mr. Michael Brown: In view of the heavy listed programme of Government legislation this year, does my right hon. Friend not agree that the business statement for next week is an excellent one? Does he also accept that there is a heavy listed programme for the Brigg and Cleethorpes constituency? In view of that, will he consider allowing me to make a business statement to indicate progress on that legislative programme so that I can invite my hon. Friends to support the Associated British Ports (No. 2) Bill tonight?
Mr. Wakeham: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his ingenuity. I have announced the Government"s business; private business is a matter for private Members.
Mr. Greville Janner: Will there be an early debate on the shortage of policemen on the heat, having regard to the Adjournment debate on Monday night in which the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham) will be raising the question of policing in Leicestershire? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, with his customary courtesy, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton has informed his colleagues from Leicestershire? I believe that, for once, everyone is united in concern and outrage at the growth of crime and the refusal of the Home Secretary to permit additional police as requested by the chief constable. However, it is clearly impossible for that concern to be developed in the space of a brief Adjournment debate. Can we have a major opportunity to develop it in future?
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: That will come up in the debate on the Criminal Justice Bill on Tuesday.
Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend has pointed out that that will come up on Tuesday, but I recognise the strength of what the hon. and learned Gentleman is saying. I confirm that my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham) has obtained the Adjournment debate on Monday and that the Minister will reply. I feel that that is the best way forward at present.
Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: Will my right hon. Friend ask his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and his right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry not to make any more statements about broadcasting policy until they have had the opportunity to read the report on the subject by the Select Committee on Home Affairs, which is to be published shortly after long and deep study? Should not a report of a Select Committee of the House, which it is known will be published shortly, receive some respect in the timing of statements of policy by Ministers?
Mr. Wakeham: I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will study the report of the Home Affairs Select Committee with great interest. I understand that my right hon. Friend is intending to publish a White Paper on broadcasting later in the year, and there will clearly be an opportunity for a debate on broadcasting matters, although it will not be in the immediate future.
Mr. John McAllion: The right hon. Gentleman"s statements about the Scottish Select Committee can hardly be described as incredibly clear, but it is clearly incredible that on the eve of the anniversary of the Queen"s Speech the Government are as yet unable to set up such a Committee because of Conservative Members" lack of willingness to take part.
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Will the right hon. Gentleman say when he will give time for this important matter to be debated on the Floor of the House? Or are we to assume that he expects us to discuss Scottish affairs in next Thursday"s foreign affairs debate?
Mr. Wakeham: The content of speeches is not a matter for me. I have made it clear, however, that whether or not the Scottish Select Committee is set up there will be a debate in the House. I have not announced it in today"s business statement and I cannot anticipate future business statements, but I shall arrange it through the usual channels.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Will my right hon. Friend arrange for a Minister from the Department of Trade and Industry to come to the House to make a statement on the draft Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988, or arrange for a short debate on the subject? The matter is of immense concern in many constituencies up and down the country, not least to the ad hoc committee of 21 companies located in many constituencies represented by hon. Members on both sides of the House.
This will affect employment and investment. In some instances, it could also affect the future viability of a number of companies in the fabrics sector of the textile industry. Will my right hon. Friend arrange either for a Minister to make a statement or for a short debate in the near future?
Mr. Wakeham: I recognise the importance of the subject, and the interest that my hon. Friend has taken in it. There is a possibility that we shall be able to do something in the near future, but I shall look into the matter with my right hon. and noble Friend and write to my hon. Friend.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I say again to hon. Members that we have an important Welsh debate after this. It is only a half-day debate, and I ask hon. Members who are about to be called to be brief.
Mr. Bob Cryer: My question arises out of Home Office questions. The House has, or should have, a degree of accountability from the Independent Broadcasting Authority. Could we have an early debate on the way in which the IBA is carrying out its duties under the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act 1973? For instance, it is allowing theatrical feature films to be chopped up by advertising, and many classic and much-cherished films are being arbitrarily broken up. They were not intended by their authors, directors or photographers to have any breaks, let alone the arbitrary "natural" breaks imposed by television. Is it not time that we had a debate on this important topic to stop the IBA from allowing the television companies to get away with breaking the law? Surely, for a law-abiding party, that is an important issue.
Mr. Wakeham: I do not even know whether the hon. Gentleman"s allegations are correct. I do not imagine for a minute that the IBA has broken the law. However, the hon. Gentleman has raised a subject which he feels is important, and it is legitimate for him to raise it in the House. I wish that I could be more encouraging than to say that I hope that there will be a debate later in the year when

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the White Paper on broadcasting has been published. That is the best that I can do at present, but I shall keep the matter in mind.
Mr. Harry Barnes: May we have a debate on the threat that is posed to the ancient right of petitioning without duress, which is our citizens" most ancient tradition and right? That threat has been posed by the Minister of State, Scottish Office—the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Lang) —who has said that petitions against the poll tax can be used by poll tax registrars to place people on the poll tax register. That can be found in column 851 of Hansard for 28 March 1988. Either we should debate it, or it should be disowned in a statement from the right hon. Gentleman or from the Minister concerned.
Mr. Wakeham: I am not sure that I follow the hon. Gentleman"s logic. It seems to me that citizens of this country are either liable for the community charge or they are not. I should have thought that all of us on both sides of the House would want to encourage compliance with the law, whatever our views about a particular law.
Mr. Tony Banks: May we have an early debate on the legalisation of soft drugs? Is it not a fact that the real concern about drugs is the criminality associated with the trade in the illegal use of drugs rather than the damage to health? If it were health, of course, the Government would be banning the use of alcohol, which causes far more damage to health than the use of soft drugs. So can we have that early debate, because if we can talk about decriminalising drug use surely we can do something about the criminal activity that now surrounds it?
Mr. Wakeham: I should like to be able to say that I share the hon. Gentleman"s view on drugs, but I do not; I believe that there are very serious problems. But I recognise the force of some of the points that he made and I wish that I could offer him an early debate. But I cannot, although it is a very important subject.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: May we have an inkling of what the Government"s thinking is on their legislation on official secrecy? Connected with that, what line is the Leader of the House taking on early-day motions 1241 and 1242, which have to do with the ethics of civil servants?
[That this House notes with interest but not surprise that the former Permanent Under Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, Sir Frank Cooper, has stated in relation to the leaking of the Solicitor General"s letter during the Westland affair that "there is political secrecy and genuine secrecy" and that as regards the real malefactors in this episode "only a percentage of the truth ever came out.".]
[That this House notes with interest that the former Secretary of State for Defence, the Right honourable Member for Henley is reported in the St. Edward"s Oxford School Chronicle as having admitted privately to pupils and masters that the source of the leak of the Solicitor General"s letter during the Westland Affair was the Prime Minister; and calls upon the Right honourable Member for Henley to be as forthcoming to the House as he has been in private.]
Mr. Wakeham: I have nothing to say on those early-day motions, as I have indicated many times before. With
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regard to official secrets, the position is that there will be a White Paper and a debate, and I have indicated probable timetables for them.
Mr. John Home Robertson: Is it not dishonest humbug for anyone to suggest that anyone other than the Government is responsible for the fact that there is no Select Committee on Scottish Affairs yet? Is the right hon. Gentleman not stringing the House along when he keeps coming back for business questions week after week and month after month telling us about more meetings with the Chairman of the Committee of Selection? Since he is talking about a deal, would he like to give us some idea of which of his hon. Friends have said that they would be willing to sit on such a Committee?
Mr. Wakeham: The nomination of hon. Members for a Select Committee is a matter for the Chairman of the Committee of Selection, not for me. The hon. Gentleman probably knows more about humbug than I do.
Mr. Roy Hughes: May I call the attention of the Leader of the House to my early-day motion 1271 which is supported by numerous hon. Members representing Welsh constituencies?
[That this House queries the answer to Parliamentary Question number 17 given by the Secretary of State for the Environment on Wednesday 22nd June to the honourable Member for Newport East that the number of houses vacant in the town of Newport was 130 with 68 families homeless; compares this with the information publicly announced by the Chief Housing Officer of Newport Borough Council that on average for the year 1987–88 up to 31st March, 130 properties were vacant throughout the borough with 661 people declared homeless in that period and eligible for assistance under the Homeless Persons Act, 389 of that number assisted and advised, a further 272 housed or referred to housing associations, and that overall there was a 24 per cent. increase in the number of homeless in the borough in 1987–88; and calls for an early explanation and statement from the Secretary of State about the misleading figures given to the House.]
Will the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that even the Secretary of State for the Environment might welcome the opportunity to make a statement to the House concerning the answer he gave to question No. 17 yesterday on the matter of homelessness in Newport?
Mr. Wakeham: My right hon. Friend accepts that he should have made it clear that the figure that he quoted of 68 households accepted as homeless related to the period January to March 1988. Since the chief housing officer has confirmed that on average there were 130 dwellings vacant in the borough during 1987–88, I stand by my hon. Friend"s statement that there is no problem.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
Mr. Speaker: With leave of the House, I propose to put together the Questions on the seven motions on the statutory instruments—that is, items Nos. 1 to 7 on the Order Paper.
That the Local Government (Direct Labour Organisations) (Competition) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 1988 (S.I., 1988, No. 956) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.

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That the draft Town and Country Planning (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the draft Environmental Effects (Scotland) Regulations 1988 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the draft Environmental Assessment (Salmon Farming in Marine Waters) Regulations 1988 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the draft Environmental Assessment (Afforestation) Regulations 1988 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the draft Land Drainage Improvement Works (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the draft Highways (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, —[Mr. Alan Howarth.]

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
Ordered,
That European Community Documents Nos. 6878/86 and 7946/87 on roadworthiness testing be referred to a Standing Committee on European Community Documents.—[Mr. Alan Howarth.]
Mr. Madden: I am very sorry to raise a point of order, Mr. Speaker, and I will not detain the House, but it relates directly to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) about petitions presented to Parliament and referred to Ministers. Will you look into the situation very carefully and instruct Ministers and Departments that they should not divulge the names anti addresses on such petitions to any third party?
Mr. Speaker: No names are ever disclosed by the Clerks or by Departments of the House to anyone else.

Opposition Day
[I5TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Wales (Deprivation and Disadvantage)
Mr. Speaker: In view of the late start to this debate, I make a special plea for brief contributions. A large number of hon. Members wish to take part. I must announce to the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
4.47 pm
Mr. Alan Williams: I beg to move,
That this House deplores the unacceptable levels of deprivation and disadvantage in Wales; condemns those Government policies which either have failed to address these problems adequately or which have exacerbated them, like the recent changes in social security and housing benefit; and expresses growing concern at the widening gap between Wales and the South East of England.
I can well understand that perhaps commentators outside Wales might wonder why we need to have a debate in this form because they have been told by press release, which is a Welsh Office form of nouveau cuisine, that we live in "booming Wales" and that our battling Secretary of State has "won" enormous increases in Government money for Wales; that we have a Japanese industrial invasion that is leading to the establishment of a "little Tokyo on the edge of Cardiff".
We have to live with the real Wales. We have to face the reality that, welcome as all the Japanese employment is—and much of it was there in the 1970s—there are still only 5,000 people working for Japanese companies. We have to recognise that booming Wales as it is seen from Worcester is still the second poorest region of the United Kingdom. We have to see a Wales in which the increased public expenditure battled for so nobly by our Secretary of State was revealed by the Treasury to be a cut of £54 million over the next three years.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Williams: I have only just started a very short debate, but all right.
Mr. Wigley: It is to help the point that he is making. Is he aware that in my own constituency in Aberavon 43 per cent. of households have an income of less than £80 a week and this winter there was 24 per cent. unemployment? That is a reflection of what we are talking about.
Mr. Williams: I am, and I shall be dealing with that sort of issue a little later. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his ingenuity in managing to get into the debate so early.
Welsh Opposition Members represent 30 of the 38 constituencies in Wales. We see another side of Wales, which the Secretary of State is somewhat reluctant to talk about; a Wales where
"Unfit … homes set a billion-plus poser";
a Wales in which
"Social-security changes leave 6,000 without school dinners";
a Wales that is
"The land that falls below average";
a Wales in which
"Sickness adds up to 41m lost days"

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each year; a Wales in which a cancer survey
"shows Wales at top";
a Wales in which we have what are described as "debts of despair", and people snared in the benefits poverty trap. This is the Wales that we see.
The symptoms of the north-south divide are well known to all hon. Members, and we have them all. The symptoms of deprivation are multifaceted, and we in Wales have all those too.
It is worth remembering, as we start this debate, that the circumstances that I have described prevail after nine years of a Government who have had nearly £100,000 million of resources from the North sea to help deal with social problems, if they wished to use them for that purpose.
The deprivation that we see in Wales, and which the Secretary of State prefers not to see, is represented by the increase of 28 per cent. in homelessness and by the record council house waiting list. But these are statistics, figures. We see that deprivation every weekend as faces across a desk in our surgeries in our constituencies as desperate people come to us in search of a solution to their problems. We have to explain to them that one of the reasons why they are on that waiting list is that we have had the lowest number of council houses built in Wales in the last 40 years. Only one house was built, in the last year for which there are complete records, for every five built in the last year of the Labour Administration.
We can hold out little hope. Having dropped to such appallingly low levels of construction of desperately needed houses, Wales is now told by the Government that it is to have no more council house building. People come to our surgeries and tell us that they live in one of the 400,000 houses in Wales that are in need of repair, or in one of the 70,000 houses that are unfit, or one of the 40,000 houses that lack amenities. We tell them that the Government have spent more money on house repairs, but they are spending only half as much on housing now as was being spent when they came to office.
The Government have said that the repair programme in Wales would cost £1·25 billion at 1986 prices. By a remarkable coincidence, the amount of underspend in the time between when we left office and now is also £1·25 billion. So £1·25 billion is needed for repairs, and there has been an underspend of £1·25 billion by the Government.
Mr. Gwilym Jones rose——
Mr. Williams: I would normally give way, but this is a restricted debate.
No hon. Member on either side of the House condones violence, but the Government should ask themselves why there is such deep bitterness about the fact that outsiders can come into Wales and pay more for second homes than our people can afford for their family homes.
Deprivation is also evident in the inadequate provision for health in Wales. If any area deserves priority, it is health—we have the highest sickness rates in the United Kingdom. We have the highest incidence of cancer, heart disease and chest illness, yet the Secretary of State, far from giving health priority, has abandoned the inflation-plus formula used by his predecessor and produced an even more meagre formula. It will mean that over the next three years there will be an average increase
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in spending of only 1 per cent. If the right hon. Gentleman had only sustained the level of spending of his predecessor, £30 million more would have been spent on health in Wales this year. That would have been enough to provide the Mid-Glamorgan hospital that is needed. Over the next three years, it would have provided £190 million more for Wales—all this if the Secretary of State had merely kept spending at his predecessor"s rate of increase, which itself led to the health statistics that I gave at the start.
Mr. Gwilym Jones: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman wants to be fair about the changing performance in health in Wales. If the same level of spending increases when he was last a Minister had been maintained since 1979, how many fewer patients would now be treated in hospitals in Wales?
Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman must know that we went through these statistics with the Secretary of State when he tried to cook the books in the Welsh Grand Committee. Under the Labour Government the annual rate of increase was 4·6 per cent.; under the Conservative Administration it has been 4·1 per cent. Under the plans the Secretary of State has for the next three years the rate will average 1 per cent. So waiting lists would have been far shorter than they are now. The right hon. Gentleman attaches no priority to health needs——
Mr. Keith Raffan: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Williams: This is a short debate and no doubt the hon. Gentleman has put his name down to speak in it. Three times when he has made personal attacks on me he has refused to observe the conventions of the House by allowing me to intervene. I do not mind attacks; we are used to them here. But the hon. Gentleman ignored the rules of the House, and I shall extend to him the same discourtesy that he extended to me.
Wales now has the lowest number of hospital beds since the National Health Service was set up 40 years ago. Last year the number of urgent cases on waiting lists fell by only 12. No doubt the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Security, the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), would tell our constituents on waiting lists and on income support to give up one of their holidays to have a private operation.
Only Northern Ireland has a lower income per head than Wales. We have the highest proportion of men on low pay of all the regions in Great Britain. Half our work force is on wages below the Council of Europe decency threshold. It is not surprising, therefore, that we have the highest proportion of people on social security benefits in Britain. Week after week we see in our surgeries the disastrous effects of the changes in housing benefit and income support on people who are already in desperate need. The problem is typified by the social fund. In the midst of budgetary largesse for those who have plenty, the Government have turned to the DHSS, which was giving £18 million in grants in Wales, and allowed it to give only £3 million. They cut down on the most desperately needy and give to those least in need.
In the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd), one of the worst areas of deprivation in the country, 61 per cent. of households have incomes of less than £80 per week—three out of five. Yet the social fund has been cut there by almost £500,000 this

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year. It has been cut by about £500,000 in Merthyr and by £500,000 in Rhondda—the heartlands of the valleys initiative.
It is there that the people live whom the Government proclaim they want to help. The Government tell them that their need is so desperate that they will have to take out loans. At least they have something to look forward to; they are scheduled to be the worst hit victims of the Government"s new purchase tax. As the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) said, it would be wrong to think that deprivation is confined to a limited urban area of Wales. It is just as much a rural phenomenon. The difference in the countryside is that the deprivation is dispersed and so goes unnoticed. It is easy in the pretty countryside to forget the inadequacy of the facilities in its cottages and houses.
It is worth noting that in Wales, the land of low pay, people in the county of Gwynedd are the lowest paid of all. There is evidence of deprivation in our unemployment figures. Unemployment is still double the level it was when the Government came to office. In the past four years, ours is the only region in which employment has fallen. We still have 125,000 fewer people in work, or in self-employment, than when the Government came to office—on the Secretary of State"s own figures. The figures for the past month showed that only Scotland had a lower rate of change in unemployment in the past year than Wales.
As a result, we have lost high-paid jobs, only to have them replaced by low-paid, part-time and seasonal jobs. Earnings in retailing, hotels and catering in Wales are the lowest in the United Kingdom. That led the Low Pay Unit to make an ominous observation about the future of Wales:
"Poverty that in recent years has been caused by unemployment is gradually being displaced by poverty caused by low pay."
When people find work, more and more of them are getting low-paid, part-time work. A recent report has shown that the quality of employment in Wales is falling. We are getting the low value-added, low-paid, low-skilled, part-time work which will be easily engineered out within the next decade, while the high-tech, high-paid, high value-added work is staying in England on the other side of the Severn bridge along the M4. That led one trade union leader to speak of Wales as a coolie economy.
In his statement on the valleys initiative the Secretary of State boasted about the number of jobs which would be created by regional development grants, but that is the very policy which, against our advice, he has chosen to abandon. It is an interesting commentary on what industry thinks of his changed policy that more than one third of the applications for regional development grant in the last 15 months were made in the last month before abolition. Industry made it clear that it preferred the old grant sytem to the new.
Wales is developing a coolie economy. Let us contrast that with the position in south-east England where the average pay for men is over £2,500 more than the average pay for men in Wales; for women pay in south-east England is £1,500 higher. There are more second incomes in south-east England because more women work. Pay in the south-east is rising 25 per cent. faster than pay in Wales. So it is not just that there is a gap; as we have observed before from this side of the House, it is a widening gap.
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Another concealed change has taken place. It has gone largely unnoticed, yet its impact on the relative fortunes of the south of England and Wales is massive. That change has virtually obliterated the effect of regional policy. I refer to the year-by-year tax changes that have been introduced by the Government. The tax changes have been geared to help the top income earners who are paying £24,000 million less in tax than would have been paid on the 1978–79 format when the Government came to office. Over half the people who benefit live in the south-east of England. Therefore, in comparison to the small amount of money which has been devoted to industrial generation and to refurbishment in Wales, there has been a massive cash infusion of over £12,000 million into purchasing power in the south-east.
Sir Anthony Meyer: Would the right hon. Gentleman care to compare housing costs in the south-east of England with costs in Wales? Will he also say a word about the problems, special to Wales, of derelict land clearance, which do not figure in the south-east? Can he tell us what progress has been made on that in Wales?
Mr. Williams: I understand the hon. Gentleman"s point, but he has got it the wrong way round. Housing prices are very much demand-dictated. Because there is a finite quantity of housing, as virtually no new houses are being built, the high income reflects itself in high mortgage capacity, which reflects itself in higher prices. So there is a spiral. Indeed, in addition to the income gap between Wales and the south-east, there is an enormous capital gap so that people can hardly contemplate moving from Wales to England because of the differential in housing prices. [Interruption.] Muttering from a sedentary position is not constructive.
With £12,000 million extra spending power going into the south of England, it is small wonder that that area has been able to generate internal growth and internal demand in a way that we have not been able to do in Wales. Instead of the injection of purchasing power, Wales has lost £750 million in the cut in support for councils. By the end of the planning period, on the figures which the Secretary of State has given, we shall have lost £1,000 million in regional aid. While so much money has been going to the south of England, investment in Wales has been cut.
It is little wonder that we have a regional divide. The enormous cash infusion in the south of England is in addition to the natural advantage which that area has through easy access to the home counties, the London market and the EEC. That advantage will be greater when the Channel tunnel is built.
Perhaps the press will now begin to understand why Welsh Members fear for the future of Wales. This is only part of the story. My hon. Friends can give many more examples. Surely the picture of deprivation suggests that, with all the resources of the North sea available to them, the Government should have injected more resources into Wales. Might we not have expected that there would have been more when the Secretary of State boasted in The Observer that he received every penny he asked for? The money was there, and he got all he asked for. Contrary to the much-publicised growth in spending that he has boasted about in his press releases, we find from the Treasury figures that Government spending in Wales will fall by £54 million over the next three years.

