Commons Sitting of 14 March 1988

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

    Transport Staff (Assaults)
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many cases of assaults on staff have been reported during the past year on staff of (a) the London Underground, (b) London Buses and (c) British Rail in London; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. David Mitchell): Before I answer this question I should like to convey apologies for the absence of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who is detained in Brussels on urgent EEC business. He tenders his apologies.
    In 1987 the number of criminal assaults on staff of the London Underground, London Buses and British Rail in London were, respectively, 163, 880 and 130.
    Mr. Greenway: Does my hon. Friend accept my great concern at the size of those figures, particularly those for London Buses? Will he also consider assaults on members of the public on the buses, the Underground and railways across London, particularly on pay nights? Is he aware that many people, particularly the elderly and parents of children, are afraid of travelling on public transport in London, especially late at night? Will every possible apparatus be brought to bear, in the form of more police, more surveillance equipment and everything else, to stamp out violence on London transport, and may we have some exemplary sentencing? Something must be done.
    Mr. Mitchell: I share my hon. Friend's concern about the level of assaults on staff. I know that he has particularly noticed the figure of 880 assaults on bus staff, and I am glad to say that that is 200 down on the previous year and more than 400 down on 1985. I accept that it is still an unacceptable level.
    We are taking vigorous steps. All London buses are fitted with assault klaxons, which blow the horn and show flashing indicators. Two-way radios are now fitted on every bus and video cameras are coming in on a number of routes. The increasing use of one-person-operated buses also reduces assaults on staff.
    Mr. Summerson: Is my hon. Friend aware that assaults on the Victoria line, which serves my constituency, are getting worse and worse? Will he take whatever measures are necessary to protect the travelling public, including the installation of video cameras on trains and platforms and the provision of more policemen on trains?
    Mr. Mitchell: The proposal for more video apparatus for the Victoria line is one of a number of actions that are being taken, including improved radio equipment, video surveillance, increased police recruitment and staff surveillance. I hope that those actions will have a considerable impact.
    Mr. Madden: Are not the violent incidents occurring as a direct consequence of the action being taken to reduce staff, particularly on the London Underground? What action is being taken to ensure that more staff are appointed, especially for nights and weekends? What is being done to ensure that the police who operate underground have radios that work there? I understand that the radios are often wholly ineffective once the police are underground attempting to deal with the violence that is taking place on an increasing scale.
    Mr. Mitchell: The Government have made £15 million available to LRT over a three-year period for a crash programme against crime. The hon. Gentleman is right to identify the problem of underground radios. Normal radios will not work underground. Extensive investment in underground cable-laying is required to enable them to work.
    Staff visibility is also being considered. The hon. Gentleman asked about recruitment. Recruitment to the British Transport police is now under way. Staffing levels have gone up from 280 to 314 in L division and are planned to go to 350 by October.

    Northern Line
    Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on London Regional Transport proposals for investment in the Northern line.
    Mr. Mitchell: Current plans include an additional eight trains, a new depot next year, and investment of £45 million over the next three years on continuing station improvements, signalling and better communications. Major plans for altering the configuration and modernising the line are also being considered by London Underground.
    Mr. Marshall: My hon. Friend mentioned an additional eight trains. Does he agree that that total will be regarded by commuters on the Northern line as woefully inadequate? Does he accept that there has been a dramatic deterioration in the quality of service being given to my constituents and to many other residents of London? An improvement to the Northern line should be the top priority of London Regional Transport.
    Mr. Mitchell: London Regional Transport clearly understands that the situation on the Northern line is not as good as it would want, nor is it as good as the London Regional Passengers' Committee or the Government would want. Average waiting time on the Northern line is now 4·1 minutes, which is perhaps not as bad as some people might imagine. An investment of £20 million is under way at the Angel to replace lifts with escalators, and a further £20 million scheme to eliminate island platforms is being considered. The eight additional trains that will become available next year are a significant improvement. One is doing the best that one can within the time available, bearing in mind the very sharp increase in the number of passengers.
    Mr. Spearing: Is not the £45 million a classic example of throwing money at the wrong problem? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it is not investment to titivate stations that is required, but more guards and drivers? Does he not realise that London Regional Transport has sold off, on his instructions or those of his right hon. Friend, large numbers of houses in areas where guards and drivers are in short supply, so that they are not encouraged to be in on early and late turns? Would it not be better to spend some of the millions that he mentioned on buying back those houses and reversing the Government's policy, so that at least some encouragement is given to the recruitment of much needed guards and drivers?
    Mr. Mitchell: As always, the hon. Gentleman has got the position only half right. The driver shortage on the Northern line is currently 23. Far from there being a shortage of guards, as the hon. Gentleman said, there is a surplus of 22. Considerable training is being undertaken. Six guards are currently under training as drivers and another 10 are starting on 14 March. A further 35 guard-train drivers for other lines are currently under conversion training for Northern line duties. That is 51 against a present shortage of 23. The hon. Gentleman will understand that we are dealing with the problem.
    Mr. Chapman: As the chairman of LRT agrees that presently the Northern line is "an abomination", will my hon. Friend accept that two measures are urgent priorities? One is to pay a premium to get extra staff to man the Northern line, because staff leave that line. Apparently one of the reasons is that it is the longest tunnel in the world. Secondly, the increased capital investment, which I welcome, should be examined to see whether the Northern line is getting its fair share. There ought to be additional capital investment to cover the need to train the new staff that are necessary on this line, as well as to cover the other technological progress.
    Mr. Mitchell: I have already given the House the figures for the substantial amount of training that is taking place, specifically of drivers for the Northern line. The average weekly wastage of train staff grades in 1987 was only eight. Compared with the figures that I have given, that offers some grounds for reassurance. Investment is very much the key to raising standards, and investment in LRT will be running at £ I million a day next year. That £365 million is 60 per cent. higher than during the last year that the GLC was in charge.
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: In his usual complacent way, the Minister insists that there is an adequate number of drivers. Will he confirm to the House that things are kept ticking along on the Northern line simply because 55 guard motormen are covering for drivers? Will he confirm also that, for that reason, my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Speaking) made a valid point when he said that we should consider something practical about the housing of staff used on the Northern line?
    Will the Minister confirm that it will be some 10 years after the completion of the investment programme on the Central line before we can expect to see any real investment in the Northern line to get rid of these problems once and for all? Can he tell the House that he will look seriously at bringing the investment forward? Does he recognise that the failure to provide proper
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    investment for the Northern line — not the rest of the system — is part of the reason why these problems will run on into the future?
    Mr. Mitchell: It is not for me to bring forward investment proposals for the Northern line or any other line. It is for the management to bring forward what it believes to be the right priorities. I shall draw the management's attention to the hon. Gentleman's anxieties, but it is not for Ministers to propose investment. That is for those who operate the system.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We are making rather slow progress today. May I ask for briefer questions, and perhaps we will have briefer answers too?

    Car Telephones
    Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent representations he has received regarding the road safety implications of the use of car telephones.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Peter Bottomley): None. In simple terms, if one can afford a car telephone, one can afford a hands-free microphone. It is not safe to hold a telephone when driving.
    Mr. Amess: Is my hon. Friend aware that concerns have been expressed following the practice of drivers using telephones while proceeding along motorways or turning corners? Does he agree that such practices are dangerous? Is he satisfied that the present law would meet those points, because I am not?
    Mr. Bottomley: The answer is yes. However, I welcome the opportunity of repeating the advice in the Highway Code which is: do not use a hand-held telephone when driving.
    Mr. Tony Banks: May I tell the Minister that anyone in a car who is holding a telephone and talking into it looks a right wally anyway? Before becoming too involved in the subject, will the Minister tell us what evidence he has, if any, of accidents that have occurred as a result of people driving and using a telephone at the same time? Is there any empirical evidence?
    Mr. Bottomley: There is anecdotal evidence. A BBC radio taxi was taking me to a high hill in Guildford and, with a hand on the microphone, the driver went through a red light.
    Mr. Hanley: If my hon. Friend's criterion for the use of a hands-free set is the fact that it is not safe to use a telephone in the hand in the car, will he take steps to ban smoking in cars?
    Mr. Bottomley: Wiser politicians than I have said that one needs to work by common agreement whenever possible. There is common agreement on the dangers of holding a telephone when driving a car.

    Safety Standards
    Mr. Boyes: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what new proposals he has to increase safety standards in transport during the next year; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: We keep transport safety standards under regular review and shall continue to develop proposals whenever the need arises.
    Mr. Boyes: Will the Minister acknowledge that the interdepartmental committee on road safety has attempted to produce a comprehensive and objective report of road safety matters? Nevertheless, it fails to acknowledge a proven range of counter measures against drink driving, and that omission has marred the credibility of the full report. Is the fact that drink driving measures, particularly random breath testing, have been ignored, another example of the Government behaving in an ostrich-like way with their head in the sand over this vital matter?
    Mr. Bottomley: No. I welcome the sustained interest of the hon. Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes) and the House in drink driving. There may be an opportunity for some hon. Members to listen to an Adjournment debate this evening on the subject. In simple terms, I am surprised that anyone should accuse the Department or the Government of being soft in the action against drinking and driving.
    Mr. Higgins: Given the appalling number of accidents to motor cyclists and the fact that every other form of commercial operation requires the driver of a vehicle to be fully qualified, would my hon. Friend be sympathetic to a private Member's Bill which prohibited motor cycle couriers from employing learner drivers who have passed no test at all?
    Mr. Bottomley: I am not sure that I have the authority to prejudge that suggestion. I make the point made by the Highway Code, that the dangers to motor cyclists often come from other road users. I would welcome further attention both to our training and testing proposals for motor cyclists and to those for leg protection, which I am sure will come. I also hope that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pays little attention to the petition with 250,000 signatures asking for me to be removed. I fear that I may be condemned to stay in transport for four years.
    Mrs. Ray Mitchie: Given the problems in increasing the scope of driving tests—for example, it is difficult for all drivers to have experience of motorways, as many would have to travel hundreds of miles to find a motorway—will the Minister consider introducing a probationary year after the driver has taken the test?
    Mr. Bottomley: Perhaps it would be better if I wrote to the hon. Lady and put a copy of the reply in the Library. It would take too long to give the answer now.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my hon. Friend accept that most of us agree that there is no need for random breath tests, because the police have enough powers already? Does he also agree, however, that many of us who are with him on that issue are rather disturbed at the idea of carrying out tests on drivers who will then escape prosecution? We all know already that drinking and driving is dangerous. Why should there be any need to go in for more tests, when we all know the results before we start?
    Mr. Bottomley: What we do not know is how far we are succeeding in cutting out drinking and driving. In the 350,000 tests administered by the police, every one of 120,000 who fail—one in three—will be considered for prosecution. We are proposing to add 2,500 tests carried
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    out by researchers, not by the police, which will give us a baseline to see how effective the advice "Don't drink and drive" will be.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: On this first transport Question Time since the anniversary of the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, will the Minister and his hon. Friends turn their attention to ferry safety and to dangerous working practices?
    Is the Minister aware that attempts are being made to bring in 24-hour shift working, with only two breaks of two to three hours, and four return trips a day? Does he accept that that is dangerous? Will he use his powers, or will the Secretary of State use his, to prevent such dangerous practices from being imposed? Given its background, P and O ought to have more shame than to try to impose them.
    Mr. Bottomley: It is normally accepted that the House should not become involved in negotiations. It is plain that any working practices must meet the statutory requirements.

    British Transport Police
    Sir John Biggs-Davison: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the work of the British Transport police in protecting persons and property on the London Underground.
    Mr. David Mitchell: The British Transport police are co-operating with London Underground Limited in the implementation of the recommendations of my Department's report of November 1986 on "Crime on the London Underground".
    Sir John Biggs-Davison: While new measures will be welcomed by my constituents, whether passengers or staff, is it not the case that threatening and drunken behaviour, mugging and other violence—not to mention illegal graffiti and litter—are rife, and would it not be a good idea if the British Transport police, like other constabulary forces, had a special constabulary to supplement their regular personnel?
    Mr. Mitchell: There has been a 25 per cent. reduction in muggings where new methods of policing have been employed on the southern end of the Victoria line. I shall be meeting the chief constable of BTP and the chairman of London Underground Limited before the end of the month to review progress. Projects at Oxford Circus and eastern stations on the Central line to test improved equipment and practices will be inaugurated later this month. I shall discuss with the chief constable when I meet him the point that my hon. Friend raised about specials.
    Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: Is my hon. Friend aware of the growing anxiety among most people who travel on the London Underground at the long, deserted stretches of platform and stairways with no police in sight? Is it not about time that the Metropolitan police took over the responsibilities of the British Transport police? Most of us think that they are pretty ineffective.
    Mr. Mitchell: I do not agree with my hon. Friend. I believe that there is a degree of specialisation in transport police work, and I do not think that it would be right to make the change that he suggests.
    Mr. Tony Banks: Does the Minister recall the recent reply that he gave me:

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    "The complement of the Underground division of the British Transport police has increased to 350 officers; the number so far in post is 314."? — [Official Report, 25 February 1988; Vol. 128, c. 309.]
    Will he say what steps are being taken to bring the number in post up to the full complement? Will he accept that moving to one-person-operated trains on the Underground system will only encourage further violence and vandalism? Why will the Minister not accept the concern that is being expressed in London that travelling on the Underground system must have proper protection, which requires more police and more staff? That is the answer.
    Mr. Mitchell: As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, recruitment is up from 280 and 314. It is planned to increase that figure to 350 by October this year, and we expect that that target will be reached. The other items that the hon. Gentleman mentioned are matters in which, frequently, new methods will be more effective.
    Mr. McCrindle: Given the difficulty that has sometimes arisen in recruiting transport policemen for British Rail because of the financial limitations placed on it, will my hon. Friend confirm that no such considerations will stand in the way of reaching the target of 350 officers, to which he has referred?
    Mr. Mitchell: Yes, Sir.

    Edinburgh Over-flying
    Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what discussions he has had with the chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority on the safety regulations for flights over Edinburgh.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: The regulation of air safety is the responsibility of the Civil Aviation Authority. The chairman keeps us informed on important issues.
    Mr. Dalyell: Is there now to be more than one nightshift duty air traffic controller?
    Mr. Bottomley: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has put that question to the authority, but I shall certainly ensure that he gets an answer.
    Mr. Darling: Has the Minister discussed the movement of military aircraft over Turnhouse airport, in particular a practice that has been adopted of military aircraft flying very fast and very low over the main runway at Turnhouse when civilian aircraft are either on the runway or in the vicinity? Will he take that matter up with the chairman and and seek an assurance that civilian aircraft will not be put at risk?
    Mr. Bottomley: It is clear that civilian aircraft should not be put at risk. I suspect that they are not put at risk, but I shall do as the hon. Gentleman asks.

    Channel Tunnel (Railway Development)
    Mr. Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will set up an inquiry into the potential benefits of electrifying railway lines to south Wales and the west of England in the light of the Channel tunnel development.
    Mr. David Mitchell: No. It is the responsibility of the British Railways Board to bring forward proposals for investment in the railways.
    Mr. Flynn: Will the Minister confirm that under present plans there will be no possibility for the people of Wales or the west of England to have a direct rail link through to the continent of Europe after the Channel tunnel is constructed? Will he reconsider the possibility of such a link for the benefit of business, commercial affairs and tourism in south Wales? Is he content for the Channel tunnel to be a further deepening of the east-west divide between the claustrophic, overheated and overcrowded south-east of England and the vast acres of opportunity in Wales and the west of England, which increasingly will be on the periphery of the Common Market?
    Mr. Mitchell: In parenthesis, I should say that I believe that TSB has moved from my constituency to the hon. Gentleman's, but I do not think that that is an exact illustration of the point that he is seeking to make.
    Freight and overnight passenger services can be provided on non-electrified lines by changing the locomotive to go through the Channel tunnel. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman is wrong to assume that that cannot be done.
    Mr. Adley: Will my hon. Friend accept that the reality is that the British Government's attitude to electrification and investment in Channel tunnel-related expenditure is "How little can we get away with?", while the French Government's attitude for SNCF is "What do we need to make the most of this splendid facility?" Will my hon. Friend please do everything that he can to persuade his ministerial colleagues to change their attitudes? Is he aware that if he does not do so we shall find ourselves with a Cinderella railway on this side of the Channel and a modern railway on the other side?
    Mr. Mitchell: The French and ourselves regard investment in Channel tunnel-related lines as a commercial matter. The French's line for the Channel tunnel will ride on the back of the expenditure on the Paris-Brussels-Cologne-Amsterdam line, as my hon. Friend will well know. We are investing roughly comparable amounts, when that is taken into account.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Will my hon. Friend look at the electrification which has already been authorised by the Government for the line to Weymouth to ensure that British Rail uses that wonderful asset to the best advantage? It appears from BR's plans that it is looking backwards rather than forwards.
    Mr. Mitchell: I was pleased to approve the electrification of the line to Weymouth. If my hon. Friend is not happy with the way in which British Rail proposes to manage that service, perhaps he will write to me.
    Mr. Snape: Will the Minister concede that there must be a case for an inquiry into the electrification of British Rail nationally as a result of the Channel tunnel opening, the matter to which my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) referred? Does the Minister agree that if such an inquiry does not take place and, to adopt the phrase used by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley), Britain remains the Cinderella of Europe because of its railways, the south of England in particular will drown under a tidal wave of largely foreign-built lorries and coaches?
    Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. As he well knows, British Rail expects more than 1,500 juggernaut-sized lorries a day to be taken off the roads and

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    put on rail as a result of the Channel tunnel. Modern diesels have a similar performance to electrics. In any case, 20 electrification schemes have been approved since 1979, including the biggest that there has ever been on the east coast main line. If the hon. Gentleman wants to have it with both barrels, I should tell him that the average annual spend on electrification under this Government is £72 million, compared with only £41 million under the Labour Government.

    Smoke Hoods
    Mr. McCrindle: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make it his policy to introduce a mandatory requirement for British airlines to carry passenger protection smoke hoods.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: Policy on air safety is for the Civil Aviation Authority. The CAA decided in December against making smoke hoods mandatory at present. It is continuing to work on improved standards of cabin fire safety.
    Mr. McCrindle: Two and half years after the incident at Manchester airport, when there was considerable loss of life through smoke suffocation, is it not about time that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport leant somewhat on the Civil Aviation Authority? The CAA's attitude appears to be that until there is a perfect smoke hood it should continue to drag its feet. Surely that is not sensible in the interests of safety.
    Mr. Bottomley: I understand my hon. Friend's concern. I understand also that the CAA hopes to finalise the specification soon. The CAA has made it clear that the final decision will be based on safety, not on cost.
    Mr. Colvin: Does my hon. Friend agree that until there is international acceptance of a specification for smoke hoods it would he wrong to insist on mandatory carrying of them by airlines and that the working draft paper, recently issued by the CAA, is a welcome step forward? Will my hon. Friend confirm that comments on that paper are required by 31 March? Finally, does my hon. Friend agree that this will assist British industry to capitalise on its technical lead?
    Mr. Bottomley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is right about the deadline for comments. It is important to build on the joint research with the other major aviation nations. The point is to get practicable safety measures for passengers.

    One-Person Operated Buses (London)
    Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has received since the introduction of one-person operated buses in Greater London concerning longer journey times.
    Mr. David Mitchell: I have received a number of representations on various aspects of one-person operated buses in London. It is our normal practice to refer questions involving operational matters to London Regional Transport for reply.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the Minister recall that when we had the debate on the London Regional Transport levy, one matter that I raised was the fact that since 1982 there has never been as long an average waiting time in London for
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    buses—whether run by London Regional Transport or by private contractors — as this year? Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to revise the operation of one-person operated buses to ensure that we have less time to wait, which clearly cannot happen when there is only one member of staff on the bus and the queue takes longer to get from the pavement to the inside of the bus?
    Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman will recall that we had quite a lot of discussion earlier this afternoon on safety. He will realise that OPO buses are much safer than open-plan crewed buses and that there are far fewer assaults on staff.
    I recall the matters raised by the hon. Gentleman during that debate. The average OPO boarding time per passenger has been reduced from 4 seconds in 1984 to 3·7 seconds now, compared with 2 seconds for crewed open-platform buses. London Buses Ltd. aims to reduce that time to 3 seconds during the next couple of years.
    Mr. Summerson: Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the problem is due to people parking where they should not? Will he take steps to ensure that selfish people do not park their cars and vans in the area of bus stops?
    Mr. Mitchell: My hon. Friend is perfectly correct. One of the problems with London buses' time-keeping is the parking of vehicles wrongly in particular route areas. I have discussed this with the Metropolitan police and priority is being given to action on those routes.

    London Buses Ltd.
    Mr. Tony Banks: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the future of London Buses Ltd.
    Mr. David Mitchell: As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport said in the London Regional Transport levy order debate on 25 January, we have asked LRT to bring forward early proposals for restructuring London Buses Ltd. into smaller units which will be able to operate commercially under conditions of competition.
    Mr. Banks: I understand that London Regional Transport is now considering a proposal to break up the bus fleet into 15 separate companies. Will the Minister tell the House what good that will do for the efficiency of bus services in London generally? He must know how many people are complaining about the system at present. The LRT 1988–89 business plan shows that there will not be any improvement in waiting time next year, that about 70 million bus miles will be lost and that there will be no new investment in buses. Will he tell us how his proposals will assist the travelling public in London?
    Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman refers to the level of complaints now. He should therefore warmly welcome the proposals brought forward by London Buses Ltd. for restructuring the system.
    Mr. Robert G. Hughes: Will my hon. Friend accept that people in my constituency, where there is a local bus organisation called Harrow Buses, want more of the decisions made by local people on the spot and that, therefore, the splitting into different companies is warmly welcomed?
    Mr. Mitchell: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the features of smaller-based operations is that they are

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    able to be more flexible in responding to consumer demand. This has been well demonstrated in the deregulated system outside London, where the National Bus Company has been broken up in that way, and it has proved to be very successful.
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: Will the Minister confirm that if there is to be any improvement — which is doubtful — as a result of the break-up of London Buses, it will come only as a result of higher bus fares? Will he also tell the House whether he intends to push ahead with the deregulation of the London bus system within the lifetime of this Parliament?
    Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman is wrong to assume that there is a direct correlation in those matters with bus fares, which should be operated at the optimum level to secure both continuing custom and a viable business, where it is practicable to do so. I hope that I have successfully answered the hon. Gentleman's question.

    New Roads (North-West)
    Mr. Thurnham: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement about the programme for new road projects in the north-west.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: The trunk road programme includes some £700 million of planned schemes in the north-west. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced on 11 March the decision to go ahead with the region's highest priority scheme—the £160 million final section of the Manchester outer ring road from Denton to Middleton.
    Mr. Thurnham: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government are making a very good job of providing road links for the north of the country as a whole, as Bolton council is for the north of my constituency?
    Mr. Bottomley: There is a local point there on which I should not detain the House with an explanation. However, it is true that the previous Government, although full of good intentions, managed to cut the roads programme dramatically. We are delighted to be able to make sensible spending decisions, which will help to bring economic prosperity especially to the north-west, to bring environmental relief to many people living on main roads and to reduce the number of road casualties.
    Mr. Pike: Does the Minister accept that the whole of north-east Lancashire believes that, for the regeneration of that area, the linking of the M65 to the M6-M61 should be done as soon as possible? Does he further accept that they disagree with his Department's view that it is not necessary for that link to be of motorway standard? There is a strong need for that link to be of motorway standard.
    Mr. Bottomley: I am sure that the House will have appreciated the hon. Gentleman's view.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will my hon. Friend give high priority to the M6 link, which would give an enormous boost to industry in Lancaster and Morecambe? I am aware of the dilatoriness of the Labour-controlled county council, which has never given that road a high enough priority. Does my hon. Friend accept that my constituents are not prepared to suffer for the council's sins?
    Mr. Bottomley: My hon. Friend has made her point very strongly. Speaking generally, the partnership between
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    the Department of Transport and the 107 highway authorities is generally pretty good and shows that normally local and national Government can work together.

    Passenger Transport Authorities
    Ms. Quin: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the Government's proposed changes in the financing of passenger transport authorities and their likely effects on (a) Tyne and Wear and (b) the United Kingdom as a whole.
    Mr. David Mitchell: We propose that PTAs should bill their districts instead of precepting separately. The effect will make Tyne and Wear and other PTAs more accountable to their electorates. A paper was circulated for comments on 22 January, and I met the Association of Metropolitan Authorities on 2 March.
    Ms. Quin: Are the Government aware of the concern about the proposals in Tyne and Wear? Do the Government agree that, following the abolition of the metropolitan county council and the introduction of deregulation, the latest proposals are the final death blow to the concept of integrated passenger transport in Tyne and Wear?
    Mr. Mitchell: Nothing in the proposals should pose any threat to the degree of integration of transport in Tyne and Wear. They will make the provision of transport services by the PTA far more accountable than they are under the existing system. If the hon. Lady and the PTA are afraid of accountability, perhaps I understand what lies behind her question.

  ATTORNEY-GENERAL

    Family Courts
    Mr. Sims: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a further statement on Her Majesty's Government's policy towards the establishment of family courts, in the light of the statement by the Lord Chancellor in the February issue of "Family Law".
    The Solicitor-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell): The Lord Chancellor endorsed the strength of the arguments for both a unified legal framework for child and family law and for a unified court structure. The latter is dependent on the former, upon which officials from a number of Departments are actively engaged.
    Mr. Sims: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for that reply, but, alas, it does not really get us much further. Is he aware that many individuals and organisations went to a great deal of trouble to respond to the Government's consultative document on family courts? Also, our noble and learned Friend Lord Havers seemed to demonstrate some sympathy for the idea of family courts. Indeed, from time to time, my hon. and learned Friend and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General have said that work is proceeding on proposals for family courts. The tone of the present Lord Chancellor's statement suggests that he is now looking for all sorts of reasons not to proceed with the family court. Will my hon. and learned Friend take the opportunity to clear up the situation and make a statement, so that we

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    know exactly where we stand? If he could do that in a debate that he could persuade our right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to hold on the subject, so much the better.
    The Solicitor-General: My hon. Friend should take heart. We must seek to deal in a rational, comprehensive and integral way with child law, both public and private, including harmonisation of the available remedies and reform of court procedures. That objective is necessary in itself and will provide an essential foundation for any reform of court structures. We must get the law right first and then look at court structures.
    Mr. Anderson: Does the Solicitor-General accept that the long delays over the past 16 years since the Finer recommendation are a sad commentary on the prospects for achieving legal reform of any sort in this country? Will he now get some steam behind his proposal, as hardly any serious legal body is opposed to it?
    The Solicitor-General: It is not steam that is needed, but a bit of clear thinking. Child care law and family law are in a great muddle, as the hon. Gentleman knows. We intend to get child care and family law right. We shall then have set the legal framework against which to provide the court framework, if that seems appropriate.
    Mr. Lawrence: May we take it that the article that was written by the Lord Chancellor does not demonstrate that the Government's real thinking is that too much else on the statute hook needs to be done before there is a reform of family law? As it is agreed by hon. Members of all parties that speedy action should be taken along the lines that my hon. and learned Friend has stated, does he agree that we should not have to keep coming back year after year asking the same questions on this important subject?
    The Solicitor-General: My hon. and learned Friend has seen and made the point. Child care law is receiving high priority.
    Mr. Fraser: In a somewhat unusual — although welcome—article in "Family Law", the Lord Chancellor appears to be saying that he believes that the present system is unduly complicated and that he would welcome reform, but is he also saying that he rejects reform because it is too complicated, or that the reform is rejected by other colleagues in the Cabinet because of other business? What is the answer?
    The Solicitor-General: The Lord Chancellor is not saying either of those things. He is saying that reform in the form of clarification and harmonisation of the many different strands of child law is badly needed and that we should get on with it, and that is what he proposes to do.
    Mr. Hind: Will my hon. and learned Friend bear in mind the widespread support for family courts among hon. Members of all parties, and, bearing in mind that there is good will for reforming child law, will he exert pressure on the business managers of the House to bring in what many others feel is a long-overdue reform that will receive widespread support?
    The Solicitor-General: Again, my hon. Friend should take heart. We intend to get child care law right. As he knows, it is a large and complex subject that needs to be tackled. Once that has been dealt with, we can move on to the concomitant of the actual court structure, if that
    852
    seems appropriate. The concept of a family court embodies getting right both the law and the court structure.

    Prosecution Policy
    Mr. Janner: To ask the Attorney-General when he next expects to meet the Director of Public Prosecutions to discuss matters relating to prosecution policy.
    The Solicitor-General: In the near future.
    Mr. Janner: When the hon. and learned Gentleman sees the Director of Public Prosecutions, will he please discuss once again the question of the Director's failure to prosecute the perpetrators of "Holocaust News". In that context, does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it is monstrous that the law is too weak to allow people who are stirring Fascist and racist ill will in this decent country to be brought to book?
    The Solicitor-General: I advise the hon. and learned Gentleman that this matter has been considered with great care, not only by the Director's office, but by the Directcr himself, with the benefit of advice of senior Treasury counsel, and by both Law Officers. Having regard to all the material factors, including the nature and effect of the defences likely to be open to and relied on by the defendants, the likelihood or otherwise of a conviction, and the circumstances as a whole, it is not thought appropriate to prosecute.
    Mr. William Powell: When my hon. and learned Friend meets the Director of Public prosecutions, will he draw to his attention a "Today" radio programme of a few weeks ago in which it was asserted that a number of abortions are being carried out in this country because the parents do not wish to give birth to a baby girl? The programme said that baby girl foetuses are being aborted. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that that is a most serious allegation, involving crime? Will he ensure that the DPP carries out a thorough investigation and that those who are alleged to be involved are brought before the courts?
    The Solicitor-General: I quite understand what my hon. Friend says. It is most important to emphasise that any evidence that is available should go straight to the police.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: When the hon. and learned Gentleman next meets the DPP, will he express his concern at the increasing acquittal rate in the Crown courts, which shows one of two things: either too many innocent people are being prosecuted, or cases are being underprepared by the prosecution, or possibly both? Does he recognise that there remains the problem that the starting salaries for new recruits to the Crown Prosecution Service simply do not compare with salaries in the private sector?
    The Solicitor-General: I cannot accept that there are any reliable trends that are capable of yet being established. As to the second part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's question, that matter is under close consideration.

    "Spycatcher"
    Mr. Adley: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement on the latest development in the various cases relating to the book "Spycatcher".
    The Attorney-General (Sir Patrick Mayhew): I refer my hon. Friend to my answer of 10 March to the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson).
    Mr. Adley: I recognise from that reply that neither the circumstances nor the principle have changed. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that Wright's behaviour has been to exchange his oath of loyalty for a substantial royalty? Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that most of my constituents believe that Wright's behaviour is clear and despicable? In spite of the difficulties, will my right hon. and learned Friend continue to pursue the matter vigorously?
    The Attorney-General: I am certain that my hon. Friend speaks with complete reliability about the responses from his constituents. I will not comment personally upon Mr. Wright, but I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that all judges in this country who have pronounced on the case have described Mr. Wright as being in flagrant breach of the duty of confidentiality that he owes to the Crown.
    Mr. Winnick: Does the Attorney-General consider it appropriate that, as the senior Law Officer, he should have sent out a propaganda letter to all Conservative Members explaining the position on the "Spycatcher" case? Is that not incompatible with his position as Attorney-General?
    As regards the amount of money that has so far been spent on the case, is it not a fact that, at the end of the day, the cost will be, not the sum that he told me previously, but millions of pounds that will have been wasted on this totally futile case?
    The Attorney-General: The "Spycatcher" proceedings are civil proceedings instituted by the Government as a result of a collective decision in pursuance of their policy to uphold the duty of confidentiality owed to the Crown by former members of the security services. In those circumstances, it is entirely proper for the Government to communicate on the subject with their parliamentary supporters— [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah!"]—as it is on any other subject. I communicate with this House every three weeks, and more often on demand.
    Mr. Richard Shepherd: Is not the difficulty for the Government the fact that they have chosen to emphasise the lifelong duty of confidentiality to the grave as being more important than the right of the public to know and the press to report on crime, fraud or the possibly mooted causes of treason as reported in Mr. Wright's book? Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that one cannot enjoin any public servant to a lifelong duty of confidentiality to the grave without the caveat that that cannot cover fraud, crime or possible treason? Is it not in the interests of the House to know about those circumstances?
    The Attorney-General: The first thing to establish in these difficult matters is the law of the country. My hon. Friend is aware that considerable importance is attached to the fact that former and serving members of the security services owe a duty to the Crown. The question whether that duty is owed in all circumstances, including the circumstances to which my hon. Friend has referred, is before the courts at the moment. We shall have to see what the House of Lords says when it hears that appeal on 7 June. Then will be the time to consider what, if any, changes should be made to the law by other means. The first thing, however, is to protect that duty because, if we
    854
    do not, and if we are not prepared to pay the cost that is required in money, it will not be very long before that cost is payable in lives as well as money.

  OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

    Debt Refinancing
    Miss Lestor: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if Her Majesty's Government have considered proposals to use additional aid funds to refinance outstanding debts owed to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development by low-income developing countries; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Chris Patten): What counts is that the bank should be making more money available for those countries than they are due to repay to it. We believe that we can more effectively support low-income countries following adjustment programmes by using our aid to finance the imports they desperately need now.
    Miss Lestor: I thank the Minister for that reply. Would he care to comment on the recent proposal of Nordic countries to create a facility to ease the debts owed to the IBRD by many low-income African countries? Will the Government support that proposal at the meeting of the bank in Washington in the spring?
    Mr. Patten: It is one of several interesting proposals that have been made about indebtedness. Of course, there is nothing to stop individual donors from taking that action without setting up a special fund to do so. What is important is that any new initiative should represent additionality in flows of aid to African countries. We have taken a number of steps ourselves—the contribution to the enhanced structural adjustment facility, the major contribution to the World Bank's special programme and the Chancellor's own debt initiative.
    Mr. Wells: Would it not be better if these long-dated loans from the IBRD to the poorest countries—because they must have pre-dated the International Development Association—were to be re-financed by the World Bank through the IDA itself and, by so doing, have the right kind of conditionality attached to their renewal, so that we do not have a repetition of the poor economic policies in some of the countries concerned?
    Mr. Patten: What I am anxious to do, as I tried to explain just now, is to ensure that any new initiatives are accompanied by additional funds for countries in Africa. We must also make sure that we protect the credit rating of the World Bank, which is extremely important to the developing countries, as well as to the rest of us.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: Will the Minister tell the House why the Government are not following the policy clearly set out in the Vancouver communiqué of October last year, to which the Prime Minister was a signatory, which advised that we should write off official development assistance debts to all low-income countries and also give renewed priority to reaching the United Nations assistance target?
    Mr. Patten: I am afraid that the hon. and learned Gentleman is a little confused. This country had written off, rather before that statement was made, aid loans to the tune of £280 million for 14 African countries. What the

    855
    hon. and learned Gentleman could have gone on to do was to read out the endorsement of the Chancellor's debt initiative by not only the Commonwealth Heads of Government but the Commonwealth Finance Ministers.

    Ghana
    Mr. Robert G. Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what further support he proposes to give to Ghana's economic recovery plans.
    Mr. Chris Patten: I announced on 26 February a further £20 million of grant-aid to Ghana, which is linked to the continued maintenance of Ghana's economic recovery programme agreed with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. We have pledged a total of £69 million in support of the programme since it began in 1983.
    Mr. Hughes: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Will he reassure the House that the full effects of that programme will not fall on the poorest groups in Ghana?
    Mr. Patten: Yes, we regard that as particularly important. We commend the efforts being made by the Government of Ghana to try to design a programme which takes account of its impact on the poor. I very much hope that the health sector review which we are currently undertaking in Ghana will come up with proposals for work in primary health care, particularly regarding the health of mothers and children, and in family planning, both of which can make a considerable impact on the poor and poor groups.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Has the Minister noted that a number of British clearing banks have this year written off a substantial amount of Third-world debt? I presume that customers in Ghana have had their debts written off as well. Does he accept that in many ways this is a form of overseas aid? If so, would it not be better if the money were directed through decisions taken by the Government rather than by the private banking system?
    Mr. Patten: The hon. Gentleman must distinguish between the commercial debt owed by a number of countries and the debt owed to Governments and international financial institutions. In Africa overwhelmingly — the hon. Gentleman referred to it — one is talking about debt owed to Governments and financial institutions. There is, therefore, a particular onus on Governments to do something about that debt, as the Chancellor has made clear. What commercial banks do is a matter for their own judgment.

    Bilateral Aid
    Mr. Spearing: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what changes in procedure he has adopted concerning the effect of bilateral aid provisions on the poorest income groups in recipient countries since his reply to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs report on bilateral aid of October 1987 (Cm. 225)
    Mr. Chris Patten: I continue to keep under review those procedures designed to examine the impact of projects on the poorer groups. Our bilateral aid procedures already
    856
    include an assessment of poverty orientation, and explicit consideration is given to the impact of adjustment programmes on vulnerable groups.
    Mr. Spearing: Does the Minister recall that the Select Committee made a specific recommendation in paragraph 54 that greater priority should be given to aid which would directly attack poverty and include sustainable measures for that to be continued into the future? By saying that he keeps matters under review, is he not saying that he does not agree with the recommendation? If he does not agree with it, will he tell us why? If he does, what has he done about it?
    Mr. Patten: The hon. Gentleman is overlooking a number of projects that we already have that have a direct impact on poorer groups. I refer him to the Hyderabad slum improvement project, the Vishakhapatnam slum improvement project, the resettlement programme in Zimbabwe, and a score of others. However, I accept that we need to make sure that the impact on poverty is part of the routine evaluation, and we are ensuring that that the case. I would be happy to share more of the information about that with the Select Committee and with all those who are interested. This year we intend to commission specific evaluation studies on the subject of poverty impact.
    Mr. Tom Clarke: Does the Minister accept that it is very difficult to target aid at poverty in Third-world countries when we still have not resolved the problem of international debt? Bearing in mind what he said about the World Bank, does he accept that many African countries see the World Bank and its demands as part of their problems rather than as a solution to them? Would it not be better for the bank to come up with a strategy of debt relief instead of dealing with default in the interests of its own credit rating?
    Mr. Patten: Nothing would make us happier than to convince by tomorrow morning a number of other countries of the importance of implementing the sort of measures that we have been talking about since the spring of last year, such as writing off aid loans, rescheduling commercially guaranteed debts and lowering interest rates on those debts by countries which are pursuing sensible economic reform programmes. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the sooner there is progress on that, the better.

    Refugees
    Mr. Holt: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what further relief aid for refugees is planned for the current financial year; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Chris Patten: I have just agreed to provide £5 million, to be divided equally between the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross, for their refugee programmes in Ethiopia, Sudan and Malawi.
    That is in addition to the £1·25 million package of assistance I announced last month for these agencies' important programmes in Africa and Asia.
    Mr. Holt: Those additional funds in the current financial year will be very much welcomed. Will my hon.

    857
    Friend assure the House that the money is being properly spent and is in no way being misused by some of the people to whom it is sent?
    Mr. Patten: I can give my hon. Friend that important assurance. A sum of £2·5 million will be used by the International Committee of the Red Cross for work in Ethiopia. Another £300,000 will be used by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Ethiopia, and £700,000 in Sudan, and £1·5 million will go to help Mozambican refugees in Malawi.

  AIDS
  Mr. Hayward: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has for supporting the World Health Organisation's programmes for AIDS prevention in African countries.
  Mr. Chris Patten: Subject to parliamentary approval, we shall contribute £4·5 million this year to the central
  858
  budget of the World Health Organisation's global programme on AIDS, which is currently working with 44 countries in Africa. In addition, we have so far agreed to provide £3·6 million over five years, through the World Health Organisation, for national AIDS control programmes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
  Mr. Hayward: Has my hon. Friend any intention of giving further assistance to Africa, particularly to developing countries in Africa, during the next financial year or in future?
  Mr. Patten: Yes, we certainly intend to make further contributions to national programmes in African countries. For example, I hope that we will shortly be able to announce a reasonably substantial contribution towards the programme in Zambia. As my hon. Friend may know, at the moment we are the third largest contributor to the WHO global programme on AIDS. I hope that we shall continue to make a major contribution to that important programme.

Mr. Charles Powell
3.33 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is rare at any time for Hansard to put in a corrigendum, because it makes very few mistakes. It is even more rare for it to tuck in to column 840 on 11 March a corrigendum about which the Member concerned was unasked and unconsulted. It says:

CORRIGENDUM
Official Report, 8 March, Written Answers, c. 122: At line 10 from end of column, insert the following:

Mr. Charles Powell
Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Prime Minister when Mr. Charles Powell was appointed to her Private Office; and for how long he is expected to serve in that office.
The Prime Minister: Mr. Powell was appointed to my office in June 1984, and will serve until the time comes for him to leave."—[Official Report, 11 March 1988; Vol. 129, c. 840.]
[Laughter.] We are talking about a man who is so powerful that he is known in the Foreign Office, from whence he came, as the deputy Prime Minister.
Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman will address his point of order to me, I think I can deal with it.
Mr. Dalyell: Anything to do with the Prime Minister's Private Office is of increasing curiosity to many of us. The last thing she wants is this question on the Order Paper, which leads to the direct question of how Mr. Powell stays in office, basking in the Prime Minister's—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot answer matters of that sort. It may be helpful to the hon. Gentleman for me to say that this was a mistake by Hansard which, I agree, is a rare occurrence. If he tables a further question, he will not be penalised as a result of this.
Mr. Dalyell: Further to my point of order, Mr. Speaker. Could we have some explanation how this has happened on this sensitive subject? As you say, Hansard makes few mistakes—
Mr. Eric Forth: The hon. Gentleman is paranoid.
Mr. Dalyell: Paranoid possibly about the whole question why the Prime Minister's Private Secretary, according to the Select Committee, knew all about what had happened to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan).
Mr. Speaker: Order. That is as may be, but I have had the hon. Gentleman's complaint investigated. Hansard made a mistake. I regret that I do not know how it came about. I have already said to the hon. Gentleman that if he tables another question on this matter, it will certainly not be in jeopardy.
Mr. Dalyell rose—
Mr. Speaker: I cannot do anything else about it. [Interruption.] I shall take one more point.
Mr. Dalyell: Further to my point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is not this an area where there are many curious mistakes? How on earth did a letter Prom the Prime Minister's Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Education and Science find its way to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw)? Anything on this subject becomes a most extraordinary parliamentary happening and some of us do not think that, on this subject, that just happens by accident. These things happen for reasons—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have nothing else to add. I have investigated the hon. Gentleman's complaint and I cannot help him further.

Social Security Bill (Allocation of Time)
3.37 pm
Mr. Robin Cook: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Before we proceed with today's business may I invite you and the Table Office to confirm whether the proceedings adopted in today's business are within the precedents followed by the House? Page 456 of "Erskine May" deals with the provision of allocation of time orders and observes that such an order
"is not usually moved … until the rate of progress … has provided an argument for its necessity."
There has been no debate and no commencement to the proceedings on Lords amendments to the Social Security Bill, so there can be no argument founded on the rate of progress, or lack of it, on Lords amendments, for the necessity of this order.
Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I draw your attention to the fact that the Bill was not subject to a guillotine motion when it was before this House. May I invite you and the Table to confirm that there is no precedent for a guillotine motion being applied to Lords amendments to a public Bill for which there was no guillotine motion when it was before this House?
You are charged, Mr. Speaker, with defending the rights of minorities in this House. The use of the guillotine motion is the most extreme affirmation by the majority of its rights over minorities. If it is indeed the case that on both those counts today's motion breaks the precedents of this House and represents a substantial extension of the powers of the guillotine, would it not be appropriate to invite the Government to reflect on whether it is desirable to take this unprecedented step and, if necessary, to suspend the sitting so that they may reflect on it?
Mr. Speaker: As the House knows, I was present on Friday when this matter was raised, when the Leader of the House confirmed that this was an unusual procedure. However, I also noted the comment made by the shadow Leader of the House, who welcomed what was about to happen. So I do not think there is any reason why we should delay today.
Mr. Frank Dobson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It will be within your recollection, and certainly it is in Hansard— with due deference to my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)—that I said we thought it was regrettable that the Government were seeking to introduce a guillotine, and that on the day before I had said that we were dismayed at the short notice that my hon. Friends would have for putting forward amendments to the Bill.
Mr. Speaker: I would not wish in any way to misinterpret what the hon. Gentleman said but I draw his attention to his comments in column 783 of Hansard.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Nothing else arises.
As I was asked on Friday to look with careful consideration at the starred amendments on the Order Paper, I have selected them all. I must however, say to the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Ms. Primarolo), who tabled a manuscript amendment just before Question Time
862
that I have considered her amendment with great care but I regret that, for reasons unconnected with the shortage of time, I have been unable to select it.
Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have rightly referred to the statement made by the Leader of the House at 11 am on Friday, for which I was present. You will recall that, at that stage, he was seeking to persuade the House that the guillotine motion applying to the Lords amendments to the Social Security Bill had been agreed through the usual channels. I was therefore surprised to hear the 1 pm Radio 4 news, which quoted Government spokespersons as saying that the reason why the guillotine was being advanced was that the Government were afraid that Labour Members were going to seek to disrupt the proceedings of the House to the inconvenience of the Government.
So it would seem that the Government were most concerned that, because there was no time limit on the Lords amendments to the Social Security Bill, which were going to come after a debate on a Scottish housing measure, there would be some difficulty for the Budget. Therefore, we must question the true motives of the Government for putting forward the guillotine. It had nothing to do with the agreement of the Opposition and everything to do with the Government's concern that they might have been caused some inconvenience by Labour Members trying to debate a Bill that does great hardship to vast numbers of our constituents.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to reflect on whether this business should be allowed to proceed. I urge you to suspend the House to enable you to do that and to give the House an adequate opportunity to debate these amendments to the Bill, which does grave damage to a vast number of our constituents.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am bound to have regard to what was said on Friday. I call the Leader of the House.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. All these matters are exactly what should be debated on this motion.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Bob Cryer rose—
Ms. Dawn Primarolo rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) must not get on his feet and shout in that way.
Mr. Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was here on Friday. If he had been, he would know that every hon. Member who rose to question the Leader of the House had an opportunity to do so. I shall not take questions now that might well have been asked on Friday. I have already called the Leader of the House to move this motion. If the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish seeks to take part in the debate he may get a chance, but he must not make his point on a point of order.
3.44 pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Wakeham): I beg to move,
That the following provisions shall apply to the remaining proceedings on the Bill: —

Social Security Bill (Allocation of Time)

  Lords Amendments
  1. — (1) The proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion six hours after the commencement of the proceedings on this motion.
  (2) Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to those proceedings.
  (3) No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the coure of, the proceedings shall be made except by a member of the Government, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
  (4) If the proceedings are interrupted by a Motion for the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration), a period equal to the duration of the proceedings on the Motion shall be added to the period at the end of which the proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion.
  (5) If the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended before the expiry of the period at the end of which the proceedings are to he brought to a conclusion, no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a member of the Government for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.
  2. —(1) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1 above—

  (a) Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has already been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided and, if that Question is for the amendment of the Lords Amendment, shall then put forthwith the Question on any further Amendment of the said Lords Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown and on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in the said Lords Amendment, or, as the case may be, in the said Lords Amendment as amended;

  (b) Mr. Speaker shall then designate such of the remaining Lords Amendments as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall—

  (i) put forthwith the Question on any Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment and then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in their Amendment, or, as the case may be, in their Amendment as amended;

  (ii) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in a Lords Amendment;

  (iii) put forthwith with respect to the Amendments designated by Mr. Speaker which have not been disposed of the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendments; and

  (iv) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments;

  (c) as soon as the House has agreed or disagreed with the Lords in any of their Amendments Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith a separate Question on any other Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown relevant to that Lords Amendment.

  (2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) above shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

  Stages subsequent to first Consideration of Lords Amendment
  3. The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill shall be brought to a conclusion one hour after the commencement of those proceedings.
  4. For the purpose of bringing those proceedings to a conclusion—
  864

  (a) Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has already been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided, and shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the Chair.

  (b) Mr. Speaker shall then designate such of the remaining items in the Lords Message as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall—

  (i) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on any item;

  (ii) in the case of the remaining items designated by Mr. Speaker, put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in their said Proposals; and

  (iii) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.

  Supplemental
  5. — (1) In this paragraph "the proceedings" means proceedings on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill, on the appointment and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and the Report of such a Committee.
  (2) Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the consideration forthwith of the Message or, as the case may be, for the appointment and quorum of the Committee.
  (3) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.
  (4) Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings.
  (5) No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the proceedings shall be made except by a member of the Government and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
  (6) If the proceedings are interrupted by a Motion for the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) a period equal to the duration of the proceedings on the Motion shall be added to the period at the end of which the proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion.

  Interpretation
  6. In this Order 'the Bill' means the Social Security Bill. This motion is both familiar and novel.
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: On a point of order.
  Mr. Speaker: I am not taking points of order. I too heard on the radio today what were purported to be the tactics of this matter.
  Mr. Bennett: rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is a Front··Bench spokesman, and this kind of behaviour is not a good reflection on the Opposition.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. These are just the matters that we should properly discuss in the debate and not in points of order.
  Mr. Wakeham: It is familiar in that it is customary to provide a timetable for consideration in the House of amendments made—
  Mr. Dobson rose—
  Mr. Cryer rose—
  Mr. Bennett rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I will take only the point of order from the shadow Leader of the House.
  Mr. Dobson: On a point of order Mr. Speaker. I feel that some of my colleagues have been put at what can only

  865
  be described as a singular disadvantage. It was not until Friday morning that many hon. Members could possibly have known that the Government were to make a business statement at 11 o'clock on Friday. As the House recognises, on Fridays many hon. Members have engagements or go to their constituencies to meet engagements. Some of my hon. Friends find themselves in some difficulty when they are told that they should have raised points on Friday when the statement was made.
  In particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Ms. Primarolo) was aware that on Thursday, Mr. Speaker, you said that you would look sympathetically at manuscript amendments. She was in her constituency on Friday and submitted a manuscript amendment today as soon as she possibly could. She has some entitlement to raise this matter. [Interruption.] She is not arguing about the selection, because the original selection was made before she had the opportunity to submit her manuscript amendment. She is not challenging the first selection of amendments. However, she is trying to get the Bill used to benefit someone in connection with a problem in her constituency. It seems unreasonable to have expected her to attend on Friday when nobody had any reason to believe that on that day there would be a Government statement about business.
  Mr. Speaker: I have already said that the reason I have not been able to select the hon. Lady's manuscript amendment is unconnected with the time element. If she comes to see me I shall gladly explain the matter to her.
  Ms. Primarolo rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot do that publicly. I will gladly explain to her why her manuscript amendment was not selected.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. May I quote to the whole House, and especially to hon. Members who are rising and who, perhaps, were not here on Friday what the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) said at that time. I hope that he will allow me to do that. He said:
  "I thank the Leader of the House for making this late adjustment to our proceedings next week. It has the merit of providing a proper opportunity for the House to consider the Lords amendments to the Social Security Bill, and in particular it gives us the opportunity to endorse their proposals for the annual uprating of child benefit, which I hope will be agreed."
  In fairness to the hon. Gentleman, he went on to say:
  "We regret that the Government have decided that they need a guillotine motion to complete the business on Monday, which we think rather extraordinary. However, we welcome the opportunity to debate the important Lords amendments, and our amendments to them, without prejudicing the proceedings on the equally important Housing (Scotland) Bill at a later date." —[Official Report, 11 March 1988; Vol. 129, c. 783.]
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Ms. Primarolo: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. No point of order arises. The hon. Gentleman is a Front Bench spokesman and should seek to set an example to his Back-Bench colleagues. I am not prepared to call him on this matter. I call Mr. Wakeham.
  Mr. Wakeham: It is customary to provide a timetable for consideration in the House of amendments made to a Bill in another place.
  Ms. Primarolo: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: I have told the hon. Lady that if she will come and see me I shall gladly explain. She is a new Member. It has never been the practice for Mr. Speaker to give reasons for the non-selection of amendments in the Chamber. Exceptionally, I say to the hon. Lady that I will explain to her why I have been unable to accept the amendment that she submitted today. If she is patient, she may be able to make her point during a debate on one of the other amendments. I call Mr. Wakeham.
  Ms. Primarolo: It is not that. On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Wakeham: It is unique in that it has been possible to reach agreement on the amount of time for all stages of the Bill—
  Mr. Dave Nellist: There is a point of order over here.
  Mr. Wakeham: I leave it to the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) to deal with the question that raises about whether an Opposition generally find it effective tactics to agree that amount of time for almost all the consideration of a Bill except that stage when there is the least scope for a wide-ranging debate.
  The timetable motion was laid before the House on Friday—
  Mrs. Audrey Wise: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I say to the hon. Lady, who is also a Front Bench spokesman, that I can only—
  Mr. Cryer rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Please sit down.
  If the hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) is seeking to delay these proceedings, which have already commenced, it will be to the detriment of her colleagues. I will take the point of order only if it is a point of order for me.
  Mrs. Wise: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I understood that it was our responsibility to protect the rights of Back Benchers. Therefore, may I inquire how it happens that, in your wisdom, you take a point of order from a Front Bench spokesman, which relates to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Ms. Primarolo) wishes to raise, and do not let her speak for herself? Is it now the position in the House that some Back Benchers must speak via surrogates?
  Mr. Speaker: I shall remember carefully what the hon. Lady has said, if that poisition arises in her case. However, on the matter of her hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Ms. Primarolo), I know what her point of order is about. I am sorry that I have been unable to select her amendment.
  Mr. Nellist: You are not Gypsy Rose Lee. You are the Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: All right. If the point of order has nothing to do with my non-selection of the amendment, of course I shall hear the hon. Member for Bristol, South.
  Ms. Primarolo: The point of order that I wished subsequently to raise is exactly the one raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise). I understood, Mr. Speaker, that I was entitled to make my points of order to you and to ask you to reconsider a ruling that you had made. I was seeking to establish my right as a Back Bencher to raise a point of order. I would have thought that it would at least have been accepted that, as a Back-Bench Member, I could have put my point of order to the Chamber as well so that hon. Members would know why I wished to submit a manuscript amendment. I consider it quite out of order that I—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. That is just the point. I cannot accept amendments that are drafted as the hon. Lady has drafted hers. Mr. Wakeham.
  Mr. Wakeham: The timetable motion was laid before the House on Friday, and provides for a total of six hours' proceedings from the start of this debate. The minimum amount of time for consideration of the amendments will be three hours. If the Opposition really wish to debate the issues rather than the modalities, and keep the debate on this motion short, more time will be available for the amendments themselves. Either way, the motion provides a most generous amount of time when one considers that many of the 33 amendments made in another place are technical or uncontroversial, and that the Government are not seeking to reverse or amend the amendment providing for an annual review of child benefit.
  In total, the Bill has already received just over 90 hours' consideration in both Houses, including 19 sittings in Standing Committee, I am pleased that, like us, the Opposition regard this amount of time as satisfactory, and I trust they will be able to agree to today's arrangements also.
  The circumstances that have led us to move this motion will be fresh in the House's mind. On 3 March I announced that it was the intention we should be considering Lords amendments to the Social Security Bill today, and the Leader of the Opposition made no comment on that proposed arrangement. On 10 March I again announced this as the business to he taken today following the Housing (Scotland) Bill. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras then complained that we would be considering the Lords amendments today when the Bill's Third Reading in the other place occurred on 10 March. There then followed further discussions through the usual channels, and in response to my business statement on Friday 11 March the hon. Gentleman said that this adjustment to our business provided a proper opportunity for the House to consider the Lords amendments to this Bill.
  Mr. Madden: Will the Leader of the House confirm or deny that he authorised any information, following his statement last Friday, to be passed to the BBC on the reason why the motion was to be put today?
  Mr. Wakeham: I am not in the habit of talking about what I may or may not say to the BBC. I did not hear the programme at 1 pm, and I certainly said nothing of the sort to the BBC.
  I shall deal first with the original complaint, that the Bill comes before us too hastily from another place. As the House will be aware, a marshalled list of amendments was
  868
  available from the Vote Office on Friday morning. Twenty-nine of the 33 amendments have been available from 3 March or before—indeed, about two thirds of them have been available for the past month. Of the four amendments passed on Third Reading on 10 March, one was an amendment promised by the Government, one was simply a clarification and two were technical. None was opposed by the official Opposition.
  In any event, as I said on Friday, it is a perfectly usual practice for Lords amendments to a Bill to be taken in this House just a day or so after the Bill has left another place. Indeed, there have been occasions when they have been taken on the same day. Hon. Members who recall the debates on the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill in November 1976 will be well aware of that, and, of course, there are other examples too.
  The revised complaint of the Opposition, as I understand it, is that the business as originally agreed would not have provided for the Lords amendments to this Bill to be debated in "prime time". The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras set great store by this. Perhaps he should have a word with the present chairman of the parliamentary Labour party, the right hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme), who was less squeamish about these matters when we were debating the Lords amendment to the Labour Government's Social Security Bill on 19 March 1979. The right hon. Gentleman led the debate on the Lords amendments to this Bill—a debate that started at 10.17 pm. Nor were those proceedings a formality, with all the Lords amendments being agreed: on the contrary, there were Divisions, and the Government reversed one of the amendments.
  In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I should like to remind the House why it is important that this Bill should receive an early Royal Assent, and thus why we have arranged to take the Lords amendments immediately after the proceedings on this motion. The House has already agreed that 11 April should be the date on which the new schemes of income support and family credit should be implemented, and has approved the main regulations providing for this. But as a result of the proposals in this Bill, further regulations, subject to affirmative resolution, will be needed. Those regulations can be laid only after Royal Assent. We need to ensure that there is a proper opportunity for them to be considered by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments before they are debated in both Houses. Thus, it is important for us to proceed with this Bill today.
  On Friday last, before he had even seen the terms of the motion, the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras welcomed the revised business that I announced. I thanked the hon. Gentleman for his words then, and I hope that he will be able to carry his colleagues with him today.
  3.58 pm
  Mr. Frank Dobson: This is the fourth guillotine motion in recent weeks. The first three were designed to limit the debate on lengthy and complicated measures: the poll tax Bill, and the Bill to impose direct rule on our schools and colleges. Today, we have a guillotine just on the Lords amendments to the 19 clauses of the Social Security Bill.
  Why the rush? The answer is simple. A large part of the present Bill corrects cock-ups in the Social Security Act 1986. Much of that Act is timed to come into operation next month, so the Government are desperate for these

  869
  changes to go through before then. Not for the first time, we find ourselves in Westminster assembled to apply large dollops of parliamentary correcting fluid — legislative Tippex—to the Government's shoddily drafted and ill-thought-out social security laws: those laws that have been pushed through to rob the poor to give to the rich.
  Originally, the Government intended that these proposals should slip through in the dead of night, when it would be inconvenient for newspapers to report what had happened. Indeed, at the time of night originally envisaged, the number of journalists in the Press Gallery could probably have been counted on the fingers of one hand and, at a later hour, probably on the fingers of the Venus de Milo.
  The Government did not want these sordid, Scrooge-like proposals to receive publicity today because they did not relish the contrast to be made with how badly they are treating the badly off today with how well they intend to treat the well-off tomorrow on Budget day.
  On the day before the Chancellor of the Exchequer intends to line the pockets of his friends and colleagues, what does the Social Security Bill do? The Prime Minister recently preached that Budget day was about taking, not giving. She should know. This Bill is about taking away rather than giving. It takes away many existing rights of people in need—rights that they have received through existing laws, through paying tax and national insurance, and which were secured in court when they were denied them by mean-minded Ministers and the humiliating bureaucratic machinery of the DHSS.
  Among the people who will lose are epileptics, who will lose a maximum attendance allowance of £30 per week. People with severe industrial injuries will lose £19 a week. Young people aged 16 or 17 will be deprived of their right to benefit—a right that their parents have paid for for years.
  Decisions about uprating of child benefit will depend on the whim of the Secretary of State. In future, tens of thousands of children will not receive free school meals. People who are forced to retire early will have their unemployment benefit abated if their occupational pension is more than £35 per week. People who have paid in for benefits will have them taken away by a process that amounts to nothing less than legislative theft.
  Among the groups who will suffer most are police and fire fighters who are forced to retire early. I have received representations about this matter from the Soho fire station, whose crews played so heroic a part in the King's Cross underground fire. How typical it is of the Prime Minister and other Ministers to praise those fire fighters in front of the television arc lights but stab them in the back a few weeks later.
  My hon. Friends have done a magnificent job in highlighting the cruel consequences of the Bill and tabling amendments to secure justice for defenceless and vulnerable people.
  Mr. David Winnick: Does my hon. Friend agree that, at a time when the press is widely expecting the Chancellor to announce tax cuts and other benefits for the rich, it is almost obscene that we should be discussing Lords amendments to a Bill that will hit hard at some of the poorest people in the community, take away housing benefit and penalise those who have saved £6,000
  870
  for their retirement? The poorest will, at most, receive loans from the DHSS instead of the present arrangements for bedding, furniture and other such matters.
  Mr. Dobson: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I am sure that he and others will take this opportunity to highlight the contrasts.
  Unfortunately, the work of most of my hon. Friends in changing this Bill has been in vain. But it is never in vain to speak the truth and to defend the defenceless, and I commend their spirited opposition. They will deal with much of the detail of the Bill, so I shall confine myself to two aspects — a universal benefit and a means-tested entitlement.
  Child benefit has not been uprated with inflation. As a result, mothers lose about £30 per year per child. Some Tories have argued that universal benefits, such as child benefit, should be abolished and as an example, they say that the Duchess of Westminster does not need the few pounds of child benefit. I concede that she does not but, by the same token, her husband, the Duke of Westminster, did not need the tax changes that have added millions of pounds to his wealth over the past few years. He received those tax cuts, and they were worth a lot more than anybody's child benefit.
  The House of Lords has passed an amendment that requires the Government to review the level of child benefit in April each year, taking account of increases in the retail price index and other factors. That is a welcome improvement to the Bill, but it does not oblige the Government to take any action after they have carried out the review, so my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) has tabled an amendment to require the Government to increase child benefit in line with a review.
  If the Government refuse to accept that amendment, they will reveal their grotesque priorities by rejecting today a non-means-tested universal benefit paid to the mother so that they can selectively put even more money into the pockets of the super-rich tomorrow. The Tories talk of targeting rather than universal benefits. People should not forget that they have a long-term target—to line the pockets of their friends by means of tax handouts and tax fiddles.
  In even more stark contrast to the much-heralded Budget bonanza is the fact that in April almost 500,000 of the poorest children in the country will no longer be able to have free school meals. Children from families currently on family income supplement will no longer receive free school meals. Instead, the parents will receive £2·55 per week in lieu of free school meals. That works out at 51p per day. That Sip will buy a primary school meal in just nine education authorities in England, Scotland and Wales — all of which, I need hardly add, are Labour-controlled.
  Tories argue that because the £2·55 is paid all year and not just during term time it in some way makes up, but even if we share the annual total only over term time it comes to just 66p per school day. The princely sum of 66p per day will not buy a primary school meal in the following authorities: Bexley, Enfield, Harrow, Merton, Isles of Scilly, Avon, Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Devon, East Sussex, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Isle of Wight, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Warwickshire, West Sussex, Wiltshire, Bolton, Stockport, Sefton, Rotherham,

  871
  Dyfed, Powys. In none of those areas will 66p buy a primary school meal. Ministers may smirk, but 66p would not even buy the starters for their average meal. The weekly payment of £2·55 probably would not buy it. They should not smirk at the fact that those skinflint authorities, nearly all of whom are Tory-controlled, will ensure that some of the poorest children cannot buy a meal for 66p.
  At least families on family credit will receive some money in lieu of the free school meals. Whether that money will reach all the children concerned is a different matter. Tories talk about targeting, but if they want to target food into the stomachs of the poorest children, surely the best way is to put food into their mouths.
  Families on family credit will not be the worst sufferers from these changes. The worst off will be those children — over 170,000 — who at present receive free school meals at the discretion of their local education authority. This centralising Government are to take away that local discretion, on the grounds that already many skinflint Tory authorities do not use it. As a result, over 170,000 children will not receive free meals any more. Those children include over 21,000 in Strathclyde, over 15,000 in ILEA, over 9,000 in Lancashire, over 8,000 in Manchester, over 6,000 in Cleveland, over 5,000 in Birmingham, Sheffield, Sunderland and Leicestershire, over 4,000 in Bradford, Liverpool, Derbyshire and Humberside, over 3,000 in Leeds, Newcastle upon Tyne, Avon, North Yorkshire, Gwent and West Glamorgan and over 2,000 in Barnsley, Kirklees, St. Helens, Sandwell, Wakefield, Wigan and Cheshire.
  When people see film of yuppies celebrating their tax concessions after tomorrow's Budget, they should remember that the champagne will be paid for from money that should be spent on giving poor chidren a decent midday meal. All this comes from a Government who claim to promote family life and Christian values.
  Of course, we know that the Prime Minister subscribes to some peculiar theological views. These were best demonstrated when she amazed Sunday viewers of "Weekend World" in 1980 with the words:
  "No one would have remembered the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well."
  What will the badly off people affected by the Social Security Bill think of tomorrow's Budget? Tomorrow will show that the Chancellor has the money but lacks the good intentions. The Government fall a long way short of the standards of the Good Samaritan. They do not even live up to the standards of the Levite and the priest who just passed by on the other side. The only characters in the Good Samaritan parable whom the Government resemble are the thieves who mugged the poor traveller in the first place.
  4.10 pm
  Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: I declare an interest: the Scottish Labour party spent the weekend in my constituency and that, I assume, is why no members of that party were here on Friday. When the new business was announced by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, the only Scottish Member to raise the extremely important matter of why Scottish business had been summarily postponed was the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Steel), the leader of his party, whatever name it has now. The right hon.
  872
  Gentleman made, for once, a righteous expression of indignation but he directed it to the wrong person. He said that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House
  "owes Scottish Members rather more of an explanation and an apology for disrupting the business of the House at such short notice."
  He said that that was because
  "The Housing (Scotland) Bill is both complicated and contentious." —[Official Report, 11 March 1988; Vol. 129, c. 783.]
  I do not think that that was an explanation which, with his usual diplomacy, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House was willing to give, so perhaps I may speculate on what I believe my right hon. Friend would have said with integrity and honesty if convention had not prevented him. He would have said that the business of the House was announced by him on Thursday, as usual, having been agreed, as usual, through the usual channels.
  That matter was not challenged — [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If it was not agreed, it is extraordinary that it was not challenged by the Leader of the Opposition before he set off to my constituency the following day to give a speech which those present said was either too long, by about 50 minutes, or was wrong in every other way. I must, however, distinguish the right hon. Gentleman; of all the Labour party members who went to my constituency, he was the only one who had the civility to say that he was going to do so.
  Mr. Kenneth Hind: On my hon. and learned Friend's point about the usual channels, perhaps my hon. and learned Friend would like to look at the bottom of column 785 of Friday's Hansard. when my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet (Mr. Batiste) said to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House:
  "The contribution from the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) demonstrated clearly the difficulties faced by the usual channels in reaching agreement on business."
  From a sedentary position the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) said:
  "The usual channels—what do they matter?" —[Official Report, 11 March 1988; Vol. 129, c. 785.]
  Mr. Fairbairn: I appreciate that that is the position, but I do not think that even the bucking bronco attitude of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) gave rise to the difficulties. The Leader of the Opposition found when he spoke in my constituency at the weekend that he could not prevent Scottish Labour Members from promising, threatening and insisting that it was their duty to break the law rather than pay the community tax, which is already provided for in legislation, and he also found himself in difficulty in the House the night before.
  It is obvious that the agreement among the usual channels to have Scottish business considered today could not be delivered by the Opposition Front Bench. Why could the Opposition Front Bench not do so? After all, we are in one of those marvellous situations when the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), who has a Scottish seat, leads for the Opposition on the Social Security Bill and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) leads for the Opposition on the Housing (Scotland) Bill. We were told in Committee on the Housing (Scotland) Bill that this was a vital and essential matter. Therefore, the subject narrows not to the bucking of the hon. Member for Bolsover about the usual channels but to two Scots, each preening for superior position today.