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So far as we can gather, even the valleys initiative will have to be paid for not by the cash-rich Government but by the communities which are represented on this side of the House. The expenditure will have to come out of the already depleted budget which the Secretary of State has for Wales. There is to be no new money; if there is any, we can be excused for not recognising it. When the statement was made, my hon. Friends and I asked the Secretary of State time after time how much new money there would be. We never got an answer. I tabled a question to the Treasury for answer on Tuesday. For some odd reason I got a holding answer and I still have not received the figure.
We are with the Secretary of State in one respect. We, too, want hope for the people of Wales, but we want real hope for all the people. We do not want a slick, hyped-up public relations mirage.
5.7 pm
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Peter Walker): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
"welcomes the success and achievements of Government policies and initiatives in Wales which have raised living standards, improved housing and environmental conditions and set Wales firmly on the path of economic growth and prosperity.".
When the motion was tabled, there was considerable speculation in the House about the reason for it. Was it because Opposition Members were so thrilled with the right hon. Gentleman"s performance last week on the valleys initiative that they said, "We must have more of these brilliant parliamentary performances"? Or was it because the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) went to the Leader of the Opposition and said, "The awful thing is that I find it difficult when there is a lot of good news. Therefore, can you give me a Supply day when I can pour out all the bad elements"? Or was it because the right hon. Gentleman was being contacted by members of the Select Committee which was considering overseas aid, who said, "We must warn you that there is a great deal more inward investment in Wales"?
I regret to say that, when the right hon. Member for Swansea, West said that he and his colleagues represented 24 of the 38 Welsh Members, we counted and only 12 were there at the time. That was the extent of their rallying instinct to support the right hon. Gentleman. If he has problems in the future, may I suggest that he has lunch with The Independent rather than a debate in the House.
First, I should like to comment on the adverse effects of a speech like his on the prospects of attracting firms from the south-east and inward investment into Wales. Perhaps that is his objective. Perhaps he is rather disturbed by the growth of the Welsh economy into a free enterprise economy. In 1985, £158 million of overseas investment came into Wales; in 1986, £176 million and in 1987, £239 million.
A further piece of good news which I know will delight the right hon. Gentleman is that, whereas the figure was £239 million last year, in the first five months of this year £248 million of inward investment came into Wales. Obviously the investors had not read his speeches; they would not have ventured into the type of country he described.
1300
The right hon. Gentleman talks about unemployment. I hope that he realises that Wales alone of the regions has had reductions in unemployment for every one of the past 24 months. Unemployment is 43,000 lower than it was two years ago. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about 1979?"] Again, the proportion of unemployed is lower than it was in 1979.
Let us compare that with the performance of the Government in which the right hon. Gentleman was a junior Minister. What were they doing to encourage diversity in the Welsh economy? They carried out their share of pit closures, as we all know. Consider the past 24 years. During 11 years of Labour Governments, 46 pits were closed. In 13 years of Tory Governments, we have closed 23 pits. They closed their share of pits but they did not do their share of creating the new factory letting that was required. In the last three years of the Labour Government 660,000 sq ft of factory flooring was let per year, on average. In the next three years 1·5 million sq ft of factories per year will be let. The figures have constantly been far higher than under the Labour Government.
The right hon. Member for Swansea, West failed to mention the clearance of derelict land in his speech about the dreadful state of Wales. In the valleys and in every part of Wales, house improvements are taking place, derelict land is being cleared and new factories are going up. He did not mention any of that. In the last three years of the Labour Government 208 acres of derelict land were cleared a year. Under this Government, the figure is 730 acres a year. In the next three years, the figure will be 1,267 acres a year—a sixfold increase on the Labour Government"s clearance programme.
The urban development programme has been doubled. I do not understand how the right hon. Gentleman can say how appalling it is that 430 firms applied for regional development grants in the past three months. When we announced the changes, we said categorically that one of the good effects of moving from regional development grants to regional selective assistance and the use of the Welsh Development Agency was that it would massively accelerate the flow of investment into Wales. We have had 3,300 applications, involving £2 billion of investment and 59,000 new jobs. Yet the right hon. Gentleman decries our policy and says what a rotten policy it is.
Mr. Rhodri Morgan: The Secretary of State would sell world war 3 as a great opportunity for the Welsh undertaking profession. Suppose that the principle is sound and that one abolishes regional development grants to flush out more applications. Would it not have been far wiser to abolish the system over five years so that the beneficial effects would have come not over three months but over five years?
Mr. Walker: We abolished on the basis that, if approval was given, there would be a further two years to put in the investment. I am delighted that a lot of firms have decided to take advantage of the arrangements. The only party that is not delighted about the economic growth of Wales is the Labour party. It is pining for the old Welsh economy that was totally dependent on two or three major nationalised companies and upon the direct labour departments of local government. The Labour party does not know how to handle the diversified free enterprise economy that is coming to Wales. Opposition Members do not want to see that change because all their old political patronage is disappearing as a result.

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Comparisons have been made with the south-east of England. I do not know what has happened to that older Front Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes). Perhaps he has been deposed. I am sorry that we shall not hear one of his jocular contributions this afternoon. The Opposition motion mentions the south-east. Opposition Members might have applauded the whole range of major institutions—both Government and free enterprise institutions—that is now moving from the south-east to Wales.
Mr. Morgan: One.
Mr. Walker: I could mention a whole range. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that it is only one, I suppose that he will oppose the 4·5 million sq ft of office space that is to go up in Cardiff. There is the Chemical bank, the Trustee Savings bank and a whole range—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. I deplore the constant comments coming at the Secretary of State from a sedentary position. What the Secretary of State has to say may be unpopular in some quarters, but he will be heard in the House.
Mr. Walker: It is only unpopular with the parliamentary Labour party. It is very popular with the people of Wales. The Company Registration Office is also involved in the move.
I thought that the height of remarkable political courage on the right hon. Gentleman"s part—he was only a junior Minister in his Government—was shown when he dealt with health. We are spending 42 per cent. more in real terms on health in Wales than the last Labour Government thought was necessary. He mentioned waiting lists. Does he not remember the last 12 months of the Labour Government, when waiting lists for in-patients in Wales went up by 17·9 per cent. in a year? Does he remember what was happening to the disabled? We have had to improve benefits for the disabled in Wales by 70 per cent. in real terms.
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman was pining for the nurses. When Labour left office, the pay of staff nurses was such that, if we had merely adjusted it for inflation, staff nurses would be getting £43 a week less than they now receive. We have 22 per cent. more general practitioners, 27 per cent. more dentists and the Health Service in Wales is treating many more in-patients and out-patients than were even envisaged by the Labour Government.
Mr. Allan Rogers: Given that the right hon. Gentleman proposes to spend so much money on health in Wales, will he tell me when we are likely to have a new hospital in the Rhondda area?
Mr. Walker: This year alone we are spending 10 per cent. more on Wales. Obviously, we shall consider carefully the applications from health authorities. With a Government who have increased real terms expenditure on health by 42 per cent., one can be much more optimistic for the future than one could be under the last Labour Government, who had a pretty dreadful record.
I have some more good news, so cheer up, folks. It affects a matter which is particularly worrying the hon. Members for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) and for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) who constantly tell us about the very bad housing conditions in the valleys. The Labour party says that it is deeply distressed about bad housing and
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houses without basic amenities. What did the Opposition do when they were in office? In five years they improved only 44,000 of the many houses in Wales in need of amenities. Over the past nine years, we have improved 161,000 houses. When the Labour party—which so cares about the image of Wales, poverty and bad housing—left office after five years in power, there were 133,000 houses without basic amenities. After nine years of Tory Government, that figure has reduced to 37,000. Look how happy Labour Members are about that news; look at their smiling faces! The Labour party depicts itself as the party that cares about housing, but that has not been borne out by what has happened.
Much inward investment is being made in the Welsh economy. New company registrations increased more in Wales last year than in any other region. Further, more training is being given, the Cardiff hay development is to take place, we have the valleys initiative, and the development of the A55 in north Wales has opened up the area to much activity. Over the next few years we shall have a Welsh economy that will depend not on nationalisation but the free-enterprise economy.
I hope that hon. Members will not entirely blame the right hon. Member for Swansea, West for his speech. Much of it was written by Huw Edwards, who is a lecturer in social policy at Manchester polytechnic. I am sure that he is very knowledgeable about the subject.
Over the past few years, earnings in Wales have begun to increase. I know that the right hon. Member for Swansea, West will be delighted to hear that, according to the latest available figures, the average earnings per adult in West Glamorgan are greater than those in the east or west midlands. I hope that that trend will continue. The right hon. Gentleman might also like to remind himself of the dramatic change that has taken place with earnings. Average male adult earnings in Wales in April 1979 were £97 a week, but in April 1987 they were £204 a week. It is likely, with the increases of the past year, that they are nearer £220 a week. In April 1979, after five years of glorious Socialism, average female earnings were £61 a week, but in April 1987 they were £137. The average has increased from £87 a week to £183 a week.
Whether it be in housing, health or derelict land, this Government are succeeding as never before. I hope that that will not result in any damage to the reputation of the right hon. Member for Swansea, West. I am the president of the "right hon. Member for Swansea, West must stay" campaign.
5.22 pm
Mr. Donald Coleman: I was interested and amused by the rising temperature of the Secretary of State"s speech. I may keep the level of my speech down, although from time to time my voice has been known to be rather loud.
Where one finds bad housing, high levels of unemployment and poor health, one finds people who are. deprived and disadvantaged. The result is that their standard of living suffers. Whether Conservative Members like it or not, all those conditions are found in the valleys of south Wales. If the Secretary of State ever held a surgery in Wales, he would discover those conditions for himself. Perhaps he is aware of them; if not, what is the reason for

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the valleys initiative? I think that somebody may have been telling him that there is a need for something to be done in the valleys.
Last week the right hon. Gentleman spoke in Llandudno of his plans to make it easier for poorer council tenants to buy their homes, which we welcome. Even before I became the Member for Neath, councils in my constituency operated a policy of sales, provided they did not interfere with the right of people to be housed decently.
I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the level of owner-occupation in Wales has always been the highest in the United Kingdom. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) recently told the House that the majority of his constituents were house owners. That is common throughout the valley constituencies.
In case the Conservative party believes that it is the promoter of something new in Wales, I must make it clear that it is not. By its past opposition to leasehold enfranchisement, it stands as a significant opponent of home ownership in Wales. Conservative Members must understand that the high level of home ownership in south Wales and its valleys was the means of escape from the tyranny of those who, in the past, found their political home and ideology in the Conservative party.
Welcome as the right hon. Gentleman"s housing plans are to assist the poorer of our council tenants to buy their homes, the people of Wales would have been afforded more satisfaction if he had said in his Llandudno speech that he was concerned about the dramatic rise in homelessness that has taken place in Wales since the Government took office in 1979. The right hon. Gentleman may well counter my argument by saying that the figure for homelessness in Neath has decreased, but Lliw Valley also forms part of my constituency, and there the position shows my complaint about homelessness to be valid.
We would have liked to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that he will make use of the funds that have accrued from council house sales, and that a programme of new build by local authorities and housing associations in Wales was to be embarked on. If that were to happen, those bodies could begin to wipe out the problem of homelessness, which is rising so rapidly in Wales under this Government.
Poverty and low pay are major problems in Wales, especially in the south Wales valley communities. Government figures show that one fifth of the population in Wales has an income below or on the poverty line. Although recently there has been a decrease in unemployment in Wales, which we welcome, the problems of unemployment and low-paid jobs are still greater than in any other region of the United Kingdom.
My involvement in the work of the Council of Europe —a body that deserves more attention than it gets in the House—is known to the House. It describes the decency threshold for earnings as £135 a week, yet in Wales nearly half our work force earn less than £135 a week.
On Monday this week, The Times carried an article entitled "Breadwinners of Wales" by Sally Brompton, who has put her finger on the malaise in the Welsh valleys, which Conservative Members have shown by their behaviour they wish to ignore. In Wales, working women outnumber working men, a situation which has had a
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mixed welcome in Wales as a means of providing a livelihood. A Cardiff Business School survey shows that there are now 558,000 women in full-time or part-time employment, compared with 484,000 men in the Welsh valleys. That does not and will not create confidence among those who live in the valleys, especially as the women workers find themselves on low wages. One in four women working full time in Wales earns less than 100 a week, half the national average.
Last week, the Secretary of State announced his valleys initiative. He did a good marketing job and, in a way, it is a shame to attempt to reveal that it is not all that it seems. In The Times article we read:
"Despite last week"s pledge by Peter Walker, Secretary of State for Wales, to create 25,000 jobs in the valleys over the next three years, for the men who live there it is all a long way ahead. "There"s no real big employer coming to Wales, is there?" surmises 53-year-old Leslie Hall, secretary of the Ruperra Club."
It is no good the Secretary of State trying to pass off as something new, in a good marketing job, schemes which often, when looked at carefully, turn out to be nothing more than a regurgitation of schemes already announced, and sometimes completed and financed. The right hon. Gentleman must be aware—if he is not, he has much to learn about Welsh people—that many people in Wales like Mr. Leslie Hall are capable of analysing and assessing the worth of such plans and schemes.
In my constituency, the inclusion of the missing link of the A465 Aberdulais to Glyn-neath road in the three-year programme gives us nothing. My hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones), when he was the Minister in the Welsh Office responsible for roads, gave us the year 1990. That time scale was confirmed by the predecessor of the present Secretary of State, the noble Lord Crickhowell, during a meeting with him in the Welsh Office some three or four years ago. The scheme is mentioned in some information I have had from West Glamorgan county council. It is listed in the Welsh Office publication "Roads for Wales in the 1990s and Beyond" and is to be carried out in the mid-term period before 1990.
At periodic intervals, the Welsh Office produces a review of the trunk road programme. It produced such reviews in 1980, 1983 and 1985. In the current publication, issued in 1985 and entitled "Roads in Wales 1985", the scheme was listed in table 4 among the schemes expected to start between January 1988 and December 1990, so the A465 road announced in the glossy book is nothing new. If the Secretary of State had said that building of the road would start next year and that he would assist by making known what progress had been made, this would have been something for us to welcome and a real initiative.
Again in my constituency, no one is going to persuade the people living in the Dulais valley that a new era is dawning, with schemes such as the removal of the Onllwyn aerial ropeway. It will mean nothing to them because they knew about it years ago, long before the Secretary of State became interested in Wales. The same can be said about the health centre mentioned for Gwaun-cae-Gurwen. That idea was accepted by the West Glamorgan district health authority and the community council. It was to involve money from British Coal. All this was way back in 1983–84, when Gwaun-cae-Gurwen became part of the Neath constituency.
A new dawn for the valleys of my constituency would have come from plans for opencast mining operations more compatible for those who have to suffer from the

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problems that such operations cause. The Secretary of State and his party have much more to do before there is any chance of our not pointing out to them problems that we know exist in our valleys and that sustain the charge that Wales suffers deprivation and devastation.
5.36 pm
Mr. Keith Raffan: The economic and industrial transformation, of which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spoke, is no more evident than in north-east Wales. Over the past two years, unemployment in my constituency has fallen faster than in any other constituency in the Principality—by 36·4 per cent. It has fallen not just in my constituency but in the two neighbouring constituencies of Alyn and Deeside and Wrexham. I am sorry, but not surprised, that the hon. Members for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) and for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) are not present. Perhaps they realise how weak is the Opposition"s argument in support of the motion.
A crucial aspect in the decline in unemployment in my constituency is that male unemployment is falling as fast as female unemployment. Wage levels have been rising for the past two to three years. House prices are rising too, but what is so bad in that? The hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Coleman) talked about the experience at his surgeries, as did the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams).
I remember an experience at two of my surgeries about three years ago. Two constituents came to see me because they had lost their jobs. There was massive structural unemployment in Delyn, with the decline in the steel industry and the closure of Courtaulds. Both constituents had been forced to take jobs far away, one in Dumfries and the other in Weston-super-Mare. Neither had been able to sell his house because the market was non-existent. By now, the value of their houses has greatly increased and I am glad to be able to say that neither has sold up because they have returned to work in the constituency.
North-east Wales is an area on the rise, as the chief executive for Delyn borough council, John Packer, said yesterday. That economic growth is making possible the public expenditure on communications, health, housing and education. The problems which we are experiencing are those of success—shortage of land for housing and for industrial and commercial development and the shortage of certain skills among the work force.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State so rightly said, the dualling of the A55 expressway, driving that road through north Wales, is transforming the area"s economy. It has made my constituency accessible to commuters travelling to Chester and the north-west—to the Wirral and other parts of Lancashire—and enabled my industrialists and business men to transport their goods more easily. That arterial road is making possible the economic miracle in north-east Wales.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales would be surprised if I did not mention the need for a link road between the A55 and the A548 to increase accessibility to the Greenfield business park and to the Delyn enterprise zone. As my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer) is here, I am sure that he will be grateful when I mention also the need for a link road to the towns of Rhyl and Prestatyn to ensure that those important tourists centres are not bypassed now that
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north-west Wales is so much more easily accessible. These link roads are not, however, primarily matters for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I only wish that local authorities such as Clwyd county council would respond more speedily and effectively to the initiatives that the Welsh Office is taking.
Many housing statistics have been thrown around this evening. It might help if I referred to the experience in my constituency. I am enormously proud to represent the borough of Delyn. It has more sheltered accommodation units—1,300—than any other local authority in the Principality. That is 35 per cent. of the total number of sheltered accommodation units in Clwyd. Delyn has just introduced a care alarm system that will help many elderly people to stay in their own homes, which, in the past, they were unable to do.
There has also been a massive renovation of council houses; 300 of them have been completely renovated. A local house condition survey is being undertaken, with the object of targeting future improvement programmes. The waiting time for repairs has been cut drastically. Improved services for tenants have been introduced, including newsletters that have led to a beneficial dialogue between tenants and the borough council.
The borough council also has an ambitious scheme to replace all the doors and windows in every council house in the borough within three years with UPVC double-glazing. That may seem to some people to be a minor improvement, but it will have a dramatic downward impact on rents. UPVC double glazing will not only improve insulation but will require no maintenance for up to 30 years.
Mr. Win Griffiths: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Raffan: I shall gladly give way when I have finished this point. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to do that.
What is just as important is that the council has cleared the backlog of home improvements grants. I am now delighted to give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Griffiths: Is the hon. Gentleman able to say how much the Delyn borough council asked for from the Welsh Office to allow this housing improvement to take place? Is he able to compare that capital allocation with the borough of Ogwr? It put in a claim for £13·5 million to be spent on housing but its total capital allocation was fractionally over £5 million. The Secretary of State for Wales says that far more money urgently needs to he allocated to improving housing in our valley communities.
Mr. Raffan: The improvement of which I spoke, the double glazing of windows and doors, was largely financed by the raising of rents. Rents had not been raised substantially for a significant period. Perhaps other councils should take a similar initiative. Why should they always look to the Welsh Office? Why do they not look to themselves? I respond with that question, which I hope will not be treated as a rhetorical one. I look forward to hearing the answer from the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths).
I refer also to the improved facilities for rural communities in my borough. The hon. Member for Bridgend will be delighted to hear that that improvement has been helped directly by the Welsh Office. As part of its

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drive towards strengthening traditional village life in my constituency, the borough council plans to ensure that every single village—there are more than 30 of them—will have, within three years, its own sports field, children"s play area and community hall.
The Opposition have been rabbiting on about health, but when they were in office they lamentably failed to improve health care, particularly during their last year in office when waiting lists soared. The right hon. Member for Swansea, West was a member of that Government. I do not know how he has the gall to come to the House and attack this side. Why did he not resign then? He might as well resign now before he is pushed by certain members of his own party. We know what is going on. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales was in his usual generous and benign mood this afternoon because he failed to mention the real reason for this debate: that the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) went to see the Leader of the Opposition and told him what he thought about the right hon. Member for Swansea, West. The Western Mail said that the hon. Member for Newport, East was "thoroughly dissatisfied" with the way the Welsh portfolio was being handled.
As for health care in my constituency, the Mold community hospital is brand new and of a revolutionary design. The Japanese and the Swedes have beaten a path to its door. That new hospital cost £1·7 million. The first phase of a fully fledged community hospital in Prestatyn has been completed at a cost of £247,927.As for Holywell, that was not left out. The Government remembered Holywell hospital. It has a brand new out-patients department and its wards have been upgraded. The Government have spent £120,976 on that hospital.
I admit—one has to concede something to the Opposition because they have put forward such paltry arguments today—that Flint had to wait until the beginning of this year. Earlier this year I had a meeting with the chairman of Clwyd health authority, who told me that the hospital would have to be closed for three months to remove asbestos. I asked him to take this opportunity to upgrade the wards and the medical facilities there. Within 48 hours he came back to me and said that the authority intended to spend £60,000 on upgrading wards and medical facilities. In the event, it spent over £100,000.So Flint has been upgraded as well.
Now we have four superb cottage and community hospitals in my constituency which we did not have when the Opposition were in power. Yes, my constituency was deprived and disadvantaged when that lot were in power and did nothing. What really upsets the Opposition is that we have done far more for their political heartland in the valleys than they ever did. That is what has really got their goat and upset them so much.
I do not want to be accused of missing anything out, so let me turn to education. Clwyd has a proud record, because only 6·7 per cent. of its pupils leave school without any qualifications, the lowest percentage in Wales. I do not deny that the number of pupils who leave school without any qualifications is still far higher than it should be, but we are bringing it down. I believe that the Education Reform Bill and the establishment of a national curriculum will help to raise standards. I am sure that the Chairman of the Select Committee will not mind if I say in
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the broadest terms that when we were in Japan one of the lessons that the Select Committee learnt was the importance of improving education and training. I am sure that we shall have something to say about that in our next report.
My hon. Friend the Minister of State had to bear the brunt of the Opposition"s gloom and doom about the GCSE. They continually described the early introduction of that exam as being disastrous, but yesterday the Western Mail quoted the Welsh joint education council and school heads as saying:
"We are delighted with the impact of the new examination.… It has all gone very well indeed… has so far proven a success far greater than anyone could have predicted."
That is what those who are at the sharp end of education are saying. They are not pontificating about it in total ignorance, as the Opposition do. They say that the GCSE is a blooming good exam and is going very well.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will forgive me if I play down a little his valleys initiative. One has to concede that the Opposition have also been taking the initiatives. There was the initiative of the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies), who rang up Mr. Chris Moncrieff at 1 am. We wish that that initiative had succeeded in depriving us of the Leader of the Opposition. There was also the initiative of the hon. Member for Newport, East who went to see his leader and said, to quote from the Western Mail —I am sure it is accurate; I always believe everything that is in the Western Mail—how "thoroughly dissatisfied" he was with the way the Welsh portfolio was being handled. It was quite clear who he was getting at. We all know who he meant, but I shall not embarrass him by mentioning his name.
There has been a sad contrast in recent days between the vision of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the imaginative scale of his valleys initiative, and the petty small-minded sniping with which it has been met by the right hon. Member for Swansea, West. When the right hon. Gentleman was elevated to the position that he now holds as Shadow Secretary of State, we had hopes that he would replace the mediocrity of the performance of his predecessor on the Labour Front Bench with an opposition altogether sharper, more acute and more responsible. However, far from the right hon. Gentleman rising to that challenge, he has sunk beneath it. He has lost the respect of the Government side of the House and lost the support of his own. It would be no deprivation to Wales and no disadvantage to his own party if he were swept aside when the autumn comes.
5.50 pm
Mr. Richard Livsey: It is time to inject a certain amount of objectivity into this debate. However, the amount of time allocated to the debate is a disgrace because we need more time to discuss Welsh problems.
Wales as a whole—industrial Wales and rural Wales —is undoubtedly deprived, but it is right to acknowledge that the Secretary of State is at least trying to do something about it. My leader, prior to the general election, my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells), stated that the Secretary of State—any Secretary of State—must utilise to the full the facilities and the functions that are available to him. They are the Welsh Office and the bodies responsible for industry—the Welsh Development Agency, Mid-Wales Development, the