  873
  The hon. Member for Livingston imagined that he could keep the House up all night and defeat the Budget, through some spurious tactical activity, similar to today's day of action, which is depriving hundreds and thousands of patients of operations and care — [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] Yes, indeed. So far this year up to the day of action, 2,447 operations have been postponed in Scotland, and those patients will have to suffer pain, thanks to health workers who do not give a fig for them.
  Let us be clear that here was a little jousting between two tartan Socialists — one who wanted to carry out what he imagined was a clever tactical ambush, by having the Social Security Bill considered late at night, and the other who did not want that to happen because he would be deprived of the opportunity to consider the Housing (Scotland) Bill. Alas, these two tartan Socialists in the end deprived their party of the ordinary integrity of the usual channels and brought the House to cancel Scottish important business and to this guillotine motion.
  Mr. Sam Galbraith: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Fairbairn: I shall give way in a moment.
  We were told that it was a matter of great importance. We were told that it was important that the Opposition should have a whole day's debate on the matter. Where are they? How many are here?
  Mr. Peter Thurnham rose—
  Mr. Fairbairn: There was an article to whose terms I did not subscribe.
  Mr. John McAllion rose—
  Mr. Galbraith: The hon. and learned Gentleman is quite wrong. The Housing (Scotland) Bill, has not been cancelled. It has been postponed. Does he agree that that is to our advantage? Opposition Members do not want the Housing (Scotland) Bill, and the longer we postpone it, the better for the people of Scotland. It is a victory for Opposition Members and the hon. and learned Gentleman should realise that.
  Mr. Fairbairn: I regret to say that it is not a victory for any members of the Scottish Labour party, first, that they have frustrated their Front Bench, as they so consistently do, and, secondly, that they did so after a weekend in Perth in which they spent their time saying that they were not interested in Parliament, but were going to take the law into their own hands. They said that they would have assemblies and Select Committees of their own and that they were going to break the law, whatever the Leader of the Opposition said. It will be of no advantage to the Scots when they are "liberated" from having to live in a council house if they cannot move from their job.
  Mr. Winnick: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My point of order is not the one made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden), which may or may not be relevant, as you consider appropriate. Perhaps you could remind the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) what business we are debating at the moment.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman will address himself to the motion before the House.
  Mr. Fairbairn: The remarkable thing is that, of course, I know what business we are debating at the moment, but the majority of the Labour party clearly does not, because it is absent.
  As I was saying before I gave way, there was an article which alleged that matters that the Labour party claimed to be matters of principle were not sufficiently important for them to come to the Chamber and debate them. If the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) was speaking with any integrity, I assume that the Lords amendments to the Bill and the timetable motion are matters that go deep to the heart of Opposition philosophy and their political, democratic fight in this Chamber, yet the whole of the House is brought back, important Scottish business is interrupted and there is almost no one here. That speaks for itself. It shows that it was humbug.
  It shows that, the usual channels having agreed business, the deal was broken because of a petty squabble between two Scottish Members of Parliament who spend the week proclaiming that they speak for Scotland so much that they will set up little Governments of their own and have them travelling around Scotland, pretending that they are running the country when they cannot even turn up for Scottish business. They wreck the business and do not even turn up for the business for which they wrecked it. If that is not hypocrisy, I do not know what is. Once again, the Opposition, Scottish and English, is disgraced.
  4.23 pm
  Mr. Ronnie Fearn: Last week, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you heard a number of points of order about the timetable for the Local Government Bill. Several hon. Members said that they had been given insufficient time to table amendments to the Lords amendments to that Bill. I believe that there had been about three days between Third Reading in the Lords and our debate on their amendments. There was not much time adequately to draft amendments to the Lords amendments which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said, are, by their nature, extremely difficult to draft.
  However, that timetable was a positive luxury compared with the proposal for the Social Security Bill. The Minister for Social Security and the Disabled wrote to the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), outlining the Government amendments, on Wednesday and sent me a copy of the letter, but the Third Reading in the Lords took place on Thursday and those amendments were not published until Friday, which did not allow even two working days before this debate.
  Many hon. Members, particularly those who come from the north, like myself, have to make prior travel arrangements and attend to business in their constituencies on a Friday. It makes it extremely difficult for us to work effectively if parliamentary business is conducted in this way. To make matters worse, the business was changed on Friday when many hon. Members could not even be present.
  The powers of Parliament in respect of the Executive have been consistently eroded by the Government, and their cavalier attitude towards the business of the House is one of the worst examples of that. The Government have deliberately set out to frustrate the Opposition parties' attempts to analyse the Bill and to present effective and well-considered amendments. The Government may

  875
  consider that the Bill is just another part of their crowded legislation package which can be forced through at high speed, but it is an extremely important piece of legislation that will push many people, particularly young people, into unacceptable poverty. The Bill should be properly debated in a democratic way in which all the arguments can be heard. Sadly, that has not been the experience today.
  In a few days' time, the full force of the Social Security Act 1986 will be experienced. All the fears that I and my colleagues have expressed about that legislation will no longer be a matter of conjecture, but a chilling and unpleasant reality for millions of people. Young people will probably be the hardest hit by those measures. In the next few months, this country will see juvenile destitution on a scale not witnessed since the Victorian era. Many young people will simply be left with no alternative but to live by begging, petty theft, debt or even prostitution. The Bill, with its proposal to remove income support from most 16 to 17-year-olds, will greatly worsen the situation.
  In a previous debate, I said that the measure is using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut because it is aimed at the so-called workshy, yet the evidence is that the work-shy are few and far between. I have not changed my opinion during the Bill's progress. It will unfairly penalise many young people and force them into dependency on their parents and to take up YTS places that may be wholly unsatisfactory. In an enlightened age, we should be giving our young people greater choice. The Bill does the very opposite.
  Mr. Madden: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can the records show that, although the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) castigated the House for the very poor attendance, he has himself just left the Chamber?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: As the hon. Gentleman knows, that is not a matter for the Chair.
  Mr. Fearn: I know that it is not up to me to accept that point of order, but I realise that there is a great deal of truth in it.
  Mr. Hind: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can the record now show that my hon. and learned Friend has returned from the Vote Office?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Both hon. Members now have their points on the record.
  Mr. Fearn: My greatest fear is for young people who may have escaped the family home to avoid child abuse or domestic violence or who may have been thrown out by a step-parent. They may still be able to claim income support at the discretion of the Secretary of State, but they may be too distressed or too immature to tackle that complicated process.
  I am also worried about the position of young people who may be living in sheltered housing while they are on probation or fighting drug abuse. I have spoken to charities which are able to provide support for young people in difficult circumstances because they are claiming supplementary benefit. Charities are extremely worried that when 16 and 17-year-olds are no longer eligible for income support they will no longer be able to pay their rents.
  Such charitable institutions will not be able to provide a refuge for nothing. Much as they will regret it, they will
  876
  have no alternative but to turn people on to the streets. I shall be interested to hear what the Secretary of State has to say on the matter.
  There will be considerable anger and frustration when income support is introduced in April, and, to their amazement, young people discover that they are expected to live on less money than others who are perhaps a few days older. That is ridiculous. There are many grotesque examples of what the changes will mean. In a few weeks, we shall see the reality of the situation.
  For example, there will be cases in which two brothers in the same circumstances sharing a flat might find themselves on different rates of benefit, purely because one is a year older. They will simply not understand the reason for that, because there is no good reason.
  It was no surprise to me to read reports in the newspapers that some benefit officers are being fitted with strengthened glass screens. Regrettably, frustration will sometimes manifest itself in physical violence. I am concerned—I expressed this worry in Committee—that DHSS employees may have to bear the brunt of that anger.
  People under 18 will be in a worse position, even if they get benefit. It is estimated that, after deductions for heating and lighting, they will have just £6·20 a week on which to live, including buying food and clothes. That is an absolute disgrace to a civilised society.
  The nature of the social fund and the cuts in housing benefit will exacerbate the growing poverty in this country. It will hit the poorest people in Britain. That the Government can do that and claim to have clear consciences amazes me. I presume that, tomorrow, the Government will cut taxes for the better-off in our society. What a grim irony it will be that, in three weeks, they will start cutting benefits for the worst-off in our society. A Marplan poll today shows that 84 per cent. of the British public can think of better things to spend extra money on than tax cuts. The country will make a judgment about the legislation and will find the Government guilty of a lack of compassion.
  4.32 pm
  Mr. Simon Burns: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me. I confess that I feel a certain sadness at having to speak to a guillotine motion, not only because of its sudden appearance in our business but because it demonstrates that something has clearly gone wrong. I am a new enough hon. Member still to believe that, when business questions are announced on a Thursday, there has been consultation with what is known as the usual channels. It seems odd that, less than 24 hours after business questions last week, the Social Security Bill business was changed. There was no mention of it by the right hon. Leader of the Opposition during business questions on Thursday.
  Mr. John Battle rose—
  Mr. Burns: I shall finish this part of my speech, and then give way.
  There is much speculation about what has been going on behind the scenes. But, from reading newspapers and hearing people talk, it seems that there was a concerted plot by certain Opposition Members to try to sabotage tomorrow's debate on the Budget — a Budget which, presumably, will be good for all people. We do not know

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  its contents, so it is ridiculous to speculate until we have heard it. It seems that there was a concerted plan by certain Opposition Members to string out tonight's business until tomorrow and sabotage the Bill. The Opposition Chief Whip discovered the plot. Being an honourable man, he had to go to the Government and say that he could not stand by the undertakings that were given about the business.
  Mr. Robin Cook: I intervene if only to introduce a note of reality into the debate. The hon. Gentleman is the second Conservative Member to say that the matter was not raised during business questions. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was present for business questions last Thursday, but, if he consults Hansard, he will find that the first thing that was said by my hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House was:
  "Will he reconsider his proposal that we debate the Lords amendments to the Social Security Bill on Monday? … Surely that is unreasonable." —[Official Report, 10 March 1988; Vol. 129, c. 521.]
  Mr. Burns: It is quite— [Interruption.] Opposition Members are speaking from a sedentary position. I should never have had the foolishness to give way to the hon. Gentleman to make his intervention.
  It is sad that we must waste three hours this evening debating the guillotine motion. That time could have been better spent discussing housing in Scotland and social security measures. That is the issue. The Opposition are trying to be irresponsible and mess up the business. Opposition Member should not treat the House in that way.
  Mr. Battle rose—
  Mr. Hind rose—
  Mr. Burns: I shall give way to my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Hind: It will not have passed the notice of my hon. Friend's that, because of what took place on Thursday, the Opposition Chief Whip has had the good grace to absent himself from the debate and prevent himself from suffering any further embarrassment.
  Mr. Burns: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. The Opposition Chief Whip's position is up to him. I suspect that there is an element of truth in what my hon. Friend said.
  Mr. Dobson: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Lancashire, West sneak to smear—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman realises that that was not a parliamentary expression. I ask him to rephrase his remark.
  Mr. Dobson: If it is out of order to call the hon. Gentleman a sneak, I happily withdraw, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I remind you that he was the hon. Member who ran to tell the press that he saw one of my hon. Friends and one of my right hon. Friends having an argument in the Tea Room. Nevertheless, it is surely not in order for him to peddle untruths about the reason for the absence of my hon. Friend the Opposition Chief Whip. My hon. Friend has an engagement in his constituency today. He has had that engagement for a considerable time—long before Friday, when the Government changed today's business.
  Mr. Burns: As a member of the Standing Committee that examined the Social Security Bill, I can confirm what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said. In this House and in another place, there have been 90 hours of debate on the Bill. It was exhaustively discussed in Committee. I suspect that no Opposition Member who served on the Standing Committee could say that enough time was not given to discussing all the points that the Opposition wished to raise. Cynical politics brought us to the position in which we must debate a guillotine motion, to stop us from being dragged through the night to stop tomorrow's business.
  Guillotine motions that are forced upon the Government raise serious questions about certain aspects of how business is conducted in the House. I strongly recommend hon. Members to read the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell) in the previous guillotine debate. He rightly suggested that we should debate the procedures of the House.
  Of course everyone will accept that it is the Government's duty to propose legislation and get it through the House of Commons and on to the statute book. It is the Opposition's duty to oppose legislation. We would accept that responsible opposition to Government proposals is part of our constitution. However, I would argue that it is not part of our constitution or the workings of this House that the Opposition—or certain factions of the Opposition—should try to make political capital, to disrupt our proceedings and to cause the problems that we were to face today, until the Government stepped in. For those reasons, I shall support the Government in getting the guillotine.
  4.39 pm
  Mr. Bill Michie: I did not realise that one small meeting of one or two of my Front Bench colleagues, and a few of my Back Bench colleagues, could have so much power and influence that it could make the Government change the business for the day. It is the first time that I have known that. Obviously, we are beginning to make an impact in this House. It is absolutely incredible — [Interruption.] Well, Conservative Members say that we are thin on the ground, but we need only two of us to take the lot of them on. That is all we need because the Government do not have a leg to stand on.
  When the debate started, in points of order, Mr. Speaker actually quoted what the Leader of the House said, which was that it was unusual— [Interruption.] No, it was what the Leader of the House said on Friday morning.
  Why did the Government have to do this? Is it because they are afraid of the Housing (Scotland) Bill? I do not think so, but perhaps they are. However, it was not because we could "knacker up" the Budget day debate, if that is the right word, Mr. Speaker. No, it was because we could expose more and more of the Social Security Bill's inequities and the effect that it will have on our people.
  This afternoon we have the diabolical situation when my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Ms. Primarolo), who has an amendment which is very much relevant to the debate, could not even table it. That is a shame because we are talking about the devastating effects of the Bill on many thousands of our people. Those effects will be unbelievable, yet we are not even allowed to debate it for as long as we should. There are 32 Government

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  amendments, but we have a guillotine before we even start. That is the sort of courage that the Government demonstrate today.
  The Secretary of State is so courageous that he does not think it important to be here—[Interruption.] Never mind our Chief Whip. The Secretary of State is not even here—[HON. MEMBERS: "Yes, he is here. Withdraw."] Well, I will apologise, but I have seen him so little, and never in Committee, that I did not recognise him. I now know the Secretary of State's face and will not make that mistake again. Is that him?
  The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. John Moore)indicated assent.
  Mr. Michie: Yes, it is.
  The effects of the Bill are, to say the least, wide-ranging. It will have effects on income support, housing benefit, single payments, and night-time attendance allowances. [Interruption.] Some of the Conservative Members who are speaking about the Bill's virtues never opened their mouths in Committee. Night-time attendance allowances mean that one must prove whether one is up all night, not going to bed but looking after one's loved ones. Those are the mean issues in the Bill.
  The Bill also relates to industrial injuries. It does not matter now whether one loses a finger or two—it is all par for the course. Death benefits have already gone out of the window so far as industry is concerned. The Bill will give discretionary powers to the Secretary of State, just like in local government legislation and in many other pieces of legislation. When discretionary powers are given to the Secretary of State, some poor individual who already has problems because of unemployment or injury, has to go through the hoops of trying to get to the Secretary of State to have a statement or at least a judgment made in his or her favour.
  The Bill also provides for the cash-limiting of the social fund. I thought that any indivdual in this country had the fundamental right at least to appeal to an indepdent tribunal to ascertain whether the Government were being unfair to him. However, that has now gone out of the window also and yet we have a guillotine.
  We discussed those issues chapter and verse in Committee without any hope of getting them through. Even now, when the Bill has been discussed by the House of Lords, we are not allowed the long debate that we believe is necessary. The Bill is being railroaded through on a guillotine on the day before the Budget.
  Before the debate started I went to the Library and asked, "How much has the DHSS building across the road coast?" Does anyone have any idea?
  Mr. Madden: £37 million.
  Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West): £46 million.
  Mr. Michie: Yes, it is nearly £46 million.
  Mr. Banks: Yes, I have got it right.
  Mr. Michie: It has cost £41,800,000, from an estimate of £29 million. It has cost £41 million for a luxury building to house the Secretary of State's staff so that they can bring more and more diabolical legislation to rob the poor—[AN HON. MEMBER: "The Secretary of State is to have his own bathroom."] Yes, he needs his own bathroom to have a bath every five minutes because of the crap that we have to put up with—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Michie: I have no doubt that the people who will suffer from the legislation will get to know exactly what this is about. I shall not apologise to them and say, "We fought the good fight in the House," because, frankly, we have not been given the opportunity to do so.
  I should like to vote on many of the Lords amendments because I want to be able to name those hon. Members who vote against amendments, which would at least protect our people.
  When it comes to the crunch, if Conservative Members believe in democracy, in freedom and in people having democratic rights, they should give us the opportunity to debate those rights and at least win the argument on a fair basis.
  4.46 pm
  Mr. John Redwood: We are witnessing today a drama which I think has been plotted for many weeks. It is a drama that the Opposition have long-planned, because they cannot bear the fact that we are about to see a Budget which will lower borrowing, cut taxes and endorse large increases in public spending, all at the same time. Those pubic spending increases were announced in the usual way in the Autumn Statement.
  We are also witnessing the Opposition's blind folly in trying to oppose the detailed regulations and amendments to the social security legislation at a time when staff in DHSS district offices throughout the country need to know the shape of those regulations so that their advance plans can go ahead and people can receive the benefits that they need—the loans and grants that are affected by the system. Let us look —
  Mr. Nellist: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the regulations that he is so afeared that the district offices of the DHSS will not be able to understand are products of a 1986 Act, and that it is the fact that the Government could not get it right in 1986 that has brought forward these amendments to the 1988 Bill?
  Mr. Redwood: I am well aware of that. I am sure that the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) is also well aware that the amendments are changed by the provisions of this latest piece of social security legislation. The district offices are well aware that social security legislation is making its way through the House. They need to know exactly what has been agreed by the House in good time for the April deadline.
  Mrs. Margaret Beckett rose—
  Mr. Redwood: I should like to deal with this point first and then I shall give way.
  Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman said that he was worried about people in those offices not knowing; but is he aware that his case would be stronger if the Government themselves were not amending the legislation as late as Thursday night in the House of Lords?
  Mr. Redwood: The amendments are necessary to make the system clear and effective. It is important that the offices know the final wishes of the House in good time. I went to my local office to see what was planned because I had heard Opposition Members making such a fuss about alleged attacks on the poor and those who need benefits.
  I asked my local district office manager, first, how much he was budgeting under the social fund for grants

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  and interest-free loans for the next financial year. He said that they had been allocated £147,000. I then asked him how much the office anticipated spending in the current financial year. That should be a fairly accurate figure because there is little of the current financial year left. He said that the anticipated spend in 1987–88 was £120,000.
  Of course, circumstances have changed through those two years as unemployment has fallen further. In any case, I am blessed to be in an area of low unemployment. Therefore, one of the main categories of need is reducing at exactly the point when the budgeted spend could rise by as much as £27,000 on a budget of £120,000.
  Mrs. Alice Mahon rose—
  Mr. Redwood: I find it difficult to understand why Opposition Members claim that they are trying to break the bank and show how mean it is when there are such large increases in the social security budget.
  Mr. Nellist: In this case the budget for the loans that will be set from April for social security offices is apparently £27,000 higher than the expected spend this year, but that budget is based on the fact that, within the past 12 months, substantial cuts have been made in the areas for which grants and loans are given. The single payments system, for example, has been radically changed this year. The hon. Gentleman is not comparing like with like. The actual needs in his area probably far and away exceed the budget of £147,000 that he has quoted.
  Mr. Redwood: One can hardly say that the system is ungenerous when there has been such a large cash increase. I am aware of the changes in the nature of the benefit—[Interruption.] The Opposition are behaving absurdly. They do not want to listen to what I say in answer to the interventions that I have taken, but they should. I am well aware that there have been changes in the system of benefit payments. However, I hops that the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East is aware that a series of premiums have been introduced to deal with special needs and special categories so that such people will receive more in their basic benefit than they did before.
  Mrs. Mahon: The hon. Gentleman has spoken about preparing for April. They are preparing well in my constituency. Security has been strengthened at benefit offices against the fear of increased violence towards staff. Reinforced glass has been introduced. DHSS staff say that many people will be sent away empty-handed. That is especially true in my constituency where, in spite of last year's cut, we will lose more than £500,000. Not everyone's constituency will benefit as much as the hon. Gentleman's. The hon. Gentleman should thank the Minister for that because the Minister was politically selective about who got what.
  Mr. Redwood: The hon. Lady does not mention that unemployment in her constituency is down to 7 per cent., and falling. Therefore, one of the main categories of need in her constituency has also been reduced. I am not aware of the exact figures in her constituency, but the national figures show that, once again, the totals to be dispersed under the social security budget are to increase.
  Those increases are occurring at a time when the main category of need in the past, the unemployed, is reducing
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  rapidly across the country. Opposition Members do not wish to recognise that, because it is another example of the economic success that they detest.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Redwood: I have given way twice to the hon. Gentleman, and I must make some progress because we are talking about the timetable motion and time is short.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Redwood: The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat because I am not giving way again. He has had a fair crack of the whip on this occasion. Indeed, I wish that some of the Whips on the Opposition Benches would give him a fair crack of the whip so that we would have more discipline regarding business in the House.
  There is a large amount of circumstantial evidence with regard to the Budget-wrecking strategy adopted by the Opposition. I began my speech by saying that I believed that this drama had been plotted for a long time, and I invite the House to consider the evidence.
  First of all, we have had the long-running campaign about money for the Health Service. That demand followed a huge increase in resources in the autumn, another injection of cash around Christmas and a clear statement from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury about the need to consider financing the pay awards when we know the magnitude of those pay awards. Many Conservative Members welcomed that statement from my right hon. Friend, and they agree that the right time to consider money for the Health Service in relation to the contingency fund is when we know how much the wages bill will cost the Health Service budget.
  Opposition Members pretend to forget the way in which Government business is conducted and say that Budget day should be Health Service day, but everyone knows that, under our constitution, Budget day deals with taxes. The Autumn Statement is to do with spending. The Opposition's deliberate unwillingness to accept those facts is a sign that they cannot stand the thought of a good Budget that produces reductions in taxation.
  The second part of the drama has been the Opposition's efforts to promote the debate on welfare benefits following 90 hours in Committee, extensive debate on Second Reading and extensive debate on the 1986 Act — the genesis and main departing point for the existing benefit system. Again, I am forced to believe that the Opposition are trying to ensure that the Budget is, in some way, pre-empted by a debate that has already taken place about legislation that is well advanced in its passage through the House.
  What is even more disconcerting about this deliberate plot is that it is augmented by backtracking on what is or is not agreed by the usual channels concerning the business of the House. Judging by the empty Opposition Benches, it is especially inconvenient to many Opposition Members to have this change in business. However, it was at the Opposition's instigation that the business was changed. I am sure that the Government were happy with the business as proposed. We would have been quite happy to deal with Scottish housing. We always hear from Scottish Opposition Members about how important Scotland is, and we were happy to have an early and timely debate on Scottish housing. We would have been happy to stay up until a reasonable hour tonight to debate the important amendments to the social security legislation.
  Mr. Battle: If the hon. Gentleman's argument is correct, why did the Government change the business and call us back? The Opposition do not control the agenda. Surely the truth of the matter is that the Government wanted to squeeze out our opposition to the measure and ensure that it is not properly discussed in the House.
  Mr. Redwood: I am sure that the Government changed the business because they believed that the Opposition could not deliver, through the usual channels, the agreement that the Government thought had been struck. It is impossible to conduct sensible democratic debate and give everyone a fair hearing if the usual channels cannot deliver some order to our proceedings. Of course, time will always be limited and it is a precious commodity. To have a successful Opposition as well as a successful Government one needs a disciplined Opposition who can deliver their votes and marshal their resources at the right time to make their contribution to the debate.
  As a direct result of the Opposition's inability to discipline their troops, they will have less time to debate the important measures relating to social security than they could have had under the previous arrangements. It was a suspicion that they were not interested in debating those measures and more interested in filibustering and extending business to make the Budget fall that led to this timetable motion.
  I am sure that the Opposition will now criticise the fact that I am about the leave the Chamber — [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I must see constituents who have come a long way—
  Mr. Cryer rose—
  Mr. Redwood: I shall give way in a minute.
  I have a pre-arranged meeting with my constituents about health. That subject is extremely important to my constituents and to me. Rest assured, the Opposition will not have to contain themselves for long because, as soon as I have concluded that meeting, I shall be back to listen to this important debate and support the Government in their motion to produce order out of disorder.
  4.57 pm
  Mr. Bob Cryer: This afternoon's debate is an example of the elective dictatorship trampling on Back Benchers' rights. That occurs frequently, but it is an outrage when it involves legislation that affects the poorest of our nation.
  The legislation that we have been asked to rush through as a result of the timetable motion abolishes single payments for essential items. Those absolute luxury items include such things as, curtains, carpets, ovens and beds. I recently approached the DHSS on behalf of a constituent to ask that a single-parent family with two children under three should be given money for carpets and curtains. My constituent said that, without curtains, she had no privacy and that if her children fell on bare boards they could be injured and that therefore there was a serious risk to health. However, it was pointed out that she had been in the tenancy longer than 28 days and that therefore she did not qualify because of the existing tight rules.
  Mr. Tony Banks: My hon. Friend mentions single payments and the fact that they are to go. Is it not ironic that the Prime Minister, who is behind all this, receives free curtains, free bedding and free televisions for No. 10 Downing street and in her other residence provided by the
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  taxpayer? However, the Government are prepared to take that payment away from poor people in my borough of Newham.
  Mr. Cryer: That is why it is such an outrage that the people who are pushing through this timetable motion have no regard for the poor, and are busy, in many instances, not only receiving their parliamentary salary but lining their pockets from parliamentary directorships of one sort or another. The hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) who has just exhibited such singularly tender mercies for the poorest of our nation has directorships in two companies—Norcross plc and N. M. Rothschild and Sons. It would have been a better measure of his concern if he had told us what income he receives from these directorships so that we may know what experience he has of life and of the difficulties of getting by on a few pounds a week.
  There will be others voting in the Lobby tonight for the legislation and for the curtailment of debate to limit the information coming out of this place when we use it as a platform to demonstrate to people just how vicious and mean-minded the Government are — and these other hon. Members are doing very well indeed.
  The Lord President of the Council, who moved this timetable motion to speed the legislation through this place, is an underwriting member of Lloyd's, which means that he has disposable capital of at least £100,000 or thereabouts. He needs this amount of disposable income to become a member of one of the tightest, richest clubs in the world. Incidentally, it is a club that has been given special legal privileges and immunity from legal action by this Conservative Government. Yet he has now moved a timetable motion that attacks the poorest people in the land.
  Of course it attacks them. The Minister shakes his head. He knows full well—and he can intervene and deny it if he chooses—that that the stress that will be caused in his Department by this legislation has meant that in a number of Department of Health arid Social Security offices the grilles have been strengthened in the public part of the offices to preclude the possibility of violent confrontations when benefits are being discussed and applications are being made and refused, and when angry and penniless people go down to the offices to try to find a solution.
  The Minister for Social Security and the Disabled (Mr. Nicholas Scott): The hon. Gentleman played no part in the Second Reading of this legislation, in the Report stage or in the Third Reading. He now comes here on Lords amendments, not one of which was contested in another place, to produce synethetic indignation about this legislation across the board.
  Mr. Nellist: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will you clarify whether, since a number of Tory Members who have contributed to the debate so far played no part in Committee, the Minister should be allowed to make such an allegation against an elected Labour Member who is here to represent his constituency?
  Mr. Cryer: It is an interesting observation by the Minister. I would have great difficulty in commenting on every bit of legislation going through this place. As a matter of fact, one of the complaints of Mr. Speaker is that I speak too much in this place. The Minister's hon. Friends

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  echo these sentiments. So his comments are set at naught not by me but by the comments and endorsements of his hon. Friends.
  In fact, his comment will not deter me in the slightest. What I will try to do is make sure that no item of legislation goes through this place without a contribution from me. If it involves, for example, speaking on money resolutions when it is 10 o'clock and Government Members want to get away, let me assure the Minister that there will be speeches; and when people want to get a little deal organised to finish at 11 or 12, if there is an opportunity I will not let it go by. I will make sure that the Minister realises that I am prepared to give my observations on each aspect of legislation.
  My difficulty is that if I put my name in to speak and go to see you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or Mr. Speaker, a whole list of occasions when I have spoken is produced and I am told that it is a rather long list, so it is very unlikely that I will be called.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold rose—
  Mr. Cryer: I will give way in a minute. I have not finished with the Minister.
  So the Minister's observations about me are rather odd, particularly in view of my request that he intervene, not to speak about my humble part in this place, but to deny my claim that this legislation is so serious, is oppressing the poor so savagely, that DHSS offices have been strengthened in order to protect the civil servants who work in them, and who dole out the terrible decisions that this legislation will produce.
  I do not blame the Civil Service, I blame the Ministers and the clique of Tories—and I have not yet finished with them — who are pushing through legislation of which this timetable motion is but an example.
  Mr. Arnold: If the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) is going to cast so many wild aspersions about second jobs done by hon. Members, will he perhaps tell us when he will give up his own second job?
  Mr. Cryer: I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned this. If he had troubled to look in the Register of Members' Interests, he would see that I have put down that I am a Member of the European Assembly. I am not terribly proud of that, but it was the best Government job creation scheme that I could find at the time. It says in brackets—I do not want to keep the hon. Member in suspense—that one third of my MP's salary received was donated after tax to the Labour movement. I do not seek to gain advantage out of the extra salary that I receive.
  Mr. Robert N. Wareing: My hon. Friend has been attacked for speaking too much. Is he aware that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), who spoke earlier, and the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) were Trappist monks for five solid weeks in Committee? Is he aware that there were 18 Tory Members on that Committee and that, apart from the Ministers, not one of them opened his mouth in defence of the poor people who are being flattened into the ground by this evil Government?
  Mr. Cryer: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me this information.
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  The problem is that the Minister wants me to serve on every Committee in the House of Commons, and it is a physical impossibility to do so—although I would be quite willing to go round by rotation and make a speech in every Committee in the House.
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I wonder if my hon. Friend would just stick to his own Select Committee on Statutory Instruments and reflect that, over the years, the Department which has got most statutory instruments wrong has been the Department of Health and Social Security with its social security regulations. Will he agree that one of the most worrying things about this Bill is that, having had to change it in the House of Lords only last Thursday, the Government will have introduced further errors which will worry my hon. Friend's Committee in the future?
  Mr. Cryer: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. When the Leader of the House moved the timetable motion, he said very courteously that he was doing so, in part, to meet the wishes of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, so that we would have more time. The reality is that the Joint Committee has very little power to initiate a debate in this place when an instrument is reported. My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett), the former Chairman of the Committee, is quite right to say that the DHSS makes a number of errors in statutory instruments, partly because of their nature and complexity.
  The complexity arises because the Department is very anxious to ensure that no fiddling goes on. I wish that it would apply the same enthusiasm and ingenuity to the City when it comes to the insider dealing which seems to be under perpetual review. We have had no legislation on that issue subjected to a timetable motion. The usual channels on the Opposition side of the House would be only too happy to encourage such legislation through the House if we were able to pick out some of the fraudsters who operate in the City and who make such generous contributions to Conservative party political funds.
  I wish to say something about the question of appeal.
  Mr. John Marshall: The hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) pointed out that he donates to the Labour party his European salary less tax. He could save the taxpayer even more if he did as I do, and claimed no salary as a Euro MP.
  Mr. Cryer: The problem with that is that the Labour movement is poor because it does not get money, as does the Tory party, from the international and national capitalist organisations. Therefore, I would rather that the Labour movement benefits from my diminishing activities in the Common Market.
  The hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) raised the question of Members' activities. Only a few Conservative Members are here to support the timetable motion. When I look through the Register of Members' Interests, I wonder how any of them actually manage to get here at all, and how they can spare some time from the directorships.
  Mr. Martin Flannery: I have spent 120 hours or so discussing the Education Reform Bill. The Minister has said something which I find prositively alarming for democracy. Did the Minister imply that, when a Bill reaches the Floor of the House,

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  only members of the Standing Committee should speak, or be allowed to speak, and that other hon. Members have no right to speak because they were not on the Standing Committee? Is that what the Minister implied, because it seems absolutely disgraceful?
  Mr. Cryer: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery). The fact that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, did not intervene, showed that the Minister was completely out of order in making that suggestion. It shows the brutal and anti-democratic way in which many Conservative Members view the House. That is precisely what they want to do. They want to diminish the rights of hon. Members because they find them extremely inconvenient.
  Before turning to the legislation and the timetable motion, I wish to make two important points. I wish to pick out some choice people who will be voting for this timetable motion dealing with a Bill which will cut down the award that keeps the poorest people of our nation barely afloat. That is all the Bill does. It does not give them much hope, it does not give them much of a life.
  In my advice surgeries, I, like no doubt many of my hon. Friends, have met people on supplementary benefit who are oppressed by gas and electricity bills and who are facing cut-off. The Government are to increase electricity bills by 15 per cent. People have come to me saying, "Mr. Cryer, I cannot see any hope in life. I have actually thought of doing away with myself because there does not seem to be any point in pressing on." That is perfectly accurate and true. It has happened not on one but several occasions. It happens because the web of debt which sucks people into such terrible situations is relieved only moderately by the DHSS provisions. The legislation will take away even that tiny means of assistance which is provided by existing law and which has already been cut by the Government.
  Those who will vote tonight for the timetable motion, who no doubt will walk gleefully through the Lobby to vote for it, include the hon. Member for Shipley (Sir M. Fox). How on earth can he manage directorships of Westminster (Communications) Ltd., Care Services Group, Rigidized Metals Ltd., Ceema Group and companies, Tele-Stage Associates Ltd., McCarthy and Stone Ltd., Malibun Estates Ltd. and Grantham O'Donnell Estates Ltd.? He also has offices in, or is employed by 3M(UK) Ltd., Shepherd (Construction) Ltd., Alcrafield Ltd. and Sherwood Homes (Southern) Ltd. He is also the Chairman of the Committee of Selection. It is not surprising that he cannot find much time to comment in debate. He is not unique. The list is not repetitious, because they are all different directorships.
  The hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Howell) has always claimed that the level of supplementary benefit and employment benefit are a disincentive to work, and no doubt will gleefully vote for the legislation. He is a farmer. He does not say how many acres he has, whether he has a smallholding of 30 or 40 acres or whether he has 500 or 1,000 acres. However, he is also an underwriting member of Lloyd's, like the Leader of the House. So one assumes that he is in a decent way of activity as a farmer, and has several hundred if not several thousand acres. He also has land and property and is the owner-occupier of farms in Norfolk.
  One could continue with a rich, lively and varied demonstration of the way in which greed is elevated to a high principle by Conservative Members. They count the
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  revenue from their directorships and their property, the grants from the common agricultural policy if they are farmers, and the grants that they receive from the common agricultural policy for storing food, yet they will vote for legislation that attacks the poorest of the poor and which robs poor people of the right to appeal.
  The system of appeal whereby people have the right to argue their case in front of three people will go out of the window. The people who are supposed to be concerned with justice will be robbing the poorest of their right of appeal. Four thousand children in Bradford will be deprived of free school meals. The right to single payments is to go out of the window. In every case, the Government are cutting back so that tomorrow they can give people who are already well off an increase in the amount of money that they will receive through tax concessions, when the nation is crying out for more money to be spent on the National Health Service and on social security 30 that people can be given some hope that they have some collective provision. That is the basis of the timetable motion, because to some degree it represents collective provision. [Interruption.]
  The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-East (Mr. Lightbown) who is leaning negligently on the Front Bench below the Gangway, said that the poorest get more. He is wrong. He has not been poor and he does not know what a struggle it is to get an extra pound from the DHSS. He has not seen the forms that have to be filled in and the supplications that have to be made. Conservative Members do not have a clue. They will vote for the timetable motion, but such action will be part of the erosion of their position in the country, which is building up to the time when they will be crushed.
  Millions of people see that time coming soon. We have to suffer a burden on our backs for the moment, as the Government won the election because of divided opposition. There is no question but that the plethora of legislation that bears down on the poorest of the poor will make people realise that the Government are a wretched, selfish Government for the greedy.
  5.18 pm
  Mr. Kenneth Hind: Behind the protests of the Opposition there are more fundamental arguments than those that they have put forward. I would not like my hon. Friends to feel that the protests about the contents of the Bill are really the root of the argument. That really has little to do with it. Many Conservative Members appreciate that the Bill contains fundamental changes, and we are interested in debating them. If the Opposition had been able to discipline themselves and get their act together, they would have plenty of time to argue about the Lords' amendments to the Social Security Bill and the Scottish housing Bill. They could not, and that is the simple reason for this debate.
  Before I address the fundamental arguments, I shall put into context some of the points that have been made. The Opposition are using their indignation as a smokescreen for the real arguments that must be addressed. They have talked about help for low-income families. Under the Bill an extra £220 million will 13e spent on the new family credit. It will cost more than twice as much as the existing family income supplement and associated benefits. Most important, 470,000 low-income families will benefit, which is more than twice the number that are being helped at present.