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Wales tourist board, the Welsh water authority and the other bodies that cover education, health, housing and agriculture. The present Secretary of State is trying to do that. He is clearly an interventionist in the Welsh economy. Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen must recognise the fact that they could be faced with an out and out monetarist who, in the common parlance of Kensington at the moment, would be as dry as dust. They might get an even dustier answer than the one that they got this afternoon from the present Secretary of State.
Therefore, I welcome the valleys initiative and especially the inclusion in it of Ystradgynlais in my constituency. However, I offer a word of caution. Although there is a promise in the valleys initiative of 25,000 jobs and of £500 million of public money, that must be set against what has happened in south Wales during the past 15 years. In 1973, 107,000 people were employed in the coal and steel industries, whereas in 1988 only 32,000 people are employed in coal and steel in south Wales. That is a drop of 75,000 people. Is the Secretary of State"s cock-shy satisfactory in trying to create 25,000 jobs because that number represents only one third of the jobs that have been lost in the past 15 years? I do not believe that that is a good enough cock-shy. It is not enough to replace just one third of the jobs lost. The Secretary of State should look at that again and redraft his initiative into a more ambitious plan.
Mr. Rogers: The hon. Gentleman said that he welcomed the valleys initiative. Why?
Mr. Livsey: I welcome the valleys initiative because it at least recognises that there is a problem and makes the rest of Britain aware of it. I am not saying that the problem has been addressed adequately or properly, but at least the initiative is a step in the right direction. We would be churlish not to acknowledge that.
Unemployment and low pay suggest that we have lost a great deal of quality in our male employment, especially in mining and steel. With the loss of jobs in collieries which have closed recently, such as Abernant and Lady Windsor, miners who, in some instances, have earned a decent wage of up to £150 a week, can do so no longer. At the age of 35, or younger, many miners are losing their jobs. Those jobs are being replaced by work done by women and, although one welcomes female labour, it is paid at only roughly half the rate of male labour, and that is a disgrace. That major problem must he addressed in Wales because, though female labour is increasing, it is poorly paid, and that is unsatisfactory.
I draw the notice of the Welsh Office to the fact that the GDP per head in Wales is the lowest in Britain. It is £3,922 per person as against £5,335 in the south-east of England. Those figures come from the third periodic report of the EEC. The GDP of Wales is 88 per cent. of the EEC average. Until it equals the EEC average, none of us should rest.
In Wales, half the work force earns less than the amount that the EEC has decreed as being the decency threshold—that is £139 per week. Wales has a higher proportion of low pay among men than any other region of Britain, and one quarter of Welsh women earn less than £100 per week. There is much low pay in the NHS in Wales, especially among ancillary workers. Some NHS ancillary workers in my constituency earn only £60 per week.
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I draw the House"s attention to the plight of mid-Wales, which is the lowest paid area of the lowest paid region of Britain. The figures produced by the Cardiff Business School have already been given and I draw to the attention of the House the conclusion of the hon. Member for Neat h (Mr. Coleman) that at present, in Wales, more women than men are in work. We should ponder that fact.
Obviously, I welcome the EEC"s integrated operations award for mid-Wales and Mid-Wales Development of £108 million. However, that is a drop in the ocean compared with the needs of rural Wales. I regard it as only a starting point. We must look at the overall employment situation and the deprivation resulting from it. There are 56,000 people on short-term employment schemes and 211,000 in part-time employment. In total about 400,000 people are on short-term schemes, unemployed or in part-time work.
The situation was illustrated in an article in The Times of 20 June, which referred to the case of Mr. and Mrs. Mills. Mr. Mills lost his job and Mrs. Mills is now the family breadwinner. That account should be read by every hon. Member because it is symptomatic of what is happening in Wales at present. We need higher quality and better-paid jobs. We do not want screwdriver operations; we want high-quality jobs. We need more skills training and further education for all our 16 to 19-year-olds.
There has been a slump in agriculture in Wales. Many farm incomes are now £6,000 per annum, which is very low. If one relates that to the creamery closures that have taken place in Felinfach, Ceredigion, and Anglesey, one realises that we are facing severe problems. The slump in rural Wales must be set against the £40 million of farm capital grants that have been lost in Wales in the past two years.
However, I believe that it is in housing that the most serious deprivation occurs. Hon. Members have already referred to the problems in urban housing. I should like to draw the House"s attention to the crisis in rural housing. One reads in today"s Western Mail that in Wales as a whole 56,000 council houses have been sold since 1979, and only 10,000 have been built. That is a shortfall in the rented sector of 46,000 council houses. In my constituency of Brecon and Radnor, one third of our council houses have been sold and that is reflected in towns such as Brecon and Hay. Half the council houses in Crickhowell have been sold. Many of those houses are now being sold for the second time, to wealthy people from the south-east. They can pick up a council house for £30,000 and, having sold a two-bedroomed house in the south-east for £150,000, they are still left with £120,000.
How can young people in my constituency, many of them earning between £70 and £80 per week, possibly afford to buy a house of their own? The council housing stock is now so reduced that it is impossible to find a council house to rent. There are 1,000 people on the housing waiting list in Brecknock alone. Those people want to rent a house, but they cannot find one. It is a serious state of affairs.
The Secretary of State should put a limit on the various abuses that are taking place. We have the yuppification of the second home syndrome and the woopification of the early retirers, who are coming into Wales and making bonanza purchases. Those two abuses are undermining the local housing sector. I believe that there should be a limit on the percentage of second homes available in any Welsh district council area. A crash programme of council house

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and housing association building must take place to house local people. The rented sector should be restored so that there are more houses available for rent. That means that another 50,000 houses must be built to compensate for those that have been sold. I am not against the sale of council houses, but they must be replaced by a new stock of rented housing to meet the demand.
The Welsh Office must launch a major investigation into what is happening to rural housing. It must consider how low-paid local people can find a house to buy or rent. That is a major problem which must be addressed or the Welsh language and our rural communities will be undermined.
The Secretary of State is trying his best, through a public relations exercise, to put over a fine picture, but he has a long way to go. His PR is good, but his achievements in the next three years will have to prove as good as that PR before I am fully convinced by his strategy.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. At the start of this debate Mr. Speaker appealed for short speeches. Unless speeches are dramatically cut from now on a lot of hon. Members will be extremely disappointed.
6.2 pm
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: I shall take note of your injunction, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I shall sit down in five minutes.
I listened with great interest to the opening speech of the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams). I travel across south Wales to reach my constituency in west Wales and I pass through Newport, Cardiff, Bridgend, Port Talbot, Swansea and Carmarthen. That gives me an opportunity to see what is happening to the Welsh economy. I do not recognise for one moment the picture of gloom, doom and despair that is so often painted by the official spokesman for the Opposition and other Labour Members. They will not open their eyes to see the new factories that are being built. They do not appreciate the new investment from the Welsh Development Agency or the investment from local authorities. They do not appreciate the investment that is coming in from England, Japan and Germany that is changing the whole base of the Welsh economy. The old days, when Wales depended upon steel and coal, have gone and it now has a much wider economic base. I should have thought that Opposition Members would welcome that, because it means that we will get out of the cycle of structural unemployment that has affected Wales for the past 60 years.
I welcome the valleys initiative that my right hon. Friend has introduced, which is a courageous policy. It is a unique initiative that combines, for the first time, public and private investment to tackle the problems of the valleys. Opposition Members representing the valleys criticise a Conservative Secretary of State, but Labour Government after Labour Government did nothing about the dereliction in the valleys. My right hon. Friend has had the courage to invest in an area where, in the short term, there are no political votes to be gained by the
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Conservative party—although in the long term I am sure there will be. I find it extraordinary that Labour Members criticise my right hon. Friend for his courage.
When we debated the valleys initiative, I read the report in Hansard of the speech by the official Opposition spokesman, the right hon. Member for Swansea, West. He painted a miserable picture and I am not surprised that he is now facing problems within his party. There are so many splits among the 24 Opposition Members for Wales that I find it extraordinary that they have any time to think about anything other than their own internal divisions and dissensions.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the fact that, two weeks ago, £108 million was provided by the European regional development fund for the counties of Powys, Dyfed and Gwynedd. It is estimated by Dyfed county council—the council for my constituency—that that money will create 8,000 new jobs. The press release issued by my council stated:
"Also at the request of the three councils, the Secretary of State for Wales, Mr. Peter Walker, intervened and visited Brussels to pursue the application."
That is a measure of the work that has been done by the Welsh Office to support the initiatives that are necessary not only for the valleys, but for the rural areas, such as my constituency.
Last week a number of us who are members of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs went to Japan and Korea to discuss with business men why they chose to invest in Wales, which is attracting overseas businesses in their hundreds. Wales accounts for 5 per cent. of the population, but 20 per cent. of all inward investment comes to Wales. We were told that foreign businesses come to Wales because of the component supplies that we are able to provide. They come to Wales because of the tax regime, which is conducive to companies and which allows companies to make profits.
They come to Wales because of good labour relations. Mr. Norman Willis of the Trades Union Congress should note that one of the most important things that those businesses want is the single-union agreements that the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union has introduced. I warn the TUC that, if its intention is to destroy jobs, it should carry on with its internecine warfare against the electricians, and possibly against the engineers.
The Welsh economy contains the recipe for success. It depresses me that, time and time again, Labour Members, instead of talking up the prospects of Wales, instead of fighting for jobs, talk Wales down. They are miserable and depressing about Wales. The motion that we are discussing has more to do with the poverty of creative thinking within the Labour party than it has to do with the realities of life in Wales.
6.7 pm
Mr. Ted Rowlands: Because of the shortage of time, I shall not follow the nonsense spoken by the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett). We have spent many years fighting for our communities and talking them up. We have gone wherever we needed to go to get money for our communities. The Secretary of State will be aware that that is why we made contributions and suggestions about his valleys initiative and that is why we have every reason and every right to assess how successful he has been.

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I have not been churlish and I have welcomed individual items that have resulted directly from the right hon. Gentleman"s efforts. I welcomed the Pentrebach-Dowlais road scheme, which was helped by the right hon. Gentleman"s valleys initiative. We are right, however, to complain when the right hon. Gentleman claims credit for things that he has had nothing to do with. The Pant junior school has not been completed and is still not occupied because of cuts in the county council"s education capital programme that were undertaken by the right hon. Gentleman"s predecessor. If those cuts had not occurred, that school would have been built four years ago. The right hon. Gentleman cannot blame us for not welcoming such cuts. The £40 million that the brewers have spent is nothing to do with him, nor is the money that has been spent by British Telecom. That money had been spent before he arrived on the scene.
Why has the right hon. Gentleman missed out two vital factors? He is aware of the representations that many of us have made to unlock home repair grants. In my constituency there are 2,000 people who have been waiting since 1984 for that money. If the right hon. Gentleman got all the money he wanted from the Cabinet, why did he not allocate money for home repair grants? Many of our elderly owner-occupiers have been waiting for that money since 1984.When he comes to reply, I hope that he will tell us why he has not unlocked that money.
Why did he not get any money for our desperate Health Service? The hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) spoke of the new community hospital. I give him a modest warning—in my constituency the brand-new unit for the elderly critically ill that was opened in April last year by the Queen Mother was closed in January because of lack of money to sustain it. His constituency might have a new hospital, but will it remain open? We failed to keep our unit open, because the Government did not allocate sufficient money.
In the few moments available to me I want to discuss something of immediate concern to my constituents. During the past week or so in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, people came to see me—not on my initiative—for advice on how to fill in a form called "Housing benefit new rules". The completed form is sent to a special unit in Glasgow to ensure that the applicant loses only £2·50 a week in housing benefit. Who is entitled to fill in the form? I know because I am helping some of my constituents to do it, and the form actually describes those eligible very well. It states:
"You may be able to get transitional payments if one of these descriptions apply to you:

you are bringing up a child

or you are a widow who gets Widow"s Pension

or you are 60 or over, or your partner is 60 or over

or you are a long-term sick or disabled person."

Those are the people who will lose a minimum of £2·50 a week in housing benefit.
What stand did the Secretary of State take in the Cabinet when those nonsensical proposals for the elderly and the poor were made? There is great concern about the rules, which have been introduced. While the Government are giving £2 billion to those at the top end of the taxpayer ladder, benefit is being taken from the poor and the elderly.
When the Minister replies, will he say why the elderly, the long-term sick and the disabled have to pay a minimum of an additional £2·50 a week in rent? I heard the Secretary of State for Social Services say that the dependency culture
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must be destroyed and that people must be made to be more independent. Does that mean that a 60-year-old or a long-term sick or disabled person must work part-time —perhaps scrubbing our schools? Will the Government withdraw benefit if those people do not return to the labour market? It is not a question of there being a dependency culture—those people have worked all their lives and many of them have fulfilled their service to the community.
How is the dependency culture destroyed and independence encouraged by taking £2·50 a week from such people? Where was the right hon. Gentleman when those nonsensical proposals were put to the Cabinet"? Why did he not defend the people of our communities? He has described his valleys initiative as a programme for the people. How can it be that elderly and poor people have to pay an extra £2·50 while others receive enormous tax benefits? That is not the sort of society that we want, but unfortunately it is the sort of society that we represent.
At the 1987 general election, my majority rose by 6,000.Some people say that it is the traditional vote, and it is —yet 75 per cent. of the electorate voted for me, most of whom were taxpayers benefiting from the Government"s tax policies. However, they rightly said that they would prefer that the money was spent on health, housing, their elderly parents, better education and better social services. That is the case that the Labour party put to the electorate and on which I gained the support of my constituents.
The phrase used for the scheme is "transitional protection". It is a good description of the Secretary of State. He was supposed to be our transitional protection againt Thatcherism. I am sorry to say that he is failing.
6.14 pm
Mrs. Ann Clwyd: Time is short, but I want to read a letter from a constituent. He typifies the problems that people in the valleys face and the sort of letters that I receive from those suffering badly under the Government"s policies. My constituent wrote:
"Since September 1980 I have been redundant. I receive no redundancy payment. I looked for work… far afield. But to no avail. I am now nearly 61 years of age and have given up hope. My health has, because of this I am sure, suffered, and I have been treated for anxiety for a long time. But I don"t think I"ll ever be cured.
For a number of years I have been receiving invalidity and supplementary benefit and for approx. the last year I have been receiving £51·94 a week. This has now been dropped to £50·68.The DHSS say this is because the mortgage interest rate has dropped since last December. When I pointed out to them that for years the interest rate had been up and down like a yo-yo without affecting the allowances I was informed that they had been instructed to alter everybodies mortgage allowance every time the interest rate changed. This I find hard to believe, to put into practice I mean.
The result of the drop of £1·26 in my weekly benefit means that it is going to be difficult for me to exist.
My house is small, two down and one up. The water rates have gone up from £6559 to £86·62.The house rates from £69–54 to £73·83.Even if I get a rebate on this amount, I will still have to pay 20 per cent. as you know. With Gas and Electricity at the present rate and most of my other commitments, my weekly payments, most of them that is, have gone up to £43·11 and they drop my money. Instead of being left with £10 to buy food and other home bills which always crop up, I am left with £7·57.How can one buy food on this amount. I do not eat meat. I can"t afford it. A small tin of tuna, 57p is made to last three days and frozen kippers with frozen vegetables the rest of the week.
I had been giving myself a treat of fish and chips £1·10 on Saturdays that will now have to go. I don"t know what to give

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up next. I sold my car and my motor-bike years ago, and gave up drinking and smoking when I became redundant. I no longer have a social life and have virtually become a hermit.
I have recently had repair work carried out on my gas fire, which will cost about £60.The only way I will be able to pay this is by Barclaycard. Between my house and the Barclaycard without any further use of the card I will owe them at the moment £760.I will be paying back until I am 70.
I can see no point in appealing to the DHSS. Because with the dealings I have had with them over the matter of the mortgage, both at the office and on the phone, I feel that it will be a waste of time.
I know that you are busy but if you can help me or advise me please do so urgently, as I am desperate.
I"m sorry about the writing. I assure you I could write better a few years ago, but my nerves are really bad."
That man, and many others like him, are typical of those who live in our valley communities and are affected by Government policies. In my constituency more than 60 per cent. of people live on a gross annual income of less than £4,000.I found that difficult to believe when I first saw the figures, but they are in official statistics. That is the extent of poverty in the Cynon valley and also in many other valley communities.
The Secretary of State visited the Cynon valley when he was first appointed, and he showed considerable interest in and sympathy for the plight of many people. I have repeated time and again the statistics for the Cynon valley. For example, more than half the privately owned houses are unfit for human habitation and there are very high levels of unemployment—28 per cent. for males. Those figures have remained more or less static during the past nine years.
There is very little change or hope for change in the current situation. The health statistics are well known to the Secretary of State, as are all the statistics. When he came to Wales and talked to people, they believed that he would do something about the situation and offer them some hope for the future. Although I welcome some parts of his valleys initiative, there is also a deep feeling of disappointment because he promised so much and has delivered so little. I am not being churlish; that is a fact of life.
Mr. Peter Walker: Will the hon. Lady name one promise that I made and have not kept?
Mrs. Clwyd: The Secretary of State gave the impression that the Government would do something about unfit housing. More than half the private housing in Mid-Glamorgan is unfit for human habitation. The Secretary of State has given the valleys initiative an extra £8 million for housing. The Cynon Valley council estimates that it will cost at least £64 million to put right that unfit housing. I do not think that that is an adequate response after the promise that he made.
Mr. Walker: I have seen the remark by the chief executive of the local authority saying that £8 million was not enough. As a result, the next day I put out a press handout to explain that the £8 million was an additional amount for this year alone on what had already been granted and that, over the three years of the valleys initiative, £430 million will be spent on housing.
Mrs. Clwyd: Will the Secretary of State explain how long it will take for Cynon Valley to right its unfit private housing under the progrmme which he has announced? He
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has not answered the question that my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) has asked him time and again: how much new money has he announced in the valleys initiative?
Mr. Walker: Thirty-two thousand houses will be improved. As the hon. Lady knows, I took the initiative of ensuring that the Welsh Office went to her local authority to help a great deal to work out a housing strategy for the three years.
Mrs. Clywd: I am afraid that the Secretary of State has still not answered the question: how long will it take for the Cynon Valley, with all its unfit housing and with a bill of £64 million, to put that housing right?
Mr. Walker: It will be far quicker than under the minor programme of the last Labour Government.
Mrs. Clwyd: By our estimates, on the present level of Government expenditure it will take at least 50 years. I realise that the right hon. Gentleman is not prepared to put a figure on it. I quite understand why.
Mr. Rogers: The Secretary of State says that 32,000 houses will be improved, but in my constituency of Rhondda 18,000 houses are waiting for improvement grants now.
Mrs. Clwyd: People on low incomes do not have the money to improve their houses. The Secretary of State seems not to be able to understand that.[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. One debate at a time in the Chamber, please.
Mrs. Clwyd: In 1986, 64 per cent. of people in my constituency said that they had no savings. The Government"s reaction is to withdraw tax relief on home improvement loans. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, in a letter to me a few weeks ago, stated:
"there has been much abuse which has needed to be curtailed."
But he could give no evidence of the alleged abuse in the valleys. Was the Minister saying that my constituents with poor housing, low incomes and no savings are applying for home improvement grants to take holidays or to buy furniture instead of installing an indoor toilet? I can tell the Minister that there is no evidence of any abuse in Wales. The Chancellor"s statement was based on abuse in the south-east of England and it is not proper that people in Wales should be tarred with the same brush.
The Secretary of State said that his programme was bigger and better than anything that the Labour party had done. It is nine years since the last Labour Government, nine years of neglect and procrastination, during which time the Government have allowed the situation to deteriorate. In 1987, only Scotland and the south-west of England had average earnings lower than those of Wales. In 1978–79, wages in Wales were higher than in Britain generally. Even the Government are forced to do something about that.
While we welcome part of the valleys initiative, the Secretary of State must accept that it is far more packaging than content. It is a collection of current and proposed activities. It is not a strategy; essentially, it is more of the same.
Local authorities are pushed into the background to play a role only in education, housing and transport but not in economic development, tourism and social services.