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  Some £100 million will be spent on families receiving the new income support, which is not being spent at present. The Opposition have not addressed the overall position because they want those who are receiving these benefits to think that they are badly done to and that the Government do not care.
  Mrs. Beckett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hind: No. [Interruption,] The truth will out. Eighty-six per cent. of couples with children and 67 per cent. of single parents will gain or be unaffected after taking inflation into account.
  Mrs. Beckett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hind: I shall give way to the hon. Lady when I have made my point and I shall have no objection to her answering it.
  On average there will be a gain in real terms of £1·50 for couples with children and of £2·60 for single parents, even taking into account the average 20 per cent. contribution which low-income families will make to the rates, and, in future, to the community charge. It is no good the Opposition complaining about those points and saying that people will be worse off. They should read the information available to them and see the truth for themselves.
  Mrs. Beckett: If the hon. Gentleman had had the opportunity to attend any of our social security debates, he would know that those figures have been wholly exploded. Most of them are theoretical and the ones that have any basis have been completely disproved. The Government have admitted that in many cases they are not providing the increases that they have claimed. The figures are invented by the Government and if the hon. Gentleman had been to any previous debates, he would know that.
  Mr. Hind: I should be surprised if the hon. Lady could admit that tomorrow was Tuesday.
  We talk about the social fund. For the past eight months it has been my privilege to be a parliamentary private secretary in the Department of Employment and I have seen the figures for unemployed people falling like a stone. That means that in the past 12 months about 650,000 people have obtained a job.
  Mr. Nellist: Rubbish.
  Mr. Hind: The hon. Gentleman shouts, "Rubbish."
  Mr. Nellist: Absolute rubbish.
  Mr. Hind: The authentic voice of Coventry speaks.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) must not persist if the hon. Gentleman has made it clear that he will not give way.
  Mr. Hind: I should like to make my point—
  Mr. Nellist: A coward is speaking.
  Mr. Hind: I am sure that abuse will not improve the quality of this debate.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Hind: However one looks at this, one must be like the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand not to
  890
  realise that there has been a large decrease in unemployment. My hon. Friends know that in simple terms that means that there will be a large reduction in the number of people eligible to claim under the social fund. It is vital to bear that in mind.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Hind: To take Opposition Members—
  Mr. Nellist: The hon. Gentleman is a coward.
  Mr. Hind: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman with the greatest of pleasure when I have made my point. I assure him that the abuse which he hurls at me will not do him any credit.
  In 1980, about £40 million was spent on individual payments under the old regulations. Upgraded for inflation to today's figures, it is £60 million. Today, the grants under the social fund and clause 10 alone amount to £60 million, not including the loans and so on, and that must be considered. Side by side with that, we have a major reduction in the number of people who are eligible. Is it sensible to put money into a fund for which the demand will fall in the long term?
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Wareing rose—
  Mr. Hind: I would normally give way to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing), but I give way to the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East.
  Mr. Nellist: Can we nail this canard? According to the hon. Gentleman there has been a reduction in the unemployment figures because 700,000 people have found jobs. If he had attended any of the Committee sittings and listened to the debates on clause 4 and youth unemployment, he would have heard the Under-Secretary of State claim that there has been a 55,000 fall in the number of 16 to 19-year-olds registered unemployed. He would have heard me produce the fact that over the same period there was a rise of 77,000 in the number of 16 to 17-year-olds on YTS schemes.
  If he totalled the community programme, the restart interviews, the job clubs, YTS and the other ways in which the Government are fiddling unemployment, he would realise that it is a blatant lie for the Government to claim that a reduction in unemployment means that more people are in paid employment. The Government are fiddling figures to confuse people and the hon. Gentleman is an accomplice to that.
  Mr. Hind: If I have to choose between the 400,000 Department of Employment civil servants with their computer and the hon. Gentleman, I would prefer the gentlemen at the DOE.
  Mr. Tony Favell rose—
  Mr. Nellist: Those are DOE figures.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must restrain himself.
  Mr. Hind: I make these points merely to show that there are two sides to the argument and that much of the huff and puff to tell those on low incomes and the unemployed how badly off they are and how much we shall persecute them is wholly unfounded. Hon. Gentlemen are seeking to conceal the important facts.
  Mr. McAllion rose—
  Mr. Hind: I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Fayell).
  Mr. Favell: Does it not strike my hon. Friend as extraordinary that at one moment the Opposition bemoan the lack of training for young people and the next they condemn the Government for establishing the best training scheme ever?
  Mr. Hind: I hear what my hon. Friend says and he makes the point extremely well.
  To come to the crux of today's debate—
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Hind: I have given way often and other hon. Members wish to speak.
  The crux of the matter is simple: on 3 March the Leader of the Opposition accepted the timetable for today, and it was not until almost midnight on Thursday that there was any change in the timetable. The reason for that is also simple—the normal channels that operate in this place and which make life orderly and bearable for most hon. Members broke down, not on the Conservative side but because the Labour Chief Whip, an honourable man, had to go to the Government and tell them that he could not deliver the agreement that had been made a few days before, to which the Leader of the Opposition was a party. That is at the root of this matter.
  So the Government, faced with the clear intention of certain out-of-control Labour Back Benchers to destroy Budget day tomorrow, a day that is important to most people in this country—
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett rose—
  Mr. Hind: The Labour Chief Whip could not deliver, so the Leader of the House and the Government had no choice but to bring in this guillotine motion.
  Mrs. Wise: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As the hon. Members who served on the Standing Committee that considered the Social Security Bill could be held to be those most likely to want to take part in this debate—it should have occurred at midnight tonight—will you inform the hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) that it is not in order for him to refer to us as being out of control?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is a matter for argument, not for the Chair.
  Mr. Hind: The problem goes much further than this. Unless we can control our proceedings in an orderly way we shall never achieve any of what the public voted us here to do. They look to us to legislate and to run the country properly, and that is what we are here for.
  Mr. Fairbairn: My hon. Friend said that Opposition Back Benchers were out of order. He forgets that they were in league with the Front Bencher who was leading on this matter. When it came to a choice of whether a Left-wing Scottish hon. Member representing an English seat or a more moderate Opposition Front Bench Member representing Scotland was to lose out in the battle, it was obvious whom the Opposition chose.
  Mr Hind: If we are to have comments made from a sedentary position from Opposition Members such as the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) — [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] — who, when the usual channels were mentioned asked,
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  "what do they matter?" — [Official Report, 11 March 1988; Vol. 129, c. 785.],
  how shall we maintain any form of discipline? I made a note of what the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) said about the normal procedures. He said that if a deal were struck at 11 pm he would not let it go by. When he said that he would stand up and speak on money resolutions, the implication was that he would do so in order to disrupt the proceedings of the House. If that happens, we shall never achieve anything.
  The logical conclusion is that there will have to be more timetable motions, which I would deprecate. Conservative Members do not want more such motions, but if Opposition Members are not under the control of their Whips and Front Bench, we shall have to have them whether we like it or not. The public must recognise that the situation is out of control—
  Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can you confirm that any attempt to curtail the rights of hon. Members to speak in this Chamber by means of intimidation and threats would be a serious breach of privilege?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is correct.
  Mr. Hind: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but he fails to realise that it is not only Opposition Members who have been prevented from speaking on the amendments to the Social Security Bill — Conservative Members have also been prevented from making what they regard as important points.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: My hon. Friend has observed that Conservative Members do not like guillotines. May I point out that there is quite a strong argument for having an earlier guillotine so that the whole Bill is discussed in an orderly fashion and we do not have to leave too much to be digested in the Lords?
  Mr. Hind: I shall take that point on board.
  Mr. Robin Cook: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hind: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have plenty of time in which to put his case. I want to bring my remarks to a close.
  Mr. Cook: Put the truth on the record.
  Mr. Hind: The hon. Gentleman will have plenty of opportunities to do that.
  I want to put on record my regret at being involved in wasting parliamentary time on this debate. The public need to realise that our time-wasting is wholly the responsibility of the Opposition.
  5.37 pm
  Ms. Dawn Primarolo: If I may return to the discussion on the guillotine motion, when I was small and my grandmother thought that I might not have been telling the truth, she used to say:

  "O what a tangled web we weave,

  When first we practise to deceive!"

  We have watched the progress of the Social Security Bill through Parliament — on Second Reading, in Committee, on Report and Third Reading and through the other place — and seen the mess that the Government have got themselves into, having constantly to amend their legislation and bring it back to us in great haste with the amendments that they tabled in another

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  place and which they are now seeking to guillotine. The Bill is a parliamentary deception, and what has been said about its provisions is a lie.
  I remind Ministers of some of the claims that they made about the review that led to this and the previous Bill. Some of the letters were written to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in response to inquiries made by the county of Avon, where I was a county councillor at the time. Some were sent to the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave), who is a Minister, and some to my predecessor. They outlined the reasons for the review of social security and what the Government were attempting to do—[Interruption.] Hon. Members should shut up.
  The first reason for the review, it is claimed, is
  "to ensure the level of help available to claimants is fair in comparison with others in society on low incomes who have to manage without any single payments."
  The second aim is
  —to balance the available help more effectively between claimants, while giving special protection to those who are elderly, chronically sick or disabled.
  —to produce clearer rules which enable staff to process claims more quickly.
  —to put the single payment scheme on a proper financial and manageable basis."
  For that we should read, "Cut the budget and make it a loan and not a single payment." It is simple to make it easier for staff to process claims — people are not allowed to qualify.
  People on low incomes and the Government's economic strategy have been debated many times in the House. I should like to return to the point about more effectively distributing help to claimants who are elderly, chronically sick or disabled. The Government's haste to draft the Bill and bring it back to the Floor of the House and their substantial cuts in welfare benefit the day before a Budget that will give tax cuts to the rich, are good examples of the obscenity of the principles under which the Government operate.
  The Government continue to tell lies by saying that everyone will he better off and that more money will be available. It is like a riddle. We should ask, "When is a welfare state safety net not a welfare state safety net?' The answer is: when the Government take a pair of scissors to the net and make the regulations much simpler so that nobody qualifies because everyone falls through the safety net.
  An example of that is a case that has come to light in my constituency. It results directly from the calculations of benefit for one of my constituents in preparation for the changes that will occur on 11 April. I attempted to put down a manuscript amendment about this because it was the first opportunity that we had to examine the sort of case that would arise as a result of the amendments from the other place.
  The constituent in question is a married mother. Her husband is in employment and they live in accommodation that is tied to her husband's job. They have a disabled 19-year-old son who lives in a special hospital most of the time and returns home at the weekends. They have three young daughters, aged eight, five and two. They are a hard-working, industrious family and they do their best to make do in tied accommodation on a low budget. The husband works long hours and has one day a week off —Wednesday.
  894
  The misfortune for the family was that the mother was diagnosed in 1984 as having multiple sclerosis. Under the current social security regulations, the benefit office calculated that, even though the mother did not work, she was entitled to receive supplementary benefit in her own right. That benefit was to pay for the home helps that the family have to employ seven days a week in order to keep the family unit together. That benefit amounted to £48 a week. They received additional payments for heating, diet requirements and laundry for the three daughters.
  The social security office in Bristol ruled that all the husband's net take-home pay could be offset against the family expenditure for home helps. As a result of the Bill, that family will lose £50 income per week. That has been taken away from a family in which there is illness, and we could name many other such families. This illness strikes indiscriminately at families who have worked hard and struggled to keep the family unit together. Yet the Government have the audacity to tell us that they are directing benefit to those who need it most. That is a lie, and we cannot say that any more frequently than we do in the House and elsewhere.
  The change on 11 April will mean that the only way in which the family can be cared for is if the husband gives up his job. If he does that, the family will lose their home. We will then have a family with an unemployed husband, and the family will be homeless and wholly dependent on the state. That will come about as a result of the Government's deception about targeting benefit on those who need it.
  It is fortuitous for us that the debate is taking place the day before the Budget, because we can say that the Government do target money. They target benefit away from those who need it and then play the numbers game with us. Instead of looking at the reality of what is going on in people's lives, the Government quote endless figures. I cannot believe that Conservative Members do not meet in their surgeries people who face the same problems of cuts in benefit as we meet in ours. The Government's idea of targeting is to take money out of the welfare state and to give it through tax cuts tomorrow to those who can afford to do without such tax cuts.
  As a result of letters received from former Members of Parliament about these reviews, the county council spent six months looking at the changes that took place before the ones in this Bill to see what would happen. I shall give some examples of the cases that now occur as a result of the Government's targeting to the rich through tax cuts.
  The first is that the DHSS refused to pay funeral benefit to a family because it believed that a child in the family was working and could afford to pay for the funeral. There were two young people in that family. One was 18 and unemployed and the other was 19 and on a youth training scheme. They did not get the funeral benefit because of the regulation. Payment for a cot mattress was refused to a young woman because she had received a similar grant three years before. That is what Government targeting is about.
  A mother who had been receiving supplementary benefit died. She had one 17-year-old on a youth training scheme, who had to make all the arrangements for the funeral, but Government regulations forbade a funeral grant to that young woman to bury her mother. The list is endless.
  The Government should be honest and say that they wish to cash-limit social security payments and to remove

  895
  the safety net that we know as the welfare state. They do not have the guts to remove it completely because they know how much it is accepted and wanted by the community. They hope to destroy that net and leave just the rim round the edge so that most people do not get the benefit to which they are entitled.
  In spite of all the smooth talk and the figures, people will be worse off as a result of the Bill. The guillotine shows the appalling rationale under which the Government operate. They do not want to face debate after debate on the facts and realities of people's lives. They want the Act on the statute book so that benefit will be cut in April.
  5.49 pm
  Mr. Allan Stewart: Some of my hon. Friends may wish to comment on the points made by the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Ms. Primarolo).
  I should like to return to the effect of the guillotine on the business of the House. That subject was raised by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) in his excellent speech. He referred to the consequences for Scottish business. It is worth recalling the fact that the business for today was first announced on Thursday 3 March. Therefore, there was plenty of time for discussions between the usual channels to take place. It is fairly clear that this is yet another example of the Opposition playing parliamentary games, the consequence of that being the loss or deferment of Scottish business.
  I do not know whether the widespread rumours of a blazing row between the hon. Members for Livingston (Mr. Cook) and for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) about today's business are correct. They certainly seem to have been believed by many people. However, having heard the attitude of the Opposition to the original business tabled for today, it is astonishing that we have heard only one comment about that. That comment was made by the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith), who said that the Opposition did not want to debate the Housing (Scotland) Bill. I find that—
  Mr. McAllion: My hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith) did not say that we did not want to debate the Housing (Scotland) Bill in the Chamber. He said that we do not want the Bill in Scotland. That is the point of view that has been put to us overwhelmingly by the Scottish people. If the Government are so concerned to debate the Housing (Scotland) Bill, why did four Ministers sit through Second Reading and in Committee and never once open their mouths in defence of the Bill?
  Mr. Stewart: The answer to that is perfectly straightforward. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) was wholly capable of handling the Bill himself, particularly given the level of argument coming from Opposition Members.
  It is astonishing that hon. Members representing Scottish constituencies have not made a considerable fuss about the deferral of Scottish business. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why should we?"] Even if they do not want the Bill, I should have thought that they would want an opportunity to debate Scottish housing.
  Mr. Donald Dewar: I am curious. The hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart)
  896
  —the Minister that was and who knows what next — would have an extremely valid point if the Housing (Scotland) Bill, having dropped out of today's programme, was not to be debated at some time in the future. Is that the point he is making?
  Mr. Stewart: No. My point is that I thought that Scottish Members would be eager and enthusiastic, especially following their party conference, to put their views on Scottish housing.
  This is not the first time that this sort of thing has happened. There was the deferral of the introduction of the devolution legislation and the abandonment of a Scottish Question Time. That was not done because of the wish of the Government but because English Labour Members talked right through—
  Mr. Norman Hogg: In a former role in the House, my object was to frustrate the Government in expediting their business. Why would the Opposition suddenly want to discuss a housing Bill that they do not want at all? There is no analogy between the Housing (Scotland) Bill and other matters to which the hon. Gentleman is referring.
  Mr. Stewart: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not think it was a matter of concern that Scottish Question Time was lost as a result of English Labour Members—
  Mr. Hogg rose—
  Mr. Stewart: I have the greatest respect for the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Mr. Hogg), and I shall give way again.
  Mr. Hogg: We are not discussing the loss of a Scottish Question Time some time ago. The hon. Gentleman was referring to the Housing (Scotland) Bill and was explaining why we, as an Opposition, would wish to get that Bill on to the statute book and discuss it today. We are a trifle mystified at that, because we are against the Bill and want to hold it up. The hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart), who has been a Member for some time, does not seem to have grasped the role of the Opposition. Clearly, he never understood the role of Government.
  Mr. Stewart: On a personal basis, I am glad that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth has managed to make his speech in the debate on an intervention.
  There is no doubt that there have been a number of occasions when Scottish business has not proceeded as the Opposition planned and this is another example of that. I am surprised that Opposition Members do not wish to take the first possible opportunity of making their views on the Housing (Scotland) Bill known to the House.
  I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to confirm that the Housing (Scotland) Bill will come to the House for its remaining stages and Third Reading at an early opportunity. The Bill is revolutionary and radical. It is in the interests of Scottish tenants that they should have more choice about landlords and that there should be more effective co-operation between the public and private sectors in Scottish housing. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to give that reassurance to the House.
  5.56 pm
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I shall try to be brief because I know that many of my hon. Friends wish to contribute to the debate. In this debate we

  897
  have seen another attempt by the Government to try to hide under procedure the reality of their legislation, which is an out-and-out attack on those with the lowest incomes in this country. It is an attempt to hide the decision by the Government to make the lives of those people even more miserable than they are already.
  The Government are trying to claim that the guillotine motion is necessary for them to get their business through. This motion has nothing to do with the Government getting their business through, but is about them trying to manipulate the reporting of the affairs of the House outside. Clearly, the Government are concerned that the public should not be generally aware of two measures going through the House — this legislation on social security and the charges for the Health Service—at the same time as they are aware of the Budget. They do not want public attention to be drawn to the contrast between the way in which they are imposing cuts in benefits on one group of people and charges on another while they are giving tax handouts in the Budget. That is what all this is about.
  When the Government discovered late last week that there was a possibility that, instead of being debated at midnight when there would have been very little media attention, this matter might have gone on being debated through the night and into the early part of Tuesday, they decided to change the business and push all this away to a time when it would receive less public attention. It would not have been possible for the Opposition to destroy Budget day under the proceedings of the House. The Government Whips know that it would have been perfectly possible to close the sitting at any time during the night.
  Therefore, this motion is tabled simply because the Government do not want the media to report tomorrow morning that the House of Commons is talking about social security cuts at the same time as the Chancellor is ready to pose with his Box before coming to the House to announce tax cuts. That is what it is all about. Any suggestion about the Opposition trying to destroy Budget day is nonsense. Under the proceedings of the House that would not be possible. However, it would have been possible to draw attention to the contrast between tax cuts and cuts in benefit.
  The other advantage that the Government obtain through this procedural device is that we have a procedural debate that lasts for the first three hours rather than a debate that draws attention to the nature of the cuts and to the meanness of the way in which the Government conduct themselves over social security matters. The Government have a pretty appalling record on social security. They have repeatedly brought forward legislation, always claiming that they have been trying to tune and reform they system. But behind all those changes has been a consistent pattern of cuts and contradictions.
  The whole thrust of the Government's claims about the 1981 and 1982 social security legislation was that discretionary benefits were not satisfactory: people in one area would receive them, while others in another area would not. It was far better, they said, to give people a legal entitlement. Having put such an entitlement on to the statute book, however, the Government began to discover that some people were using their legal rights to obtain the benefits to which they were entitled, so they duly tore the
  898
  whole thing up, bringing forward the 1986 legislation, which took away many of the statutory entitlements and returned a system of discretionary payments. But they were made cash-limited, so there is very little discretion for individual benefit offices—and also very little chance for individuals to appeal against a decision.
  Mr. Tony Banks: Does my hon. Friend recall that Labour local authorities, in particular the Greater London council, had a welfare rights team that told people their rights? Because they were so successful, the Government decided to take those entitlements away. Let us contrast that with the way in which the Government go around telling business men, for example, what they can get out of the system. There is a welfare state for business men, and nothing for the poor.
  Mr. Bennett: We must accept that argument.
  This is a disgraceful example of the Government trying to change the rules of the House by stealth. We have always had a tradition in the House that the Opposition object to measures by talking at length and putting down substantial amendments. The Government's counter to that is a guillotine.
  On this occasion, there is no evidence that the Opposition filibustered or extended the debate; they applied a timetable so that everything could be effectively debated. The Government have never had to push a closure on the legislation until this point, when the legislation is returning from the House of Lords. What are we discussing but 31 amendments that the Government carried in the House of Lords? Why is a guillotine necessary?
  It appears that the Government have now introduced a procedure to guillotine their own extension of the debate. Why was it necessary for 31 amendments to be put down in the House of Lords? Because the Government made mistakes in drafting the legislation. For the first time, they are trying to restrict debate on their part of the Bill, as opposed to the activities of the Opposition. That is a dangerous precedent.
  The history of social security legislation during the period in which the Government have been changing it so often is pretty bad. I do not blame the parliamentary draftsmen; I blame partly the instructions from the Government, and partly the complexity of the legislation. We have had legislation followed by amending legislation to correct the mistakes; we have had regulations which have had to be withdrawn because of the mistakes in them, and we have had continual confusion.
  What do we have in this legislation? We have new amendments introduced in the House of Lords on Thursday, which are subject to amendment now, and which will be used to make regulations to come into operation in early April. The odds of there being more mistakes in that legislation are extremely high.
  I suggest to the Government that, if they want to get their social security legislation right, they should take a good deal more time and trouble to ensure that there is proper debate in the House and proper scrutiny outside. What opportunity have any of the experts outside between Thursday and now to examine the legislation and to see whether it is correct? The main effect of guillotining these procedures is to stop proper debate and deny accuracy.
  We have heard a great deal about the legislation and the regulations, but most of my constituents worry about what

  899
  is custom and practice. The most dangerous thing that the Government have done is to destroy any understanding of social security for most of my constituents, who are now bewildered by the continual changes. The one message that they receive from the Government is: "We are trying to stop you getting your benefits." The Government do that by changing regulations and causing confusion. They ought to take the legislation away and come back with a simplified system, which will also inject more money.
  We are a rich country, as the Chancellor will prove tomorrow. Some of that wealth should be going into the provision of a decent social security system for all who are at present disadvantaged.
  6.4 pm
  Mrs. Gillian Shephard: Whatever the mysteries that surround the ordering of today's business—and I have listened carefully to what has been said without being much enlightened by either side—it should not be forgotten that the debate follows not only 90 hours of discussion in Committee, but a long and exhaustive review of the social security system, based on extensive consultations with all concerned groups.
  From that consultation emerged a number of overriding concerns. One was that the system had—as the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) pointed out—become overwhelmingly complicated, with 16,000 paragraphs devoted to supplementary benefit alone. It is indeed true that confusion reigns.
  One of the main aims of the legislation—to simplify the system to make benefits more comprehensible—
  Ms. Primarolo rose—
  Mrs. Shephard: Let me finish my point.
  The aim to simplify the benefits system for the recipients must be one of the main aims, and it is an excellent one. For that reason, I shall certainly support the guillotine. However, the context in which the Bill is debated should also not be forgotten.
  It seems unwelcome news to Opposition Members that there is a much more positive employment picture than when the review was undertaken. In my constituency, unemployment — even in the most difficult area — has fallen from 11 per cent. to 7 per cent. in the last year, and in some areas the problem is, paradoxically, that there is a surplus of jobs over people. The difficulty has become much more one of getting people into jobs, rather than compensating and helping them with the financial problem of being without work. I accept that my constituency may be exceptionally fortunate, but nevertheless that is the position.
  One of the clauses that seem to have come in for some Opposition criticism is clause 4. Surely it must be right for young people who do not wish to stay on at school, and who do not go into employment, to take advantage of an enhanced youth training scheme, lengthened to two years and with extra money pumped in. In the past, two thirds of young people have gone into jobs from the YTS.
  If we were raising the school leaving age to 18, there might be overwhelming support from Opposition Members. We are not doing that, but we are extending to all young people up to that age the excellent benefits of a YTS enhanced for two years. There is overwhelming support for the move because what taxpayers do not want is for young people who have the opportunity—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. The hon. Lady must resume her seat when I am on my feet. I find it very difficult to relate what the hon. Lady is saying to the motion before the House.
  Mrs. Shephard: I accept your point, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Let me simply conclude that taxpayers do not wish to see young people turn down the chance of an enhanced and extended YTS, which will give them a better opportunity in the job market.
  6.9 pm
  Mr. Robin Cook: I shall begin by referring to what the Leader of the House described as the modalities of the debate. The motion breaks new ground in the restrictions on parliamentary debate. I have checked with the Clerk of the House, and I am advised that there is no precedent for an attempt to impose a guillotine on Lords amendments in relation to a Bill that was not guillotined when it was before the House. I understand that Government advisers have been unable to find a precedent, which makes me all the more confident that that information is correct. I am sure that those advisers have been up all night every night since Thursday desperately searching for such a precedent.
  We have been told that the reason for this extraordinary new precedent is the disruption and unruly behaviour of Opposition Members. Is it not strange that during two and a half hours of debate not a single complaint has been made about the propriety or behaviour of my hon. Friends or the legitimacy of their tactics when this matter was before the House, in Committee, or on Report? I remember the Minister causing two of my hon. Friends to squirm with embarrassment by praising their behaviour in Committee. So much for the allegations of disruptive and unruly behaviour.
  In retrospect—perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) will agree—possibly we made it too easy for the Government. Perhaps there is a lesson here that we should not forget. On the next social security Bill we should remember that the last time the Government turned into the home straight they reached for the jackboots.
  A number of Conservative Members have made reference to what allegedly passed through the usual channels. It is not customary for these matters to be debated in the House, but as they have been exhaustively referred to by Conservative Members I shall put the record straight.
  I am the Opposition spokesman on the Bill. At no time did I enter into any agreement concerning tonight's business and at no time was any proposition made to me to which I was remotely likely to agree. On Thursday evening, at a late hour, I was given a demand by the Government that unless we undertook to dispose quickly after midnight of the Lords amendments—which had only that day proceeded through the House of Lords—they would introduce the guillotine.
  There was no agreement; merely that summary and arrogant demand. I believe, and I hope my hon. Friends will stand with me on this matter, that I would have been failing the rights of the House and failing the 700,000 people whose benefit will be cut by the Bill if I had agreed to that summary and arrogant demand.
  One may ask what the Treasury Bench is afraid of. There are 33 amendments before us, and all bar one are

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  Government amendments. The guillotine motion has been moved to curtail debate on 32 of the Government's own amendments. There is not a single amendment on the Order Paper that the Government did not want to accept. Yet they say that the amendments must be rushed through with indecent haste in a debate that has been chopped off by the guillotine.
  The Government say that they must have the Bill so that it can take its place in the barrage of April cuts in three weeks' time. As an argument to convince the Opposition to come to agreement, it is not particularly persuasive to say that the Government need it in place to play its part in the April cuts.
  If the Government need this Bill so desperately, I have a simple piece of advice for them. They should not have clogged it up with three dozen amendments in the House of Lords. The Government drafted the Bill. If they had got it right they would not have needed to amend it in the House of Lords. I am bound to observe that a Government Department that is very swift to swoop on claimants who have filled in their forms incorrectly is remarkably easy-going about errors in Bills presented to Parliament.
  Schedule 1 is concerned with putting right errors in the Social Security Act 1986 relating to industrial death benefit. Schedule 3 is entirely concerned with putting right errors in the 1986 Act relating to the social fund. The Bill may be better termed the Social Security Cock-Ups (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill.
  We recognise that any Government have a right to make good their own mistakes by fresh legislation, which is just as well because the Department of Health and Social Security makes so many mistakes. But they are not entitled to stop the House debating the correction of those errors.
  Over the past two and a half hours, a number of Labour Members have referred, properly and correctly, to the wonderful aptness of tonight's debate. Tomorrow, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will finally reveal how he will dispose of the cash mountain on which he has been sitting for the past six months. Sunday newspapers fell over themselves yesterday trying to list the different ways in which he might give the money away. They generally agreed that he may cut income tax by 2p and that he may cut the top rate of income tax by a full quarter. Alone, that will cost the public purse £3,000 million. Tonight, on the eve of that largesse, we are debating this mean little Bill, which is full of mean little cuts for the people whom the Chancellor has forgotten.
  Mr. Redwood rose—
  Mr. Cook: I am delighted to see the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) rising, as I was about to refer to him. The hon. Gentleman had the nerve to say that the Budget will increase public expenditure. Perhaps he will explain to the House how the financial memorandum for the Bill provides for £275 million to be saved in public expenditure at the expense of people whose benefits are cut by the Bill. Who are they?
  Mr. Redwood: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there will be a substantial increase in the social security budget next year, as set out in the White Paper on public spending? Will he tell the House when a Labour
  902
  Government were able to increase spending and cut taxes at the same time and reduce borrowing? I do not think that a Labour Government have ever been able to do that.
  Mr. Cook: The hon. Gentleman is perfectly correct to say that there is an increase in the social security budget for next year. However, that increase is less than the rate of inflation and, as Labour Member after Labour Member has reminded the House, there will be more losers than gainers as a result of the changes.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold rose—
  Mr. Cook: It was not my idea to guillotine the debate. However, it has been guillotined and there will be a vote at 6.43 pm. If the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) will undertake to vote against the guillotine, I shall be delighted to give way. On the understanding that he will be voting for the guillotine, he cannot expect the rest of us to give up our time to him.
  Three major groups are hit by the Bill. Unemployed teenagers will lose all right to benefit. The Government, who have put more teenagers on the dole than any other Government, are to solve that problem by taking the dole away from them. Men and women over 55 who are out of work will lose their right to unemployment benefit although they have paid for it for all their lives. Some 200,000 mothers of young children will lose their right to welfare milk. The party that claims to be the party of the family is clearly revealing itself to be the party of wealthy families.
  The happy contrast between those hit by the Bill and tomorrow's Budget give away is paralleled by the contrast between a Government who this month will cut taxes and next month will cut benefits. The Government can afford to cut taxes, but apparently they cannot afford to maintain the special additions for diet and heating for the pensioner. They cannot afford to find 30p to maintain the real value of child benefit. Further, they cannot maintain free school meals for the 500,000 children who will lose them on 11 April. That is why the Treasury wants to silence debate on the Bill.
  Lords amendment No. 28 provides for changes in the treatment of housing benefit. On 1 April any worker in receipt of housing benefit will lose 85p in benefit for every £1 increase in wages. That is effectively an 85 per cent. rate of tax. That is more than the rate of tax to be paid by the wealthiest members of society. It is more than the rate of tax paid by any member of the Cabinet that introduced that legislation.
  Why is it right that the poor should face a marginal rate of loss of benefit twice as high as the marginal rate of tax on the wealthiest? After all, the poor do not have an army of accountants to help them to evade it. That is one debate which will be muzzled by the guillotine motion.
  I express a particular regret about that muzzle because I had hoped that we might have an opportunity to hear a speech from the hon. Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe). The hon. Gentleman has been discovered in his constituency confronted by constituents who have been to see him to inquire why they are to lose all housing benefit because they have savings of more than £6,000. The hon. Gentleman has advised them at his surgeries that they should put a deposit on their funeral with the undertaker to get below the £6,000 ceiling.
  Rather than make such ghoulish suggestions to his constituents and turn undertakers into bankers, it would

  903
  be more honest for the hon. Gentleman to take part in the debate and tell us what he now knows of how his constituents will be affected by the measures for which he voted only last November but which he is not now prepared to defend to his constituents.
  A number of my hon. Friends and, indeed, a number of Conservative Members referred to the social fund. Lords amendments Nos. 19 to 23 provide for various changes in relation to the social fund. Ministers have described the social fund as a banking facility for the poor. It certainly will look a bit like a bank. In DHSS offices all over Britain they are now installing floor to ceiling security screens to protect the staff against the anger of desperate parents who are turned away. I must ask the hon. Members for Wokingham and for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind), why, if the social fund is as popular as they described it to us and if their constituents are so eager to have it, DHSS offices need floor to ceiling security screens to protect the staff.
  A key feature of the social fund is that it abolishes the right to single payments. Instead, claimants on the social fund will get only loans, to be repaid by compulsory deductions from their benefit. In that respect, the social fund is very unlike a bank, because no banker has the right to make compulsory deductions from benefit. Those deductions may be up to 15 per cent. of claimants' weekly benefit.
  Here we have another stark contrast with tomorrow's proceedings. Tomorrow, we are told repeatedly in the press, the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to reduce the top rate of tax by 15 per cent. In other words, the top hand of earners will have a reduction in tax of 15 per cent., whereas from 1 April there will be a new rate of deduction of up to 15 per cent. for families already on the breadline—families who are already living on an income that is necessary for subsistence, who, after they pay those deductions will be left, by definition, with an income below subsistence level, families who have children to feed and clothe and homes to heat. Each of those needs will now have to be balanced against the need to repay this banking facility. That is another debate that the motion will muzzle.
  The motion is a confession. It admits that the Government are afraid to debate the hardship and the despair which their cuts will cause in April, that they are incapable of defending the injustice that those cuts will cost and that they want to cover up the glaring contrast between a give-away Budget for the rich and a take-away Bill for the poor. We shall vote against the motion. For once, I shall be happy to be defeated, because, if Conservative Members carry the motion, they will by their votes convict themselves of being afraid to be exposed for the damage that they are doing to the poor.
  6.23 pm
  The Minister for Social Security and the Disabled (Mr. Nicholas Scott): More than one of my hon. Friends has suggested that today's debate owes more to the Budget's proximity than to a sense of indignation by the Opposition about the Social Security Bill. I understand that this legislation arouses strong feelings, but it was possible in Committee to conduct the debate in an orderly way, in a spirit that reflected the concern about the measures to be taken and an understanding of the proper way to conduct the business of the House.
  904
  We are in our present position not so much because of the strength of feeling about the Bill as partly because of the proximity of the Budget statement of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and partly because of the relationships between Members of the Labour Front Bench and a certain jockeying among them for position.
  The hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) talked about muzzling debate. It would have been perfectly open to the Opposition Front Bench, if they had looked carefully at the timetable motion, which provides for six hours for the two debates — the timetable motion and the Lords amendments — to have curtailed discussion and the artificial indignation and rhetoric to which we have been treated for the past two and one half hours and to concentrate on a more detailed examination of the Lords amendments. I am not surprised that the Opposition chose not to take this step.
  This is a short Bill. Of course, I understand that it is controversial but, when it left the House of Commons, it had already accounted for about 70 hours of discussion. Added to that, it received a further 21 hours' scrutiny in the other place. As has been said in this debate, that is some 90 hours in all, plus the time which we are spending on it today. I believe that there has been more than ample time to discuss a Bill of this size.
  Mr. Tony Banks rose—
  Mr. Scott: I shall give way in a moment.
  If Opposition Members in the two Houses chose to spend 11 of the hours available seeking to insert new clauses into the Bill rather than to discuss the provisions before the two Houses, that was their choice. I do not argue with that, but the Opposition made the decision.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Scott: I have undertaken to give way to the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks). If the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) will curb his impatience, no doubt he will have an opportunity to intervene.
  The Opposition still managed to spend over 13 hours on clause 1, over 16 hours on clause 4, over four hours each on clauses 5 and 6 and 14 hours on clause 10 and the associated schedule 3. I do not believe that anyone can complain that there has not been an opportunity for proper debate on these measures in the various forum.
  Mr. Tony Banks: It is a bit much for the Minister to say that we have wasted time since we have been debating the guillotine motion and therefore have not left ourselves with enough time during the next three hours. The guillotine motion provides for six hours' debate. The Minister could have made the guillotine provide for 12 hours' debate, so that we could have debated the legislation until 4 am, and tomorrow's business would still have been saved. Why not extend the guillotine until 4 o'clock tomorrow morning?
  Mr. Scott: I shall refer later to the nature of the amendments and to why I believe that the provision which has been made is generous enough to permit discussion of those amendments.
  Mr. Nellist: The Minister commented on how the hours had been spent in Committee. Is it not odd that the horn. Gentleman should complain of the 11 hours spent in trying to introduce a new clause—presumably he was referring to the debates on attendance allowance—when, as he