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I hope that the Secretary of State will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that Mid Glamorgan will get £1·15 million of the £500 million that he mentioned. There is no evidence that any more money has been won from the Treasury. Instead, it has been shifted around from other Welsh public expenditure.
Mr. Peter Walker: I confirm that the hon. Lady"s figure is totally and completely wrong.
Mrs. Clwyd: Will the Secretary of State correct me?
Mr. Walker: A high proportion of the £500 million will go to Mid Glamorgan.
Mrs. Clwyd: Even when there are increases to councils, they are tied to clauses which increase the power of the Welsh Office and not that of local government.
The Secretary of State made great play with jobs. I have a right to question him closely about jobs as 28 per cent. of men in my constituency are still unemployed. It is worth commenting on the programme"s claims about job creation and economic regeneration. The programme estimates that unemployment will fall by 25,000 to 30,000 as a result of the proposed actions. But by the programme"s admission, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West pointed out, almost all those jobs will come from applications for regional development grants submitted in 1987 and the first quarter of 1988 which are expected to create 23,460 jobs through investment worth £620 million. Clearly, that is the main plank of the Government"s job creation plans. The Government are abolishing RDG in favour of a discretionary scheme. If RDG provides almost all the new jobs expected, presumably the other proposals will have no impact at all, or the estimate is a conservative and easily achievable aim.
Finally, while an additional 25,000 to 30,000 jobs will be extremely welcome, that goes only some way towards alleviating the massive unemploymnt problems. In April 1988, 28,272 people were registered as unemployed in Mid-Glamorgan. That is a rate of 16·4 per cent. and is the fourth highest county unemployment rate in Britain. The recent improvements in unemployment in the west of Wales have not been experienced in Mid-Glamorgan, where unemployment is increasing. The Government should be truthful when they make claims about reducing unemployment.
In April 1986, unemployment in Mid-Glamorgan was 10 per cent. of the Welsh rate. In April 1988, it was 27 per cent. above the Welsh rate. That is the extent of deprivation in the valley communities and that is why we are angry, disappointed and frustrated with the Secretary of State"s proposals, which do not go far enough. He hyped them up and he must now expect a very strong reaction to that hype. I described it as a hot air balloon. The hot air balloon came down to land and there was very little inside it.
6.29 pm
Mr. Gwilym Jones: I join my right hon. and hon. Friends in questioning the need or relevance of the Opposition motion. It is hard to find a topical relevance. The right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) did not tell us why we were debating it. Perhaps
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the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) will explain why we are doing so. I shall not attempt to offer an explanation.
We could have debated the Health Service in Wales. I know that various hon. Members have referred to it, but it is not specifically referred to in the motion. I had the temerity to try to draw the right hon. Member for Swansea, West on that subject. I asked him how many fewer patients would be treated in hospitals in Wales if we had the same spending, with only an increase for inflation, as we had under the Government in which he was a Minister. He did not give us an answer. I shall offer the answer instead. Almost 200,000 fewer patients would be treated each year in hospitals in Wales if we were to return to the spending levels of the Labour party. To be specific, an additional 99,000 in-patients and 88,000 out-patients are being treated now and Government spending is 42 per cent. up in real terms since 1979.Of course, I did not get that admission from a member of the only Government ever to cut spending on the Health Service.
I welcome the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State just before the spring bank holiday recess about the setting up of a further two new kidney dialysis treatment units in Wales. One of them will be in my constituency in the University hospital of Wales and the other will be in Merthyr. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) said that he believed in welcoming additions, but he did not mention that unit. I have an interest in kidney treatment and it is important to welcome those two new units, not least because when the Government took office Wales had the worst record for kidney treatment in the United Kingdom. Now we have the best record in the United Kingdom and virtually the best in Europe.
The motion could have been about the valleys initiative. It has been referred to, but there is no mention of it in the motion. I was not here last week and I had to look at Hansard to find the questions asked of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State when he made his statement about the valleys initiative. Unfortunately, the same questions came from Opposition Members. They were negative and full of the same synthetic bitterness, depression, gloom and doom. Incidentally, I could find no reference to the statement in the Western Mail. Perhaps, with no disrespect to my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer), that reflects the standard of some of the questions in the absence of those of us who were on Welsh Select Committee business.
In every sense that was a major statement, envisaging £1·5 billion being spent over the next three years. Outside the House it has been warmly welcomed. It has been welcomed in the newspaper articles and editorials I have read. Those articles give the impression that the people of Wales and their newspapers recognise the need for the most positive approach towards my right hon. Friend"s statement.
Sir Anthony Meyer: Has it occurred to my hon. Friend that one reason why there is so much glumness about the valleys initiative from Opposition Members is that. if the conditions in their constituencies improve, they could become vulnerable? There are no fewer than 11 seats in Wales that are vulnerable to a swing of less than 2·5 per cent. or 2,500 votes for the Conservatives.
Mr. Jones: My hon. Friend makes his point so well that I will not take it any further.
When the Welsh Select Committee was in Japan last week we met Yuasa Batteries, which is already in Wales. The head of that company posed a question to the Select Committee—it is usually the other way round. He wanted to know how the British economic miracle could be applied to Japan. That is the perception abroad, very much in contrast to the way in which the right hon. Member for Swansea, West tried cynically to dispose of what he denied was booming Wales. The right hon. Gentleman tried to claim that Wales has one of the lowest incomes per head in the United Kingdom. After all this time, we know from looking at international comparisons of figures that such bald comparisons are pretty nigh meaningless. At the very least we need to take into account the buying power. When the buying power of people in Wales is taken into account, we see that the income level is above average for the United Kingdom. Again, that is conveniently missed by Opposition Members.
None of us can be completely satisfied with the progress that has been made under the Government. However, I am entitled to be at least equally worried about the perception that is being created by the Opposition as they try to claim that they speak for the majority in Wales. The right hon. Member for Swansea, West was worried that the new jobs in Wales would be "engineered out" within the next decade. He said that he feared for the future of Wales. My fear is that the image that the Labour party is projecting abroad is the most conducive to us being described as the "coolie economy", the phrase used by the right hon. Gentleman. Any foreign investor listening to what the right hon. Gentleman said would be interested only in establishing a screwdriver plant in Wales. There would be no interest in placing anything more substantial there.
Am I being unfair to the Labour party? Perhaps I should be criticising only the right hon. Member for Swansea, West. I notice that as other Opposition Members mouth the same phrases they have smiles on their faces. The right hon. Member for Swansea, West gives the impression that he believes what he says. Our Japanese investors and potential investors must surely feel that the kamikaze approach of the Labour party can only be worthy of a far higher cause than theirs.
More investment is coming to Wales, not just from Japan but from Korea. I have the impression of a common spirit among business people in Wales towards doing business with Japan and of a common approach that we share with the Japanese and other leading economies. I believe firmly that business men from Wales and the United Kingdom can hold their heads high as they seek to do business in any part of the world. We have achieved that spirit and we must overcome any remaining psychological barriers about difficulties involved in doing business with Japan. We are not interested only in further investment from Japan. We want an increasing slice of the Japanese market, which is one of the fastest increasing markets. Only by retaining the necessary spirit will we achieve an increased share of that market.
Unless we can compete for our fair share of the Japanese market—one of the foremost markets in the world and which may become the foremost market—we shall upset our share of the rest of the world market and the rest of our domestic market. We need the right spirit to achieve that.
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I will not repeat the unemployment statistics that have already been given. I am privileged to represent the constituency of Cardiff, North. For a long time we have had the lowest unemployment rate in Wales. It is still too high. There are still more than 2,000 too many people unemployed in my constituency. We are not self-satisfied about having the lowest unemployment rate. More new jobs have been created in Cardiff, North since 1983 than the total number of people unemployed in 1983.If our new jobs had gone solely to residents of Cardiff, North, we would have eliminated unemployment. Of course that did not happen. We are not selfish about job creation. We see ourselves as having a role to create employment not just for Cardiff, but for the valleys and south Wales. That is typical of the new spirit abroad in Cardiff.
It is only from the approach that we display in Cardiff, North that the necessary prosperity can spread throughout Wales. Only a Conservative Secretary of State would come forward with the necessary comprehensive intitiative for the regeneration of the political heartland of the Labour party.
6.39 pm
Mr. Martin Jones (Clywd, South-West): We are told how well we are doing in Wales under this Government and are showered with the usual plethora of statistics proving upward trends. We are told that unemployment is down, but that is due in no small part to extensive massaging of the figures, borne out by the number of my constituents who cannot claim unemployment benefit but must claim other benefits, training scheme allowances, and so on.
We still do not have in Wales the number of people in work who were employed in 1979.The Secretary of State says that he intends to remove Socialism from Wales. I do not believe that he will, because of the good sense of the Welsh. In any event, he has not said whether he intends to replace Socialism with Thatcherism or with Walkerism. Either will mean the majority of Welsh people being worse off and a small minority—mostly English—being better off.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Mr. Paul Flynn.
Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is a matter of some concern to me, as the leader of a party that has three Members in Wales and 8 per cent. of the popular vote, that I am not able to take part in this debate.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Flynn.
6.40 pm
Mr. Paul Flynn: Our reason for selecting this subject for debate has hardly been mentioned. It is that never before in this century has the gap between the poor and the rich widened so much and so quickly as in the past two years. There are many people outside the House waiting for news of the debate, and who will rightly be angered by the self-indulgent, synthetic and snide remarks of Conservative Members, and their deliberate attempt to ignore the serious nature of the debate.
Many things have happened and will continue to happen in Wales. There has been a substantial

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improvement in unemployment levels, although it is difficult to discern because of the now routine fiddles and distortions, which have been evident for several years. Of course we should try to be optimistic. All of us in public life have a duty to build confidence and optimism in the Welsh economy, and my party has generously praised all those responsible for improving it.
However, there is no use exaggerating the improvement and pretending that there has been a boom. Sadly, it may be not a boom but a bubble—rather like the south sea bubble. Commentators have pointed to the fragility of the improvement. It does not help that we have a Secretary of State for Wales who has attracted a great deal of attention to himself--much of it not critical. In his task of reshaping the Welsh economy, it does not help if he vastly exaggerates job prospects, and if there are claims of instant regeneration or overnight miracles by a braggart politician using Wales as a rung in his own career ladder.
A report published by the Cardiff Business School a fortnight ago commented:
"It is still too early to consider that recent events in Wales represent a turning point and a shift towards a basically stronger economy. We still feel the fundamental weaknesses remain. Employment in Wales has declined significantly since 1979 and the performance of the Welsh economy in this respect is poorer than any other region. As a result the likelihood of becoming unemployed in Wales is higher than in any other standard region, whereas the probability of ceasing to be employed is the fourth highest of the twelve standard regions."
Good things are happening, but there is no use believing a public relations hype that goes far over the top.
Wales is deprived and disadvantaged. There may be a little ripple of improvement from the valleys initiative, and of course it contains many good local authority plans. However, as has been said, there is a great danger that the initiative will put all the goods in the shop window, leaving the store room empty. There is more to it even than that. The Secretary of State has taken all the goods from all the windows in town, and he has put them in his own shop window. It is likely that if anybody in the valleys paints his front door in the next few years, the Secretary of State will come along with a sticker proclaiming "Sponsored by the valleys initiative".
Following the social security changes in Wales over the past few months, many people have found their lives impoverished. A total of 350,000 households will be hit, with living standards falling as the combined result of those changes and the "loadsamoney" Budget. The ripple of improvement created by the initiative will be washed away by the tidal wave of hard Thatcherite legislation that is moving towards Wales. Why would the Secretary of State not answer my question about the poll tax? Why did the Prime Minister refuse to tell the BBC interviewer from Llandudno what will be the effect of the poll tax in Wales, and especially in the valleys?
The valleys will be hardest hit by every one of the Government"s proposals. We have all heard about clause 28 of the Local Government Bill, but other clauses will cut a swathe of unemployment and reduce wage levels in precious local government jobs. The Housing Bill will also hit the valleys by increasing rents. All of the hard Thatcherite legislation will hit the valleys very seriously. There are no glossy publications and no hype about those matters.
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All we have seen is the mean and muddled housing benefit changes affecting nearly 400,000 Welsh households. Islwyn borough council has published figures showing that 73 per cent. of the recipients of housing benefit—who are anyway the worst off in society—will be losers in a scheme that was supposed to simplify benefit. It is so simple that recipients must claim some money from the local authority, some from the DHSS, and some from Glasgow. There is now such chaos that the Cardiff office responsible for administering those changes has been closed to the general public for two weeks, while that at Newport has closed for a week.
Hon. Members say that the amount of reduced benefit involved is only £2·50 after the transitional payments have been made—and even they are a form of deferred robbery, because claimants will miss out on changes in inflation. However, if £2·50 represents one tenth of a recipient"s disposable income, its loss is a severe blow. That affects not just one or two recipients but hundreds of thousands of people throughout Wales. No glossy publication heralds that situation.
Wales is deprived and disadvantaged by low pay, by a neglected Health Service, by unemployment being twice the level it is elsewhere, and by the alien free-for-all to which the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) referred—the cheque book colonisation that is spreading from north Wales to every other part of Wales. The precious wedges of council housing in villages that give them a balanced community will now be up for grabs by the Porsche-owning yuppies from south Wales. There will be an extension of the cultural invasion from which the north and west have suffered for many years. We suffer from deprivation, and from the disadvantage of having a poor economy while being next door to a very rich neighbour.
I repeat that never before this century has the gap between the poor and the rich widened so much and so quickly. There is probably little point in repeating the question that was put last week and again today, and which has been put by the press to the Secretary of State, but we live in hope that he will answer it. Where is the new money, and how much new money will there be for the valleys initiative? I could quote many cases of hardship, of people suffering from the changes in housing benefit and social security, but I will give the House just one example, of a constituent who has expressed anger to me. She is a disabled pensioner and one of those the Government targeted to gain, but she, like so many others, is really a loser. Mrs. Dorothy Grear of the Bettws centre in Newport writes:
"The new system is unfair. Even those with a bit of works pension are losing. There are thousands of unhappy pensioners all over the country. Living here on a large council estate, I am right in amongst it. I hear the grumbles, I hear the worry, I hear the despair."
When will the Government hear it?
6.49 pm
The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. Wyn Roberts): There are two views of Wales, one expressed rather pessimistically in the motion and the other expressed more hopefully in the amendment. Both views have been put forward in the debate.
Much of what has been said is attributable, as I think hon. Members will agree, to the Low Pay Unit report. Some of the LPU"s findings for Wales are based on Great

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Britain estimates and appear to be at variance with the published figures. For example, we know that in 1979 there were 172,000 recipients of supplementary benefit in Wales, but LPU refers to 289,000 dependent on supplementary benefit in that year.
While I am in a correcting mood, let me say that the hon. Members for Neath (Mr. Coleman) and for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) referred to the Cardiff Business School report stating that more females than males are now in work in Wales. That is not the case. The latest data show that in December 1987 478,000 males were in employment, while the female total was 392,000.I shall not pursue the evidence.
There is of course a brighter side, which I feel obliged to draw to the attention of the House. Hon. Members will be interested to know that average adult full-time wages in Wales, at constant April 1987 prices, are now more than £19 a week higher than when we came into office. Between 1986 and 1987, average gross weekly earnings for adults working full-time rose by 7·7 per cent. in Wales, compared with 7·8 per cent. in England and 6·4 per cent. in Scotland. Earnings in west and Mid-Glamorgan rose by 8·7 per cent, the same percentage increase as in the south-east of England. Of the regions of England, only Greater London exceeded the increase in Wales.
Of course wages are higher in the south-east, but, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out, so is the cost of living. The average household in the south-east spends far more on housing than the average household in Wales—just over £40 a week, compared with £25 in Wales. We have the lowest domestic rates of any region in the United Kingdom, with the exception of Northern Ireland.
I was surprised to hear some comments on spending on the National Health Service. I remind hon. Members on both sides of the House that in the final year of the last Labour Administration the weekly spend on the NHS in Wales was £16·3 million at 1988–89 prices, whereas we are planning to spend £23·2 million each week in 1988–89.Expenditure on the NHS in Wales in 1978–79 was some £5·85 per person per week, whereas our plans provide for expenditure in this financial year of £8·25 per person per week.
Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones rose——
Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman has not been here, and I shall certainly not give way to him. I have very little time.
I am surprised that so many Opposition Members, including the hon. Member for Neath, should attack us on our housing record. After all, as my right hon. Friend says, Labour left us with 133,000 houses lacking basic amenities, and we have had to reduce the number to 37,000—just below 5 per cent. of our housing stock. I was also surprised that the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) referred to an increase in homelessness. The number of places accepted by local authorities fell by 11 per cent. last year to just under 5,300.I might say that the solution is not simply building more council houses; it is partly to do with making better use of existing stock.
Opposition Members must make up their minds about the valleys initiative. Do they now realise that it is only the parliamentary Labour party that does not like the initiative and has failed to welcome it? Do they not want
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the record factory building programme of 1·25 million sq ft, at a cost of £40 million? Do they not want a record derelict land clearance programme of 2,500 acres for the valleys? Do they not want a record level of urban programme allocations? That is £15 million this year for the valleys alone—I hope that the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) is listening to this—compared with £11·7 million, at today"s prices, for the whole of Wales in the last year of the Labour Government.
Do Opposition Members really not want our plans to improve 32,000 homes and provide over 10,000 new ones? The truth is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) said, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is doing something for the valleys, for the heartlands of the Labour party, which they did not dare—did not have the courage—to do themselves.
It is typical of the Opposition to have chosen to concentrate on disadvantage and deprivation in Wales. It is, I believe, an outward sign of their inner gloom and doom. I thought that the eschatological gloom and doom —the "end of Wales is at hand" approach—belonged exclusively to the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) when he was on the Opposition Front Bench. Even the Leader of the Opposition became so depressed that he retired the hon. Gentleman to the happy hunting grounds of the Back Benches. But the gloom-and-doom approach is still with us, and the right hon. Member for Swansea, West and the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) are simply new prophets of the old terminal message. I suppose that the end of their world is at hand—the old world where masses of people were employed in nationalised industries, dependent on state subsidies to keep them going, or in the high-spending public sector, where employment could be sustained at the cost of ever higher inflation. All that is changing, and the Opposition are completely at a loss for policies.
Some of the brighter Opposition Members are trying to reconcile themselves to the change, and to adapt Labour policies to the new Britain of economic growth and falling unemployment. I am surprised that there are no Welsh Members among this avant-garde. They are members of the old guard to a man. Who do they really think will benefit from the dismal picture of Wales that they conjure up? Certainly not the people of Wales, who stand to lose investment and development to other parts of the United Kingdom where people are more hopeful about their future prospects. Nor do I think that the Opposition themselves stand to gain much. People simply do not like to hear endlessly how miserable they should be, especially when they are not.
I have given the House a choice between the Opposition"s motion and the Government"s amendment. I believe that the majority of people of Wales would prefer the amendment, and with unemployment falling for the 24th month in succession, including that in Mid-Glamorgan, and with job prospects still extremely good, Wales is indeed firmly set on the path of economic growth and prosperity. I commend the amendment to the House.
6.59 pm
Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas: As I was not called earlier in the debate, I am now taking the opportunity to say in half a second what I would have said.

1325
We have heard two constrasting views of Wales in the debate. Both views are right, but both views are wrong. The real future for Wales is to be a modern European economy which will develop on the basis of the skills and activity of its own people. To do that, it must have effective political control over its resources. Clearly, in this House, Wales does not even have a voice.
Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 192, Noes 267.

Division No. 376]

[7pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Fyfe, Maria

Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

Galbraith, Sam

Alton, David

Galloway, George

Anderson, Donald

Garrett, John (Norwich South)

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

Armstrong, Hilary

George, Bruce

Ashton, Joe

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Gordon, Mildred

Barron, Kevin

Gould, Bryan

Beckett, Margaret

Graham, Thomas

Bell, Stuart

Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

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

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Bermingham, Gerald

Grocott, Bruce

Bidwell, Sydney

Harman, Ms Harriet

Blair, Tony

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Boateng, Paul

Haynes, Frank

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Heffer, Eric S.

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

Henderson, Doug

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Hinchliffe, David

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Hogg, N.(C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Buchan, Norman

Holland, Stuart

Buckley, George J.

Home Robertson, John

Caborn, Richard

Hood, Jimmy

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Cartwright, John

Howells, Geraint

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Hoyle, Doug

Clay, Bob

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Cohen, Harry

Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

Coleman, Donald

Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Corbett, Robin

Illsley, Eric

Cousins, Jim

Ingram, Adam

Cox, Tom

Janner, Greville

Crowther, Stan

John, Brynmor

Cryer, Bob

Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

Cummings, John

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Dalyell, Tam

Kennedy, Charles

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Lambie, David

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

Lamond, James

Dewar, Donald

Leighton, Ron

Dixon, Don

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Dobson, Frank

Litherland, Robert

Doran, Frank

Livsey, Richard

Duffy, A. E. P.

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

McAllion, John

Eadie, Alexander

McAvoy, Thomas

Eastham, Ken

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Evans, John (St Helens N)

McKelvey, William

Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

McLeish, Henry

Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

McNamara, Kevin

Fatchett, Derek

McTaggart, Bob

Faulds, Andrew

McWilliam, John

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Madden, Max

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

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Fisher, Mark

Marek, Dr John

Flannery, Martin

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Flynn, Paul

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Martin, Michael J.(Springburn)

Foster, Derek

Maxton, John

Foulkes, George

Meacher, Michael

Fraser, John

Meale, Alan

1326

Michael, Alun

Sedgemore, Brian

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Sheerman, Barry

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

Skinner, Dennis

Moonie, Dr Lewis

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

Morgan, Rhodri

Spearing, Nigel

Morley, Elliott

Steinberg, Gerry

Morris, Rt Hon A.(W'shawe)

Stott, Roger

Morris, Rt Hon J.(Aberavon)

Strang, Gavin

Mowlam, Marjorie

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Mullin, Chris

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Murphy, Paul

Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis

Nellist, Dave

Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

O'Neill, Martin

Turner, Dennis

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Wall, Pat

Patchett, Terry

Wallace, James

Pendry, Tom

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Pike, Peter L.

Wareing, Robert N.

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

Primarolo, Dawn

Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

Quin, Ms Joyce

Wigley, Dafydd

Radice, Giles

Williams, Rt Hon Alan

Randall, Stuart

Williams, Alan W.(Carm"then)

Redmond, Martin

Wilson, Brian

Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Reid, Dr John

Worthington, Tony

Robinson, Geoffrey

Wray, Jimmy

Rogers, Allan

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Rooker, Jeff

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Rowlands, Ted

Mrs. Llin Golding and Mr. Frank Cook.

Ruddock, Joan

NOES

Adley, Robert

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Aitken, Jonathan

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Alexander, Richard

Cash, William

Allason, Rupert

Chapman, Sydney

Amess, David

Churchill, Mr

Amos, Alan

Clark, Sir W.(Croydon S)

Arbuthnot, James

Colvin, Michael

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

Cope, Rt Hon John

Ashby, David

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

Aspinwall, Jack

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Atkins, Robert

Devlin, Tim

Atkinson, David

Dickens, Geoffrey

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Dicks, Terry

Baldry, Tony

Durant, Tony

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Dykes, Hugh

Batiste, Spencer

Eggar, Tim

Bellingham, Henry

Favell, Tony

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Benyon, W.

Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

Fookes, Miss Janet

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Forman, Nigel

Body, Sir Richard

Forth, Eric

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Fox, Sir Marcus

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Franks, Cecil

Boswell, Tim

French, Douglas

Bottomley, Peter

Fry, Peter

Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

Gardiner, George

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Bowis, John

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

Glyn, Dr Alan

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Goodlad, Alastair

Brazier, Julian

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Bright, Graham

Gorst, John

Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

Gow, Ian

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

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

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Budgen, Nicholas

Gregory, Conal

Burns, Simon

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Burt, Alistair

Grist, Ian

Butcher, John

Ground, Patrick

Butler, Chris

Grylls, Michael

Butterfill, John

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

1327

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Mudd, David

Hampson, Dr Keith

Needham, Richard

Hanley, Jeremy

Nelson, Anthony

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

Neubert, Michael

Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Harris, David

Nicholls, Patrick

Haselhurst, Alan

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Hawkins, Christopher

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Hayes, Jerry

Oppenheim, Phillip

Hayward, Robert

Page, Richard

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Paice, James

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Patten, Chris (Bath)

Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Porter, David (Waveney)

Hill, James

Portillo, Michael

Hind, Kenneth

Powell, William (Corby)

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Price, Sir David

Holt, Richard

Raffan, Keith

Hordern, Sir Peter

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Howard, Michael

Redwood, John

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

Renton, Tim

Howarth, G.(Cannock & B'wd)

Rhodes James, Robert

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Hunter, Andrew

Roe, Mrs Marion

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Irvine, Michael

Rost, Peter

Jack, Michael

Rowe, Andrew

Janman, Tim

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

Johnson Smith, Sir Geotfrey

Sackville, Hon Tom

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Sainsbury, Hon Tim

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Sayeed, Jonathan

Key, Robert

Shaw, David (Dover)

Kilfedder, James

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Shelton, William (Streatham)

Knapman, Roger

Shephard, Mrs G.(Norfolk SW)

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Knowles, Michael

Shersby, Michael

Knox, David

Sims, Roger

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Skeet, Sir Trevor

Lang, Ian

Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

Latham, Michael

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

Speed, Keith

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Speller, Tony

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

Lilley, Peter

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

Squire, Robin

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Stanbrook, Ivor

Lord, Michael

Stanley, Rt Hon John

McCrindle, Robert

Stern, Michael

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Stevens, Lewis

MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

Maclean, David

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

McLoughlin, Patrick

Stokes, Sir John

McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

McNair-Wilson, P.(New Forest)

Sumberg, David

Madel, David

Summerson, Hugo

Major, Rt Hon John

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Malins, Humfrey

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Mans, Keith

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Maples, John

Temple-Morris, Peter

Marland, Paul

Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

Thorne, Neil

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Thornton, Malcolm

Mates, Michael

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Maude, Hon Francis

Tracey, Richard

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Tredinnick, David

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Trippier, David

Miller, Sir Hal

Twinn, Dr Ian

Mills, Iain

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Waddington, Rt Hon David

Monro, Sir Hector

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Waldegrave, Hon William

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Walden, George

Morrison, Sir Charles

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Moss, Malcolm

Walker, Rt Hon P.(W'cester)

1328

Waller, Gary

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Walters, Sir Dennis

Winterton, Nicholas

Ward, John

Wood, Timothy

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Woodcock, Mike

Warren, Kenneth

Yeo, Tim

Watts, John

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Wheeler, John

Widdecombe, Ann

Tellers for the Noes:

Wiggin, Jerry

Mr. David Lightbown and Mr. Richard Ryder.

Wilkinson, John

Wilshire, David

Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on Amendments) and agreed to.
Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House welcomes the success and achievements of Government policies and initiatives in Wales which have raised living standards, improved housing and environmental conditions and set Wales firmly on the path of economic growth and prosperity.
Mr. Wigley: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, arising out of the last debate. I put it to you that it is wholly unreasonable and unacceptable that all four parties that represent Wales in the House should not have at least five minutes to put their viewpoints in a debate that has to do solely with Welsh affairs. This matter has been raised before and there have been difficulties about it. In the past there has been agreement between the usual channels and the Chair that representatives of all parties would be allowed to speak. May we have an assurance now that what happened in the last debate will never be allowed to happen again?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I well understand the hon. Gentleman's disappointment. A number of hon. Members on both sides of the House could not participate in this very short debate. I can only express sympathy with all who were not called. It would have been so much easier if those who were called had made briefer speeches.
I should also make it clear that Mr. Speaker exercises his discretion to the best of his ability. He never makes any commitment before any debate begins to any individual hon. Member or party.
Mr. Bob Cryer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I entirely understand your difficulties, and I understand that the Speaker cannot make such a commitment. In view of the difficulty created for you and Mr. Speaker, is not the solution for the Government to provide time in which to debate Wales's difficulties? After all, they created them. The Labour party provided time today and the Government should follow its good example. If they had the interests of Wales at heart, they would take notice of these comments and provide time in the near future for a full debate in which everyone can take part.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: We should now get on with the next business.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I shall, of course, listen to the hon. Lady, but I must say to her and to the House that we are now trespassing on the time that has been allocated for the consideration of private Bills.
Mrs. Ewing: Would it not be possible to distinguish between hon. Members and parties? Surely minority parties have a right to be heard. That differentiation should be taken into account by the two larger parties, which are perhaps more concerned with safeguarding their own rights than with listening to the viewpoints of others.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I understand the hon. Lady"s point. I assure her that anyone who occupies the Chair has to listen to complaints by hon. Members on both sides, including Government supporters, who feel that they should have been called when unfortunately time did not allow. The Chair does its best in such circumstances.
There is a motion on the Order Paper for 10-minute speeches. At the moment, the Chair has not the power to limit speeches. If the House so decides, it will be easier to call more hon. Members from both sides in major debates.

Associated British Ports (No. 2) Bill (By Order)
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [11 May], That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Question again proposed.
7.20 pm
Mr. Alexander Eadie: I was coming near the end of my remarks when the debate was adjourned. The House will recall that the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr. Stewart) described the Bill as the destruction of the coal industry. There was a great deal of support on both sides of the House for that view.
The Financial Times international coal report spells out what should be the obituary of the Bill, which should not get a Second Reading. The Bill is a bad buy. I do not want to go into great detail on the Financial Times report but I wish to make one quotation which is relevant to the debate:
"Much British deep-mined coal can compete well with imports in 1990—but by 1995 the mines should be competing so well as to restrict imports to the periphery of the power station market… By 1995 any saving made by an all-out import policy in 1990 would have disappeared and the electricity supply industry would be paying millions of pounds more for imported coal than by buying British… There is a severe risk that many deep mines which could compete with imported coal in 1995 will be closed by 1990 if the Government encourage an early free-for-all on imports."
Of course the Bill is about imports. That quotation from the Financial Times coal report should be the obituary of the Bill.
Earlier in my speech I said that the Bill was defective. The information which we have got since I said that to some extent makes a mockery of the private Bill procedure. I doubt whether any planning authority would have allowed the application to go ahead. I am not privy to the information, but I understand that Calor Gas has provided information which was not available to the House last time, or was perhaps misunderstood. One important point it makes is that we are talking not about 300 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas but about 100,000 tonnes.
Mr. Tony Lloyd: It was my comments which led to the erroneous information. I am not an expert on LPG. The possibility of 300 tonnes going up in flames alarms me, but if 100,000 tonnes were to go up in flames it would devastate the whole of Humberside and the surrounding area. I put the point to my hon. Friend so that he may press the sponsor of the Bill. The Health and Safety Executive has let it be known that it is unhappy about the development, as is Calor Gas. In the weeks that have gone by since the last debate, has the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) been in touch with the Health and Safety Executive? Can he reassure the House or has the debate moved no further? We should reject the Bill simply because of the danger inherent in the storage of that amount of gas.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order. Mr. Deputy Speaker. I suppose you have heard the exchanges in the last few minutes. It appears that we spent a couple of hours a few weeks ago debating a Bill which involved the storage of 300 tonnes of Calor gas. My hon.

1331
Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) has just revealed that 100,000 tonnes are involved. I want to know whether the Examiners or anyone else——
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. The hon. Gentleman may make the point in his speech if he is called.
Mr. Skinner: My point of order is that the Bill should be withdrawn. It is not the Bill which was brought before us.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Bill is in order; otherwise we would not be discussing it. The hon. Member may make his point if he is called.
Mr. Eadie: I am grateful for the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd). I am also grateful for the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). The point is material to the discussion on the Bill. I endorse everything that my hon. Friends have said. I note that there is no response from the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown).
Mr. Bob Cryer: Does my hon. Friend accept that this is even more serious because one of the largest chemical explosions that ever occurred in the United Kingdom was at Flixborough in the constituency of the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown)? The hon. Member"s predecessor repeatedly raised in the House the danger of vapour explosions such as the one that ripped through Flixborough, causing loss of life, injury and damage for miles around. Will my hon. Friend comment on the fact that the hon. Member for the self-same area is promoting a Bill which could have similar consequences to, if not greater consequences than, those of Flixborough?
Mr. Eadie: My hon. Friend may recall that I have already said that I know of no planning authority— Conservative, Labour or Liberal—which would have allowed this defective Bill to go forward. It is an abuse of our procedures that the Bill should be before us. I do not want to make a long speech, although I am tempted to do so.
Mr. Michael Brown: The hon. Gentleman doubts whether any planning authority would give permission for such a development. He may be reassured to know that the Labour-controlled county council of Humberside raises no objection to the proposal of the promoters, nor does the borough council in which the development is to take place.
Mr. Eadie: The hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes is playing the role of the Artful Dodger. The detailed proposals are not with the authority. It would be different if the detailed proposals, as spelt out in the Bill, were before the authority. I know from 20 years of local government experience that no planning authority——
Mr. Eric Illsley: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the sponsor of the Bill suddenly to rise from his seat and leave the Chamber when my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) is answering a point that he made?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The House would be best advised to get on with the debate.
Mr. Eadie: The hon. Gentleman may have a good reason for leaving the Chamber. It may appear to be discourteous but I do not feel offended in any way.
As I said, I want to make a brief speech——
Mr. Jimmy Hood: Are not the individuals who have promoted the Bill in consultation with the local authorities? Are not they discussing it in detail? It is not that the authorities have not objected. They have agreed to consult on the issue.
Mr. Eadie: I want to place on record the objections raised by Calor Gas. I referred in a previous speech to the liquidation of capital already invested. I related my remarks mainly to the mining, railway and power plant manufacturing industries. According to my figures, the cavern cost £25 million to build. I find it difficult to think in terms of writing off that amount of capital.
The main concern of Calor is that it stores vast quantities of liquid petroleum gas and, as a result, the site has to be notified to the Health and Safety Executive in accordance with the provisions of the Notification of Installations Handling Hazardous Substances Regulations 1982.As the development falls within a distance of 400m of the site boundary, Calor is concerned about the lack of consultation. That may in part answer the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood).
In quoting Calor"s objections, I must identify the hon. Member who is the sponsor of the Bill:
"Despite the assurances by Michael Brown MP that they are pressing the Health and Safety Executive for a definite statement to reassure Calor that it will not lose its consent as a result of the ABP"s activities, after repeated reminders by Calor no guidance has yet been given by the Health and Safety Executive. Calor are very concerned that the advice likely to come from the Health and Safety Executive may have a serious detrimental effect upon the future operation and development of the facilities."
Secondly, Calor is worried about the presence of other ships docking, loading and unloading at the proposed new jetty as they will be in close proximity to the existing liquid petroleum gas jetty. The stern bow of an LPG tanker could be as little as 50m away from the proposed jetty head. The Bill is defective in that respect. It may affect shipping programmes and place restrictions on Calor"s operations For example, the HSE may prohibit a ship from using the LPG jetty while another ship is loading at the proposed new jetty.
Thirdly, the Bill does not give Calor any ability to use larger tankers and limits them to only one berth. The Bill would effectively limit any future expansion plans. It is absurd to write off £25 million of capital—quite apart from the dangers that we have already discussed.
Fourthly, the existence of another jetty would increase the number of vessels in the vicinity of the liquid petroleum gas jetty. However, there is no provision in the Bill to install harbour surveillance radar.
Finally, if the Bill is passed and the result is that Calor"s facilities are closed down, it would not be possible to find an alternative cavern storage facility in the United Kingdom with the right quality of chalk, in the right location and at the right depth.
As I said, I know of no planning authority that would have approved such a proposition.
Mr. Kevin Barron: My hon. Friend"s remarks will clearly be of great concern not only to people who live in close proximity to the site but to those in several areas. Does my hon. Friend agree that the way in which the Bill is being dealt with denies the residents of the area and the constituents of the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) the right to go to a public inquiry and express in person their fears about the Bill?
Mr. Eadie: I fully endorse that. I think that it is absolutely monstrous that the mother of Parliaments should do that. That is why I have suggested that the Bill is defective.
Mr. Allen McKay: Would my hon. Friend agree that we are not qualified to reach a decision on the Bill? Only the local authority is qualified to consider representations from Calor and from all those affected in the area. This is especially important as the development would affect tides and the ecology of the whole area.
Mr. Eadie: I take my hon. Friend"s point. However, many of us are very well qualified to discuss what would happen if there were an explosion. I worked in the mining industry for 30 years. I have some technical engineering qualifications and I know the danger of having a bomb a few metres away. I am qualified to say that that is a hazard. I very much regret that people will not have an opportunity to examine the matter in detail.
Mr. Cryer: There is a potentially sinister aspect to the Bill. In the Health and Safety Executive there are qualified people who could examine the proposals and those people ought to provide a report to the House before we embark upon the Bill. As my hon. Friend knows, however, the HSE is short staffed because of the Government"s refusal to provide additional funds. We know that these so-called private Bills are actually hybrid Bills; they represent Government policy, and the Government are abusing the procedures of the House by giving them organised support. The Government may well be saying with a nod and a wink to the HSE, "Say nothing and do nothing until the Bill gets through."
Mr. Tony Lloyd: My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. In our first debate, the Minister told the House that the HSE would not be involved until after the installation came into operation. He said that the HSE had no locus standi. He said that the Bill was not of interest to the HSE. However, the HSE will have the problem of deciding whether the Calor installation should be allowed to continue once the new installation is built. That is why the Health and Safety Executive is not involved. Whether there have been nods and winks, I do not know. I know that it has not so far said publicly whether it accepts the Bill. Perhaps the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes will tell us.
Mr. Eadie: I shall bring my remarks to a close. I was prepared to make a very long speech but as it is my birthday, I shall not.
Mr. Andy Stewart: I wish the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) many happy returns of the day. On his birthday, it may comfort him to learn that my brother is the deputy leader of the Conservative council on Humberside. I have told him that I shall oppose the Bill until the end.
Mr. Eadie: The House respects the hon. Gentleman"s integrity. Anybody who doubts the stand that the hon. Gentleman is taking should read the speech that he made on 11 May.
I think that I have advanced all the arguments that can be made against the Bill receiving a Second Reading. I have shown we shall be liquidating not millions but billions of pounds of capital if the Bill is passed. I have mentioned the safety hazards and shown how the private Bill procedures of the House are faulty. I have expressed concern that the Minister should recommend that such a defective Bill should be given a Second Reading.
Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend has touched on a number of matters. History will probably record that if this time bomb goes up many people on Humberside will not see any more birthdays. Many people will weep crocodile tears and talk about the need for inquiries. They will ask, "Why was the Bill passed with a provision for a 100,000 tonnes capacity of Calor gas? What happened in Parliament? What were that lot doing down there?" There was an inquiry for Sizewell and we did not complain about that, but this site is being developed without a public inquiry. Post-Flixborough, we are talking about major industrial hazards, but Parliament is allowing this corrupt and bent procedure to continue on a Conservative two or three-line Whip——
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is enough for an intervention.
Mr. Eadie: My hon. Friend has made the final point that I was about to make. Bearing in mind all the points that have been made, the House would be foolish and, to some extent, irresponsible to give the Bill a Second Reading. I hope that the House will reject the Bill.
7.42 pm
Mr. Henry Bellingham: I wish the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) a happy birthday. The points that he made about hazards and safety were dealt with at length by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown).
I do not want the hon. Member for Midlothian to labour under a misapprehension. He thinks that there should have been a public inquiry, but if anyone decides to construct works in tidal waters he must obtain the authority of Parliament.
The one part of the Bill to which the hon. Member for Midlothian did not address himself was that which relates to my constituency. Many people forget that there are three parts to the Bill. The work to be undertaken at King"s Lynn comprises a quay of solid construction, which will cost roughly £1 million, "work on a wall—continuous sheet piling with anchors—costing £3 million and dredging. The total amount to be spent at King"s Lynn is £4 million. Many hon. Members have ignored that part of the Bill, but I shall explain why they should pass it.
Mr. Illsley: Has it occurred to the hon. Gentleman that the reason why Labour Members have not mentioned King"s Lynn is that there is less objection to the proposals for the hon. Gentleman"s constituency? Does he think that it would have been better if the promoters of the Bill had brought forward a separate Bill dealing only with King"s Lynn rather than tagging it on to the end of a Bill dealing with Immingham terminal?
Mr. Bellingham: I do not think that the objections that have been made to the part of the Bill relating to Immingham are sustainable. Why not allow the Bill to be dealt with in Committee and give petitioners a chance to put their case to the Committee? Surely that would be a democratic way of proceeding. We are talking as though this is the first Bill of its kind to have arisen for many years, but dozens of such Bills have been considered in Committee and petitioners have had their democratic right to put their objections.
Mr. Barron: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that we have little objection to the King"s Lynn proposals or to those for Port Talbot because of the improvements that they will make and their job-creation opportunities? The hon. Gentleman must realise that the King"s Lynn and Port Talbot provisions have been included in the Bill so that there can be a payroll vote to get what is not a private Bill passed. The hon. Gentleman is being used to push through a Bill to which there is a major objection.
Mr. Bellingham: I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says about a payroll vote. Every Conservative Member has the option of voting; there is a free vote on the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes dealt effectively and comprehensively with the part of the Bill relating to Immingham, and I support all that he said on 11 May.
The port of King"s Lynn has grown considerably over the past few years. Last year its cargo throughput was 1·2 million tonnes, which was a record. Since the construction of the enclosed docks in the last century, there has been a restriction on the type and size of vessel that can enter the port. It is a tidal port and, given the restrictions imposed by the enclosed docks, the longest vessel that can enter it is 120 m, the maximum beam is 13·8 m and the draft maximum is 5·5 m.
There has been tremendous growth in the local economy because of the improvement in communications to East Anglia. We are pressing for better roads, more dual carriageways into this part of Norfolk and for railway electrification. The Minister knows well that we have been pressing for improved roads and he has been extremely helpful. About a year ago, his Department gave the go-ahead for a major new £7·5 million scheme for a flyover and dual carriageway into King"s Lynn on the A10.That will cause more growth and development in King"s Lynn, and the growth in port traffic will continue to increase. The restriction on the size of vessel is curbing that growth. If these works go ahead, the size of vessel able to enter the port will increase considerably from the present limit of 3,000 tonnes. The river can accommodate vessels of at least 140m in length.
Mr. Rhodri Morgan: The third part of the Bill relates to the extension of the dredging works to the entrance to Port Talbot harbour. All those who have the best interests of the steel industry in south Wales at heart very much want that to go ahead. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would have been more sensible for Associated British Ports to link the King"s Lynn and Port Talbot provisions with the Associated British Ports (Barrow) Bill and not with a controversial Bill? Does he not think that there is something extremely mysterious in the fact that the Associated British Ports (Barrow) Bill, which is non-controversial, is standing alone, while the
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Port Talbot and King"s Lynn provisions, which are non-controversial, are linked with the Immingham terminal provisions, which could not be more controversial?
Mr. Bellingham: The hon. Gentleman has made a forceful point. If I accepted his criticism and his fears about the Immingham part of the Bill, I should agree, but I do not. I support the case made so forcefully by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes and supported by many Conservative Members.
Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: There are many who do not.
Mr. Bellingham: I accept that there are some who do not support the Bill, and they have the right to vote against it.
The port in my constituency has been expanding quickly. Various types of cargo go through the port—vehicles, containers, timber, steel, fertilisers, animal feed and solid fuels. Some coal is imported through King"s Lynn, but it is only a small part of the cargo.
Just as there will be more facilities for importing coal, there will be facilities for exporting it. I hope that hon. Members do not forget that not long ago a great deal of British coal was exported. I look forward, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes, to the day when more coal is exported.
Mr. Hood: How can we export coal when the Government are effectively closing down the British coal industry? The Bill provides a way to bring in blood coal from South Africa, Colombia and elsewhere. The mainland industry is being destroyed, so we shall not be able to export coal.
Mr. Bellingham: Labour Members feel passionately about this subject because they represent constituencies that have many mining jobs and where mining is the life blood of those areas. I do not, however, accept their pessimism that Britain will never again be a coal exporter. The world coal market can change quickly. I remain fairly optimistic that there will come a day when we shall need facilities to export coal.
The Bill enlarges the capacity of the port of King"s Lynn by bringing in a new dimension—the riverside quay —which will mean that larger vessels can come into the port. That will sustain the growth of King"s Lynn. The number of jobs will increase. There will be jobs in constructing the quay.
Mr. Terry Patchett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Bellingham: I shall press on—[HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."] The hon. Member for Barnsley, East (Mr. Patchett) will have a chance to address the House later, so I shall not give way.
The local area"s prosperity will increase. I estimate that, in five years, at least another 100 jobs will be directly created in the King"s Lynn docks and perhaps another 100 or 200 jobs will be indirectly created by the increased growth and prosperity.
Mr. Patchett rose——
Mr. Bellingham: I shall give way on that point.
Mr. Patchett: The hon. Gentleman has gone on at great length about the size and capacity of vessels. In a speech to the Institution of Mining Engineers, the Secretary of State for Energy declared that only the limitation of handling facilities cut imports. Is not that the real reason for the cry about "crocodile tears"?
Mr. Bellingham: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman"s point. I am addressing my remarks to that part of the Bill that affects my constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes has made a powerful case for the part of the Bill that affects his constituency. If the Bill is not passed, the Opposition will effectively play a part in destroying jobs in my constituency. Norfolk is regarded as part of the prosperous south-east. I remind the Opposition that just recently unemployment in King"s Lynn had increased to nearly 18 per cent., but it is now under 9 per cent. We are pushing ahead and creating more jobs. This development in the Bill is part and parcel of the growing local economy. The key to the Bill is the creation of new jobs and of prosperity.
The Bill is wholeheartedly supported by the local branch of the Transport and General Workers Union, which has told me that it will create jobs locally. Those workers greatly resent Opposition efforts to stop the Bill going into Committee, where petitioners and other objectors would have ample opportunity to put their objections. Surely the way forward is to give the Bill a Second Reading, let it go into Committee and let people with valid and, arguably, sustainable objections to put them, rather than for the Opposition to try to sabotage the Bill by voting against it, thereby destroying jobs in my constituency and others.
7.55 pm
Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse: I am worried about the threat to the coal mining industry. I should like first, however, to comment on Calor Gas, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood) referred. In the 11 May debate, the concerns of Calor Gas were acknowledged by hon. Members, including the Minister. Assurances were given by the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown)—they were cited today by my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) but he had no response from the hon. Gentleman—who said that the promoters were
"pressing the Health and Safety Executive for a definitive statement to reassure Calor that it will not lose its consent as a result of ABP"s activities."—[Official Report, 11 May 1988; Vol. 133, c. 400.]
Why, after nearly six weeks and despite reminders to the Bill"s promoters, has no advice been given by the HSE? Is it because the advice may have a detrimental effect on the operations and future development of Calor"s facilities? The hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes seems to be well informed and involved with the company, so surely he is able to give some answers, or at least can nip out and get them.
If the Bill"s promoters were truly concerned about safety, especially in relation to Calor"s LPG jetty, surely surveillance radar should be installed before building commences. Calor is worried, rightly, about the presence of other ships docking, loading and unloading at the proposed new jetty, as those vessels will be very close. Is the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes aware that the stern or bow of a vessel docking at the proposed new jetty could be as little as 50m from the Calor LPG jetty and/or
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a gas tanker discharging? Does he realise what could happen? There could be a worse disaster than Flixborough. The hon. Gentleman is the Bill"s sponsor and he should have some answers.
Mr. Hood: Does my hon. Friend, like me, find it strange that the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) threatened to resign his seat only a few years ago, when objecting to Nirex storing nuclear waste, and was worried about the safety of his constituents, yet he now promotes a Bill that could result in hundreds, if not thousands, of his constituents being blown up? Does not my hon. Friend think that the free trip to South Africa for the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes has influenced his enthusiasm for this measure?
Mr. Lofthouse: I fully agree with my hon. Friend.
On 11 May, the Minister said that the HSE was not able to deal with the proposals in the Bill, but could deal only with the risk item, which is Calor"s LPG storage facility. The HSE would only be able to pass judgment once the Bill became law. If that does not sound like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted, I do not know what does. It is not on. If the Bill receives a Second Reading, I hope that the genuine concern that has been expressed tonight will be given serious consideration by the Committee.
Mr. Michael Welsh: The Bill states that the duty of Associated British Ports is to pay due regard to efficiency, economy and safety. Does my hon. Friend consider that ABP has paid due regard to safety?
Mr. David Hinchliffe: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for hon. Members to be taking briefings from people in the Strangers Gallery?
Hon. Members: Shame.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Chair has quite a job keeping in order those who are in the Chamber. Those who are outside the Chamber have nothing to do with me, thank goodness.
Mr. Lofthouse: If I may reply to the question put to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Welsh), the promoters should be concerned about safety and the Bill should contain a provision to that effect. If large vessels are turning within 50m of a plant of this nature, that must be dangerous. That is why I should have thought that the Health and Safety Executive——
Mr. Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) has just raised a point of order regarding the people who are sitting in the box under the Strangers" Gallery—people whom you do not recognize—passing material to hon. Members who are connected with the sponsorship of the Bill. Let us get it straight. There have been occasions when it has, been made clear by the occupant of the Chair that those people whom you cannot see in the box should not write notes during the proceedings. They are prohibited from taking part in the proceedings at all times. They are not to be confused with those people who sit in another box and provide the Government with information. It may be that those outside the House will think that that is a bit cockeyed, but that is what this place is like. The Government can be given information but the Opposition cannot be given any