  905
  said, on Third Reading, that was the only reason his Department was re-examining the position on payment of attendance allowance to children under two? If we had not made that 11-hour fuss, the hon. Gentleman's Department would not have admitted that it had to look again at the problem.
  Mr. Scott: I made it clear that I did not complain about the Opposition's choice. I do not believe that the length of time persuaded us to look again at the provision of the two-year-old cut-off. The strength of the argument persuaded us to do so. At times, the sheer repetition of argument did not help the case.
  I do not believe that anyone could claim for one moment that the Bill has not received detailed consideration. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) in common with others, including the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer)—we would expect that from him—chose to spend the time in the timetable debate on a diatribe on the Bill rather than a discussion of the Lords amendments.
  Some play was made by the hon. Member for Livingston about the number of Government amendments tabled. That number is not surprising when one considers the wide range of benefits covered in this small Bill and the fact that some of the clauses cover complex matters, as any hon. Member who served on the Committee came to know well. For the most part, the amendments are technical. They do not denote a change of Government policy.
  For the sake of a smooth beginning to the reforms, it is important to get the legislation right. I am sure that hon. Members would not disagree with that as a reasonable aim. Of the 32 Government amendments, 10 are related to the same clause on NHS charges and travelling expenses but are concerned with only two main points which, alas, had to be spread throughout the clause, for drafting reasons. That is why there are so many amendments. The amendments to schedule 3 for the social fund have resulted from consultation with independent counsel and they ensure that the legislation is on all fours with our published policy.
  Two amendments have been made in response to wishes expressed in the other place. They concern the social fund annual report and the inclusion of employees in the water industry and certain harbour authorities in the provisions of the 1986 Act which allow employees to leave their occupational pension schemes. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will welcome those amendments. Two further amendments follow an undertaking that we gave during the passage of the Employment Bill to allow unemployment benefit to continue to be payable while inquiries were continuing regarding a person's availability for employment.
  None of the Government amendments that the House will be asked to consider shortly were contested in the House of Lords. Indeed, Lord Ennals greeted the first amendment in the following terms:
  "My Lords, from these Benches I warmly thank the Minister for this amendment. It is good that he has made a commitment, and it is good that he has stood by that commitment. From our side we warmly welcome this."
  On the second amendment, Lord Ennals said:
  "My Lords, I welcome the amendment as far as it goes. I welcome any opportunity for additional guidance to social fund officers". — [Official Report, House of Lords, 10 March 1988; Vol. 494, c.862–873.]
  906
  Those amendments, which were uncontroversial and uncontested by the Opposition Front Bench in the House of Lords, suddenly become a matter of great moment when they return to this House. Why do they become a matter of great moment?
  Mr. Robin Cook: What has turned this into a matter of great moment is the Government's guillotine motion on the amendments. I am perplexed by the Minister's chain of reasoning, which he might now explain to the House. He stresses the technical and non-controversial nature of the amendments. If that is the case, why did he manage to pursuade his colleagues that it is necessary to guillotine a debate on them?
  Mr. Scott: These matters have been decided through the usual channels and it would be unwise for other Opposition Members to criticise them. I am certain that this business would not have been announced on 3 March and reiterated on 10 March, unless there had been proper and serious consideration and agreement through the usual channels. It is only the behaviour of Opposition Members which has turned that agreement aside and placed us in this situation.
  I wish to deal with a number of points raised during the debate about the Bill in general. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras referred to firefighters and, by implication, to policemen and members of the armed forces and others who retire at 55 and will have their occupational pensions offset against their entitlemant to retirement benefit when the full provisions of the Bill come into effect. That was one of the weakest cases put forward in Committee and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman has bothered to return to that issue today.
  People such as firefighters and policemen are able to earn for themselves a full retirement pension after 30 years' service in professions which many join at the age of 18, 19 or 20. They are still able to complete 30 years' service, obtain a full occupational pension and claim unemployment benefit for 12 months after that period. That was an extraordinarily weak case put forward by Opposition Members. Interruption.] I shall try to deal with the points raised by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, but it might be useful if he would cease exchanging pleasantries across the Floor.
  The hon. Member said that clause 1 would make it more difficult for people with epilepsy to qualify for attendance allowance. I have said many times in Committee and on Third Reading, and I reiterate it now, that the purpose of clause 1 is to return the law to what we believed it to be before the Appeal Court judgment in the case of Mrs. Moran, and we are supported in that judgment by the independent Attendance Allowance Board. That judgment is right.
  The hon. Gentleman also dealt with the question of free school meals. Far from taking away free school meals from children, we would expect 100,000 more children to benefit from the £2·25 in family credit than currently receive free school meals under family income supplement or the local authority discretion combined. That is better for the children and the families.
  Mr. Dobson: Is the Minister's estimate produced by the same people who produced the wholly false statement in the White Paper that about one third of English education authorities did not use their discretion to give school meals, which is patently false?
  Mr. Scott: The important thing is that 100,000 more families will be entitled to that cash benefit than now receive free school meals. Surely that is something that anybody concerned with the poorest in our society would welcome wholeheartedly.
  Mr. McAllion: In the past week I have been approached by two organisations which represent mentally and physically handicapped children, who, at present, have access to free school meals under the discretionary powers of Tayside region. They will be denied access to those meals as a result of the change brought about by the Bill. How does the Minister justify to the parents of those children the fact that in future they will not receive free school meals?
  Mr. Scott: Under the new system, 800,000 people on income support will receive free school meals and many more will receive the cash allowance.
  Mr. Tony Banks: Is the Minister aware that I have just received an answer from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who says that free breakfasts will be provided for business men under the inner-city initiative, at a cost of £400 per head? I should prefer a free breakfast from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to a free school meal from the Minister.
  Mr. Scott: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should check his mathematics.
  The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras asked what the Bill and the Government's record will do for the poorest in our society. As I close the debate, that is a question which I am only too delighted to answer. In 1986–87, benefit expenditure was £46 billion, an increase in real terms of 43 per cent. over the period that the Government have been in office. The real-terms increases in benefits level represent £5·35 billion of that and the increased number of beneficiaries some £8·4 billion of that. Social security spending rose from 25·6 per cent. of public expenditure in 1978–79 to over 30 per cent. in 1987–88. That is a measure of the Government's commitment to helping the poorest in our society.
  On pensioners, expenditure has grown in real terms by 30 per cent., representing a £5·5 billion increase in expenditure. On the long-term sick and disabled, expenditure has grown by about 80 per cent. in real terms over the period that the Government have been in office. Nobody can accuse the Government of not having a proper concern for the poorest and those who need help in our society. The real-terms increase in supplementary benefit and housing benefit was about £2·5 billion. That is the Government's record. Whether one considers families, lone parents or others who have needed help, it has been given by the Government and will continue to be given in the future.
  The hon. Member for Southport (Mr. Fearn) raised the question of 16 and 17-year-olds. He talked about us taking benefits away from those young people.
  Mr. Dobson rose—
  Mr. Scott: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will restrain himself for a moment.
  Assuming that they are not part of the lengthy list of exceptions which was discussed in Committee—I believe that the hon. Gentleman recognises the scope of those exceptions—the Government are saying to able-bodied 16 and 17-year-olds leaving education and going into the
  908
  adult world that they should not have the option of going for idleness when proper, high quality training schemes are available to them. That would not be serving the interests of able-bodied youngsters, if we gave them that option. We have a clear undertaking from my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department of Employment that those high quality schemes will be available.
  Another question was raised during the debate.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Scott: I have given way generously. The hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) asked why we must get on with the legislation and get Royal Assent in the immediate future. The reason is that many sets of regulations are needed to bring in the social security reforms on time in April. The regulations, two of which are subject to affirmative resolution and nine of which are subject to negative resolution, cover occupational pension schemes, applications to the social fund, statutory maternity pay, social security overlapping benefit, social security dependency regulations, claims and payments regulations, attendance allowance regulations, negative resolutions concerning the NHS regulations, and welfare food regulations. Nobody would dispute the importance of having such regulations in place, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham said, when the Bill becomes effective at the beginning of next month.
  A great deal has been made about the impact of such social security reforms upon poor people in our community. I have talked of the Government's record, but we should also be aware of the actual cash position of people when such reforms are introduced at the beginning of April. A great deal has been said about hypothetical cases, so-called structural reforms, and comparisons of that sort.
  But when we examine the cash position at the point of change, we shall see that the true position is that, out of a total 8·28 million recipients, 88 per cent. either gain or are unaffected, and 1·4 million gain at least £4. Of the 380,000 working couples with children, 76 per cent. gain over all. Of the 540,000 couples not in full-time work with children, 89 per cent. gain over all. Of the 810,000 lone parents, 89 per cent. either gain or are unaffected. Of the 410,000 sick and disabled people, 78,000 gain—of those, more than half gain at least £5 — and 80,000 are unaffected. Of pensioners aged 60 to 79, 63 per cent. gain and 22 per cent. are unaffected. They are all facts. I suspect that the cash position at the point of change will matter when people consider their individual circumstances.
  The Bill has received full consideration in both Houses. Opposition Members have had every opportunity to debate it, and plenty of time will now be given to debate the uncontroversial Lords amendments. I commend the timetable motion to the House.
  6.42 pm
  Mr. Nellist: Several hon. Members have contrasted tomorrow's Budget — which, if all the rumours are correct, will provide tax cuts for the extremely wealthy in this country, particularly the 21,000 millionaires, 17,000 of whom were created since 1979—with the position faced not only by recipients of the social fund but by those who care for the disabled, and in particular the 500,000 16 and

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  17-year-olds who, from April, will lose all right to supplementary benefit. Many hon. Members have said that the Bill has the support of the country—
  It being three hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER proceeded to put the Question necessary to dispose of them, pursuant to Standing Order No. 81 (Allocation of time to Bills).
  The House divided. Ayes 293, Noes 194.

  Division No. 212]

  [6.43 pm

  AYES

  Adley, Robert

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

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Alexander, Richard

  Day, Stephen

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Devlin, Tim

  Amess, David

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Amos, Alan

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Arbuthnot, James

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Dover, Den

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Dunn, Bob

  Ashby, David

  Durant, Tony

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Atkinson, David

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

  Evennett, David

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Baldry, Tony

  Fallon, Michael

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Farr, Sir John

  Batiste, Spencer

  Favell, Tony

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Bellingham, Henry

  Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

  Bendall, Vivian

  Forman, Nigel

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Benyon, W.

  Forth, Eric

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Biggs-Davison, Sir John

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Franks, Cecil

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Freeman, Roger

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  French, Douglas

  Bottomley, Peter

  Gardiner, George

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Gill, Christopher

  Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Bowis, John

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Brazier, Julian

  Gorst, John

  Bright, Graham

  Gow, Ian

  Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

  Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

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

  Gregory, Conal

  Browne. John (Winchester)

  Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Grist, Ian

  Burns, Simon

  Ground, Patrick

  Burt, Alistair

  Grylls, Michael

  Butcher, John

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Butler, Chris

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Butterfill, John

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hannam, John

  Carrington, Matthew

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

  Cash, William

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Harris, David

  Chope, Christopher

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Hayes, Jerry

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Hayward, Robert

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Colvin, Michael

  Heddle, John

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Cormack, Patrick

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Couchman, James

  Hill, James

  Cran, James

  Hind, Kenneth

  Critchley, Julian

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  910

  Holt, Richard

  Pawsey, James

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Howard, Michael

  Porter, David (Waveney)

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

  Portillo, Michael

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dtord)

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Price, Sir David

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Raffan, Keith

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Hunter, Andrew

  Redwood, John

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Renton, Tim

  Irvine, Michael

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Jack, Michael

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Jackson, Robert

  Riddick, Graham

  Janman, Tim

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Key, Robert

  Rowe, Andrew

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Knapman, Roger

  Ryder, Richard

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Sackville, Hon Tom

  Knowles, Michael

  Sainsbury, Hon Tim

  Knox, David

  Scott, Nicholas

  Lang, Ian

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Latham, Michael

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Lightbown, David

  Sims, Roger

  Lilley, Peter

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Lord, Michael

  Speed, Keith

  Luce, Rt Hon Richard

  Speller, Tony

  Lyell, Sir Nicholas

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Squire, Robin

  Maclean, David

  Steen, Anthony

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Stern, Michael

  McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

  Stevens, Lewis

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Madel, David

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Stewart, Ian (Hertfordshire N)

  Malins, Humfrey

  Stokes, John

  Mans, Keith

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Maples, John

  Sumberg, David

  Marland, Paul

  Summerson, Hugo

  Marlow, Tony

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Miller, Hal

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Mills, Iain

  Thurnham, Peter

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Moate, Roger

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Tracey, Richard

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Tredinnick, David

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Trippier, David

  Morrison, Hon Sir Charles

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Neale, Gerrard

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Nelson, Anthony

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Neubert, Michael

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Walden, George

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Nicholson. David (Taunton)

  Waller, Gary

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Walters, Dennis

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Ward, John

  Page, Richard

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Paice, James

  Watts, John

  Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

  Wells, Bowen

  Patnick, Irvine

  Whitney, Ray

  Patten, Chris (Bath)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Patten, John (Oxford W)

  Wilshire, David

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Winterton, Nicholas

  911

  Wolfson, Mark

  Wood, Timothy

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Yeo, Tim

  Mr. Robert Boscwen and

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones.

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  NOES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Gordon, Mildred

  Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

  Gould, Bryan

  Allen, Graham

  Graham, Thomas

  Anderson, Donald

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Grocott, Bruce

  Ashton, Joe

  Hardy, Peter

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Barron, Kevin

  Haynes, Frank

  Battle, John

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Beckett, Margaret

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Beith, A. J.

  Henderson, Doug

  Bell, Stuart

  Hinchliffe, David

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

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

  Holland, Stuart

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Home Robertson, John

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Hood, Jimmy

  Blair, Tony

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Boateng, Paul

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

  Boyes, Roland

  Hoyle, Doug

  Bradley, Keith

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Buchan, Norman

  Illsley, Eric

  Buckley, George J.

  Ingram, Adam

  Caborn, Richard

  Janner, Greville

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  John, Brynmor

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

  Canavan, Dennis

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Kennedy, Charles

  Clay, Bob

  Lamond, James

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Leighton, Ron

  Cohen, Harry

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Lewis, Terry

  Corbett, Robin

  Litherland, Robert

  Cousins, Jim

  Livingstone, Ken

  Cryer, Bob

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Cummings, John

  Loyden, Eddie

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  McAllion, John

  Cunningham, Dr John

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Dalyell, Tam

  McCartney, Ian

  Darling, Alistair

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  McFall, John

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

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Dewar, Donald

  McKelvey, William

  Dixon, Don

  McLeish, Henry

  Dobson, Frank

  McNamara, Kevin

  Doran, Frank

  McTaggart, Bob

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Madden, Max

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Eadie, Alexander

  Meacher, Michael

  Eastham, Ken

  Meale, Alan

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Michael, Alun

  Fatchett, Derek

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Faulds, Andrew

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

  Fearn, Ronald

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

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

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Fisher, Mark

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Flannery, Martin

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Flynn, Paul

  Mowlam, Marjorie

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Mullin, Chris

  Foulkes, George

  Murphy, Paul

  Fraser, John

  Nellist, Dave

  Fyfe, Maria

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Galbraith, Sam

  O'Brien, William

  Galloway, George

  O'Neill, Martin

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  George, Bruce

  Parry, Robert

  912

  Patchett, Terry

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

  Pendry, Tom

  Snape, Peter

  Pike, Peter L.

  Soley, Clive

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Radice, Giles

  Stott, Roger

  Randall, Stuart

  Straw, Jack

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Reid, Dr John

  Turner, Dennis

  Richardson, Jo

  Wall, Pat

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Wallace, James

  Robertson, George

  Walley, Joan

  Robinson, Geoffrey

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Rogers, Allan

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Rooker, Jeff

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Ruddock, Joan

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Sheerman, Barry

  Winnick, David

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Short, Clare

  Skinner, Dennis

  Tellers for the Noes

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Mrs. Llin Golding and

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

  Mr. Frank Cook.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the following provisions shall apply to the remaining proceedings on the Bill:—

  Lords Amendments
  1. — (1) The proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion six hours after the commencement of the proceedings on this motion.
  (2) Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to those proceedings.
  (3) No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the proceedings shall be made except by a member of the Government, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
  (4) If the proceedings are interrupted by a Motion for the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration), a period equal to the duration of the proceedings on the Motion shall be added to the period at the end of which the proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion.
  (5) If the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended before the expiry of the period at the end of which the proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion, no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a member of the Government for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.
  2.—(1) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1 above—

  (a) Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has already been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided and, if that Question is for the amendment of the Lords Amendment, shall then put forthwith the Question on any further Amendment of the said Lords Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown, and on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in the said Lords Amendment, or, as the case may be, in the said Lords Amendment as amended;

  (b) Mr. Speaker shall then designate such of the remaining Lords Amendments as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall—

  (i) put forthwith the Question on any Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment and then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in their Amendment, or, as the case may be, in their Amendment as amended;

  913

  (ii) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in a Lords Amendment;

  (iii) put forthwith with respect to the Amendments designated by Mr. Speaker which have not been disposed of the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendents; and

  (iv) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments;

  (c) as soon as the House has agreed or disagreed with the Lords in any of their Amendments Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith a separate Question on any other Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown relevant to that Lords Amendment.

  (2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) above shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

  Stages subsequent to, first Consideration of Lords Amendments
  3. The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill shall be brought to a conclusion one hour after the commencement of those proceedings.
  4. For the purpose of bringing those proceedings to a conclusion—

  (a) Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has already been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided, and shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the Chair;

  (b) Mr. Speaker shall then designate such of the remaining items in the Lords Message as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall—

  (i) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on any item;

  (ii) in the case of the remaining items designated by Mr. Speaker, put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in their said Proposals; and

  (iii) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.

  Supplemental
  5. — (1) In this paragraph "the proceedings" means proceedings on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill, on the appointment and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and the Report of such a Committee.
  (2) Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the consideration forthwith of the Message or, as the case may be, for the appointment and quorum of the Committee.
  (3) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.
  (4) Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings.
  (5) No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the proceedings shall be made except by a member of the Government and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
  (6) If the proceedings are interrupted by a Motion for the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) a period equal to the duration of the proceedings on the Motion shall be added to the period at the end of which the proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion.

  Interpretation
  6. In this Order 'the Bill' means the Social Security Bill.
Orders of the Day

  Social Security Bill
  Lords amendments considered.
  6.56 pm
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): I have to inform the House that Lords amendment No. 1 involves privilege.

  Social Security Bill
    Clause 1

      ATTENDANCE ALLOWANCE
      Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 2 line 2, leave out "(bb) below" and insert
      "(a) or (bb) of the Social Security Act 1975"
      The Minister for Social Security and the Disabled (Mr. Nicholas Scott): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
      Mrs. Margaret Beckett: I should like the Minister to confirm whether, as it appears to us, the amendment seeks to ensure that the Attendance Allowance Board can review an award made in the interim period before the Act comes into force because of a change of circumstances and that the Government are bringing into play the phraseology of the Social Security Act 1975 about a
      "change of circumstances … ignorance of a material fact … or … based on a mistake as to a material fact".
      I should like the Minister to confirm, first, whether that is the purport of the amendment. Secondly, I should like him to confirm whether the introduction of such phrases into the Bill means that following the passage of the amendment — if, indeed, it is carried — people who are now able to draw attendance allowance — people like Mrs. Dorothy Moran, if not Mrs. Moran herself—will be under a continuing danger, if at any time the board decides to review an award, of losing that award. We should like it clearly on the record whether, when the amendment is incorporated into the Bill, those now receiving attendance allowance, under the new interpretation of the Act as given in the courts, will be perpetually at risk of losing the award until the board decides to remove it from them.
      Mr. Dave Nellist: As we are discussing an amendment to clause 1, will the Minister take this opportunity — given that he has received the Griffiths report — to give us the date upon which the promises that were given regarding the extension of the attendance allowance to those children under the age of two will be announced by his Department?
      Mr. Scott: The Griffiths report is due to be published on 16 March. When I mentioned this matter before, I made it clear that other factors in the debate related to the OPCS survey of disability and the Government's subsequent view about a coherent set of benefits. Therefore, I am unable to give a date for that particular matter.
      Mrs. Audrey Wise: If the Minister will not give my hon. Friend that assurance, I wonder whether he will take this opportunity to assure us about another

      915
      matter. On Report there was reference — the same point was pursued subsequently in another place — by the Front Bench to the interaction between attendance allowance and invalid care allowance. On studying Hansard I saw to my horror that the Minister's words could possibly be interpreted as suggesting that there might be some change for the worse for children over the age of two. He said:
      "it is right to look at the interaction of attendance allowance and invalid care allowance, perhaps throughout childhood". —[Official Report, 12 January 1988; Vol. 125, c. 238.]
      Will the Minister assure me that he does not intend to remove or in any way interfere detrimentally with attendance allowance for children between the ages of two and 16?
      Mr. Scott: I said that the Government wanted to take a coherent look at disability benefits across the board. One should include any options, but I have no present intention to move in the direction mentioned by the hon. Lady. However, I would not wish to rule out anything at this stage until we have had the OPCS survey and the Griffiths report. We can then see what the needs are and how they can best be met in a coherent way.
      In answer to the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), we have always made it absolutely clear that people receiving attendance allowance will not be subject to clause 1, unless and until claims have to be reconsidered on renewal or review in the normal course of events. That is not the purpose of the amendment.
      The amendment is to correct technical mistakes in the drafting of clause 1(2)(c) of the Bill. First, it corrected a wrong reference. The reference to
      "section 106(1)(bb) below"
      was always intended to be a reference to section 106(1)(bb) of the Social Security Act 1975 which gives the Attendance Allowance Board power to review decisions. The amendment makes that clear.
      Secondly, the board's review powers in section 106 of the 1975 Act are set out in section 106(1)(a) and (bb). Before the amendment, clause 1(2)(c) was deficient in that it referred only to section 106(1)(bb). The amendment corrected that deficiency by inserting a reference to section 106(1)(a).
      Question put and agreed to. [Special Entry.]

    Clause 3

      COMMENCEMENT OF PAYMENT OF FAMILY CREDIT
      Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 44, line 14, leave out "(6) of the Social Security Act 1986"
      and insert
      "of the Social Security Act 1986—

      (a) the following subsection shall be inserted after subsection (5)—

      "5A) In subsection (5) above "the applicable amount" means the applicable amount at such date as may be prescribed,"; and

      (b) in subsection (6)"

      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Portillo): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I must inform the House that this amendment involves privilege.
      Mr. Portillo: Clause 3 amends the 1986 Act to delete the requirement for family credit awards to start always from the week in which the claim is made, and instead leaves regulations to prescribe the date from which payment shall begin. This further provision to be added to clause 3 is to cover situations where payment is to begin from a date different from the date of claim and will allow cases to be assessed on the benefit rates applicable at the time the benefit is to commence. This will usually be to the claimant's advantage. This will be beneficial to claimants in enabling account to be taken of any increase in the relevant benefit rates during the intervening period—for example, if a child has a birthday and moves into a higher age band or if there is a general uprating.
      Claimants can make applications for family credit four weeks in advance—indeed, they are encouraged to apply early when renewing — and we would not wish to penalise those early claimants, for renewal.
      Mrs. Wise: I notice that the Minister said:
      "This will usually be to the claimant's advantage."
      Are there circumstances in which it would not be to the benefit of the claimant?
      Mr. Portillo: If the claimant uses the other flexibility, to apply late — within two weeks after the renewal date — the benefit rates that will be applied will be the rates that apply from the time that the claim should begin, not the time when the claim is made if the claim is made late. If an uprating occurs in the period between the due date and the date on which the claim is made, the benefit rates would be the rates at the date at which entitlement begins and not the date on which the claim was made.
      Question put and agreed to. [Special Entry.]

    Clause 4

      INCOME SUPPORT AND CHILD BENEFIT
      Lords amendment No. 3, in page 5, line 38, leave out "this section" and insert "subsection (4A) above".
      Mr. Portillo: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
      This amendment to subsection (4J) ensures that there can be no misunderstanding about what "this section" means by specifying that the reference is to subsection (4A). It is a very minor drafting amendment which is made purely to ensure that there is no misunderstanding.
      Subsection (4A) gives a power to the Secretary of State to direct that a young person may be entitled to income support if he considers that severe hardship would unavoidably result if benefit was not to be paid even though that young person would otherwise not be entitled. Subsection (4J) provides that the Secretary of State may, on revoking such a direction, certify whether there has been misrepresentation of a material fact or failure to disclose a material fact.
      Mr. Ronnie Fearn: With regard to subsection (4A), can the Minister clarify what is meant by the power of the Secretary of State? Is that power designated through the officers of the DHSS, or does the application have to go direct to the Secretary of State in every case?
      Mr. Portillo: The hon. Gentleman may recall from our Committee debates that we are talking about discretionary powers exercised by the Secretary of State. Those powers

      917
      can be exercised by officers acting on his behalf. In those circumstances those officers are not acting as adjudication officers. In Committee we also gave the assurance that, routinely, such applications for the exercise of the Secretary of State's discretion would be referred to headquarters before they were made. Therefore, although the officers are acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, they will consult officers at headquarters before discretion is exercised.
      Mr. Nellist: There is a plethora of attacks against working people contained in the Bill. The clause, even after the amendment that has been proposed by the Lords and which the Government have initiated, removes from half a million 16 and 17-year-olds all rights to supplementary benefit, notwithstanding the Minister's explanation regarding whether or not there is justification or a lack of information about the decisions taken when those youngsters have that benefit removed.
      Today, around the country, there have been tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of those about to be effected by the clause who have demonstrated their opposition by attending rallies, marches and demonstrations.
      In the debate on the guillotine motion it was said that the Bill and, indeed, this clause, had the wide support of people throughout the country — patently that was not true today. Youngsters at technical colleges will use the right to study part time and those on YTS feel constricted to stay on those schemes or otherwise they will lose their benefit. Students who will leave school at Easter and summer have demonstrated, as have the parents of those involved.
      I want to take this opportunity to warn the Government that, among young people in this country, they are storing up an undying, deep and widespread hatred of the effects of the clause—notwithstanding the effects of Lords amendment No. 3—and the effects that the Minister has attributed to it in his brief remarks. The Tories may think that there is popularity in YTS conscription—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman really cannot seek to use this very limited amendment to open up the wide debate that he is now embarking upon on clause 4.
      Mr. Nellist: No, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I seek to do it while I can keep within the rules of order which you, from the Chair, correctly determine.
      I believe that the amendment to which the Minister has just spoken, Lords amendment No. 3
      "Page 5, line 38, leave out 'this section' and insert `subsection (4A) above'"
      to clause 4 will not fundamentally alter the opposition which is widespread among young people. On a day when tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of young people have taken their last opportunity before the House finally passes clause 4 of the Bill, to demonstrate their opposition, it seems not outwith the bounds of debate here to attempt to finish making that point.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Lords amendment before the House is to insert the words on the Amendment Paper. I do not see how that can in any way lend itself to the kind of wide debate that the hon. Member is engaging in.
      Mr. Nellist: Earlier today, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on two occasions I spoke to several hundred young people in Coventry about the fact—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Be that as it may, this is the House of Commons, and the hon. Gentleman must address himself to the amendment before the House. That he is not doing.
      Mr. Nellist: I am just trying to tell the House that on two occasions, at 10 and between 12 and 1.30 today in Coventry, I spoke to several hundred young people about the fact that this Bill was completing its stages through Parliament, beginning at 3.30. I mentioned to them that Lords amendment No. 3 to clause 4 was coming before the House, and they felt extremely aggrieved about it.
      What I am trying to do, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in my final brief remarks on this clause—because I am also concerned that there should be as full a debate as possible, particularly on the following amendments to do with child benefit — is just to tell the Government through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as the Chair of this particular stage of the Bill, that there is widespread and deep opposition among those about to leave school who, despite the Government's attempts to reform this clause by the introduction of Lords amendment No. 3, were not reassured at the meetings that we held in Coventry this morning and this lunchtime.
      I warn the Government of this. There is widespread opposition to this amendment, to Lords amendment No. 3, to clause 4 of the Social Security Bill, and the Government will reap the reward of what they have sown by this clause in the weeks and months ahead, when those youngsters and their parents realise, in three weeks' time, that half a million young people lose their benefit and, in 24 hours' time, that 21,000 millionaires reap their reward from the Budget.
      7.15 pm
      Mrs. Alice Mahon: I asked the Minister in Committee whether any allowances could be made under clause 4 to youngsters leaving care. I repeat that request now. Will the Minister find it in his heart to make any concessions whatsoever for a group of youngsters who are dreadfully disadvantaged and who have lots of things in society going against them? Will he please reconsider before this goes through?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady cannot open a wide debate on clause 4. We are addressing a very limited amendment from their Lordships' House.
      Question put and agreed to.

  After Clause 4
  Insert the following new Clause—
  After Clause 4

    Annual review of child benefit
    "The Secretary of State shall review the level of child benefit in April of each year, taking account of increases in the Retail Price Index and other relevant external factors."
    Read a Second time.
    Mrs. Beckett: I beg to move amendment (a) to the Lords amendment, in line 2, leave out from "benefit" to end of Clause and insert
    'in each tax year in order to determine whether the sums specified by virtue of section 5(1) of the Child Benefit Act 1975 have retained their value in relation to the general level of prices obtaining in Great Britain estimated in such manner as he thinks fit and, where it appears to him that the general level of prices is greater at the end of the period under review

    919
    than it was at the beginning of the period, he shall lay before Parliament in the same tax year the draft of an order which increases each of those sums, with effect from the week beginning with the first Monday in the next tax year or such earlier date in April as may be specified in the draft order, by a percentage not less than the percentage by which the general level of prices is greater at the end of the period than it was at the beginning; and if the draft order is approved by a resolution of each House he shall make the order in the form of the draft.'.
    I want to begin by quoting, from the Green Paper published by the Government in June 1985, paragraph 4.37 on the study of the role of child benefit. The Government's conclusion from that study was
    "that it had underlined the fact that there were two clear and distinct aims in helping families with the cost of bringing up children. The first is to provide help for families generally while the second is to provide extra help for low-income families. It would be a serious mistake to confuse these quite distinct purposes or to seek to restructure a benefit designed to meet one aim in order to meet the other aim. Child benefit is designed to meet the needs of families generally. As such it is … simple, straightforward, well understood and preferred as it is. The case for changing it has not been made out. The Government do not therefore propose to alter its basis or structure."
    It seems wise, to put it no higher, to open a debate on the review of child benefits by quoting those words from the Government in June 1985, if only because so many, particularly, of the new Members on the Government Benches seem not to have read them.
    What the paragraph makes very clear is that the policy and philosophy of the Government were that there should be no question of the help that comes generally to families, in recognition of the role that they perform—the help by means of child benefit—being in any sense confused with other help needed, particularly by the poor. The Government said that it should not be offset against the help that is given to the poor.
    Since those wise words were written, the Government have strayed a trifle from the straight and narrow. They have failed twice to increase child benefit in line with inflation. On the first occasion they saved some £175 million a year and on the second, some £120 million, a total now of about £295 million a year. I hope that that will be particularly noted by Government Members, including the hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind), who spoke in our earlier debate about the vast amount of money that the Government were pouring in to help families. I hope, therefore, that he has noted that most of that money is coming directly from families. The amount of money that a family has lost on average is about £30 a year. It has been pointed out in our previous debates on this matter that £30 is enough to buy a coat or a couple of pairs of shoes, items which many families find it difficult to budget for—although that is particularly true of poorer families.
    As well as the action of the Government in not actually uprating child benefit in line with inflation, the tone and words of the debate have both changed. The Government have talked about not being able to afford to increase child benefit in line with inflation. We understand, of course, that all Governments have priorities. Part of the purpose of these debates is to examine what the priorities of different Governments may be. Nevertheless, the Government have argued that, against those priorities, they have been unable to afford to increase child benefit.
    In the context of saying that they are unable to afford it, the Government have also begun to talk of child benefit
    920
    as not being a well-targeted benefit and finally to say that the Government have better means of helping those with the greatest needs.
    Let us look first at that part of the Government's case that says that they cannot afford this increase in child benefit, particularly against the background of some of the recent studies of what is happening with regard to families with children, as opposed to the childless. I would like to draw the attention of the House to a very small booklet that any hon. Member would be able to find time to read. It is called "Family Fortunes" and it was produced by the Family Policy Studies Centre fairly recently. In it, the author examines, from official Government data, family expenditure surveys and so on, the trend of incomes in families. It focuses particularly on the way in which the pattern of income has developed among families with children as opposed to that among families generally.
    The study shows that, in a household of two adults with children, after the effect of taxes and of all benefits, the income of the bottom fifth of families fell, and that the top fifth, with the pattern of benefits and tax changes as they have been under this Government, benefited from the largest rise in income. So it is the case, if we look at the overall pattern of tax and benefit changes, that it is still the better off who have done better under this Government. The fact that tax allowances have been increased far more than child benefit is a main contributor to that.
    The incomes of all families with children showed a decline compared with the incomes of those who are childless, which I suppose one might accept, but it is nonetheless not insignificant when one considers that child benefit has not increased in line with inflation. In single-parent households where there is one adult with children, even after all the tax and benefit changes, and all the things to which hon. Members have drawn attention, implying that Government have compensated people in this position for other changes which have taken place, the average income of such families fell by 11 per cent. over the period studied.
    There is little doubt, as many Opposition Members have observed, and as the study shows, that increased difficulties are being faced by families with children, although, sadly, they have not found their place among the Government priorities. During recent years, the value of personal tax allowances has been increased by 15 per cent., whereas in the same period the value of child benefit has fallen by 3 per cent. Tax allowances and other benefits have been increased at least in line with inflation, although the failure once in nine years to increase them by a ha'penny more than the legal formula has meant that the standard of living of those in receipt of pensions and benefits has been eroded compared with that of those in work.
    During a period in which the Government said that they could not afford to increase child benefit, as we saw in the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments last week, the Government have managed to build up a margin, room for manoeuvre, of some £8,000 million through income and expenditure from the national insurance fund. I do not mean to imply that that money is readily available to the Government. Indeed, lest the Minister feels that I have misrepresented what the Government have done, it is clear that that amount is only some £4,000 million above what the Government concede would be prudent to have as a notional balance an the fund. Nevertheless, that £4,000 million represents the

    921
    margin — the room for manoeuvre — that the Government have given themselves in their manipulation of the national insurance fund on a cumulative basis in recent years.
    Tomorrow, we shall be debating the Budget, and we are all expecting— and some are eagerly anticipating — substantial tax cuts.
    Mr. Eric Forth: Hear, hear.
    Mrs. Beckett: This year the Government are making a straight profit of £2,000 million on the national insurance fund. That £2,000 million has been raised through the contributions this year that are not being paid through national insurance benefit. Does the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) still wish to say, "Hear, hear"?
    Mr. Forth indicated assent.
    Mr. Tony Marlow rose—
    Mrs. Beckett: I am interested to hear that, and I am sure that the pensioners in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and others, such as the invalids who draw national insurance benefits will be interested to know that the hon. Gentleman is in favour of the Government making a profit of £2,000 million at their expense.
    Mr. Marlow: As the hon. Lady said, tomorrow the Chancellor is about to hand back to the public some of the public money that he has already stuffed in his pockets because the economy is in such a positive and exceptionally buoyant situation. Will the hon. Lady congratulate the Government on their economic stewardship over our affairs in the past 10 years?
    Mrs. Beckett: I should like to congratulate the Government on their extraordinary good fortune in being in receipt of thousands of millions of pounds from North sea oil. I doubt whether it is often his bedtime reading, but if the hon. Gentleman would look at the figures for the national insurance fund he would see the way in which national insurance contributions and benefits have been manipulated. I do not understand how any hon. Member, even the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire can congratulate the Government on so manipulating the national insurance fund that they made thousands of millions in profit at the expense of the people who should be drawing pensions and benefits. Is that what the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) considers to be a matter for congratulation? I can tell him that Opposition Members do not agree.
    Therefore, as the hon. Member for Northampton, North said, there is money in the Government's coffers, much of it raised at the expense of pensioners and benefit, yet the Government still claim that they are forced to cut child benefit.
    Mr. Kenneth Hind: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Mrs. Beckett: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman rather sooner than he gave way to me in our earlier debate.
    Mr. Hind: I was trying to finish my point. Does the hon. Lady concede that there are large falls in the number of people claiming benefit because they have jobs, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North has
    922
    shown, is a sign of the success of the Government's policy? Surely the number of people claiming, and being eligible to claim, single payments under the social fund means that there is less need for such a large fund?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We shall be debating later in our proceedings amendments relating to the social fund. I hope that for the moment, hon. Members will stick to the amendments dealing with child benefit.
    Mrs. Beckett: I was referring to the money raised through the national insurance fund and not to the social fund, which, as you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, pointed out, is not the subject of these amendments.
    The Government have claimed that they have not been able to afford an increase in child benefit. They have also claimed that, in any case, child benefit is not well targeted. That is a peculiar argument. As child benefit is paid on account of having children, it is a particularly well-targeted benefit. It is almost 100 per cent. well-targeted since it is paid only to families with children.
    That peculiar argument to some extent has been explained by Conservative Members by reference to what my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) described as the Duchess of Westminster syndrome — that, to excuse their wish to abolish the universal child benefit, Conservative Members have suggested that there is no need for someone in the position of the Duchess of Westminster to draw child benefit.
    It is always noticeable that Conservative Members raise the argument that if child benefit were abolished, and instead the money were used in tax cuts, people with high incomes, and even the Duchess of Westminster, would benefit substantially more from tax cuts than from receiving child benefit. What appears to be an argument in favour of giving more to those in more need is actually in favour once again of giving money to those in less need under the guise of seeking to help the poor.
    Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Does the hon. Lady accept that we never hear from the Government arguments in favour of doing away with personal allowances, which are broadly set to give greater advantage to those on high incomes than to those on low incomes?
    Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman is quite right. Some months ago, when the announcement about child benefit was in the pipeline, there was a most interesting letter in The Guardian. The person who wrote the letter quoted the way in which married man's allowance is paid and asked
    "why it is all right for the state to give between £7·11 and £15·80 per week to a man to support his wife"ߞ
    the differential amount that it might be worth to people in different circumstances京
    "but objectionable for the state to give £7·25 per week to a woman to support her child?"
    That is a most worthy point and clearly emphasised the fact that tax allowances, as all hon. Members are perfectly aware, give more to those who already have more, whereas child benefit is a straight cash benefit paid to the mother.
    The argument that has been put forward by Conservative Members about targeting is in all ways a spurious argument. I must admit that I have always suspected that those who put that argument were perfectly aware that cutting out child benefit would be of substantially more assistance to those on high income and that they are quite content that that should be the case. Certainly it is hard to see how they can refute any criticisms of that.