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information. I suggest that what is good enough for the Opposition should apply at all times, particularly if it happens to be Tories who are working for South Africa.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have already said that I am responsible for what happens in the Chamber. Any hon. Member is entitled to take advice, but if that advice comes from somebody who is outside the Chamber it should be as unobtrusive as possible.
Mr. Cryer: Further to that point of order,Mr. Deputy Speaker——
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. These are not genuine points of order. A number of hon. Members on both sides of the House wish to take part in the debate. Points of order merely delay the proceedings and make it almost impossible for me to call every hon. Member who wishes to speak.
Mr. Cryer: But there is a rule. The box under the Strangers Gallery is part of the public access to the Strangers Gallery. That is to make everybody feel at home when they reach that place. There is a rule that people in the Strangers Gallery, whether upstairs or in the box under the Gallery, are not allowed to write notes about the proceedings, or anything else. If people are seen to be writing in the box, the rule is that they should be seized by the attendants and removed. This is a genuine point of order. You implied that people could write notes and pass advice to hon. Members, but that is not the case. I asked Mr. Speaker a question about this matter. It was on the Order Paper. He made it clear to me that the rule still applies and that there has been no change.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I take the hon. Gentleman"s point. That is why I said that any advice that is received by hon. Members on both sides of the House—it happens at regular intervals—should be unobtrusive. I should feel more at home now if we continued with the debate.
Mr. Lofthouse: I was saying that I was greatly surprised, bearing in mind the safety hazard, that after six weeks the Health and Safety Executive had not yet investigated this matter.
Mr. Michael Brown: The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) rightly suggested that it is important that the House should be fully acquainted with as many facts as possible. I want to give him some information. He rightly said that Calor is a petitioner. It is also a major customer of Associated British Ports. I assure him that Associated British Ports does not want to upset one of its best customers. The hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) was correct to draw attention to the fact that there are concerns. That is precisely what the Committee stage would deal with. I assure him that Associated British Ports does not want to upset some of its best customers, Calor and Conoco.
Mr. Lofthouse: I am grateful for that information, but it does not take us very far. I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman could tell us why the Health and Safety Executive has not yet been involved. The danger is real, and that question ought to be answered. We are debating
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the Bill without being given information about that matter. One wonders whether there is an ulterior motive for not providing that information to us.
Mr. Martin Flannery: The hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) has a sublime belief in the importance of Standing Committees. I sat on the Standing Committee of a Bill for three months, as did many other hon. Members who are in the Chamber. The hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes said that we ought to allow the Bill to proceed to its Committee stage. In heaven"s name, hardly a comma is altered in Committee under this Government. They rush everything through. This is clearly a Government-backed Bill and we shall not have a chance to change anything. The Government"s majority is always used against us.
I do not know who the people who are sitting in the box under the Gallery represent, but we are trying to get rid of a Bill which is vicious, which favours Botha in South Africa and is trying to smash the mining industry in this country by elevating Botha and South Africa to a position that we know they should never occupy. I do not believe that the Standing Committee will be able to rectify anything in the Bill. It should be thrown out.
Mr. Lofthouse: I agree with my hon. Friend.
There will be devastating effects on the coal mining industry if ports are built to import foreign coal, to the disadvantage of our mining industry. The sponsor of the Bill is a member of the Select Committee on Energy which is investigating the privatisation of the electricity industry and its probable effect on the coal industry. The hon. Gentleman ought to tell the House whether he discussed the Bill with private coal mine owners, both in this country and South Africa. The hon. Gentleman is not listening to what I am saying and does not appear to be concerned about answering this question. I must inform the House —I am not giving any secrets away or betraying the confidence of the Select Committee, because the information has been widely published—that when the Select Committee first considered what subjects it should investigate, the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes bitterly opposed an investigation by the Select Committee of the privatisation of electricity. He did that after receiving strong representations to do so from the Secretary of State for Energy. That is what I understand. However, unfortunately on that particular morning one of his hon. Friends forgot to come to the Committee and Opposition Members were in the majority. Therefore, we took evidence and investigated the privatisation of the electricity supply industry and its effect on the coal industry.
Like several of his hon. Friends, the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes is familiar with South Africa"s ability to export coal. As has been said many times, he went on an all-expenses-paid trip to South Africa earlier this year. However, the hon. Gentleman"s time there would have been better served in putting pressure on the South African authorities to improve their safety standards. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in one mining incident alone, at Kinross, 177 people died? The number of lives lost in that single accident exceeds the combined fatal accidents reported in British mines in the past five years.
The Secretary of State acknowledged the lack of port handling facilities in a speech on 13 May. In his evidence to the Select Committee on Energy on 9 March 1988, he

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gave as a defence the view that British Coal would not be affected by imports. In response to the questions put to him, he replied:
"we do not have the facilities in this country, they have never been developed, for handling large quantities of coal. They could not be developed quickly. The word "quickly" was omitted from a statement I made the other day. Of course they could be developed, but they could not be developed quickly. Therefore even if we could buy on the spot market the sort of quantities that are needed at the marginal price, and I doubt that, we could not actually get it into this country."
The Bill is an attempt to establish facilities quickly so that we can import coal at the expense of our mining industry.
Mr. Skinner: Before my hon. Friend leaves that point, I draw his attention to another important matter. We are running a balance of payments deficit this year of about £10,000 million. There is a real crisis because invisibles have been run down from £700 million per month to £400 million per month, which will add to the problem. There will be a balance of payments crisis, but we have a Government whose supporters promote Bills such as this with a view to importing South African coal from Rotterdam which will have Dutch labels stuck on it. We are going to have a balance of payments problem and every tonne that is imported will increase the problem. Every barrel of oil that is lost in the ensuing years will make the problem worse, yet we have a Prime Minister who talks about economic boom times being ahead. The Bill must be stopped because it will add to the problems that we already have.
Mr. Lofthouse: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.
I understand that the proposed support will be capable of handling 100,000-tonne coal carriers or 30 million tonnes of new capacity. That 30 million tonne figure is a magic figure which has been talked about for a long time. It should solve the Secretary of State for Energy"s problem and inject the so-called competition to which he referred in the Select Committee. If the Secretary of State"s plans for the privatisation of the electricity supply industry are to succeed, he needs that. However, it is worth reminding the House that Britain and the European Community have rightly approved limited sanctions against the South African coal industry. Despite behind-the-scenes lobbying by those hon. Members who visited South Africa, they have not managed to persuade the Government to withdraw those sanctions.
Mr. Jim Lester: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Lofthouse: In a moment.
Despite those limited sanctions, Britain imports 200,000 tonnes of South African coal each year from Rotterdam. It is disguised as Dutch coal. Does the sponsor of the Bill, if he is listening—he is again treating the House with total disregard—deny that? If not, I hope that he will join me in condemning the breaking of sanctions through the back door. Does he agree with breaking sanctions and importing South African coal? Did he have discussions about that when he went to South Africa? I have now asked him that three times. I shall give way to him if he would like me to.
Mr. Michael Brown: My position is quite straightforward. I am against sanctions.
Mr. Lester rose——
Mr. Lofthouse: I shall give way in a second.
The more answers we receive like that, the more we are led to suspect that, whatever the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes has stated in the Register of Members" Interests, he might have an interest in South Africa at some time in the future. I give way now to the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester).
Mr. Lester: The only reason I ask the hon. Gentleman to give way is that, although South Africa and sanctions are important issues, surely he agrees that the principal problem—the low price of international coal—is caused by Australian and Chinese coal? Although the question of South Africa is raised constantly—I support sanctions and want to see them work--there is also the problem of Chinese, Colombian and Australian coal being dumped on the market at far less than cost.
Mr. Lofthouse: I very much appreciate and understand that point and will come to it later. Wherever coal is imported from, it is a threat to the British coal industry.
There has been widespread speculation in the press that the City is preparing itself for a South African input into the sale of the electricity supply industry. We should treat South African investment in United Kingdom power stations with the contempt that it deserves. Again, did the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes and his colleagues have discussions, either in this country or on their visit to South Africa, about the interests, if any, of South African coal companies in purchasing shares in the privatisation of the electricity supply industry?
Mr. Tony Lloyd: As my hon. Friend knows, the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) was invited to make his position clear last night about an article in the Daily Mail in which that paper"s industrial correspondent had stated that the hon. Gentleman was one of the hon. Members who were encouraging the South African coal industry to purchase shares in the privatised Central Electricity Generating Board. I invited the hon. Gentleman to make his position clear last night and to deny that allegation if necessary, or the House would draw its own conclusions. The hon. Gentleman let the House draw its own conclusions.
Mr. Lofthouse: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point.
If the Bill became law, the House would effectively have signed the British coal industry"s death warrant. I wish to have no part in that. I beg for and rely on support from many distinguished people with great experience of the industry, and on in-depth research. Recently, the Institute for Fiscal Studies produced a report which no one could say was deliberately produced on behalf of those with mining interests. I do not want to bore the House too much, but the report outlines the problems that could face British Coal if imports amounted to the magic figure of 30 million tonnes that is talked about so often. Indeed, it is now considered that the figure could be in excess of that. Page 93 of the report states:
"The most important consequence of privatisation, outside the electricity supply industry is likely to be its effect on coal… The interdependence of electricity and coal is likely to survive privatisation, but the present price structure may not. The question is whether market forces will continue to point to a reduction in the share of the ESI"s fuel input that

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comes from British Coal and, if so, whether the response of a privatised industry to market signals will differ from that of the nationalised ESI."
That report expresses the same worries as those expressed by people with mining interests, who have suffered in the past four years as mining communities have been completely wiped out and no alternative employment put in place.
The report continues:
"The major exporters are all looking to expand output. New producers, notably Indonesia and Venezuela, will have entered the market. And overshadowing everything is the prospect of a major expansion of US supply stimulated by the super-competitive dollar."
Mr. Alan Meale: Is my hon. Friend aware that of the 18 pits that have survived in Nottinghamshire, 13 would be at risk if the Bill and other associated Bills go through? That would mean a loss of 12,000 jobs directly to the industry and a loss of between 30,000 and 40,000 indirectly.
Mr. Lofthouse: Recently the Coalfields Communities Campaign published a report. It is a non-political organisation—its title may not suggest that, but I assure the House that it is. In its report it said that if 30 million tonnes of coal were imported it would result in 50,000 jobs being lost in the industry. The report also states that, by 1992, we would have only 48 collieries and 45,000 men in the mining industry who would be producing between 73 million and 80 million tonnes. If that happens, we will be faced with a completely different situation from that in 1984.Since 1984, a total of 80,000 men have been lost to the industry and the mining communities have suffered hardship, but that is not as bad as what we are facing now.
One must concede that, after the strike, a reasonable redundancy repayment scheme was made available. Most of those who took advantage of it were aged 50 and over. Today, the average age of the work force is 34.If 50,000 of that work force go, there will be no weekly pension payment to cushion the blow as there was under the old redundancy payments scheme. Surely no Government can allow that to happen without providing alternative employment.
Although Sir Robert Haslam did not agree with everything in the Coalfields Communities Campaign report, he said that it was a good report and that he agreed with a large part of it. He did not accept the figures that it had produced, but he has publicly expressed the need for some protection for British Coal. He said that if British Coal was not allowed to negotiate contracts with the CEGB prior to privatisation and it was thrown out to rely on market forces, there would be a free for all. Figures have been published in a British Coal press release to support that argument.
If the intention is short-term economic gains and if we leave ourselves open to foreign competitors simply because, in the short term, cheaper coal is available from overseas—much of that coal is subsidised by foreign Governments and mined by slave labour—our pits will close rapidly. It does not need an economist to tell us—a primary school kid could do so—that once we cannot meet national demand from our collieries, international competitors will not keep coal at its present price. We all know what will happen then.
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At a recent sitting of the Select Committee on Energy, Lord Marshall was pressed about the consequences of electricity privatisation on coal. Although he would not commit himself fully, he said that 99 per cent.—I believe that was the figure—of the CEGB fuel requirements are met by British Coal. He did not believe that that would continue to be the percentage unless there was some form of protection for British Coal supplies. That was the evidence from an expert witness.
It is appropriate to refer the House to the Energy Select Committee report on the coal industry, which was published last year. I am pleased that the Chairman is present to listen to what that Committee said.
Mr. John Cummings: Is my hon. Friend aware that should the Bill be successful, the developments contained in it, along with similar developments for Liverpool and Southampton, will lead to the demise of five of the remaining six colleries in the north-east coal board area? We are seeing a manifestation of greed, the like of which I have never witnessed. It is greed to maximise profit at the expense of an industry that is producing more than it has ever done before. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an absolute scandal that we have had to endure the hypocrisy that we have heard from the sponsors of the Bill?
Mr. Meale: Considering the chest beating that took place on the Conservative Benches during the miners strike, and considering the evidence that my hon. Friend has provided, does he agree that if any Conservative Member walks through the Lobby in support of the Bill, it will be a slap in the face for every miner in Nottinghamshire?
Mr. Lofthouse: Yes indeed.
I am a strong supporter of the Select Committee procedures. I have long complained that the Government do not take enough notice of those Committees or of the action that they recommend. I sometimes wonder whether a lot of our work is not in vain. The information received in the reports is always handy because a Select Committee has the opportunity to take evidence from witnesses with first-hand knowledge of a subject.
The report of the Select Committee on Energy published last year was not unanimous—part of it was a minority report. However, the Committee had reached a unanimous decision on——
Mr. Michael Brown rose in his place, and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
The House proceeded to a Division——
Question put, That the Question be now put:—
Mr. Allen McKay (seated and covered): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. While we spin backwards across the whole of the privatisation of the electricity industry, the mining industry and the nuclear industry—all of which should be given more time—I wonder whether, on a private Bill such as this, those who have a particular interest in it and would have voted for or against it will be debarred from sitting on any Committee that will judge it, should the House agree that the Bill should be committed to a Committee. I would like your ruling on that, Madam Deputy Speaker, before making any decision on which way to vote.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): I am sure that the hon. Gentleman must have raised this point of order, as other hon. Members have, on numerous occasions. All those who have any interest in a Bill must, of course, always declare their interest. We are now in the middle of a Division. If there are any other points of order, it would be better for the Chair to hear them after the Divisions.
Mr. Brandon-Bravo (seated and covered): Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it not the case that during such a short debate, with so few speakers, not one Conservative Member who wished to speak against the Bill has been given the opportunity to do so? It is quite wrong and most undemocratic that a closure should be granted at this time.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I have been very sensitive to this debate and to the entire passage of the legislation through the House.
The House having divided: Ayes 115, Noes 65.

Division No. 377]

[8.29 pm

AYES

Allason, Rupert

Hordern, Sir Peter

Amos, Alan

Howard, Michael

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

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

Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

Howells, Geraint

Atkinson, David

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Baldry, Tony

Hunter, Andrew

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Irvine, Michael

Bellingham, Henry

Janman, Tim

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

Kilfedder, James

Body, Sir Richard

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Knapman, Roger

Boswell, Tim

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Bottomley, Peter

Knowles, Michael

Bowis, John

Lawrence, Ivan

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

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

Lightbown, David

Butler, Chris

Lilley, Peter

Butterfill, John

Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

McCrindle, Robert

Carrington, Matthew

Maclean, David

Chapman, Sydney

Major, Rt Hon John

Clark, Sir W.(Croydon S)

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Cope, Rt Hon John

Miller, Sir Hal

Durant, Tony

Monro, Sir Hector

Eggar, Tim

Morrison, Sir Charles

Favell, Tony

Moss, Malcolm

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Nelson, Anthony

Forman, Nigel

Neubert, Michael

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Forth, Eric

Nicholls, Patrick

Fox, Sir Marcus

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Franks, Cecil

Paice, James

French, Douglas

Porter, David (Waveney)

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Portillo, Michael

Glyn, Dr Alan

Rhodes James, Robert

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Grist, Ian

Roe, Mrs Marion

Ground, Patrick

Ryder, Richard

Grylls, Michael

Sainsbury, Hon Tim

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

Hampson, Dr Keith

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

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

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Harris, David

Summerson, Hugo

Hayward, Robert

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

Temple-Morris, Peter

Hind, Kenneth

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Holt, Richard

Thorne, Neil

1346

Waddington, Rt Hon David

Wilkinson, John

Waller, Gary

Wolfson, Mark

Ward, John

Wood, Timothy

Warren, Kenneth

Wells, Bowen

Tellers for the Ayes:

Wheeler, John

Mr. James Hill and Mr. David Davis.

Widdecombe, Ann

Wiggin, Jerry

NOES

Alexander, Richard

Leighton, Ron

Ashton, Joe

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Livsey, Richard

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Bermingham, Gerald

McLoughlin, Patrick

Bidwell, Sydney

Madden, Max

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Marek, Dr John

Buchan, Norman

Meale, Alan

Buckley, George J.

Michael, Alun

Clay, Bob

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Mullin, Chris

Cryer, Bob

Nellist, Dave

Cummings, John

Patchett, Terry

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

Pendry, Tom

Dixon, Don

Quin, Ms Joyce

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

Redmond, Martin

Eadie, Alexander

Robinson, Geoffrey

Faulds, Andrew

Skinner, Dennis

Flannery, Martin

Spearing, Nigel

Flynn, Paul

Stevens, Lewis

Foster, Derek

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

George, Bruce

Strang, Gavin

Golding, Mrs Llin

Wall, Pat

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

Haynes, Frank

Williams, Rt Hon Alan

Hinchliffe, David

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Home Robertson, John

Wray, Jimmy

Hood, Jimmy

Hoyle, Doug

Tellers for the Noes:

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Mr. Allen McKay and Mr. Kevin Barron.

Illsley, Eric

Lamond, James

Question accordingly agreed to.
Question put accordingly, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—
The House divided: Ayes 110, Noes 63.

Division No. 378]

[8.41 pm

AYES

Allason, Rupert

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Forman, Nigel

Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Atkinson, David

Forth, Eric

Baldry, Tony

Fox, Sir Marcus

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Franks, Cecil

Bellingham, Henry

French, Douglas

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

Glyn, Dr Alan

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Body, Sir Richard

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Boswell, Tim

Grist, Ian

Bottomley, Peter

Ground, Patrick

Bowis, John

Grylls, Michael

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

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

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Butler, Chris

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

Butterfill, John

Harris, David

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Hayward, Robert

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

Carrington, Matthew

Hind, Kenneth

Chapman, Sydney

Holt, Richard

Clark, Sir W.(Croydon S)

Howard, Michael

Cope, Rt Hon John

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

Durant, Tony

Howells, Geraint

Favell, Tony

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

1347

Hunter, Andrew

Portillo, Michael

Irvine, Michael

Rhodes James, Robert

Janman, Tim

Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Kilfedder, James

Roe, Mrs Marion

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Ryder, Richard

Knapman, Roger

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Lightbown, David

Summerson, Hugo

Lilley, Peter

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

Temple-Morris, Peter

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

McCrindle, Robert

Thorne, Neil

Maclean, David

Waddington, Rt Hon David

Major, Rt Hon John

Waller, Gary

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Ward, John

Miller, Sir Hal

Warren, Kenneth

Monro, Sir Hector

Wells, Bowen

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Wheeler, John

Morrison, Sir Charles

Widdecombe, Ann

Moss, Malcolm

Wiggin, Jerry

Nelson, Anthony

Wilkinson, John

Neubert, Michael

Wolfson, Mark

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Wood, Timothy

Nicholls, Patrick

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Tellers for the Ayes:

Paice, James

Mr. James Hill and Mr. David Davis.

Porter, David (Waveney)

NOES

Alexander, Richard

Lawrence, Ivan

Ashton, Joe

Leighton, Ron

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Bermingham, Gerald

McLoughlin, Patrick

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Madden, Max

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Buchan, Norman

Marek, Dr John

Buckley, George J.

Meale, Alan

Clay, Bob

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Mullin, Chris

Cousins, Jim

Nellist, Dave

Cryer, Bob

Patchett, Terry

Cummings, John

Pendry, Tom

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

Quin, Ms Joyce

Dixon, Don

Redmond, Martin

Eadie, Alexander

Robinson, Geoffrey

Faulds, Andrew

Skinner, Dennis

Flannery, Martin

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

Flynn, Paul

Spearing, Nigel

Foster, Derek

Stevens, Lewis

George, Bruce

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Golding, Mrs Llin

Strang, Gavin

Haynes, Frank

Wall, Pat

Hinchliffe, David

Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

Home Robertson, John

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Hood, Jimmy

Wray, Jimmy

Hoyle, Doug

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Tellers for the Noes:

Illsley, Eric

Mr. Allen McKay and Mr. Kevin Barron.

Knowles, Michael

Lamond, James

Question agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed.

Associated British Ports (Barrow) Bill (By Order)
Queen's consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.—[Mr. Franks.]
The House divided: Ayes 95, Noes 35.

Divislon No. 379]

[8.55 pm

AYES

Alexander, Richard

Irvine, Michael

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Jack, Michael

Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

Janman, Tim

Atkinson, David

Kilfedder, James

Baldry, Tony

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Knapman, Roger

Bellingham, Henry

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Knowles, Michael

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Body, Sir Richard

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Lightbown, David

Boswell, Tim

Lilley, Peter

Bottomley, Peter

Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Bowis, John

McCrindle, Robert

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Maclean, David

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

Major, Rt Hon John

Burt, Alistair

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Butterfill, John

Miller, Sir Hal

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Monro, Sir Hector

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Nelson, Anthony

Carrington, Matthew

Neubert, Michael

Chapman, Sydney

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

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

Nicholls, Patrick

Clark, Sir W.(Croydon S)

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Cope, Rt Hon John

Porter, David (Waveney)

Durant, Tony

Rhodes James, Robert

Favell, Tony

Roe, Mrs Marion

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Ryder, Richard

Forth, Eric

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Fox, Sir Marcus

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

Franks, Cecil

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

French, Douglas

Summerson, Hugo

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Temple-Morris, Peter

Glyn, Dr Alan

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Thorne, Neil

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

Waddington, Rt Hon David

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Waller, Gary

Grist, Ian

Warren, Kenneth

Ground, Patrick

Wells, Bowen

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

Wheeler, John

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Widdecombe, Ann

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

Wiggin, Jerry

Harris, David

Wilkinson, John

Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

Wood, Timothy

Hind, Kenneth

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

Tellers for the Ayes:

Howells, Geraint

Mr. James Hill and Mr. David Davis.

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Hunter, Andrew

NOES

Ashton, Joe

Home Robertson, John

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Illsley, Eric

Bermingham, Gerald

Lamond, James

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Lawrence, Ivan

Buchan, Norman

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Buckley, George J.

Madden, Max

Clay, Bob

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Marek, Dr John

Cryer, Bob

Meale, Alan

Cummings, John

Mullin, Chris

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

Patchett, Terry

Eadie, Alexander

Pendry, Tom

Flannery, Martin

Redmond, Martin

Golding, Mrs Llin

Skinner, Dennis

Haynes, Frank

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

1349

Strang, Gavin

Tellers for the Noes:

Wall, Pat

Mr. Harry Barnes and Mr. Michael Welsh.

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Question accordingly agreed to.
Bill read the Third time, and passed, with amendments.

Building Societies
9.5 pm
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Peter Lilley): I beg to move,
That the draft Building Societies (Commercial Assets and Services) Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 19th May, be approved.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): With this it will be convenient to discuss the draft Building Societies (Limits on Commercial Assets) Order 1988.
Mr. Lilley: The Building Societies Act 1986 spelt out societies' powers in schedule 8.The schedule gave a precise list of the new services that societies could undertake, but as it turned out most societies wanted to use the powers in slightly different ways from that envisaged in the schedule. Societies were therefore constantly frustrated by legal technicalities. Market conditions were also changing very rapidly, and societies had begun to make representations for extensions in their powers in a number of respects.
I announced a review of the schedule in October last year. The main conclusions were announced in my answer on 2 February 1988 to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash). Following detailed discussions with the Building Societies Association, those conclusions have been given legal form in the orders.
The orders will do two things. First, they will turn schedule 8 inside out. Instead of—as at present—banning everything except narrowly specified powers, it will permit societies to do anything within broadly defined areas except what is specifically prohibited. That will provide a more sensible and flexible regulatory environment in which societies can operate. Secondly, the orders will implement a wide-ranging extension of societies' powers to provide financial and housing-related services.
The Act was intended to provide scope for gradually extending the range of powers available to societies. However, it has become clear from societies' early experience of the Act that this step-by-step process is not really appropriate. Societies need to know the broad scope of their powers for some years ahead to make sensible long-term commercial plans. Different societies will want to exercise different powers, and each individual society will probably want to diversify into only a small number of new areas. So I concluded that the right approach was to open up a wide range of new powers now, while limiting the speed with which any individual society could diversify into new areas.
This restraint will be exercised in two ways: first through supervision of business plans by the Building Societies Commission, and secondly by easing only gradually over five years the overall limits on societies' holdings of non-traditional assets. Consequently, individual societies will be able to exploit the new powers only at a prudent pace.
There will still be restrictions on what societies can do. They will continue to provide services in the main to the personal sector rather than to companies, but the proposed measures will enable them to compete more effectively in their primary markets. Subject to certain limited restrictions, societies will be able to own or take an equity stake in a life assurance company, to take a limited stake in a general insurance company, to own or take an

1351
equity stake in a stockbroker and to undertake fund management—including management of unit trusts generally, rather than just for the provision of pensions.
Mr. Robert McCrindle: In so far as building societies continue to operate as intermediaries, or even if they get involved in becoming insurance companies, what is the position regarding conditional lending? Some building societies in the past have been prepared to advance mortgages to prospective borrowers only on condition that some insurances be effected through the agency of the building society. Is anything in the orders set to confirm the position or, indeed, to reverse it?
Mr. Lilley: My hon. Friend has taken a close interest in this aspect of the matter for a long while. He will be pleased to know that the Director General of Fair Trading has said that he proposes to take an interest in the question of conditionality of services provided by building societies and, I believe, banks. So that will be covered. It will not, however, be covered by the orders that I am introducing tonight.
The other service that will be introduced is the provision of the full range of personal banking services that customers now expect.
Turning to the actual orders, the main one—the draft Building Societies Commercial Assets and Services Order —will replace schedule 8 of the Act with a completely new schedule. This new order will provide the following six broad service powers: banking services; investment services; insurance services; trusteeship; executorship; and land services.
A society will be able to provide any service within these categories unless it is specifically ruled out or restricted by other parts of the schedule. To undertake this wider range of business, societies may need to acquire new forms of asset. Schedule 1 to the draft order therefore contains provisions which will enable societies to acquire mortgage-backed securities and similar instruments; to undertake leasing and hire purchase; more readily to provide temporary bridging finance for house purchase; and to repurchase the residue of a securitised pool of their mortgages. This last measure will enable societies to participate in the secondary mortgage market.
Following on from this review of schedule 8, the Building Societies Commission will shortly consult societies and other interested bodies about making an order to permit societies to own or take an equity stake in companies involved in the acquisition of mortgages from other lenders.
The asset limits which constrain the rate at which societies can diversify will remain unchanged for the present, but it is proposed to increase these limits gradually in the future to provide societies with the scope they need to offer this wider range of services. The draft Building Societies (Limits on Commercial Assets Order), which is also before the House, proposes a gradual increase in these limits between 1990 and 1993 to the maximum extent possible within the primary legislation.
Two further orders are required to implement the conclusions of the schedule 8 review. These will be made by the Building Societies Commission, with Treasury consent, and come into force simultaneously with the rest
1352
of the package. The Designation of Qualifying Bodies Order will allow societies to invest in or support new subsidiaries. The Limits on Lending Order will, as previously announced, increase the limit on a society"s unsecured lending to individuals to £10,000.These negative orders cannot be made until the orders which we are debating tonight are approved. But drafts were placed in the House Library last month, along with a summary note of the intended provisions of all four orders, so that hon. Members could be aware of the whole package.
These proposals will create a more sensible framework for societies and provide them with a clear basis for their future planning. Societies will have the freedom to develop and compete across a wide range of financial services and to provide a much more flexible and better service to their customers. If these orders are approved, I would not expect any need for such a comprehensive package of secondary legislation on this scale for some years.
I commend these orders to the House.
9.12 pm
Mr. Chris Smith: The orders bring about fundamental changes to schedule 8 of the Building Societies Act 1986.They take virtually to the limit permissible under the Act the powers available to societies. They give increased flexibility and freedom and enable societies to offer a wider range of services to their customers.
It is perhaps worth recording a small note of sadness at seeing the old, trusted, familiar, heart-of-the-high-street face of the building society movement changing so dramatically as it has over the past few years. The orders accelerate that change. The trusty, stable, secure image of the building society movement, as part of the housing movement above all, is being modified rapidly before our eyes. We hope that the building societies will never become just any old financial institutions, like all the others. So we do have one or two regrets at the changes which are before us. We recognise, however, that the world is changing and that the building society movement has to change and adapt or it will lose out to less-scrupulous predators.
Before the October crash last year the building society movement was already losing out. Its market share of home lending had fallen below 50 per cent. It is now back up to about 70 per cent., but the movement faces fierce competition from banks and specialist lenders such as the Mortgage Corporation. Such lenders have readier access than the building societies to money on the wholesale market. Since October all that has become less of a problem because of the massive influx of funds into the building societies. Over the past four months they have averaged an inflow of funds of about £1 billion a month.
The movement remains large and is becoming larger. The largest 15 societies together hold about 40 million investment accounts and have about 6·25 million borrowers. We recognise the need for societies to be able to compete. Dramatic changes have been occurring and the orders will hasten more of them.
We shall not oppose the orders. Many of the measures are sensible and inevitable. It is right, for example, that societies should be able to offer proper bridging loans to people buying houses with building society mortgages. The involvement in the insurance business is a logical extension of much that has already been happening. However, we are concerned about the building societies

1353
offering customers too monopolistic a financial service. We, too, are concerned about the issue of conditional lending that was raised by the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. McCrindle), and we welcome the information given us by the Economic Secretary that the Office of Fair Trading will look into that practice.
We sound a note of caution about the proposals on unsecured lending. We know that the Economic Secretary has not gone as far as the building societies wanted in that respect, and we are glad of that. The Government are right to be cautious. The level of unsecured consumer credit is rising too fast. In May, the volume of retail sales was 8·2 per cent. higher than a year before. Any thriving economy needs a healthy supply of credit, but it should not be lent at usurious rates of interest, as too often happens now. The same applies to the connected problem of rising levels of unsecured personal indebtedness. We hope that the Government will keep a watchful, cautious eye on what happens and on how cautiously the societies operate their unsecured lending powers.
We warmly welcome one positive change of recent years that has been enhanced by the orders—the issuing of current accounts and the direct competition for domestic business with the clearing banks. That does nothing but good for the consumer. The building societies have led the way in paying interest on accounts, in issuing higher-limit cheque cards and in increasing the use of high-technology banking systems. In all those respects, some building societies are beating the banks hollow, and a good thing too. It is about time some of our clearing banks earned the massive profits they have been making from domestic customers. The National Westminster bank, for instance, made a profit on its domestic business last year of £1 billion. It is about time we saw some improvements in service to justify that sort of profit.
We have one other powerful reason for supporting the orders. They make it less attractive to building societies to convert from mutuality to public limited companies. We are deeply sceptical about the rush by one society, the Abbey National, to convert and about the consideration being given to conversion by others. Certainly we welcome the change of mind that the orders and the expansion of powers under schedule 8 have brought about in some quarters.
I was interested to read in The Observer of 22 May, almost alongside a flattering photograph of the Economic Secretary, a quotation from the managing director of the Cheltenham and Gloucester building society, who had said last October that conversion was almost inevitable. However, in the light of the altered schedule 8 powers, he says:
"For a society of our size there are relatively few things that we want to do that we can"t do as a building society."
That will be true for the great majority of building societies.
Our opposition to flotation is based on several principles. First, at present a society has a duty to operate in the interests of its members, investors and borrowers alike. After flotation, the interests of shareholders will be paramount, overriding all other interests. That cannot, in logic, be good for borrowers or for investors.
Secondly, building societies are remarkable and valuable financial institutions because they borrow short and lend long. That central feature of their financial operation is likely to be damaged by conversion. Thirdly
1354
five years after conversion a plc can be taken over by anyone. Who then will protect the housing interests of borrowers?
Fourthly, after conversion, borrowers may find their mortgages being bought and sold over their heads without their being consulted. That is already happening in the operations of the Mortgage Corporation. I should be grateful for the Economic Secretary"s advice on whether such an operation will be made easier for existing building societies under the orders.
Fifthly, we regret that no facility is built into the procedures for flotation for opponents to put then case to members at the society"s expense. We hope that the Building Societies Commission will make it clear at the outset that it will use its powers to block conversion if proper facilities and funds are not made available to ensure that the opposition case to flotation is put to members at the same time as the directors" support for flotation.
Because of the orders, we have to ask what is gained when a mutual building society transforms into a plc, except the ability for the directors to gain executive share options. Could that perhaps be not a million miles away from the mind of the Abbey National directors? Doubtless, however, there will be other opportunities to air our concern about flotation in greater detail. The argument that clinches for us the need to reform schedule 8 is that it gives societies the flexibility they need without the new unnecessary process of conversion.
Building societies are a valuable and vital part of our national life. They are mutual societies, owned by their members and acting in the interests of their members, and primarily in the business of lending money for home ownership and providing security for small savers. Long may they continue to do so.
9.24 pm
Mr. John Butterfill: I welcome the orders and the increased scope that they will give to the activities of building societies. The orders will play a valuable part in increasing the general level of competition, which can only have long-term—and short-term—benefits for the consumers of their services.
I have every confidence that my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary has scrutinised these matters with his usual meticulous assiduity. I want to bring to his attention one or two points about which I have some concern. First, the explanatory note to the Building Societies (Commercial Assets and Services) Order—I am confining my remarks to that order—states:
"Article 5 varies Schedule 8 to the Act by replacing it with a new Schedule"
which is schedule 5.My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary said earlier that schedule 5 replaced schedule 8 to the Act.
However, paragraph 15 says:
"parts of Schedule 8 (powers to provide services) to the Act are hereby varied so as to have effect as set out in Schedule 5 below."
That seems to imply that schedule 8 is not replaced in its entirety but is varied in part by schedule 5.However, the parts of schedule 8 to the Building Societies Act 1986 do not coincide with the parts of schedule 5 to the order. Many services set out in schedule 8 are not referred to in the order.