    923
    Apart from arguing that an increase in child benefit cannot be afforded, or that child benefit is not well-targeted, the third case that has been put of late is that it does not matter that the Government are not increasing child benefit in line with inflation because, through targeting help on those in the greatest need, they are doing more for the poorest families. I find that a rather strange argument. The Government are saying that they prefer to cut a benefit which reaches 100 per cent. of its recipients to put money into a benefit which, on the Government's most optimistic figures, will reach only 60 to 70 per cent. of its recipients. Indeed, there is no justification for the optimism that the Government expressed, unless one considers that a parliamentary answer saying that more people will receive family credit because more people will claim it is a justification. I do not believe that it is justified.
    The Government claim that they are targeting help through family credit or income support. They have explicitly said that, since they cannot afford to increase child benefit and pay generous rates of family credit, the money cut from child benefit would fund, for example, the money going into family credit. Again, it is unfortunate that one has only to examine the way in which the family credit scheme works in practice to see that to claim that the scheme gives the greatest help to those in greatest need is wide of the mark.
    A family with two children paying average rent and rates will be worse off on its combination of benefits from family credit and housing benefit until its earnings rise above £140 a week. A family with three children will he worse off, even with earnings as high as £170 a week. A single parent with children will he worse off on earnings up to about £120 a week. So it is simply not true to say that it does not matter that the Government are not inflation-proofing child benefit because money will go to those in the greatest need. Even on family credit, money is going to those whose earnings are already at the higher end of the scale.
    7.30 pm
    The hon. Member for Lancashire, West referred to the compensation that the Government are putting into income support. I am sorry, although I suppose it is understandable, that he has read only the briefings from Conservative Central Office and, perhaps, the Government, and that he has not followed any other arguments. It has obviously passed him by that the 20 per cent. bill for rates which everyone will face, for example, is not compensated for, as the Government claimed it might be, in the income support rates. The Government have failed to increase support on the illustrative figures announced in line with inflation and to add an average figure as compensation for the rates. So the cash sum being paid appears to be higher, but it does not meet even the average increase in rates, and in many areas the figure will be inadequate.
    A great deal of emphasis has been laid on the fact that the family premium, or the availability of money through the social fund, in some way compensates for the loss of single payments or additional requirements. I refer hon. Gentlemen who think that this is compensation for not uprating child benefit properly, to the Social Security Advisory Committee — the Government's independent advisory group—or to the Select Committee, both of which made it plain that the proposed figure of £575—the illustrative figure as it was—and the actual figure of
    924
    £615, which has broadly increased in line with inflation, are inadequate to compensate a family for what it will lose in single payments or additional requirements or, indeed, from the Government's general failure to make income support premiums payable and basic incomes payable at an adequate level.
    The final argument we have heard from Conservative Members has been that tax cuts are as good for a family as child benefit, if not better. I remind the House that 2,250,000 families now receive more in child benefit than they pay in tax. There is no way that they could benefit from some switch back to tax allowances. The Library has calculated that for a typical family on earnings of about £130 a week, to he even 10 per cent. better off in work, it would need to increase its earnings by a further £60 a week to make up for the loss of child benefit. The case for child benefit is clear, simple, understandable and well targeted, like the benefit. The case for not increasing child benefit in line with inflation is weak.
    Earlier this evening we were accused of wanting to impede the passage of Government business, as if it were shocking for an Opposition to want to do that. If what the Government are doing is beneficial, we are happy to facilitate the passage of their business. The Government have made it clear that they may he prepared to accept an amendment carried in the other place and to bow to the wishes clearly expressed in the amendment that child benefit should be uprated in line with inflation year by year, as so many other benefits are.
    We understood from what was said in the other place that the amendment was defective, particularly in that it asked the Government to consider these matters but not to do anything about them. In line with the spirit of co-operation, for which many Tory Members were pleading earlier, we are happy to offer the Government amendment (a), which we feel confident they will accept, to replace the amendment moved in the other place.
    We can see from the length of the Amendment Paper and the number of technical amendments that the Government have proposed, that they have had difficulty, although this is their third attempt in legislation, in getting the Bill right. Therefore, we understand that they did not have time to draft the sort of technical amendment that might he appropriate to increase child benefit every year, so we hope that our amendment will be of assistance to them.
    We are a responsible Opposition, and nothing could be more responsible than to help the Government carry into operation what is clearly their intent. I commend this amendment to the House and I am sure that it will he welcomed by Conservative Members.
    Mr. Timothy Raison: Anybody who thinks about how the costs of social security have soared must recognise that the Government were bound to think again about the range of the provision. As many of my hon. Friends made clear on 12 January, there is considerable anxiety on this side about the decision not to uprate child benefit. There is no need to rehearse all those arguments again, because they were put eloquently in that debate, but four factors are particularly significant.
    First, child benefit provides support for families with children and, perhaps increasingly, that is where poverty is likely to be found. Family credit is a generous measure and I praise my right hon. and hon. Friends for that, but

    925
    it is difficult to avoid the fact that today we are likely to find poverty in families with children, and child benefit has always been a valuable safeguard against that.
    Secondly, when child benefit was introduced, it replaced the tax allowances available to those with children. Perhaps, as the Opposition have pointed out, that is particularly relevant and remains important today.
    Thirdly, child benefit is paid to the mother. That is an important feature and it was fought for in the debates on this subject in 1944 and 1945. We must remember that the Government of the day made a concession on that. Fourthly, child benefit diminishes the extent of the poverty trap.
    If, as the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) suggested, my hon. Friend the Minister is about to rise and say that the Lords amendment is acceptable, we shall welcome that. It would represent progress. I hope that that is what my hon. Friend will tell us. Obviously, it is important, because in doing so the Government would be accepting the maintenance of the principle of child benefit. I know that that was stated in the election manifesto last year, but acceptance of the amendment would be a further reiteration of the Government's position. It may be argued that that is to accept that we shall continue to have child benefit rather than to uprate it automatically, as many of us would like, but it would be a reaffirmation by the Government of their intention to keep child benefit throughout this Parliament.
    It is important that the amendment should require an annual review of child benefit. That would be a real gain. Can my hon. Friend be more forthcoming? He may argue, as he did previously, that the Government must have power not to uprate if circumstances justify it and he may be right, but that is a matter for argument. We should like to hear that the Government do not intend as a matter of regular policy not to uprate child benefit. That is particularly important. Can my hon. Friend reassure us today that the Government do not intend to end the uprating of child benefit in future?
    Mr. Wigley: I very much agree with the remarks of the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison). The case for child benefit has been made on both sides of the House. Its great advantage is that it is directed to the mother and that it helps to overcome the poverty trap. It also exists whether or not people are in work, so it is an incentive for them to get work. It is also relevant because of the high rate for the large number of single-parent families.
    Only this morning, in a constituency surgery, that point was brought home to me by a mother who had lost child benefit because her child had reached working age and was expected to contribute £10 a week for his keep, which was difficult to get from him, whereas child benefit had been coming through to the mother automatically — so she was feeling the difference.
    The Lords amendment does not give us the categorical assurance that hon. Members on both sides should seek. It refers to the retail price index and other external factors. It is all very well taking those into account and sitting down once a year to think about child benefit, but that is not the same as ensuring that it is indexed and changed each year so that it does not fall behind. Once something
    926
    begins to fall behind, it is that much more difficult for it to catch up. That was the reason behind the indexing of allowances.
    As the right hon. Member for Aylesbury said, the background to child benefit was the child allowance. We are now, to all intents and purposes, at least indexing, and sometimes doing more for, personal allowances. Surely, at a time when the Government have a reasonable amount of resources at their disposal and profess that that is likely to be so for the next few years, we should think of those who are most vulnerable in our society—people on low incomes who are bringing up children, for whom child benefit is of such a great importance.
    Even if the amendment does not go all the way, the Minister should give a categorical, bankable assurance, or I shall be inclined to support the Opposition amendment. I hope that we shall hear better news from the Government about their intentions.
    Mr. Marlow: My right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) spoke about the fact that we used to have child tax allowances and that, to a large extent, child benefit has taken over from those. Child benefit this year is static; it is not being increased. After inflation, that means that in real terms it is being reduced — even though only slightly.
    We all know that because of the successful way in which the Government have managed the economy, it is no secret — there are usually Budget secrets — that there will be reductions in taxes tomorrow: reductions in the standard rate of tax. I am concerned here not with those in relative poverty or those who are relatively wealthly, but with those who are standard rate taxpayers — the vast majority of the working people about whom the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) speaks so often.
    A household with a husband and wife will get the full benefit of the tax cuts that will come tomorrow, and good luck to them. However, another household with a husband and wife and children will have the benefit of the tax cuts, but also the reduction in the child benefit. So the first household will be better off by more than the second. The second might even, in its particular circumstances, be relatively worse off. So, by combining these two measures, we are taking money from those with children and giving it to those without. That cannot make sense, particularly in that middle band of people.
    Therefore, I am delighted that the Government have seen fit to accept the amendment from another place. I reiterate the point made eloquently by my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury: we hope that my hon. Friend the Minister, when he replies—we know him to be sincere, sensitive, generous, thoughtful, decent and warm-hearted — will give the assurance for which my right hon. Friend asked.
    7.45 pm
    Mrs. Mahon: Child benefit is a special benefit. It is some recognition by the state and society of the considerable cost of having and bringing up children. It is a welcome and good benefit because it is universal, it is not subjected to the hateful system of means testing and it has a 100 per cent. take-up. My hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) was right to say that it is an excellently targeted benefit, and people appreciate it as such.

    927
    Conservative Members have complained about the cost of child benefit, but it is chickenfeed compared with the tax handouts that the Government have given to the better off. It is chickenfeed compared with the tax avoidance that goes on in this country each year. The Government use the argument that they are freezing child benefit to provide funds for the poorest families, but that is unjust and unfair. It is unfair that the poorest and those who carry the burden of poverty should have to tighten their belts even more, while the Government brag about how well their economic policies are working.
    The latest DHSS figures show that 16 per cent. of all children are being brought up in families who are either on the margin of poverty or below it. That is a disgraceful record. I am aware that Conservative Members do not understand what poverty means. I draw their attention to Professor Townsend's definition of poverty. He is perhaps the greatest social scientist practising today. He said:
    "Individuals, families and groups in the population can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the type of diet, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which are customary or at least widely encouraged or approved in the societies to which they belong. Their resources are so seriously below those commanded by the average individual or family that they are in effect excluded from ordinary living patterns, customs and activities."
    I agree with that definition of poverty. It is a sad reflection on the Conservative party that there has been a massive increase in poverty because of its policies over the last eight or nine years. Child benefit is one obstacle in the way of that growing poverty.
    It has been estimated, on Government figures, that the refusal to uprate will mean that this year 15,000 parents and 30,000 children will be pushed into dependency and means testing, which means more and deepening poverty. How can the Government justify that? I plead with the Minister to rethink this refusal to upgrade child benefit. How can the Government claim to be the Government of the family when they are deliberately reneging on their election pledge? The Chief Secretary to the Treasury is quoted as having clearly said:
    "Child benefit will continue as a non-means tested universal payment paid to the mother and tax-free. There ought to be no doubt about this."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 March 1988; Vol. 494, c. 313.]
    The spirit of that comment was thought by hon. Members on both sides of the House to mean that the benefit would be index-linked and not frozen.
    The refusal to uprate is also a direct attack on women, who take the prime responsibility for caring. They lose out in almost every other area. Women's incomes are generally lower than their average male counterparts. Two out of three low-paid workers are women, and more women rely on state benefits than men— [Interruption.] Those are the facts. I am sorry that Conservative Members find them amusing. As one who has been in that position, I can tell hon. Members that it is not funny.
    Nine out of 10 one-parent families are headed by women, and child benefit is often the only money that many married and cohabiting women have the absolute right to claim to spend on their children. That is for many reasons, but quite often it is because of the meanness of the partner or because his priorities are not for the children that the women needs access to that money as of right. We have heard much from the Government in previous debates about targeting, and no doubt we will hear much more about it in this debate. Child benefit is perhaps the
    928
    most popular benefit and it has a 100 per cent take-up. I fail to see how anybody can argue that that is not targeting. It is stigma-free, easy to administer and easily understood.
    An analysis by the social policy research unit at York university recently concluded:
    "Child benefit clearly plays an important role in income maintenance for poor families. Low-income families not in receipt of supplementary benefit receive about a fifth of their net disposable income from child benefit."
    The Government are attacking low-income families. If they do not change their mind about uprating, more children will go without a basic diet and more families will be forced to live in unsuitable housing, with all the health problems that go with those things. [Interruption.] There is no point in Conservative Members groaning and looking bored. That is a fact of life. Millions more have been pushed into poverty, and child benefit is a lifeline to many families. Conservative Members may not like the truth, but they will have to listen to it a little more often from the Opposition.
    It is a damning indictment of the Government, and it will be indelibly stamped on them in history, that they wiped out the consensus to update and improve child benefit, and that, for the first time in our history, they were a Government led by a woman and mother. That is a disgrace and blot upon the Government.
    Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: We have had so many debates on the uprating of child benefit in recent years that it is difficult to find anything fresh to say. I think that my position is well known to the House. I regret that the Government have not seen fit to uprate child benefit this year. I hope, however, if it is true that they intend to accept Lords amendment No. 4, that it will be an earnest of their intention to uprate child benefit in line with the cost of living in future years. I certainly hope so, and, I look forward to what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has to say about that.
    It is high time that the House worked its way towards a consensus on child benefit. We have such a consensus in regard to the Lawson-Rooker-Wise amendments in the tax system, and in regard to pensions and other national insurance benefits. We no longer have disputes on those subjects; but on child benefit there is always this uncertainty about the Government's intentions on uprating, and I think that that does the Government harm.
    I am ashamed to say that I think there is an element in the Treasury that has a strong desire to end the advantage that has long been enjoyed by families with children, that at the end of their transactions over the payment of income tax and receipt of their statutory allowances their burden would be less than those of single people and of couples with no children to raise. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) mentioned this point.
    It was William Pitt's intention on the very inception of income tax at the end of the 18th century that there should be a child allowance, so that families with children had a lower tax burden than families without children. It is a pity that the Treasury seems to have a malignant desire to erode that advantage. Now that child benefit has taken the place of child allowance, there is this constant onslaught on it, because the Treasury insists on regarding it as expenditure instead of relief of tax, which is how it originated.
    Unfortunately, Lord Skelmersdale in his speech in the other place opposing the amendment which is now before

    929
    the House as Lords amendment No. 4, and which I understand the Government are now willing to accept, appeared to lean towards this Treasury view that there would be a good case for ending the differential between the tax burden on families with children and those without. That approach, if I understand Lord Skelmersdale correctly, is quite wrong. I hope that he will not continue to think along those lines.
    It is a very long-established principle that taxation should be related to ability to pay. The burden of raising a family ought to be taken into account for families at all levels of income and not only for families at the bottom of the scale. The principle should apply throughout the scale; but of course it is particularly important for the millions who are entitled to means-tested benefits and who, for one reason or another, do not claim them but rely instead on the real value of the child benefit.
    It is also very important for all those people who are just above the level of entitlement and who seem likely in the coming weeks, I am sorry to say, to be forced to consider extremely carefully whether they will be able to continue outside dependency on means-tested benefit or whether they will have to go through the humiliation of applying to the DHSS or to their local authority for means-tested benefits. It is particularly unfortunate when we are taking so much away in the form of the cuts in housing allowances that, at the same time, we should not be uprating the child benefit. We shall see how matters turn out.
    The reluctance that is generally felt by some people, though I think not by very many, about receiving child benefit as a positive credit rather than in the form of a tax deduction, arises from the suspicion that it is money from nowhere. They are ashamed to draw it because they do not understand how they have become entitled to it. They do not see how they or their wives have qualified to receive a positive payment in cash. They would be quite happy to have an exactly comparable increase in spending power if they could understand how they had become entitled to it or, of course, if it appeared to come to them as a reduction in their tax burden.
    I have long felt and I am now quite convinced that we shall not find our way out of this sterile controversy about child benefit while it appears to be a universal benefit that has not been paid for, but just falls as money from nowhere. We need a full-scale review of the national insurance system. Very many reasons are convincing me that that is urgently required in this Parliament, not only because of the difficulties of the social security system, but because of the difficulties that we are encountering in the administration of housing benefit and the further difficulties that we shall certainly encounter in the administration of the community charge.
    It is very rare to meet anyone who is reluctant to draw his basic national insurance entitlements, such as the pension that he is paid towards the end of his life. That is because people feel that this flows to them because of a contract into which they have entered as citizens and to which they make their contribution, and that they draw their entitlements in exchange.
    Child benefit should be incorporated in a revised and reconstructed national insurance system which should be put on a business footing with comprehensible accounts and a clear range of basic entitlements before, as well as
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    during and after, working life. Child benefit ought to belong to the range of national insurance benefits. Then it would be seen as part of a comprehensible relationship between the citizen and the community, which at present it is not.
    I referred to the association with the national insurance fund in the Bill that I introduced before Christmas and which, I am happy to say, was passed on an all-party basis with a substantial majority. I should now like to go further in regard to my recommendations for the revival of national insurance, but this would not be the appropriate time under the guillotine. I have undertaken to write to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State with specific recommendations and I shall shortly do so.
    The hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) referred to the national insurance fund, but she has not followed it up in the Opposition amendment. The official Opposition amendment, therefore, does not seem to be a very well drafted or satisfactory counter to what the Lords have suggested in amendment No. 4. I shall not vote against the Labour amendment, because its intention of protecting the real value of child benefit is quite proper and entirely in line with my own thinking which I have expressed very often in the House. But I do not think that I shall find it in my heart to vote in favour of it because it does not appear to offer a satisfactory solution to the arguments. I feel that the time has now come when the House has to get out of these sterile debates and to find a solution that is acceptable on both sides of the House.
    8 pm
    Mr. Fearn: I am delighted that the amendment, which was moved by my noble Friend Lord Banks, was passed with all-party support in the other place.
    I know that the Government are less than keen to uprate child benefit in line with inflation, and we have heard the Minister argue only recently that child benefit should be frozen and that the money saved should be targeted at poorer families. The problem with that argument, as the Minister well knows, is that the take-up of means-tested benefits such as family credit cannot hope to compete with the near 100 per cent. take-up of child benefit, which has been mentioned and which we see every day. I shall not go into all the arguments in favour of child benefit because we have heard them. However, the Government should acknowledge that their defeat on this issue in the other place gives a strong indication of the feelings of the nation on this matter.
    It is fundamental that extra support should be provided for children, especially needy children, and child benefit is the most effective way at our disposal of making sure that money reaches those for whom it is intended. That argument is well understood by hon. Members on both sides of the House, and I urge the Government to take note of it.
    The danger of Lords amendment No. 4 is that it requires the Secretary of State only to "take account of" any increase in the retail price index. The Government do not have an excellent record on taking action when they are not required to do so. However, I hope that the Secretary of State appreciates the true intention of the amendment and that in future he will uprate child benefit in line with the retail prices index.
    I welcome and support the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), which I believe greatly strengthens Lords amendment No. 4.
    Mr. Tim Rathbone: The hon. Member for Southport (Mr. Fearn) has got his facts about the Government completely wrong. The Government are only too ready to take action at any time. Some of those actions are extremely innovative, as we shall be discussing next week and in the weeks to come.
    I endorse the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison). He reminded the House of what the debate is all about. It is about the advantages of child benefit as a method of getting moneys to a family with children, directly to the mother, for the benefit of the children. That was one of the principles brought about, in the way that he described, by challenge to the Government in 1945. I am proud to say that it was a relative of mine, Eleanor Rathbone, who fought for that at that time. It is a great point of pride in our family that the principles of family allowance have seeped through the various stages that have now brought us to child benefit.
    There was some concern when family allowances were amalgamated in the 1970s. The argument most strongly in favour of that amalgamation was that it would make administration much easier. I believe that that is a good principle to apply to the administration of benefits. Indeed, it is a good principle to apply to the taking of taxation. The only occasion on which I can foresee that it may be worth while even considering dropping child benefit is if we move into a full tax credit scheme. The House will remember that that was mooted by the Conservative Government in the 1970s and that, sadly, the idea ran into the sand when the Labour party came into office in 1974.
    The great advantage of child benefit is that it has virtually a 100 per cent. take-up by the very people it seeks to help—mothers with children. It is not an instrument for the alleviation of poverty, as was suggested by the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon). It is not designed for that. It is designed to help families in their starting years, in the same way as the Government take it upon themselves to help families in their later years. I believe that that is an admirable principle to apply.
    Future reviews must keep the value of the benefit clearly in mind. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will reiterate his and the Government's determination to do that. I look forward to the day when child benefit is uprated, not according to the Opposition's amendment, but in excess of the price increases year by year.
    Mr. Frank Field: Several hon. Members have made the point that nothing new can be said in this debate. The logic of holding that position is to make a brief contribution. I shall attempt to do that by addressing myself to two points that have emerged.
    The first point is addressed to the hon. Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams), whom I shall call my hon. Friend during this debate. I make a plea to him that, although he thinks that our amendment is defective, that should not be a reason for not voting for it. Given his logical mind, he ought to see that most issues can be taken in stages. The Opposition amendment says that there should be a regular review and that the Government should act on that review. It is quite possible, as a second stage, for my hon. Friend or us to come back to the House with ideas on how that review should be funded. Therefore, I hope that speeches made by Opposition
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    Members will convince my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington that his impressive voting record on child benefit should be kept intact.
    The next point I wish to make is addressed to the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) who is not in the Chamber now. With his usual delicacy, he attacked the Government and opened a wound. Therefore, it seems proper that, as an Opposition Member who is committed to consensus politics, I should bring a bucket of salt to apply gently to the Government's wound.
    The hon. Member for Northampton, North made the valid point that so much of the Government's rhetoric and, indeed, their real beliefs, is that they are the party of the family. He asked the House to look at the Government's record towards the financial support of families. We see that over the past 10, 15, 20 or 30 years —this is not a party point—Governments of all parties have been more likely to push the tax system in favour of single people and married couples without children rather than married couples with children.
    I hope that we will not look at the record of past Labour Governments on that issue, because it is not nearly as impressive as I should like. The Labour party has been guilty of pushing the tax system towards those without children, whether they be single people or married couples. Therefore, the hon. Member for Northampton, North was right in saying that, given that the Government believe that it is important that the cornerstone of our society is the family and that families should be able to manage their own affairs without state interference, it is crucial that we ensure that all families have sufficient income. The only way in which we can do that is to increase child benefit. If we increase tax allowances ahead of child benefit, we are making it more advantageous not to have children and making it more difficult for those who have children by reducing the relative living standards of families.
    I want to end on a somewhat controversial note. The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) spoke about his surgery this morning and about a single parent and the importance of child benefit to her. I remind the House that we introduced the single-parent families benefit only because the then Labour Government ratted on their commitment to introduce child benefit and were scratching around to find some way of presenting to the House a face-saving formula. We often see that happen with the Conservative Government; it is not a new phenomenon. The then Labour Government came up with the cheap proposal of paying a benefit to single families with children.
    As we move towards a day that I hope we shall see, when child benefit reflects adequately the cost of children, we shall be able to discuss phasing out the benefit for single-parent families. Its effect at present is to give an incentive to those who are not married, against those who are. Many of our constituents need that money; there is no dispute about that. But there is an expanding group of yuppies in the electorate who manage their tax and benefit affairs in such a way as to ensure that they receive every penny that they can.
    I know of "stable relationships" in which one partner takes the other to court for maintenance payments, and claims single-parent benefit as well. That cannot be policed; such people cannot be chased, and to exhort them to behave better seems to have little effect. What is possible is to increase child benefit to a level generous enough to cover the major costs of children. When that has been

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    done, it will be possible to begin to phase out the single-parent family allowance, which was introduced only because, when in government, we were not prepared to bring in child benefit on the date when Labour Back Benchers thought that it was to be introduced. In Committee, Labour Members asked whether they were right in assuming that child benefit was to start on such and such a date, and Labour Ministers replied, "Of course you are right, but we do not wish to tie our hands." As a consequence, child benefit was not introduced when it was said that it would be.
    The House of Lords, in a slightly bumbling way, has passed this helpful amendment. But, without the key element of what happens after the review— and given that we know from press reports that the Government are fighting a battle to keep child benefit—I hope that the Government will act not only on the Lords amendment but on the Opposition amendment, which strengthens their hand against the Treasury. For once, I hope that the Secretary of State and the Minister will learn from Labour's mistakes, and will not trust the Treasury on the day when we want the payout.
    Mr. Robin Squire: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), who, even in short speeches, says more of substance than many of us manage in our longer efforts.
    I should like to make three points. First, perhaps predictably, I wish to remind my hon. Friend the Minister that I am one of a number of fully paid-up members of "Brandon's Irregulars", who have in the past supported the uprating in full of child benefit. While we welcome the Lords' amendment as far as it goes, I know that my hon. Friend accepts, in the spirit that I put it to him, that it is the least that we would expect and that it will not stop us from pressing next year for the matter to be formalised.
    Secondly, I should like briefly to tackle the question of tax cuts in the context of child benefit. I have no crystal ball, but I hope that tomorrow my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will indeed announce tax cuts. I hope that not so much for personal reasons — although it would be nice—but because many of my constituents earn about the average wage and quite a few earn less, and they will benefit.
    The point that I wish to make is very simple. Tax cuts will give many people more spending power. They may spend the money on an enormously wide variety of things, both inside and outside the home, and no hon. Member —at least on the Conservative Benches—questions such spending. Once the subject of child benefit is raised, however, it is suggested that this strange benefit should be done away with. Hon. Members suddenly turn a funny colour and start to remonstrate, suggesting that the benefit should be abolished because it is going to people who do not need it.
    8.15 pm
    I find that very strange. The one undeniable fact about child benefit is that it goes to meet a known expenditure, whether the parent is very wealthy or among the poorest in the country. That argument that it should be done away with because some people do not need it, unlike tax cuts —which, as I have said, I would welcome—surely has no real substance.
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    Thirdly, I ask whether, under our existing system, we can simply decide to phase out this non-selective benefit and uprate various selective benefits. I see the instant attraction of that approach, and I understand why a number of my hon. Friends see it as a way forward, but I have a counsel of care to offer. It relates to the take-up rate.
    We must be clear about what we mean by take-up rate and about its impact. At the best estimate that the Government are currently prepared to offer, take-up of the new family credit will be 60 per cent., so more than half the families whom we wish to receive assistance will indeed receive it. The other side of the coin, however, is that two out of every five families measured as being in need, and entitled to the assistance, will not receive it. If we are asked to weigh in the balance whether assistance should be limited to those on low incomes, while take-up is nowhere near 100 per cent., I must say that I am happy — on balance— for the money to go to the better-off in the assurance that the worse-off still get that necessary assistance.
    Mrs. Wise: Two necessary tasks must be performed. One is to help children in general; the other is to help children in poverty.
    I regret very much that the Government, who boast that they seek to help poor families with children, are paying for that to the tune of 40 per cent. at the expense of children in general. The last time that we discussed the matter, the Minister said that families would receive £100 million more through family income support, and £200 million more through family credit. That, of course, assumes that take-up is as the Government anticipate, which can only be a guess. On the Government's figures, it means an extra expenditure of £300 million on children in poverty, of which £120 million—40 per cent. —comes from children in general.
    As has been said so often—especially by Opposition Members—we are likely to hear tomorrow of vast sums being dispersed among people who may have no children at all, let alone children in poverty. This is a peculiar approach from a responsible Government who say that they are the Government of the family. In fact, it disproves their assertion utterly.
    I have been present at the debates both here and in Committee, and I have read carefully the report of the debates in the other place. Some of the arguments are quite remarkable. For example, Lord Skelmersdale, the Government spokesman in the other place, said that benefits and tax allowances had different roles, but he did not explain to his noble Friends what the different roles were. He simply said that tax allowances help all taxpayers, but that is not exactly news. Tax allowances help all taxpayers. Some of them may have children, but they do not receive additional help because they have children. They are helped because they are taxpayers, and tax benefits, such as those that we may see tomorrow, help those with larger incomes rather than those with small incomes.
    The Government have never explained, in this or the other place, why they give such priority to tax allowances and tax cuts but not to helping children. The Minister was reminded during the previous debate that this is not simply a matter of families. It is not the parents about whom we

    935
    are concerned; it is the children. I am sorry that all the arguments have not produced a change of heart by the Government.
    I regret that, even if the Government accept the amendment that was passed in the other place, they will undoubtedly do so in the spirit of the Government's spokesman in the other place, who said that, if the amendment is passed, it will not mean uprating of benefits. Their Lordships said that the implication of passing their amendment would be that the nation would expect uprating. The Government spokesman said that uprating was not a consequence of the amendment passed in the other place. If the Government say that they now accept the amendment, they are doing so in the spirit of the contribution made by their spokesman in the other place.
    That simply is not good enough. We are not asking for child benefit to be looked at annually and then for nothing to be done; we are asking for it to be looked at and raised in line with inflation. Someone said that that was not enough, and I agree; but at least a modest attempt to tie it to inflation should be beyond controversy.
    One of their Lordships said that, if it is right to raise benefit one year, surely it is right the next year. That simple assertion is beyond doubt, unless the Government think that child benefit has up until now been paid at too high a rate. They have not made that assertion, but they are acting as though that is what they believe, which is regrettable.
    This is not a matter in which the Government can say, "We are diverting resources to families and children in poverty," if some of the resources that they are diverting are not from the better-off, from people in general or from people without children, but are from children themselves. I have grown weary of asking Ministers to think better of proposals, to think again and to act in line with their oft-repeated assertions, but there is no alternative. In doing so, we should express the fact that people are looking for child benefit to be raised.
    I believe that this is a party matter, but it goes beyond parties, because women who support the Conservative party have asked for the protection of child benefit. If the Minister does not listen to us, why on earth does he not listen to them? It would be better for his future fortunes if he were to do so. It is not for me to try to make him popular, but if that were an unwelcome consequence of the Government accepting our amendment, I would swallow it for the benefit of the children concerned.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I was delighted when the Lords passed this amendment, and I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will accept it.
    If one asks the average person in the street which is the least well-off section of our society, I would bet a pound to a penny that he will say it is the pensioners. However, that has never been so throughout history. Going back to when the question was first asked during Rowntree's study of poverty, it has always been families with children who are the worst off. That has been the case right through since the tax credit Select Committee in the early 1970s to the present day.
    My hon. Friend the Minister was right to say that child benefit was not simply designed to alleviate poverty. The fact is that it covers the entire scale of people and preserves a fair balance between couples with children and couples
    936
    without children. If couples without children are casting an envious eye on this benefit, they should remember that it is our children who will pay their pensions.
    I very much hope that the Government will accept the Lords amendment and jolly well put it into practice.
    Mr. Donald Anderson: I anticipate that I shall prefer what came from Kensington to what is likely to come from Chelsea, which is the other part of a bifurcated borough. I suspect that, if the Minister accepts the Lords amendment, he will do so with certain reservations. It is always too easy to take matters into account, but it is more difficult to ensure that there is a commitment to action.
    This is a very timely matter. Like the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), I have a constituency interest, because on Saturday I received a petition from the West Glamorgan child poverty action group signed by over 5,000 people — mostly mothers — in West Glamorgan expressing their concern about the future of child benefit.
    The petition is brief, so I shall read it. It says:
    "We the undersigned believe that Child Benefit is crucial to the health and well being of children and a vital lifeline for many mothers. We are concerned that Child Benefit has been cut and that further reviews are threatened in the future. We call on the Government (i) to give a commitment that at a minimum, there will be no further cuts in the value of Child Benefit and (ii) to give priority to raising Child Benefit to a more realistic level."
    That petition was signed by over 5,000 people in west Glamorgan. I helped to launch it, and I was very moved by the reception to it, even from one person who was completely disabled and who signed it by putting the pen between the toes of her feet.
    The mothers of the child poverty action group have been collecting signatures for the petition in the country over the past months. That shows a commitment, and I should have liked the procedures of the House to allow me to carry the petition over to hand if personally to the Minister. However, I shall have to do so in spirit.
    I shall quote to the Minister some of the comments that have been made by mothers who were asked to sign the petition. One said: "Child Benefit is a life-saver for many families."
    Another said: "It's the one benefit that you don't have to beg for."
    Another said: "It's in my name, I cash it so I control how it's spent."
    Another said: "For the sake of everyone's future, the needs of children must come first."
    It makes my blood boil to hear some individuals talk of the selective nature of child benefit and the fact that it may go to some who do not need it. Yet those same individuals may accept, without demur, mortgage arid other tax relief that go to the fat cats of this world without any proof of need for them.
    I recall Barbara Castle introducing this measure and saying—it may be rather sexist to say this now—that it was a measure that moved money from the wallet to the purse. We know that there is an almost universal take-tip of child benefit.
    The debate is timely for my constituency and its child poverty action group, which has made valiant efforts to collect evidence of public opinion. The debate is timely also in respect of a Budget in which the Chancellor, unusually, will have choice. The right hon. Gentleman will be able to show his priorities, and we shall be able to see

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    by the response tonight and by tomorrow's Budget the Government's priorities and whether they take seriously the issue of child poverty—meaning family poverty—in our society.
    8.30 pm
    Mr. Hind: I welcome the Government's acceptance of this Lords amendment, as I am sure do my hon. Friends. It underpins one important factor—however we look at our system, there should be recognition of the fact that children need to be provided for and suitable allowances made within the tax system. We must not forget—I urge the Opposition to think carefully about this — that tomorrow, if tax relief is given to the better off, the Opposition will criticise the Budget on the basis that tax reductions are given to rich people who do not need them. The Opposition could make the same criticism of the way in which child allowance is structured. The same criticism might be made of allowances to the Duchess of Westminster and of mortgage tax relief.
    I do not want to disappoint the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), who is not in his place, but it is important to note that a review is in place. In an atmosphere in which taxation is falling, we cannot help but look at the tax breaks paid to the community as a whole. We must have those matters in the forefront of our minds. What are tax breaks? They are allowances given to meet the special needs of particular sections of the community. There will always be children and there will always be a need for allowances or tax breaks for children, but we must have an open mind.
    The hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) mentioned targeting, which is important. The hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) put her finger on it when she described the benefits paid for children on two levels —helping children and helping to alleviate poverty. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced previously that he would not uprate child benefit. We must not lose sight of the fact that it was argued then that for every 10p by which child benefit was increased, those who were receiving income-related benefit would lose 10p while those who were not receiving any kind of income-related benefit would benefit totally from the increase.
    Members of Parliament have the good fortune to earn £22,000 a year. I have two children, and I do not think that I need that benefit of £15 a week. I should much prefer to give away my £15 a week to those families who need the benefit. For that reason, targeting is important.
    Mrs. Mahon: The answer is in the Minister's hands. He can give more to those who have least without taking it away from those who already get a popular universal benefit.
    Mr. Hind: The only way to deal with that problem is to abandon the concept of a universal, across-the-board benefit. We must look at it in terms of the tax credit system, which was considered between 1970 and 1974. Our present system is probably the best of a group of bad systems. In future, as tax rates decrease, we should look at the two levels—meeting the basic needs of children and, as the hon. Member for Halifax said, providing more for those families in poverty.
    Efforts have been made — the hon. Member for Halifax criticised me earlier on this point — through
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    family credit, income support and the social fund to balance the needs of families with children who are worse off. I know that we shall not agree on that point. We have disagreed all evening, but we must consider those factors.
    The other place has provided an opportunity for those hon. Members who want an uprating in child benefit which is inflation-linked to bring pressure to bear on the Government. From that point of view, I support the Lords amendment. In the long term, we must look carefully at the structure of the whole system and ensure that we get the benefits to those who are most in need.
    Mr. John Battle: Speeches such as the one that we have heard from the hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) again raise fears about the future of child benefit, and especially its universality. There is a difference of view about whether child benefit should be universal or means-tested.
    It has become increasingly known that the Government are conducting a review of child benefit. For all we know, the Government may be considering ways of limiting child benefit to low-income families, by taxing or means-testing it. That would remove universality, which is what the hon. Member for Lancashire, West advocates. The problem is that, in effect, we would return to some form of child tax allowance and be right back to square one. We should know whether that is the Government's long-term objective. The Minister might like to give the answer to the hon. Member for Lancashire, West so that he can be assured of the future direction of child benefit.
    Would the Minister care to tell the House the terms of reference of the review? What is its likely timetable? How will any action proposed in the review be introduced in the Budget? I invite the Minister to open up the review and to turn it into a public exercise of real consultation rather than simply an internal examination by the Government behind closed doors of the options, which are then brought late to the House as amendments that we cannot properly discuss in or outside the House.
    On 25 January this year, The Times reported that a Cabinet rift over the child benefit freeze had arisen between the Minister for Social Security and the Disabled and the Treasury. It has become more apparent during the past few days that rifts are all too familiar and at the centre of Government policy. It may be worth the Minister informing the House whether there is a rift. Can he assure the House that there is not a rift about the future of child benefit? On 12 January, the Minister assured the House that the benefit would be paid
    "as a universal benefit, tax-free and to the mother … I believe that that obligation was right." —[Official Report, 12 January 1988; Vol. 125, c. 208.]
    Given the rumours of the behind-the-scenes review, the Minister could take this opportunity to reaffirm his attitude to child benefit. Tomorrow's Budget, which ironically will be delivered within only 24 hours of this debate, could be used to increase child benefit at least in line with prices. As many hon. Members have pointed out, that would be exactly the same way in which tax allowances will be changed. The Government could use the Budget to restore the cut in the real value of child benefit which was imposed in November 1985. They could make good the effective cut which has resulted from the freezing of child benefit from April this year.
    The hon. Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams) referred to William Pitt, who introduced income

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    tax to pay for the Napoleonic wars. He was the Prime Minister who said that children should also be taken into account when assessing the ability to pay. He said:
    "Let us make relief in cases where there are a number of children as a matter of right and a matter of honour."
    I remind the House that that remark was cited by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler), the present Secretary of State for Employment, who was in the Chamber earlier, during a debate on the Bill which introduced child benefit in the 1970s.
    Child benefit has emerged as the only means by which the ability to pay families can be recognised. It is therefore similar to tax allowances and should be reviewed, assessed and restored at the same time as they are. I urge the House to support the Opposition amendment and to use tomorrow's Budget debate as a means of beginning to put that amendment into practical effect.
    Mr. Scott: As I rise to reply to the debate, I cannot but be aware of the unanimity which has developed across the Floor of the House in the course of the discussions. A Minister should he conscious of the unanimity which has appeared on the Benches behind him, as he comes to respond to the debate.
    I should like to make it clear at the outset that the Government will advise the House to accept the Lords amendment, but it will not be any great surprise to the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), if I advise the House to reject the amendment that she and her Friends have tabled. I should like to make clear why that advice will be given to the House this evening on each of the two issues.
    Perhaps I should start by making it clear why the Government are prepared to accept the Lords amendment. It is particularly important that the House should have no doubt about the effect of the clause. When it was debated in the other place, I suspect that many of those who spoke in favour of it were trying to secure the annual uprating of child benefit, but, during the debate, it was acknowledged that that would not be the effect of the amendment.
    In its discussions today, the House has recognised that the amendment does not achieve that end. Indeed, if it did, for reasons that I shall explain later, we would not be able to commend it to the House. The Lords amendment confirms duties laid upon the Secretary of State, which already exist in legislation, although, in practice, the Lords amendment does not go as far as the existing legislation. The relevant current law is the Social Security Act 1986, specifically section 63. That section provides for the annual review and, in certain circumstances, the uprating of various benefits. As the House will know, that section also refers to child benefit.
    8.45 pm
    Mr. Anderson: If the Minister is saying that the effect of the Lords amendment is to do no more than confirm the duties of the Government, is he accepting the amendment only because it has no meaning in fact and gives total discretion to the Government to accept or, as happened last year to reject, an increase in child benefit?
    Mr. Scott: I shall explain why the Government are able to accept the Lords amendment, but prefer the House to reject the Opposition amendment. I should like to set out the argument clearly and sequentially.
    Section 63 already requires the Secretary of State to review child benefit in each tax year to determine whether
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    it has retained its value in relation to the general value of prices and goes on to provide for the benefit to be uprated, if the Secretary of State considers it appropriate, having regard to the national economic situation and any other matters which he considers relevant.
    The Secretary of State already has a statutory duty to review child benefit annually and, in some circumstances, he is empowered to increase it. The new clause does not add anything of substance to that. It requires the Secretary of State to review the level of child benefit in April of each year, taking account of increases in the retail prices index and other relevant external factors.
    Whereas section 63 provides for child benefit to be uprated if the Secretary of State considers it appropriate, the new clause refers just to an annual review. It neither requires nor empowers anything beyond a review, so the duty that it places on the Secretary of State sits squarely within the duties that he already has under the Social Security Act 1986.
    In reality, therefore, the Lords amendment is very close indeed to existing law and, for that reason, the Government are prepared to accept that it should remain in the Bill. However, I must make it absolutely clear that we are not prepared to accept the Opposition amendment.
    Ms. Marjorie Mowlam: Will the Minister confirm that, when the amendment refers to other external factors, he interprets that to mean the national economic situation to which he has just referred? If that is the case, in view of what the Treasury tells us about the present national economic situation, we should be able to look for positive uprating.
    Mr. Scott: There are a number of issues which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services could take into account in deciding whether it is appropriate to uprate child benefit in all circumstances. I am sure that that does not come as any surprise to the hon. Lady. Of course, the use to which any resources which may be available in any particular financial year are put will be the responsibility of the collective decision of the Government year by year. I can assure the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) that the Government are a totally seamless garment. We do not have divisions on such matters.
    I am conscious of the strong arguments in favour of child benefit as it exists at present. I must also be conscious of the many disadvantages associated with it, and I wish to say something about each of those points. The hon. Member for Derby, South said that the Government could perfectly well afford to uprate child benefit this year; the resources are available in plenty, so the benefit could be uprated next month. That was the essence of her point.
    However, the Opposition amendment proposes riot that benefit should be uprated this year, but that there should be an absolute statutory obligation on the Government each and every year in the future, giving that commitment in advance, whatever the prevailing circumstances at the time. I do not believe that it is right to pre-empt the Government's decision on that for all future years, as the amendment would.
    The hon. Member for Derby, South mentioned particularly the two aims that have been spelt out about help for families—first, help for families as families and, secondly, help for low-income Families. She went on to say that the Government had said that those two aims should

    941
    not be confused, but I do not believe that means that we should necessarily pre-empt for ever the balance between those two sorts of help and that we should not be able to make a yearly judgment about where the balance between those two sorts of help lies.
    I listened with particular care to the arguments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison), but, for that fundamental reason, I am unable to give him the assurance that he sought. The matter must be kept for a year-by-year decision, bearing in mind the resources available and the balance between those two sorts of help.
    Mr. Raison: Will my hon. Friend assure me that no decision has been taken that there will not be any further upratings of child benefit? Will he assure me also that the pledge in our election manifesto that child benefit will continue to be paid will not be diluted within this Parliament by any attempt to introduce any kind of means-testing or tax on child benefit?
    Mr. Scott: I cannot give that assurance to my right hon. Friend. The future of child benefit will be reviewed each year as annual upratings are considered. On the fundamentals of child benefit, I can go no further than my right hon. Friend did. A benefit of that sort and scale must be under constant review. Certainly we have no present plans to change the status of child benefit. That is as much as I can say to my right hon. Friend at the moment.
    The hon. Member for Derby, South made certain assertions based upon the document entitled "Cutting the Lifeline", published by the Labour party, which is full of inaccuracies. She asserted that most couples will lose on earnings of between £60 and £140 a week and that most lone parents in full-time work will lose on earnings between £60 and £100 a week. That is simply not true, and it is not borne out by the fact that—
    Mrs. Beckett rose—
    Mr. Scott: I shall not give way; I shall continue my remarks.
    The hon. Lady gave certain hypothetical examples. About 200,000 working families with gross earnings below £150 a week will have higher, not lower, disposable incomes after the reforms, and 25,000 lone working parents with gross incomes below £100 a week will also gain. Those are the facts, not the information that is included in the document.
    Mrs. Beckett: I suggest that the Minister has a word either with himself or with whomsoever of his hon. Friends gave the parliamentary reply from which the figures were taken.
    Mr. Scott: It is important that we look carefully at what people's cash position will be after the reforms. I do not know from which answer or from which debate the hon. Lady plucked her question. Having checked, I can say that her figures are totally inaccurate and do not reflect the real position that will exist after the reforms come in.
    Mr. Robin Cook: The hon. Gentleman is raising a serious point. If the figures that were given in the answer are inaccurate, I hope that he will correct the record. The figures were given in an answer to the hon. Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams). They provide a fairly full tabulation of the effect upon families of four and single parents with two children, on the
    942
    assumption that they are paying average rent. The figures show absolutely precisely that any family of four on an income of between £60 and £140 will lose, and the worst hit family will be a family of four on £80 a week. They will be £12 a week worse off. Those were the hon. Gentleman's own figures.
    Mr. Scott: The families we are talking about would be paying rent in any case. The question that was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams) made certain assumptions about the situations of those families paying average rent and rates. That is not the situation that exists in the real world, nor will it be.
    The Labour party goes on to state that the assumptions included in my hon. Friend's question reflect the real world. They do not. They are hypothetical questions. The answers were clearly given. Half the families we are talking about would not pay rent in any case. Their situation is not reflected in the question. [Interruption] Perhaps, when the debate on the Opposition Front Bench is completed, I shall ask Opposition Members to look at the questions in Hansard. They examine the differing situations of a range of people on income support after April and the real rather than the hypothetical situations that were outlined.
    Without being tendentious, I mention to the hon. Lady, who quoted so freely from "Family Fortunes", that the methods used in the study are subject to substantial reservations on behalf of the Central Statistical Office. Far from falling by 11 per cent. in real terms, as the study suggested, the real incomes of lone parents rose on average by at least 10 to 12 per cent. Similar reservations must be and have been expressed by the Central Statistical Office about the falls of real incomes of two-parent families. I commend to the hon. Lady a careful study rather than simply reading out what is in "Family Fortunes".
    Mr. Frank Field: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the rejection of the report that my hon. Friend quoted, will he confirm that the body that published it accepts that, given the information that the Government have now given, it changes the position for single-parent families, but that for other families the information holds? It carried out the analysis on published data. It was only when the Government came up with other data that the calculations changed. That might be a case for the Government publishing more information. Is it not a bit much for the Government to reprimand my hon. Friend about the use of the retail prices index, when the Government made such a mess that all state and public pensions have had to be changed?
    Mr. Scott: The hon. Gentleman's remark does not bear much attention. We have severe doubts about the data and methodology that were used in coming to the conclusions in "Family Fortunes". There is a discussion between the Central Statistical Office, my Department and the organisation that produced it. No doubt, at the end of the day, there will be an agreed outcome. In the meantime, I urge caution on anyone who simply picks up "Family Fortunes" and quotes too easily from the findings that were produced.
    The hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) and other hon. Members spoke as though we were talking about the position of children in the poorest families and that child benefit is of particular help and importance to them. I thought that we had cleared that matter away on previous occasions when we discussed it. Those in greatest need

    943
    —those receiving income-related benefits—get nothing from any increase in child benefit. It benefits only those who are above that level. Again, it is easy to be misled by the points that were made by those such as the hon. Member for Halifax. People who receive income-related benefits would simply see their incomes fall pound for pound were child benefit to be increased.
    Mrs. Mahon: Many of the poorest families are low-paid. Many low-paid people live in poverty. Child benefit is absolutely vital to such households. If the Minister read the poverty reports, he would know what I am talking about.
    Mr. Scott: That is why, in the reformed structure of income-related benefit, we have emphasised family credit. We have put substantial extra resources into family credit. Once again, child benefit would be offset against family credit, in the same way as any income-related benefit are offset.
    I realise that, in a sense, I am repeating arguments that I have put to the House on previous occasions, but we need a balanced decision out of all of this. We need to achieve a balance and to recognise the advantages and disadvantages of child benefit. Of course I recognise that it provides help to all families with children. I am well aware of the genesis of the benefit. It is simple to claim and straightforward to administer. It is stigma-free—that phrase has been used more than once today—to those who receive it.
    But it is also an expensive benefit. It costs £4·6 billion a year. We must admit that much of that is paid to families, although they no doubt welcome it, in which it cannot be said to be needed. If we were to accept the Opposition amendment, resources would then be tied up, rather than being available to help others—many in the most needy families—as we decide what the priorities are year by year.
    This year we are seeking to focus additional help on the neediest families with children. I do not believe that many people would quarrel with that judgment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) said, that is where a great deal of poverty exists in our society today, and perhaps it has for a long time. However, we are now able to recognise that in our reformed structure of benefits. Uprating child benefit by 30p a week would have cost about £120 million net in a full year. We are putting more than that into extra benefit for low-income families through income support, if they are out of work, and family credit, if they are in work.
    I believe that that is the right balance for us to strike this year and that that judgment should be made on its merits year by year. Therefore, I cannot commend the Opposition amendment to the House.
    Question put, That the amendment to the Lords amendment be made:—
    The House divided: Ayes 196, Noes 280.

    Division No. 213]

    [8.59 pm

    AYES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

    Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

    Barron, Kevin

    Allen, Graham

    Battle, John

    Anderson, Donald

    Beckett, Margaret

    Archer, Rt Hon Peter

    Bell, Stuart

    Armstrong, Hilary

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony

    Ashton, Joe

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

    Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

    Bermingham, Gerald

    944

    Bidwell, Sydney

    Hoyle, Doug

    Blair, Tony

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

    Boateng, Paul

    Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

    Boyes, Roland

    Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

    Bradley, Keith

    Illsley, Eric

    Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

    Ingram, Adam

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

    John, Brynmor

    Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

    Johnston, Sir Russell

    Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

    Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)

    Buchan, Norman

    Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

    Buckley, George J.

    Kennedy, Charles

    Caborn, Richard

    Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

    Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

    Lamond, James

    Campbell-Savours, D. N.

    Leighton, Ron

    Canavan, Dennis

    Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

    Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

    Lewis, Terry

    Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

    Litherland, Robert

    Clay, Bob

    Livingstone, Ken

    Clwyd, Mrs Ann

    Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

    Cohen, Harry

    Loyden, Eddie

    Cook, Robin (Livingston)

    McAllion, John

    Corbett, Robin

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Cousins, Jim

    McCartney, Ian

    Cryer, Bob

    Macdonald, Calum A.

    Cummings, John

    McFall, John

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

    Cunningham, Dr John

    McKelvey, William

    Dalyell, Tam

    McLeish, Henry

    Darling, Alistair

    McTaggart, Bob

    Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

    Madden, Max

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

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Dewar, Donald

    Meacher, Michael

    Dixon, Don

    Meale, Alan

    Dobson, Frank

    Michael, Alun

    Doran, Frank

    Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

    Duffy, A. E. P.

    Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

    Dunnachie, Jimmy

    Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

    Eadie, Alexander

    Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

    Eastham, Ken

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Evans, John (St Helens N)

    Morgan, Rhodri

    Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

    Mowlam, Marjorie

    Fatchett, Derek

    Mullin, Chris

    Faulds, Andrew

    Murphy, Paul

    Fearn, Ronald

    Nellist, Dave

    Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

    Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

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

    O'Brien, William

    Fisher, Mark

    O'Neill, Martin

    Flannery, Martin

    Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

    Flynn, Paul

    Parry, Robert

    Foot, Rt Hon Michael

    Patchett, Terry

    Foulkes, George

    Pendry, Tom

    Fraser, John

    Pike, Peter L.

    Fyfe, Maria

    Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

    Galbraith, Sam

    Primarolo, Dawn

    Galloway, George

    Radice, Giles

    Garrett, John (Norwich South)

    Randall, Stuart

    Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

    Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

    George, Bruce

    Reid, Dr John

    Godman, Dr Norman A.

    Richardson, Jo

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

    Gordon, Mildred

    Robertson, George

    Gould, Bryan

    Robinson, Geoffrey

    Graham, Thomas

    Rogers, Allan

    Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

    Rooker, Jeff

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Grocott, Bruce

    Rowlands, Ted

    Hardy, Peter

    Ruddock, Joan

    Harman, Ms Harriet

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Heffer, Eric S.

    Sheerman, Barry

    Henderson, Doug

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

    Shore, Rt Hon Peter

    Hinchliffe, David

    Short, Clare

    Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

    Skinner, Dennis

    Holland, Stuart

    Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

    Home Robertson, John

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

    Hood, Jimmy

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

    Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

    Snape, Peter

    Howells, Geraint

    Soley, Clive

    945

    Steinberg, Gerry

    Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

    Stott, Roger

    Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

    Strang, Gavin

    Wigley, Dafydd

    Straw, Jack

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan

    Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

    Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

    Winnick, David

    Turner, Dennis

    Wise, Mrs Audrey

    Wall, Pat

    Young, David (Bolton SE)

    Wallace, James

    Walley, Joan

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

    Mr. Frank Haynes and

    Wareing, Robert N.

    Mr. Frank Cook.

    NOES

    Aitken, Jonathan

    Dorrell, Stephen

    Alexander, Richard

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

    Alison, Rt Hon Michael

    Dover, Den

    Amess, David

    Dunn, Bob

    Amos, Alan

    Durant, Tony

    Arbuthnot, James

    Dykes, Hugh

    Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

    Eggar, Tim

    Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

    Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

    Ashby, David

    Evennett, David

    Aspinwall, Jack

    Fairbairn, Nicholas

    Atkins, Robert

    Fallon, Michael

    Atkinson, David

    Farr, Sir John

    Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

    Favell, Tony

    Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

    Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

    Baldry, Tony

    Forman, Nigel

    Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Batiste, Spencer

    Forth, Eric

    Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

    Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

    Bellingham, Henry

    Fox, Sir Marcus

    Bendall, Vivian

    Franks, Cecil

    Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    Freeman, Roger

    Biggs-Davison, Sir John

    French, Douglas

    Blackburn, Dr John G.

    Gardiner, George

    Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Gill, Christopher

    Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

    Glyn, Dr Alan

    Bottomley, Peter

    Goodhart, Sir Philip

    Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

    Goodlad, Alastair

    Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

    Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    Gorst, John

    Bowis, John

    Gow, Ian

    Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

    Gower, Sir Raymond

    Brandon-Bravo, Martin

    Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

    Brazier, Julian

    Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

    Bright, Graham

    Gregory, Conal

    Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

    Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

    Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

    Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

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

    Grist, Ian

    Browne, John (Winchester)

    Ground, Patrick

    Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

    Grylls, Michael

    Budgen, Nicholas

    Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

    Burns, Simon

    Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

    Burt, Alistair

    Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

    Butcher, John

    Hanley, Jeremy

    Butler, Chris

    Hannam, John

    Butterfill, John

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

    Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

    Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Harris, David

    Carrington, Matthew

    Hawkins, Christopher

    Cash, William

    Hayes, Jerry

    Chapman, Sydney

    Hayward, Robert

    Chope, Christopher

    Heathcoat-Amory, David

    Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

    Heddle, John

    Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

    Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

    Colvin, Michael

    Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

    Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

    Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

    Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

    Hill, James

    Cormack, Patrick

    Hind, Kenneth

    Couchman, James

    Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

    Cran, James

    Holt, Richard

    Critchley, Julian

    Hordern, Sir Peter

    Currie, Mrs Edwina

    Howard, Michael

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

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

    Davis, David (Boothferry)

    Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

    Day, Stephen

    Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

    Devlin, Tim

    Hunt, David (Wirral W)

    Dickens, Geoffrey

    Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

    946

    Hunter, Andrew

    Riddick, Graham

    Irvine, Michael

    Ridsdale, Sir Julian

    Jack, Michael

    Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

    Jackson, Robert

    Rossi, Sir Hugh

    Janman, Tim

    Rumbold, Mrs Angela

    Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

    Ryder, Richard

    Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

    Sackville, Hon Tom

    Key, Robert

    Sainsbury, Hon Tim

    King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

    Scott, Nicholas

    Knapman, Roger

    Shaw, David (Dover)

    Knight, Greg (Derby North)

    Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

    Knowles, Michael

    Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

    Knox, David

    Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

    Lang, Ian

    Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

    Latham, Michael

    Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Sims, Roger

    Lee, John (Pendle)

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

    Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Soames, Hon Nicholas

    Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

    Speed, Keith

    Lightbown, David

    Speller, Tony

    Lilley, Peter

    Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

    Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

    Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

    Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

    Squire, Robin

    Lord, Michael

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Lyell, Sir Nicholas

    Steen, Anthony

    Macfarlane, Sir Neil

    Stern, Michael

    MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

    Stevens, Lewis

    Maclean, David

    Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

    McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

    Stewart, Ian (Hertfordshire N)

    McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

    Stokes, John

    Madel, David

    Stradling Thomas, Sir John

    Major, Rt Hon John

    Sumberg, David

    Malins, Humfrey

    Summerson, Hugo

    Mans, Keith

    Taylor, Ian (Esher)

    Maples, John

    Taylor, John M (Solihull)

    Marland, Paul

    Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

    Marlow, Tony

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Marshall, John (Hendon S)

    Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

    Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

    Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

    Maude, Hon Francis

    Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

    Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

    Thornton, Malcolm

    Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

    Thurnham, Peter

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Townend, John (Bridlington)

    Miller, Hal

    Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

    Mills, Iain

    Tracey, Richard

    Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

    Tredinnick, David

    Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

    Trippier, David

    Moate, Roger

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Montgomery, Sir Fergus

    Viggers, Peter

    Moore, Rt Hon John

    Waddington, Rt Hon David

    Morrison, Hon Sir Charles

    Wakeham, Rt Hon John

    Neale, Gerrard

    Waldegrave, Hon William

    Nelson, Anthony

    Walden, George

    Neubert, Michael

    Walker, Bill (T'side North)

    Newton, Rt Hon Tony

    Waller, Gary

    Nicholls, Patrick

    Walters, Dennis

    Nicholson, David (Taunton)

    Ward, John

    Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

    Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

    Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

    Watts, John

    Oppenheim, Phillip

    Wells, Bowen

    Page, Richard

    Whitney, Ray

    Paice, James

    Widdecombe, Ann

    Patnick, Irvine

    Wilshire, David

    Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Pawsey, James

    Wolfson, Mark

    Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

    Wood, Timothy

    Porter, David (Waveney)

    Yeo, Tim

    Portillo, Michael

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Powell, William (Corby)

    Younger, Rt Hon George

    Price, Sir David

    Raffan, Keith

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Redwood, John

    Mr. Robert Boscawen and

    Renton, Tim

    Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones.

    Question accordingly negatived.
    Lords amendment agreed to.

  Clause 13

    REMISSION OF HEALTH SERVICE CHARGES AND PAYMENT OF TRAVELLING EXPENSES
    Lords amendment: No. 5, in page 11, line 1, leave out from "method" to "or" in line 2 and insert
    "described by reference to a method of calculating or estimating income or capital specified in an enactment other than this section"
    Mr. Portillo: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 6, 7, 11, 12 and 13.
    Mr. Portillo: These are technical amendments intended to make it clear beyond doubt that regulations can set out the test of low income to be used when people apply for help with National Health Service charges by reference to the calculations relating to income support or housing benefit. This ties the regulations to be made under the new section introduced by clause 13, which will include a means test which will partly cross-refer to calculations made for the purpose of income support and of housing benefit, to the applicable amounts for those purposes. The resources rule for income will refer to the calculations under the regulations for the purposes of income support, but they will specify different figures in some cases. On the requirement side, the income support applicable amounts will be taken. An amount will be added on for net housing costs and then a deduction made in respect of housing benefit actually received.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.
    Lords amendment: No. 8, in page 11, line 25, leave out "and".
    Mr. Portillo: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 9, 10 and 33. This amendment involves privilege.
    Mr. Portillo: A new paragraph (c) has been added to subsection (1) of the new section 75A of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, inserted by clause 13(2). This will enable existing arrangements for the payment of overnight expenses to continue. Those arrangements are needed because of the long journeys which people in some parts of Scotland have to undertake to get treatment.
    Question put and agreed to. [Special Entry.]
    Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to. [Some with Special Entry.]

  Clause 14

    FINANCIAL PROVISION
    Lords amendment: No. 14, in page 12, line 40, leave out "7, 9 and 13" and insert "8 and 9"
    Mr. Portillo: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    The amendment was introduced in the House of Lords to correct three technical errors in clause 15 (2). As it stood, clause 15 (2) provided power for money to be paid from the national insurance fund to the Consolidated
    948
    Fund to pay for expenses incurred in the administration of clauses 2, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 14. Checking revealed that the clause was defective, as it included two clauses that should have been omitted and excluded one clause that should have been included.
    Question put and agreed to. [Special Entry.]

  Clause 17

    COMMENCEMENT
    Lords amendment: No. 15, in page 13, line 27, after "sections" insert "17,"
    Mr. Portillo: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.Mr. Portillo: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment No. 16.
    Mr. Portillo: These are technical amendments. The effect of amendment No. 16 is to bring the provision of paragraph 23 of schedule 4 to the Bill into force on Royal Assent.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Lords Amendment No. 16 agreed to.

  Clause 19

    CITATION
    Lords amendment: No. 17 in page 14, line 41, after "1986" insert
    "and the Social Fund (Maternity and Funeral Expenses) Act 1987"
    Mr. Scott: I beg to move. That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    The amendment corrects an error in the citation of the Social Security Act 1975 to 1988 and brings the Social Fund (Maternity and Funeral Expenses) Act 1987 within the collective citation of those acts.
    Question put and agreed to.

  Schedule 2

    EARNINGS FACTORS AND TRANSFER VALUES
    Lords amendment: No. 18, in page 16, line 32, before "in" insert "in sub-paragraph (2),"
    9.15 pm
    Mr. Scott: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    This is a purely technical amendment to make it clear that the new words inserted by paragraph 3(a) of schedule 2 are to be inserted into subparagraph (2) of paragraph 12 of schedule 1A to the Social Security Pensions Act 1975.
    Question put and agreed to.

  Schedule 3

    THE SOCIAL FUND
    Lords amendment: No. 19, in page 17, line 18, at end insert—
    "3A. The following subsections shall he inserted after subsection (7)—
    "(7A) The Secretary of State shall prepare an annual report on the social fund.
    (7B) A copy of every report prepared under subsection (7A) above shall he laid before each House of Parliament.""
    Mr. Portillo: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    The amendment was introduced to provide that Parliament should receive an annual report on the operation of the social fund.
    I envisage that the report will include details of the types of applicants who received or were refused social fund grants and loans, as well as the numbers of payments and refusals and the purposes for which payments were or were not made. There will be information on the operation of the review process: numbers of applications, numbers of successful local office reviews, numbers of reviews referred to social fund inspectors, and so on; bearing in mind, of course, that the social fund commissioner will be preparing her own report and that we should aim to avoid duplication. The report will certainly include financial information and it is clearly necessary to have information provided on a regional basis rather than on a purely national basis. Finally, I would expect to see some general commentary on the operation of the scheme.
    I trust that the House will accept what I have said in earnest, and will look forward to as much, and more, information on the actual operation of the social fund as we have endeavoured to provide in advance.
    When the amendment was introduced in another place, it was greeted by Lord Ennals who said:
    "My Lords, from these Benches I warmly thank the Minister for this amendment. It is good that he has made a commitment, and it is good that he has stood by that commitment. From our side we warmly welcome this." —[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 March 1988; Vol. 494, c. 862.]
    I hope that it will be equally warmly welcomed here.
    Mr. Robin Cook: It is hardly surprising that the noble Lord welcomed the introduction of the amendment, since it was in fulfilment of a commitment given in Committee in response to Opposition amendments. We welcome the fact that we shall now have an annual report on the social fund and I am absolutely confident that the first annual report will make a compelling case for abolishing the social fund reverting to the previous system.
    We wish to make several general points on the social fund; in view of the time available as a result of the guillotine motion, I shall perhaps contain those remarks until our amendment to Lords amendment No. 21, when we may have a fuller debate for the remaining 15 minutes.
    Mr. Fearn: Amendment No. 19 evolved from an amendment that I tried to table in Committee to schedule 3, and I am delighted that my noble Friend Lord Banks took up the cause of that amendment with more success in another place. He agreed to withdraw that amendment after the Government conceded the need for an extensive study of the operation of the social fund and for the information to be provided in an annual report laid before each House of Parliament.
    The amendment tabled by Lord Banks asked the Government to provide detailed information about the number of applications — that is the number of applications for loans and grants accepted and refused — together with a summary of the reasons for the decisions. It is important that the fund, which is a new and in my view extremely unwelcome departure from the normal social security system, is carefully monitored and that the results of the assessment are placed before Parliament for careful consideration.
    950
    The amendment does not specifically undertake to do that, but in another place the Government gave an assurance that the report would include detailed information about acceptances and refusals on a regional basis, and information about the reasons for the decisions together with other extensive information. I hope that the Secretary of State can confirm that that is so, especially the regional part.
    Mr. Bill Michie: Will hon. Members be able to get the information and the details from their constituency offices and not have to wait for a long report on a regional basis, if they request that information?
    Mr. Bob Cryer: I realise that the Department does not control the business of the House, but can the Minister assure the House that it will press for maximum time to debate the annual report?
    Mr. Portillo: On the last point, I am sure that that will be a matter for the usual channels at the appropriate time. We are talking about an event which is still some time hence. Obviously, the first annual report will be prepared when the first year is completed.
    In response to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Michie), I am sure that local office managers will be as co-operative as they can be with hon. Members. Obviously, we shall also provide whatever information we can through parliamentary answers, which do not put taxpayers to disproportionate costs. The information will be collated finally in the annual report that can be debated by the House.
    In response to the hon. Member for Southport (Mr. Fearn), if he reads my opening remarks carefully, which I admit I rather hurried, he will see that I mentioned that the figures would be available on a regional basis.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Lords amendment: No. 20, in page 17, line 39, at end insert—
    "5A. The following subsections shall be inserted after subsection (9)—
    "(10) The Secretary of State may nominate for an area a social fund officer to issue general guidance to the other social fund officers in the area about such matters relating to the social fund as the Secretary of State may specify.
    (11) In determining a question under section 33 below or reviewing a question under section 34 below a social fund officer shall take account (subject to any directions or guidance issued by the Secretary of State under either of those sections) of any guidance issued by the social fund officer nominated for his area under section (10) above.
    (12) A social fund inspector reviewing a determination shall be under the same duties in relation to such guidance as the social fund officer or inspector who made the determination.""
    Mr. Portillo: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
    This is an amendment identified in the process of consultation with independent counsel which gave rise to the other amendments brought forward by the Government in the Lords. I should like to take a little time to explain the reasoning behind this amendment.
    Hon. Members who have followed the discussion of the Bill will remember that in Committee there was much discussion of the priority likely to be attached to different applications for payments from the social fund. Establishing the relative priority of applications is important, to ensure that the funds available to social fund

    951
    officers at a given local office are used to best effect, so that, as far as is possible, in that office eligible applications of similar priority are treated similarly over the course of the year.
    As part of this process, we were advised that it would be helpful for social fund officers to have guidance to which they could turn, and which made specific reference to the conditions and circumstances prevailing in their local office. Obviously, this is best done by a senior official working in that local office. We shall therefore be requiring local office managers to draw up guidance on the different priorities of various types of applications to their local office. This will help them to manage their budget over the course of the year and to ensure that similar applications are treated similarly.
    For the sake of consistency, social fund inspectors clearly also need to take account of such local priorities. It is worth reiterating that nothing that we are proposing here will limit the discretion of a social fund officer. The amendment is aimed at being helpful to social fund officers in their determination of applications and at supporting them in the exercise of their discretion.
    Mr. Robin Cook: In view of the new doctrine that surfaced earlier in our debate — that when the Opposition say nothing, they have entered into a binding agreement — I must say that we are not persuaded by the case for the amendment.
    It is instructive to notice how difficult the Government are finding it to make the social fund proposal a practical proposition. At this late stage, with an amendment tabled only last Thursday, they are obliged to produce a whole new stream of guidance for the people who will try to turn into reality the Government's legislation. For several months, comments have been offered on the draft manual of guidance for the social fund. It is extraordinary that quite different guidance should now be proposed. However, there is no time adequately to press Ministers on the measure, which goes to prove the point that I made this afternoon—that the guillotine motion does not provide the House with an adequate opportunity to scrutinise the legislation, and I regret that we cannot go into the matter more deeply.
    Mr. Portillo: There is nothing new about the guidance. The question is whether the Bill in draft provided adequately for such guidance. The intention that there should be guidance to local office managers to set priorities was always made explicit, and was referred to a number of times in Standing Committee. The hon. Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) referred to the need for managers to be
    "alert to take action to ensure that the highest priority cases were met throughout the year." —[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 15 December 1987; c. 577.]
    Clearly the hon. Lady was under no misapprehension about the Government's intentions, but when the Bill was examined by counsel it did not adequately meet the policies so clearly set out in Standing Committee.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Lords amendment: No. 21, in page 18, line 2, at end insert—
    "6A. At the end of subsection (1) there shall be added the words "in such form and manner as may be prescribed"."
    Read a Second time.
    Mr. Robin Cook: I beg to move amendment (a) to the Lords amendment, in line 3, at end insert
    'or accepted by a social fund officer'.
    952
    The Opposition retain their strong objections to the social fund on the ground of principle. Those objections have been well established in previous debates, but the fact that, at this late stage, less than a full month before the social fund becomes operational, we are debating another five amendments to the primary legislation setting it up, demonstrates more vividly than anything we could say how shaky and imperfect the structure of the social fund is.
    Our objections fall into two categories. I shall briefly rehearse them, but I shall not detain the House for long, because some of my hon. Friends may wish to speak. It is entirely wrong that help for the poorest in society should now come by way of loans rather than grants. If the Government accept that claimants from the social fund need help, they should not oblige them to pay for the help out of their own budgets.
    Secondly, it is wholly illogical that such a fund should be cash-limited. If the Government accept — it appears to be the basis of the social fund — that it is there to meet need, and it is clear from the draft manual of guidance that it must he real and desperate need, claimants should not be put in the intolerable position of being told, as some of them may well be, that they qualify and meet all the criteria, but the money available in a particular office that month does not allow them to be included in the priority categories that will receive grant. Payment should be based on whether a claimant qualifies under the criteria, not on whether an office has a sufficient store of money left for the rest of the month.
    These objections remain fundamental. The social fund is objectionable and when it is implemented in a month's time it will readily produce a stream of horror stories that will make many Conservative Members who voted for it Start running for cover when confronted by constituents who have been affected by being refused loans from the social fund.
    I refer to three new pieces of evidence that confirm our objections and show how solidly based were the arguments that we advanced on the two previous occasions since the turn of the year when we debated the matter.
    First, we had a parliamentary answer, provided, I think, by the Under-Secretary of State to my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), about the reduction in single payments. The Under-Secretary has repeatedly defended the cash limit on the social fund as preserving the current level of expenditure on single payments. That answer to my hon. Friend dramatically demonstrates the extent to which the expenditure on single payments has decreased over the past year.
    9.30 pm
    My hon. Friend asked the Minister to give the expenditure for the six months to October 1986 and for the six months to October 1987. The figures show that expenditure fell from £29 million in the six months to October 1986 to £15 million in the six months to October 1987. That was within my hon. Friend's region. That clearly demonstrates a very rapid reduction of about 50 per cent. It reflects the extent to which, under the Government, and as a result of the new criteria introduced in the summer of 1986, it is very much more difficult to obtain a single payment.
    Secondly, the evidence of what that means in human terms is spelt out in the report published by the Child Poverty Action Group entitled