1355
Paragraph 1 of schedule 8, for example, refers to surveys and valuations of land and conveyancing services. I know that conveyancing services are dealt with in schedule 21 to the Building Societies Act 1986.One can see immediately that the two are not synonymous. I should be grateful for clarification. It is not clear to me or to some other hon. Members to what extent schedule 5 replaces schedule 8 and to what extent parts of schedule 8 will remain unchanged by the order.
My next question relates to the extension of the activities permitted under the order. It is a very broad and wide-ranging extension of powers into a number of activities in which building societies—at least in most cases —do not have an enormous amount of experience, such as banking services, unsecured lending, personal equity plans, collective investment schemes, the holding of investments and the establishment of pension schemes.
All those are very worthwhile extensions of the building societies" activities, and I have no objections in principle to those extensions. However, I am concerned that they should be properly regulated and I am especially concerned about investments, in view of some of the recent unfortunate circumstances relating to investments. We should be absolutely sure that regulation is as tight as possible. I hope that my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary will be able to assure me that the regulatory body set up by the Building Societies Association to monitor those activities will be equivalent to the other bodies that the Securities and Investments Board will be regulating under the Financial Services Act 1986 and that every possible scrutiny will be given to this particularly sensitive area.
I have a further concern about valuations. The House will recollect that there have been a number of scandals and alleged fraudulent activities relating to valuations carried out by building societies, especially when they have been connected with estate agency. I believe that this has been commented on recently by the ombudsman.
Mr. McCrindle: My hon. Friend is addressing himself to the question of surveys and valuations. Will he turn his attention to the first report of the building society ombudsman, who was set up by the Building Societies Act 1986, in which he draws attention to his lack of powers to investigate the many complaints about building society valuations? Will my hon. Friend refer to that report and to the desirability of embracing valuations within the ambit of the building society ombudsman?
Mr. Butterfill: The question of valuations has caused considerable public concern. I hope that additional powers will be given to the building society ombudsman.
I have some worries about what is permitted under the order. Under paragraph 5 of part III of schedule 5 there is a restriction on any employee of a building society, a subsidiary or associated body of which is carrying on estate agency work, whose duties include making reports on valuations or performing any other service for the subsidiary—the estate agency—or other associated body.
Clearly it would be wrong for building societies that might have two financial interests in the same transaction —especially the earning of estate agency commission—to be involved in such a conflict of interest. I should like the matter to be taken further, to include structural surveys
1356
and other matters that may be germane to whether the sale takes place. The ability to influence a sale or a purchaser on behalf of somebody providing finance could seriously prejudice the public interest and create unacceptable conflicts of interest for the employee concerned.
Given the incidence of fraud in this sector, I am more concerned that paragraph 5 of part III of schedule 5 is qualified by part IV, which deals with general powers. It gives a building society the power to arrange the performance of anything that it is not permitted to do under the preceding parts of the Bill. That commits building societies to getting other people to do things for them. One can foresee two building societies acting in collusion, with one estate agency arranging matters for the other. That is a danger from which the general public should be protected. They may not be adequately protected by the order.
The penalties in paragraph 6 of part IV of schedule 5 may not be adequate to deal with the possibility of particularly unpleasant fraud. The penalty is
"a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale."
I assume that that refers to the Criminal Penalties etc. (Increase) Order 1984.The maximum penalty under level 4 is £1,000.That may not be adequate, given that frauds have run into millions of pounds. Perhaps we should carefully consider whether that level of penalty is adequate.
I should like the margins by those selling foreign currency to be carefully monitored in general. Changing money has become an activity in which some people are not giving good value to the general public. I hope that my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary will give a general assurance that he will keep a careful eye on that aspect in relation not only to building societies but to all those who change money.
9.35 pm
Mr. Lilley: I am pleased that the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) has welcomed the broad thrust of the orders and most of their component parts. His motivation is slightly different from that of the Government, but there is some overlap and a community of regard for the building society movement and the importance of updating it and giving it the freedom to compete and provide services for its customers.
The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury asked me to reply on two particular points. He asked whether the process of conversion or anything in the schedule would make it easier for mortgages to be sold over the head of the borrower once conversion had taken place. I assure him that members" agreement would still be needed under the normal rules that operate, so there would be no adverse change.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the risk of takeover five years after conversion. The converted building society would then be no more or less likely to be taken over than any other bank of similar size and ownership structure. As a bank authorised under the Banking Act 1979—once converted, in effect a building society becomes a bank—the agreement of the Bank of England will be needed for anyone to control more than 15 per cent. of the voting rights.
The hon. Gentleman gave as his main reason for supporting the commercial assets and services order which transforms schedule 8 the fact that it would make it less attractive for building societies to convert. I should make

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the Government"s position clear. The Government are neutral on whether any society should remain a mutual building society or should seek to convert. We have endeavoured, therefore, to remove unnatural obstacles and artificial incentives to conversion.
In the Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced the removal of a number of tax obstacles, and this will come up before long in the Finance Bill. This measure removes an artificial incentive to convert. The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury was right to say that some societies that felt impelled to consider conversion simply to escape from the straitjacket of the old schedule 8 now no longer felt the need to do so.
Once one has removed the artificial obstacles and inducements to convert, it is up to the members, because the members of a building society are its owners and must make the decision. The hon. Gentleman was correct to say that they should do so on the basis of full and proper information. It will be required, as the Building Societies Commission has made clear, that building societies inform their members fully and not just put facts representing and reflecting only one side of the case. I am not aware of any intention to go as far as the hon. Gentleman suggests and to require them to finance the distribution of views put forward by those opposing conversion.
In an intervention during the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill), my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. McCrindle) referred to the building societies ombudsman. I have already announced that we intend to review his powers and we hope to have the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar and others on how wide they should be.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West said that he is worried about whether the parliamentary draftsmen have exercised sufficient skill successfully to replace schedule 8 of the order with schedule 5. I have complete faith in the powers of the parliamentary draftsman. Article 5 says:
"The parts of Schedule 8 to the Act are hereby varied so as to have effect as set out in Schedule 5 below."
Schedule 5 is subtitled:
"The parts of schedule 8 to the Building Societies Act 1986, as varied by this order."
The original four parts of schedule 8 are to be replaced by the new four parts of schedule 5.We need not worry about anything having been lost or retained unintentionally, but within those parts different aspects have been shifted around. Matters relating to surveys and valuations are now included under the title "Land services". Personal equity plans and unit trusts are included under the heading "Investment services". Money transmission and arranging credit are included under the heading "Banking services". It is all there somewhere.
Mr. Butterfill: I am sure that the ingenuity of the parliamentary draftsman is such that he must be right, but I can find no reference in schedule 5 to surveys and valuations in the section headed "Land services".
Mr. Lilley: My hon. Friend is a page or two ahead of me. Subparagraphs (a) to (i) of the section headed "Land services" include that information. I am not a sufficiently fast reader to check that it is all there, but if it is not there it is somewhere else. If necessary, I shall write to my hon. Friend and follow up these points.
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My hon. Friend referred to the fact that this is a very broad extension of powers at the same time as we are reorganising the structure of the schedule. He expressed concern that building societies may be inexperienced in many of these areas. That is true. However, it could become a self-perpetuating process. The only way for building societies to gain experience is to permit them to do so, but it is important that they should be properly supervised during that process. I think that my hon. Friend emphasised that point. We believe that, by and large, most building societies will wish to diversity into only one or two new areas at a time and to gain experience in them. If they were foolish enough to try to diversify right across the board and to take on more than they could possibly swallow, they would be prevented by the existing supervisory arrangements. The Building Societies Commission is required to vet their business plans. I do not imagine that it would accept a business plan that was not prudent and sound.
I agree that problems have arisen over investment advice. I assure my hon. Friend that, under the arrangements that obtain, investment advice supervision will be equivalent to and as tight as that in other areas that come under the aegis of the Securities and Investments Board.
I understand the point about valuations and, although it may not be correct, we can clarify that in subsequent correspondence. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West is concerned that building society employees may, although they are forbidden to work for the estate agent subsidiary of that building society, be nonetheless permitted to work directly for the client. I understand that that is prohibited by the fact that building societies are allowed to carry on their estate agency services only through subsidiaries and not through their direct employees.
Collusion between building societies to cross-transfer their valuations is exceedingly unlikely and I will investigate the measures that exist to prevent it. I. am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing that to my attention and, although I suspect that it is hypothetical, it is always important to investigate such things.
I shall look into the question whether penalties are sufficient. They are intended to match the offence.
On margins on foreign exchange dealing, we do not envisage building societies becoming major players in the foreign exchange markets. The provisions are to allow them to provide a service to customers who may want to obtain some foreign exchange for going on holiday, and so on. There is no direct control on margins on that. As in anything else, ultimately it is competition that is needed. By allowing more people to compete in the market, there will be more pressures to bring down the margins, and that is the important thing.
I hope that I have dealt with all the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West and by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury who spoke for the Opposition. If I have not, or if on inspection any points need further elaboration, I shall write to them. Meanwhile, I commend the orders to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Building Societies (Commercial Assets and Services) Order 1988.which was laid before this House on 19th May, be approved.

BUILDING SOCIETIES
Resolved,
That the draft Building Societies (Limits on Commercial Assets) Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 19th May, be approved.—[Mr. Lilley.]

PUBLIC HEALTH
Resolved,
That the Food Protection (Emergency Prohibitions) Amendment Order 1988, (S.I., 1988, No. 964), dated 31st May 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 1st June, be approved.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

St. Christopher"s Hospice, Sydenham
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]
9.46 pm
Sir Philip Goodhart: In about six weeks, Her Majesty the Queen will visit St. Christopher"s hospice in my constituency, which is celebrating its 21st birthday. Many people who have visited the hospice, which primarily looks after people who are terminally ill with cancer, have testified to the remarkable spirit—one might almost say the remarkable soul—of the hospice. It would not be an exaggeration to say that in the past 21 years St. Christopher"s has become an inspiration and an example to the rapidly growing hospice movement both in this country and overseas.
The driving force behind St. Christopher"s has been Dame Cicely Saunders, who celebrated her 70th birthday yesterday. I have described her in the past as a jolly saint. It is her humour, energy and faith which have inspired the place. However, it is not, of course, a one-woman show. At the moment St. Christopher"s has a staff of 114 nurses who take care of the 62 beds, do the home support work and carry out much of the teaching. St. Christopher"s is a teaching centre. That is why we are having this Adjournment debate.
A few weeks ago my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services announced a substantial pay award for nurses, which would cost the National Health Service £800 million in a full year. It was to be fully funded by the Exchequer. There was much rejoicing and a considerable amount of heat went out of the controversy about the National Health Service, at least temporarily. Shortly after the announcement was made I rushed round to see the Secretary of State and the Minister for Health and said, "Please do not forget the impact that the pay award will have on voluntary hospices." I am afraid, however, that the hospice movement was not included in the category that can expect full extra funding to meet the cost of the nurses" pay review.
Let us put the matter into perspective. There are 124 hospices with 2,000 beds and there are many more home care teams. National Health Service support for those 124 hospices varies from zero to 100 per cent. The pay review will cost those hospices an extra £6 million a year. The NHS provides, on average, 27 per cent. of the funds of each hospice, and St. Christopher"s hospice comes pretty close to the national average. Last year St. Christopher"s spent £3·33 million and received £1,052,000 from the NHS through the south-east Thames region. St. Christopher"s reckons that the cost of the pay award will be £408,000, or exactly four tenths of its existing support from public funds. It is not surprising that that figure should be so high. The three most common groups of nurses employed at St. Christopher"s are ward sisters, staff nurses and nursing auxiliaries. The average pay of a ward sister at St. Christopher"s, with London weighting, is increasing by no less than £3,007 from £11,430 to £14,437.A staff nurse"s salary will go up by £2,277 a year and a nursing auxiliary"s pay will go up by £1,862 to a fraction under £8,000 a year.
What is the likely impact of that substantial increase in expenditure? St. Christopher"s wisely budgeted for the increase in nurses" salaries, but obviously it could not foresee the extent of the increase that was to come. It had set aside £160,000 for extra pay, which would have been

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gathered in by further energetic fund-raising efforts. A long-awaited day centre will have to be postponed because the work would cost an extra £150,000.Perhaps the south-east region could be prevailed upon to increase its slice of support, which now stands at almost exactly £1 million, by perhaps £100,000 or so. If that does not happen, we are faced with the ugly prospect that, within a few weeks of the Queen visiting St. Christopher"s, some beds may have to close.
What should happen? Naturally I believe that the Government should meet in full the nurses" pay award for voluntary hospices. I know that my right hon. Friend has great personal enthusiasm and sympathy for the hospice movement and I salute him for that. I am sure that he would like to be helpful. However, I expect that he will tell me that there is no extra money.
I must raise a sceptical eyebrow. The regrading process has not yet been completed and. until that happens, health authorities cannot tell with precision how much they may need or will receive. Within the global £800 million NHS settlement, I believe that there is an extra £6 million sloshing around somewhere. I note also that during recent months the DHSS has found £6 million or more for an AIDS publicity campaign which, in my opinion, is badly targeted and a faintly offensive waste of public money.
During recent weeks, to our dismay, the European Court has thrust National Health Service money into the Treasury by requiring it to extend VAT to certain areas, especially the optical sector.
I reiterate my hope that the level of financing of voluntary hospices will be considered within the NHS review. In the early days of its noble career, St. Christopher"s received rather more than 50 per cent. of its income from the NHS; now it receives less than one third. I believe that 50 per cent. support is at the right level for an establishment that gives so much help to the NHS and to the people of this country.
9.57 pm
The Minister for Health (Mr. Tony Newton): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart) for his kind words about me, and I reciprocate, with considerable fervour, by paying tribute to the assiduous way in which, over the years, he has supported the hospice movement in general and, not least, St. Christopher"s in particular. It is barely 15 or 16 months since my hon. Friend last initiated an Adjournment debate about St. Christopher"s, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) replied.
As my hon. Friend said, I have a strong interest in these matters and, indeed, have some connection with hospices in and around my area—especially the St. Helena hospice in Colchester, which I visited recently, and the prospective hospice in Chelmsford that is nearing completion. I wish all those concerned with the hospice very well indeed.
It is also pleasing to join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to Dame Cicely Saunders. I had not registered the fact that it was her 70th birthday yesterday, but now that I have that additional piece of intelligence, I hope that my hon. Friend will take my belated congratulations and good wishes to her. As my hon. Friend knows, she studied at St. Joseph"s hospice in Hackney, where she developed drug regimes for pain and symptom control before she went on to found St. Christopher"s hospice in Sydenham in 1967.It is fair to say that she is considerd by many people, and, in
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my view, rightly so, as the founder of the modern hospice movement. Not only has her work been copied around the world, but it has, literally, changed the face of death for large numbers of people.
St. Christopher"s is by no means the only charitable organisation providing care for cancer patients. There are many other voluntary hospices; my hon. Friend has given the numbers around the country, and I have referred to one existing and one prospective hospice in my constituency.
It being Ten o"clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]
Mr. Newton: For a moment I thought that I had gone out of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought that if what I have said was out of order, the rest of my speech is sunk completely. I am glad to know that it was simply the usual procedures of the House producing that otherwise extraordinary interruption.
I should refer also to Marie Curie Cancer Care which runs II homes in the United. Kingdom and provides day and night nursing for cancer patients in their own homes. The Cancer Relief Macmillan Fund is becoming increasingly well known. It works very closely with the NHS and has provided the capital costs of a number of hospice projects which it has then handed over to the NHS to run. That organisation also helps the NHS with the cost of Macmillan nurses, and plays a major and important role in developing education for doctors and nurses in care of the dying.
It would be fair to say, not least as a further tribute to the work of Dame Cicely Saunders, that the combined total of the effort by the voluntary charitable sector and the NHS probably makes this country the world leader in providing much-needed care for a very important group of patients.
I wish to make one or two general observations before coming to the more specific points raised by my hon. Friend. I want to emphasise that terminal care in Britain is no longer provided exclusively by the voluntary sector, as it was for a time. The Government are firmly committed to providing a full range of good care services for people who are dying from any illness. Our initiative started in 1980, when we set up a working group of the standing sub-committee on cancer to consider the organisation of terminal care services for cancer. That working group was chaired by Professor Eric Wilkes, another widely known and respected personality in the hospice movement, who has done so much to develop it.
The working group"s report stated:
"Terminal care is not a matter of new buildings or expensive equipment. It depends primarily on enlightened professional attitudes. Our objective now should be to ensure that every dying patient has access to professional staff who can provide the appropriate care."
The group"s recommendation was:
"The way forward is to encourage the dissemination of the principles of terminal care throughout the health service and to develop an integrated system of care with emphasis on co-ordination between the primary care sector, the hospital sector and the hospice movement."
That report was circulated throughout the Health Service.
The Government then decided that it would be useful to bring together people from the NHS and voluntary groups to discuss how each can maximise its contribution to terminal care.

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With that in mind, we organised with the National Association of Health Authorities a major conference in December 1985, which was opened by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. My predecessor but one, my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, opened the conference by saying:
"I would like to see every health authority drawing up comprehensive plans for providing services for those facing death. This means looking carefully at the range and type of specialist care which is needed in their district and, where possible, working with local and national voluntary groups to provide the necessary services."
By the time the conference took place, my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Sir B. Hayhoe), was the Minister responsible. In his address to the conference he said that the Health Service should make a most careful assessment of the services the voluntary sector is providing and can provide in the future, and that where the voluntary sector was fulfilling part of the need health authorities should make an adequate contribution to the costs involved.
Another speaker at the conference, one of our regional general managers, outlined practical ways in which regional and district health authorities could help the hospice movement. One suggestion was the provision of a more secure financial foundation.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham will be aware, that was followed by collaboration between the Department and the National Association of Health Authorities on a guide for health authorities on good practice in care of the dying. That was issued to health authorities in January 1987.By that time, I had become Minister for Health and it was my privilege to launch that publication, in which there is a chapter of guidance for health authorities on funding terminal care services.
We sought to buttress and support that in February 1987, with a Department of Health and Social Security circular on terminal care—HC(87)4—which asked health authorities to examine their current plans for terminally ill patients and to plan to fill any gaps, where possible in conjunction with the voluntary sector. We have asked health authorities to describe their plans for terminal care in their planning statements, which we expect to receive next month. I assure my hon. Friend that we shall be examining those with care to see whether further action will be necessary.
I have emphasised that because it sets the scene and I hope that it illustrates the effort we have already put in and the commitment that we can claim to have shown to provision for terminal care, based on greater collaboration between the NHS and the voluntary sector. I am glad to say that many health authorities are providing terminal care services of their own and are working well with the voluntary sector.
My hon. Friend is entitled to say, in a rather old-fashioned phrase, which he did not use, that fine words butter no parsnips. Good relations are important but, faced with increasing revenue costs and the problem of competing with many other worthy charities to raise money from the general public, the security of some guaranteed statutory funding for hospices would be welcome.
Hospices are essentially providing a local service, and it is right for the health authority concerned, or a number of
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health authorities where that is appropriate, to decide the correct level of funding for a hospice or any other voluntary services in support of local health services, according to their judgment as to the right pattern in that locality. It would not be right for us to attempt to second-guess that judgment from the centre. If we did, we would face considerable difficulties.
My next point picks up something said by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham and echoes something that I have said in the House in recent weeks. It seems clear that if the Government were to fund hospices in the same way as they fund health authorities—there was an element of that in what my hon. Friend was suggesting about the way in which the consequences of the recent pay award should be funded—the risk, at the very least, is that the voluntary hospice movement would lose that special voluntary factor which makes it so special and which has been such an important part of its contribution.
Having said that, I acknowledge that, although many health authorities already help hospices financially in one way or another, there are many in the hospice movement who believe that some health authorities do not give them enough. I repeat: we have told health authorities that they should be providing the full range of terminal care services, in-patient beds and home care and day care services, and that where a voluntary group such as a hospice is already providing some of those services locally the health authority should agree with it a contribution to its cost. We have asked health authorities to provide us with information about those arrangements in the planning statements that we expect next month.
It is difficult for me to go further than to repeat that statement of Government policy in my speech tonight. However, I promise my hon. Friend that we shall carefully consider the information we receive from health authorities and will assess the need for any further steps we might appropriately take in the light of the provision which health authorities tell us they are making in terms of hospice support.
I acknowledge the point made by my hon. Friend, that the nurses" pay award could affect many homes run by charities, concerned not only with terminal care but with a whole range of problems, disabilities and medical conditions, where nursing staff need to be employed. I hope that health authorities will be particularly conscious of the impact of nurses" pay on hospices" revenue costs, where there tend to be higher than usual nurse-patient ratios. I trust that health authorities will bear that point in mind when considering the provision they make from the money available to them for 1988–89 as a whole, including —as was emphasised by my hon. Friend—the very large additional sums which have been made available to health authorities for the nurses" pay award.
My hon. Friend said that, last year, St. Christopher"s received a little over £1 million from the National Health Service and that of that the South East Thames regional health authority donated more than £900,000 towards the hospice"s running costs. I am not sure that my hon. Friend acknowledges that in the present financial year, 1988–89, the region has already increased its allocation by 4·5 per cent. to take account of inflation, which is the same as the inflation element in the region"s extra allocation from central Government. That is in itself a significant contribution to the costs of the pay award, in the same way as the 4·5 per cent. inflation element has been treated as a significant contribution to the costs of the nurses" pay

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award to the National Health Service as a whole. The Government have made money available to meet that part of the bill that is above that percentage.
I am glad to tell my hon. Friend, who expressed some hopes about this, that my clear understanding is that, over and above the extra 4·5 per cent. that the South East Thames regional health authority has already agreed to provide, it plans to make available this year extra money to help cover the cost of the nurses" pay award. I am not in a position tonight to put any figure on that because that must be for the regional health authority to decide. However, I have its authority to say that it plans to make an additional allocation. I hope that that encourages my hon. Friend in his efforts on behalf of the hospice.
Apart from the substantial help that St. Christopher"s receives from the South East Thames regional health authority, it receives assistance from a number of health districts in the South West Thames region, most of which try to relate their funding of the hospice to the costs it incurs in treating patients referred to it by that health authority. I frankly acknowledge that, having looked at the figures, I can see some scope for—how shall I put it? —further discussion between the hospice and some of those health districts about whether their contributions adequately reflect the costs incurred. It would be unwise of me to go beyond that from the Dispatch Box tonight, but I will say that I believe that the South-East Thames region has set a good example, which I hope will be followed by other health authorities concerned with the hospice. I also hope that they will consider the matter carefully in the light of what my hon. Friend has said.
There are a number of other points that I could touch on, and a number of other difficulties that hospices have experienced in some of their financial affairs—in relation,
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for example, to the cost of drugs, and their dealings with the income support part of the social security system. I hope that some of the work that we are doing will enable us in due course to take steps that will be of additional help to hospices. There is, however, nothing that I can announce tonight. I think that those concerned with the hospice movement know that these are difficult and complex matters, which take time to consider and which need to be considered in a wider context—for example, that of the Griffiths review of community care and its application to income support.
I shall not speculate on any of that tonight; I shall conclude my speech by returning to the central theme which my hon. Friend has raised, and to which I have sought to respond as helpfully as I can. It is our firm policy that health authorities should take full account of the contribution made by hospices to the important aspect of providing our people with health care. While we do not feel it right to go down some of the paths that my hon. Friend has invited me to tread tonight, we strongly wish to urge on health authorities the need to take account of all the factors affecting hospices in considering the amount of financial help that they give. Not least, we urge them to take account of the sort of problems to which my hon. Friend has referred—together with the additional money that the Government have made available for the nurses" pay award this year—in considering how they should respond to those needs, not only in my hon. Friend"s constituency but in all the other locations where hospices flourish up and down the country, when considering the pattern of their policy for the remainder of the year.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at sixteen minutes past Ten o"clock.