    953
    "Single payments: the disappearing safety net."
    I have time to read only one paragraph, but it is one worth sharing with the House because it demonstrates the desperation of people who are now being turned away. It says:
    "Parents are taking children with splinters in their feet to advice agencies only to be told that floor coverings are no longer necessary household items. Families with young children are told that a cooker is unnecessary and they can live on Cuppa soup, sandwiches or fish and chips or that three pairs of socks are an adequate substitute for a pair of shoes. Claimants are supposed to make do with dangerous second-hand cookers. They are the kind of situations that are becoming increasingly commonplace and which we are willing to countenance in the midst of an affluent society."
    That was written on the basis of information provided by people all over the country to citizens rights offices and citizens advice bureaux — the people who are currently being refused single payments.
    When the Government tell us that the cash limit on the social fund preserves the current expenditure on single payments, they are saying that they have reduced single payments to a floor. Now, with the social fund, they will turn that floor into a ceiling of maximum expenditure. Over the past two years, there has been a major reduction in the amount of help available to families receiving single payments which the social fund will now institutionalise as a cash limit.
    The third and last piece of new information to which I shall refer and which confirms our criticism of that cash limit was provided by the Under-Secretary of State in the debate on Thursday instigated by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle). It was a debate on poverty and low pay and it took place during the proceedings on the Consolidated Fund (No. 3) Bill. I noticed that in his reply the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security gave as one of the reasons for ending single payments and introducing the social fund the fact that in 1984, which I presume was the last year for which he had figures, only one in five claimants who might have qualified obtained a single payment.
    I fully agree with the Under-Secretary that the present take-up rate is extremely uneven. We can see that demonstrated every time a local authority starts a take-up campaign, because there is a large increase in the number of single payments. It is precisely because the take-up rate is so uneven and so much below 100 per cent. — probably it does not even approximate 20 per cent.— that it is entirely wrong to take the present level of expenditure and then turn it into a cash limit ceiling.
    I have strong feelings about this matter, as well I might, because my constituency faces the largest cut. The Bathgate local office, which meets the needs of my constituents, has a different experience from that described by the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) as the experience of his DHSS office. We had a budget of £2·25 million for expenditure on single payments in 1986–87. Next year we will have a cash limit on our social fund of £750,000—one third the level of expenditure of only two years ago. When we compare that with the amount available by way of grants rather than loans, we see that we have only £250,000 compared with expenditure of £2·25 million in grants two years ago. Collectively, that represents a cut in the benefits available to claimants in my constituency of £2 per head per week. That is a real cut in their standard of living.
    954
    For all those reasons, we wish to reiterate our strong-rooted objections to the social fund. However, we are happy to try to make the amendments presented to us as unobjectionable as humanly possible. That is why we have tabled our amendment to the Lords amendment. The Lords amendment provides, for the first time, that applicants may be required to submit their claim in a prescribed form. Until now, nobody has thought it necessary that there should be a prescribed form in order to submit a claim. I am bound to say that it is difficult to see why it should now be thought that we require a prescribed form.
    I referred earlier to the suggestion by Ministers that it was a banking facility. The truth is that DHSS offices know more about their claimants than any bank manager. They know about a claimant's income in exhaustive detail. They retain the right, which no bank manager does, to send someone round to check up in the middle of the night if they feel like it. How much more do they need to know by way of a prescribed form?
    Of course it is entirely proper and reasonable that the social fund officer should have the right to refuse an application that he does not think is in acceptable form. However, it is entirely wrong to oblige him to refuse it because it is not in the prescribed form. Therefore, we have tabled what I regard as an extremely modest amendment. It would enable the social fund officer to accept an application if it is in a form acceptable to him.
    As I have said, it is a modest amendment, and I hope that the Minister will recognise its modesty by giving it a fair hearing and a fair wind. Today's debate began with stress being placed on what an awkward bunch the Opposition are, how they cannot agree and, if they do, how they cannot keep an agreement. Let us test the Minister's spirit of compromise and invite him to end the proceedings on a note of agreement by accepting our amendment.
    Mr. Portillo: We are asking that applications for social fund loans or grants be made on a form. I reassure the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) that there is no intention that that should in any way stand as a barrier to applications being made. Of course applicants are able to seek the advice of the social fund officer, who can help to fill out the form, or of third party advice agencies.
    It is desirable that we should have the form because, as the hon. Member for Livingston knows, we are moving away from a regulated system. Under a regulated system, if a piece of paper arrives, whether it be a letter or whatever, the adjudication officer may, in some instances, be able to judge that there is sufficient information on that piece of paper for him to know that it meets the regulation.
    It is rather different when we are dealing with priorities and discretion. In that case, there is a whole range of information that the social fund officer will wish to have to ensure that he knows all there is to know about the application in order to have a full appreciation of what its priority should be. After all, the application form is then used as the basis for reviews. The applicant can have an interview with the social fund officer, and the form may he passed eventually to a social fund inspector for review. Therefore, it is appropriate that all the information should be in a form to ensure that the applicant has provided everything that could be relevant.
    Mr. Max Madden: Can the Minister say in what foreign languages the form will be provided?
    Mr. Portillo: The form is written in exceedingly plain English. It has benefited from the advice of consultants. It is part of the Department's general move towards the use of plain English. When the hon. Gentleman sees the form, I do not think that he will have any complaint about it on those grounds. Of course, for some applicants it is always difficult to fill out a form. That is why I stressed that they can go to the social fund officer for help or they may go to third party agencies.
    Mrs. Beckett: Will the Under-Secretary of State help clarify something for me? The argument that he has just put about the desirability of having a form because of the detailed questions, is precisely the argument used by his hon. Friend the Minister in advocating to the House the abolition of weekly additions. He said that it was a good idea to get rid of them because of all the intrusive questions that people would have to be asked. The Under-Secretary is now praying that in aid.
    Mr. Portillo: Whether it is an application for single payments or a social fund application, some of the questioning is bound to be intrusive, because it will be about means and resources. However, a letter applying for a single payment—which was a regulated system—might contain sufficient information for it to be decided whether the regulation was satisfied. In the case of a social fund application, it is obviously desirable that there should be a range of information so that the priority of the application can be judged.
    With her great practical experience, the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) will know that, generally speaking, even single payment applications resulted in the adjudication officer sending forms out to the claimant to obtain the information required to determine the claims.
    Mr. Bill Michie: The Minister has said that, if any applicant is in distress, he can see the social fund officer, which basically means that he did not need the form in the first place. We should have more social fund officers, so that people do not go through that hoop. Is it the Government's intention that many applicants will give up before they become too distressed?
    Mr. Portillo: Of course that is not our intention. That is why I stressed to the hon. Member for Livingston that the form had been written in plain English. I do not think that Opposition Members will have any complaint about it.
    In sticking to the Lords amendment, I think that we are doing the best possible deal by the claimant. The Opposition amendment, quite unintentionally, might lead to confusion in the operation of the scheme. The ground for confusion would be uncertainty about the form and manner of applications. Moreover, the word "accept" is open to a number of possible interpretations. It could mean "receive", "take delivery of" or "find satisfactory". For all those reasons, "accept" is not a good word.
    I hope that the hon. Member for Livingston will take it from me that we intend the prescribed manner to make it easy for applicants to make an application to the social fund. However, I welcome his realisation that the money going into single payments this year is broadly equivalent to the amount to be put into the social fund next year, it has taken him a long time to arrive at that realisation.
    The hon. Gentleman repeated the theme that there had been some unfairness in the distribution between offices.
    956
    The figure for the allocation of social fund money per head of supplementary benefit case loads is £51 in Bathgate. In Bristol, South it is £36; in Halifax, £39; in Preston, £29; and in Glasgow, Provan, £106. If there is any unfairness, surely it is that Scottish cities are receiving more money than other parts of the country. The reason is that there has been a history of large take-up of single payments in those cities. In moving away from that history towards the underlying need of the population, we have taken only a small step in this first instance. That is why the Scottish cities are still benefiting to a large extent from the allocation made from the social fund in the first year.
    The hon. Member for Livingston wishes only to quote what has happened to single payment expenditure in the past few years. He will know, however, that the amount of single payments rose from £60 million in 1980 to £350 million the year before last. Those figures are expressed in the same terms—as a real-increase—
    It being six hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion relating to Social Security Bill (Allocation of Time), MR. SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to order this day, to put the Question already proposed from the Chair.
    The House divided: Ayes 199, Noes 294.

    Division No. 214]

    [9.43 pm

    AYES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Dobson, Frank

    Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

    Doran, Frank

    Allen, Graham

    Duffy, A. E. P.

    Anderson, Donald

    Dunnachie, Jimmy

    Archer, Rt Hon Peter

    Eadie, Alexander

    Armstrong, Hilary

    Eastham, Ken

    Ashton, Joe

    Evans, John (St Helens N)

    Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

    Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

    Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

    Fatchett, Derek

    Barron, Kevin

    Faulds, Andrew

    Battle, John

    Fearn, Ronald

    Beckett, Margaret

    Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

    Bell, Stuart

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

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony

    Fisher, Mark

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

    Flannery, Martin

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Flynn, Paul

    Bidwell, Sydney

    Foot, Rt Hon Michael

    Blair, Tony

    Foulkes, George

    Boateng, Paul

    Fraser, John

    Boyes, Roland

    Fyfe, Maria

    Bradley, Keith

    Galbraith, Sam

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

    Galloway, George

    Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

    Garrett, John (Norwich South)

    Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

    Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

    Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

    George, Bruce

    Buckley, George J.

    Godman, Dr Norman A.

    Caborn, Richard

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

    Gordon, Mildred

    Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

    Gould, Bryan

    Campbell-Savours, D. N.

    Graham, Thomas

    Canavan, Dennis

    Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

    Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

    Grocott, Bruce

    Clay, Bob

    Hardy, Peter

    Clwyd, Mrs Ann

    Harman, Ms Harriet

    Cohen, Harry

    Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

    Cook, Robin (Livingston)

    Heffer, Eric S.

    Corbett, Robin

    Henderson, Doug

    Cousins, Jim

    Hinchliffe, David

    Cryer, Bob

    Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

    Cummings, John

    Holland, Stuart

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    Home Robertson, John

    Cunningham, Dr John

    Hood, Jimmy

    Dalyell, Tam

    Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

    Darling, Alistair

    Howells, Geraint

    Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

    Hoyle, Doug

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

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

    Dewar, Donald

    Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

    Dixon, Don

    Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

    957

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

    Pike, Peter L.

    Illsley, Eric

    Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

    Ingram, Adam

    Primarolo, Dawn

    John, Brynmor

    Radice, Giles

    Johnston, Sir Russell

    Randall, Stuart

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

    Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)

    Reid, Dr John

    Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

    Richardson, Jo

    Kennedy, Charles

    Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

    Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

    Robertson, George

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Robinson, Geoffrey

    Lamond, James

    Rogers, Allan

    Leighton, Ron

    Rooker, Jeff

    Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Lewis, Terry

    Rowlands, Ted

    Litherland, Robert

    Ruddock, Joan

    Livingstone, Ken

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

    Sheerman, Barry

    Loyden, Eddie

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    McAllion, John

    Shore, Rt Hon Peter

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Short, Clare

    McCartney, Ian

    Skinner, Dennis

    Macdonald, Calum A.

    Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

    McFall, John

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

    McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

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

    McKelvey, William

    Snape, Peter

    McLeish, Henry

    Soley, Clive

    McNamara, Kevin

    Steinberg, Gerry

    McTaggart, Bob

    Stott, Roger

    Madden, Max

    Strang, Gavin

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Straw, Jack

    Maxton, John

    Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Meacher, Michael

    Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

    Meale, Alan

    Turner, Dennis

    Michael, Alun

    Wall, Pat

    Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

    Wallace, James

    Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

    Walley, Joan

    Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

    Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

    Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

    Wareing, Robert N.

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

    Morgan, Rhodri

    Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

    Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

    Wigley, Dafydd

    Mowlam, Marjorie

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan

    Mullin, Chris

    Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

    Murphy, Paul

    Wilson, Brian

    Nellist, Dave

    Winnick, David

    Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

    Wise, Mrs Audrey

    O'Brien, William

    Young, David (Bolton SE)

    O'Neill, Martin

    Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Parry, Robert

    Mr. Frank Cook and

    Patchett, Terry

    Mr. Frank Haynes.

    Pendry, Tom

    NOES

    Aitken, Jonathan

    Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

    Alexander, Richard

    Bottomley, Peter

    Alison, Rt Hon Michael

    Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

    Amess, David

    Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

    Amos, Alan

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    Arbuthnot, James

    Bowis, John

    Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

    Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

    Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

    Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

    Ashby, David

    Brandon-Bravo, Martin

    Aspinwall, Jack

    Brazier, Julian

    Atkins, Robert

    Bright, Graham

    Atkinson, David

    Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

    Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

    Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

    Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

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

    Baldry, Tony

    Browne, John (Winchester)

    Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

    Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

    Batiste, Spencer

    Budgen, Nicholas

    Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

    Burns, Simon

    Bellingham, Henry

    Burt, Alistair

    Bendall, Vivian

    Butcher, John

    Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    Butler, Chris

    Benyon, W.

    Butterfill, John

    Biggs-Davison, Sir John

    Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

    Blackburn, Dr John G.

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Carrington, Matthew

    958

    Cash, William

    Holt, Richard

    Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

    Hordern, Sir Peter

    Chapman, Sydney

    Howard, Michael

    Chope, Christopher

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

    Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

    Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

    Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

    Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

    Colvin, Michael

    Hunt, David (Wirral W)

    Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

    Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

    Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

    Hunter, Andrew

    Cormack, Patrick

    Irvine, Michael

    Couchman, James

    Irving, Charles

    Cran, James

    Jack, Michael

    Critchley, Julian

    Jackson, Robert

    Currie, Mrs Edwina

    Janman, Tim

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

    Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

    Davis, David (Boothferry)

    Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

    Day, Stephen

    Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

    Devlin, Tim

    Key, Robert

    Dickens, Geoffrey

    King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

    Dorrell, Stephen

    Knapman, Roger

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

    Knight, Greg (Derby North)

    Dover, Den

    Knowles, Michael

    Dunn, Bob

    Knox, David

    Durant, Tony

    Lang, Ian

    Dykes, Hugh

    Latham, Michael

    Eggar, Tim

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Emery, Sir Peter

    Lee, John (Pendle)

    Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

    Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

    Evennett, David

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Fairbairn, Nicholas

    Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

    Fallon, Michael

    Lightbown, David

    Farr, Sir John

    Lilley, Peter

    Favell, Tony

    Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

    Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

    Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

    Forman, Nigel

    Lord, Michael

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Lyell, Sir Nicholas

    Forth, Eric

    Macfarlane, Sir Neil

    Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

    MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

    Fox, Sir Marcus

    Maclean, David

    Franks, Cecil

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Freeman, Roger

    McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

    French, Douglas

    McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

    Gardiner, George

    Madel, David

    Gill, Christopher

    Major, Rt Hon John

    Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

    Malins, Humfrey

    Glyn, Dr Alan

    Mans, Keith

    Goodhart, Sir Philip

    Maples, John

    Goodlad, Alastair

    Marland, Paul

    Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

    Marlow, Tony

    Gorst, John

    Marshall, John (Hendon S)

    Gow, Ian

    Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

    Gower, Sir Raymond

    Maude, Hon Francis

    Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

    Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

    Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

    Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

    Gregory, Conal

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

    Miller, Hal

    Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

    Mills, Iain

    Grist, Ian

    Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

    Ground, Patrick

    Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

    Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

    Moate, Roger

    Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

    Montgomery, Sir Fergus

    Hanley, Jeremy

    Moore, Rt Hon John

    Hannam, John

    Morrison, Hon Sir Charles

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

    Neale, Gerrard

    Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

    Nelson, Anthony

    Harris, David

    Neubert, Michael

    Hawkins, Christopher

    Newton, Rt Hon Tony

    Hayes, Jerry

    Nicholls, Patrick

    Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

    Nicholson, David (Taunton)

    Hayward, Robert

    Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

    Heathcoat-Amory, David

    Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

    Heddle, John

    Oppenheim, Phillip

    Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

    Page, Richard

    Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

    Paice, James

    Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

    Patnick, Irvine

    Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

    Patten, John (Oxford W)

    Hill, James

    Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Hind, Kenneth

    Pawsey, James

    Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

    Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

    959

    Porter, David (Waveney)

    Stradling Thomas, Sir John

    Portillo, Michael

    Sumberg, David

    Powell, William (Corby)

    Summerson, Hugo

    Price, Sir David

    Taylor, Ian (Esher)

    Raffan, Keith

    Taylor, John M (Solihull)

    Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

    Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

    Rathbone, Tim

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Redwood, John

    Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

    Renton, Tim

    Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

    Rhodes James, Robert

    Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

    Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

    Thornton, Malcolm

    Riddick, Graham

    Thurnham, Peter

    Ridsdale, Sir Julian

    Townend, John (Bridlington)

    Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

    Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

    Rossi, Sir Hugh

    Tracey, Richard

    Rowe, Andrew

    Tredinnick, David

    Rumbold, Mrs Angela

    Trippier, David

    Ryder, Richard

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    Sackville, Hon Tom

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Sainsbury, Hon Tim

    Viggers, Peter

    Scott, Nicholas

    Waddington, Rt Hon David

    Shaw, David (Dover)

    Wakeham, Rt Hon John

    Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

    Waldegrave, Hon William

    Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

    Walden, George

    Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

    Walker, Bill (T'side North)

    Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

    Waller, Gary

    Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

    Walters, Dennis

    Sims, Roger

    Ward, John

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

    Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

    Watts, John

    Soames, Hon Nicholas

    Wells, Bowen

    Speed, Keith

    Whitney, Ray

    Speller, Tony

    Widdecombe, Ann

    Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

    Wilshire, David

    Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Squire, Robin

    Wolfson, Mark

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Wood, Timothy

    Steen, Anthony

    Yeo, Tim

    Stern, Michael

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Stevens, Lewis

    Younger, Rt Hon George

    Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

    Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

    Tellers for the Noes

    Stewart, Ian (Hertfordshire N)

    Mr. Robert Boscawen and

    Stokes, John

    Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones.

    Question accordingly negatived.
    Mr. Gerald Kaufman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I must put the rest of the Questions.
    Mr. Dave Nellist: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I must put the rest of the Questions. Then I shall take the point of order.
    The Question is, That this House doth agree with the Lords—
    Mr. Nellist: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: I have just said that I shall take the hon. Gentleman's point of order later.
    Mr. Nellist rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I am on my feet. I shall take the hon. Gentleman's point of order after I have put the Question.
    Lords amendment agreed to.
    Mr. Nellist: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will you now confirm that you are about to put the last 10 Lords amendments as a block as a result of the motion that we passed earlier this evening? Am I right in assuming that, if the House had wished to take an opinion on those 10 Lords amendments, it would have taken almost two and a halt' hours merely to vote on them, without even discussing them? The point that you are about to make by moving them as a block illustrates what we have been trying to say all day—there has not been sufficient time to discuss the Bill properly.
    Mr. Speaker: I am bound by the order of the House passed this afternoon.
    I am now required to designate such of the remaining Lords amendments as appear to involve questions of privilege and put them to the vote. The only amendment in that category is amendment No. 33.
    Question put and agreed to. [Special Entry.]
    MR. SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.
    Lords amendments Nos. 22 to 32 agreed to.

Sharpeville Six
9.59 pm
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I ask your permission to raise a matter about which I have notified you and the Office of the Foreign Secretary. I hope that it is not a matter that divides the House in any way at all. I refer to the news that has been made known today that the South African Government intend to execute the Sharpeville Six on Friday.
I ask whether the Foreign Office will make a statement to the House on the action that it intends to take to express the outrage of the entire House of Commons at the barbaric decision to execute six people for murder, not one of whom was said by the court or by the court of appeal to be in any way involved in the murder. It was said that the only way in which they could be regarded as involved in the murder was by common purpose. The appeal judge himself said that he assumed,
"for the purposes of my judgment, that it has not been proved in the case of any of the six accused convicted of murder that their conduct had contributed causally to the death of the deceased."
It is barbaric that six people should be executed for murder. It is barbaric that six people should be executed for the murder of one person. Above all, it is barbaric that six people should be executed for a murder in which they were in no way whatever involved.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I ask that the Government, on behalf of the entire House of Commons, take up with the Government of South Africa the revulsion that all civilised people will feel at this latest example of a police racialist state in South Africa, and that the Minister of State or the Secretary of State report at the earliest possible moment to the House of Commons what Her Majesty's Government, on behalf of a united Parliament, are doing to try to prevent the vile acts that the South African Government plan for Friday.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I shall respond as briefly as I can. We have been told that the President of the Republic of South Africa has turned down the appeals for clemency on behalf of the Sharpeville Six. The right hon. Gentleman already knows that we have made representations bilaterally with our European partners. We have made repeated calls for clemency on humanitarian grounds. We have supported a statement issued by the President of the United Nations Security Council, calling for the sentences to be commuted.
We note what the right hon. Gentleman said. We share the widespread concern throughout the international community. There is no change whatever in Her Majesty's Government's position. We deplore violence in South Africa, from whatever quarter it comes. We have called for clemency, as I have already said. Even at this late stage we sincerely and earnestly hope the South African Government will heed the united call of everyone for clemency in these cases.
Mr. Neil Kinnock: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I warmly accept the sincerity with which the right hon. Lady expressed her views. Will she tell
962
us whether, during the course of this evening, the Prime Minister has made any further direct appeal to President Botha?
Mrs. Chalker: Would that I could answer the right hon. Gentleman. I simply do not know the answer to his question, having come here from another function. I should not like to mislead him or the House. I hope that he will allow me to respond to him in the morning.
Sir Russell Johnston: Briefly, further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask that tomorrow the Minister takes the opportunity to make a full and considered statement on the issues, as I am sure that the House would welcome that? May I also take this opportunity, on behalf of my hon. Friends, to give support to what has already been said by the right hon. Gentlemen on the Labour Front Bench?
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that we can take this matter any further tonight.
Mr. Dave Nellist: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. It is obviously a matter that the House may wish to return to; these are not points of order for me. I have allowed the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) to raise the matter.
Mr. Nellist rose—
Mr. David Winnick rose—
Mr. Speaker: I have allowed the right hon. Gentleman to raise the matter as a matter of urgency at this time. I do not think that we can take it any further tonight.
Mr. Nellist: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Could you confirm that on at least three or four occasions —in my memory of the five years that I have been in the House —you have ruled that when a Minister rises to the Dispatch Box on a point of order and especially on the second occasion, you will thereafter treat it as a statement and allow questions to the Minister? If necessary, I will go to the Library and find those references because if you rule now —[Interruption.] Hang about, I am talking to Mr. Speaker, not to Conservative Members. If you rule now, Mr. Speaker, that you will take no further questions on the Minister's statement, would you at least give me an undertaking that if my searches in the Library prove correct, you would expect—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not having the hon. Gentleman using threats of that kind to me.
Mr. Nellist: I have nearly finished.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is quite right. When we have had such matters raised at the proper time, after Questions, that has been the case in the past, but this is an occasion in the evening. I have listened to the Minister of State say that it is difficult for her to say more than she has said about this matter. Therefore, I do not think that we can take it any further tonight.
Mr. Nellist: If I could just finish my sentence—
Mr. Tony Banks (rose—
Mr. Winnick rose—
Mr. Max Madden rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Banks.
Mr. Banks: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. In the interest of the good order of the House — unfortunately, the Leader of the House is not present at the moment—I should like to know whether there will be a statement on this matter tomorrow. It is a matter of good order. It is no good saying that we can return to this at another time, for the simple reason that six people will be executed on Friday. Therefore, there is an element of urgency, not least on their part, in this respect. All that one can do, through you, Mr. Speaker, is to invite the Chief Whip of the majority party to say at the Dispatch Box that there will be a statement tomorrow so that we can have a proper discussion.
Mr. Winnick: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. If the House is unanimous in condemning what undoubtedly will be judicial murders, in the hope that the view expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and the Minister of State is the unanimous view of the House of Commons, and bearing in mind that the executions, or what one might more rightly describe as the murders, will take place on Friday, will there be an opportunity between now and Friday for the House to he able to make its view clear, not simply arising from a point of order, rightly raised by my right hon. Friend?
We are aware, Mr. Speaker, that tomorrow is Budget day and it may well be that matters on which we would make applications cannot be dealt with then because it is Budget day, but will there be some opportunity for the House to declare its views collectively so that the South African authorities know that the British House of Commons is totally opposed to what my right hon. Friend rightly described as a barbaric act and—
Mr. Speaker: Order. It is precisely for that reason that I imagine that the right hon. Member for Gorton raised his point of order. He was asking whether a statement would be made.
Mr. Dennis Skinner rose—
Mr. Nellist rose—
Mr. Madden rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have already said to the House that I have listened to what the right hon. Lady had to say. It seems to me that it is difficult for the House to ask questions of a Minister who has very little direct knowledge, for reasons that she has already stated; she needs time to make investigations.
Mr. Madden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Clearly it is for the Government to make a statement tomorrow and it is obviously within the power of the Government to decide whether or not such a statement is to be made. You have clearly seen tonight, Mr. Speaker, the extent of interest that there is in this issue. Would you now indicate that you are sympathetic to a private notice question being tabled on this matter in the event that the Government do not seek to make a statement?
Mr. Speaker: I do not do things like that openly.
Mr. Stanley Orme: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Chief Whip is in his place and the Leader of the House is not present. We are entitled to a Government statement to the effect that the Leader of the House will make a statement to this House on this issue
964
tomorrow. I believe that the Patronage Secretary has a duty this evening to come to the Dispatch Box and say that such a statement will be made.
Mr. Skinner: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is a pity that the Prime Minister is not here to listen to the representations that have been made by Opposition Members. There is another way in which you, Mr. Speaker, could be of some considerable help. Taking into account the fact that this matter will undoubtedly be raised before the end of the week, perhaps tomorrow, would you consider, in your capacity as Speaker of the House, sending a message to the South African Government asking for the sentences to be commuted? Although there may be a small element known as the "goose-stepping tendency", which does not agree with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) said, you would he commanding the respect of the great majority of the House if you sent such a message.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman knows that I act only with the authority of the whole House.
Mr. Nellist: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Given what we have gone through in the past seven hours, I am sure that you will agree that it would be highly unusual if a Minister came to the House tomorrow at 3.30 pm to make a statement, even on something as urgent as the Sharpeville Six, so concerned are the Government to start on time with the business scheduled for that afternoon. I appeal to you again, Mr. Speaker because the Minister, on a point of order, has effectively made a statement. That Minister has direct responsibility for that area of the continent and deals with it on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis. Will you not now allow questions to he put to her as she has effectively made a statement from the Dispatch Box?
Mr. Speaker: I have already said to the hon. Gentleman that there is not much point in asking questions of the Minister when she has said that she is unable, because of the lack of time, to obtain the details with which she could give meaningful replies. I think that that is the problem that the House faces.
Mr. Kaufman: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. We are extremely grateful to you for the way in which you have allowed this matter to be raised. I know that you will accept that, were it not Budget day tomorrow, we would be seeking other means in which we could raise this matter in a more prolonged way on the Floor of the House. May I put it to you that perhaps we could consult you outside the Chamber to see whether there is a way in which — well before the scheduled executions—we could find a way of raising this matter again on the Floor of the House?
Mr. Speaker: I should always be pleased to see the right hon. Gentleman if he feels that that is helpful, but I should have thought that the most useful way in which to deal with this matter would be consultations through the usual channels rather than through me.

PETITION

  National Health Service
  10.13 pm
  Mr. Ronnie Fearn: This humble petition is from 13,634 United Kingdom residents who are concerned about the crisis in the National Health Service. They pray that the House will do all in its power to provide all the necessary staff and equipment to resolve this crisis and enact no further reductions in income tax while the crisis lasts.
  I beg leave to present the Petition.
  To lie upon the Table.

  Breathalyser Technology
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kenneth Carlisle]
  10.14 pm
  Sir Ian Lloyd: I am much obliged for the chance to raise the subject of the new breathalyser technology, which I believe to be of widespread interest. My reason for so doing is that technology, with the advent of the microprocessor, has come to the aid of policy in a way in which Government in general, and chief constables in particular, seem unwilling to recognise.
  This has always been a difficult area of policy in which legislation, and its administration, has attempted to reconcile several major objectives. The first, and most important, is the reduction of the serious and costly hazard on the road attributable directly or indirectly to the inescapable fact that millions of people, regrettably, drink and drive every day and will continue to do so, despite everything that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Transport or the whole Government can throw at them in the way of exhortation or even severe penalty.
  The second objective is that the law should, wherever possible, educate people in their responsibilities as drivers, especially where alcohol is involved. The third is that the attempt to modify social behaviour should never be so draconian that it brings the law or its administration into contempt. The fourth is that the enforcement of this law impinges directly and more continuously than almost any other on the critically important relationship between the police and the public—a relationship that should never be unnecessarily or uncritically damaged, because so much else depends on it.
  Until now, no entirely satisfactory reconciliation of all these objectives has been achieved in any state or by any Government. The Government have found themselves in a position of conspicuous inconsistency, in that the law permits drinking and driving within a stated limit, while Ministers and others adopt the absolutist position that, whatever the law says, the policy is that no one should drive with any alcohol in the system. The situation is highly unsatisfactory for a number of reasons.
  It is always undesirable for statutory law and public policy to diverge. It opens the way for zealots to go further than the laws passed by Parliament permit or require. It ignores a number of fundamental realities which are inescapable. The zero alcohol level position, for example, is unlikely to be achieved this side of the millennium. Even in Sweden it has not really been achieved, although its citizens have gone much further down this road than we have.
  It is impractical for a purely technical reason. The elimination of alcohol from the human system is linear, exactly proportional to time. Anyone, therefore, who has drunk in excess of the legal limit of 80 mg will require seven hours for his or her system to be totally clear. So anyone who has had several drinks the previous night and has been taken home by taxi or by his wife will still be technically drinking and driving when the next morning, after a night's sleep and strong coffee, he drives to the office. I am sure that most people do not realise that. Twice the limit requires 14 hours, and a binge will still affect that individual, technically, on the way home from

  967
  work the following evening. Anyone who has a damaged liver will take two or three days to eliminate alcohol from his system.
  That is probably the main reason why the zero position is absolutely impractical and unenforceable without draconian alteration of the nation's entire lifestyle.
  What does that lifestyle imply? We need no special surveys to reveal the hard, inescapable facts, however much we dislike them. First, the nation which in social surveys prefers to describe itself as a nation of moderate drinkers spends some £16 billion every year on alcohol—7 per cent. of its total expenditure. If, from our total population of 56 million, we subtract the under-15s and the over-75s, that leaves 40 million people, giving us the staggering figure of £410 per head, or £802 per household, per annum. If we assume that half this alcohol is consumed at home—and that is a very broad assumption which I cannot prove—we end up with £205 per head or £410 per household per annum consumed in public.
  Where is that alcohol consumed? In 1985, there were 86,000 points of public consumption, consisting of hotels, restaurants, public houses and clubs. How did the public get there? A recent survey of drink-driving offenders shows that 88 per cent. of them went to pubs. Half of those concerned drove there — 58 per cent. in their own vehicles—and three quarters of those who went to pubs drank more than five units—beyond the limit.
  In 1987, there were 300,000 tests in Britain and 100,000 convictions. If it were possible to enforce the existing law—and I believe that it is not possible—there be about 500,000 convictions every day. If the absolutist or zero rule were enforced, that figure would almost certainly be higher. If we were to succeed, we would, as it were, enforce a de facto prohibitionist state, with all that that implies. In that context, what is the technology and where and how should it be applied?
  The technology is that of the fuel cell which is controlled by a microprocessor, a device which did not exist five to 10 years ago. It can give an extremely accurate breath-alcohol count. It was developed by a Dr. Breakspeare at Cambridge university. Unfortunately, it was not taken up in the United Kingdom, but it was taken up in Australia and applied there on a substantial scale. Two devices are being manufactured and exported worldwide.
  The first is a wall-mounted breath test analyser designed for pubs, clubs, restaurants and hotels. The second is a mobile device which is attached to the ignition lock of a motor car. I have it here in the House. Any hon. Member who is interested can see that the entire unit is contained in a small package. In that unit lies the future of all our breath test problems.
  In 1986, a total of 707 of the wall-mounted units were in use, including 400 in Australia, 145 in the United States, and 52 in West Germany. That is just the beginning. The production rate is 1,000 per annum. They have been accepted in Australia where at first the police were understandably sceptical, as are our police, because the devices that the two units replaced were certainly unreliable. It would be undesirable that people should be given the wrong idea about where they stand.
  Those two devices have been now recommended in Australia by the Niewenhuysen committee that was set up specifically in New South Wales to consider the application of breath test laws in that state. The committee did not consider whether the key devices should be allowed
  968
  or encouraged but whether they should he made mandatory at all on-licences and whether the fee for the installation should be subtracted from the licence itself.
  There have also been highly successful tests by three Royal Australian Navy establishments where, as a result of the application of wall-mounted units, the incidence of drink-driving has been drastically reduced and a considerable number of convictions have been avoided. So far, these devices have been used to carry out 9 million tests and the record is based on that. Indeed, 20,000 tests per day are now being conducted worldwide.
  In one club alone in Australia which has had such a device for four years, 160,000 tests have been conducted with a considerable degree of satisfaction.
  As I have said, application has now been extended to the breathalyser ignition lock, a device of great ingenuity and sophistication which is accurate to within 0·005 per cent. The standard device used by the police in Australia is of the same quality as the device used by the police in the United Kingdom.
  If a person gets into a car with such a device he cannot turn on the ignition and the engine will not and cannot start until the driver has breathalysed himself. There are three possible outcomes. If the alcohol in the driver's breath is zero, he can start the engine immediately without any further problems. If the alcohol in his breath is up to a certain moderate limit he may not start until he has rebreathalysed himself eight minutes later. That accounts for what was generally regarded as a weakness of the old device as it did not allow for the fact that, under certain conditions, alcohol in the body will continue to rise. This device would solve that problem. However, if the driver is over the limit, he may not start the engine, the device reads red, and he is told to go away and think again.
  That seems to me to be a device of great significance and I believe that its application should be widely considered. In California, for example, it is now applied by the state courts to those who have committed a drink-driving offence. They do not lose their cars or their licences for a year, but they must have the device, plus a meter installed in their cars and they are obliged to use it, or they cannot use their cars under any circumstances. Therefore they cannot drink and drive, but they do not lose the right to continue their occupation.
  It seems that this device facilitates accurate self-testing. The wall-mounted one can be used voluntarily in hotels, clubs and pubs, and it eliminates the remotest possibility of drinking and driving. Its widespread adoption is of the first importance. It would reduce drink-driving drastically and educate the public in the effects of alcohol. If any sane, sensible and realistic policy is to succeed, it must, in view of the figure of £16,000 million I gave earlier, educate the public in the use of alcohol.
  The device would eliminate, virtually completely in time, the need for any breath tests, especially for the drivers of vehicles so fitted. If it was compulsory for all vehicles, as it could easily become, the problem would be eliminated altogether.
  We have about 20 million vehicles in the United Kingdom and the cost of the device in mass production would be a total investment of £200 million to £300 million. As the cost of accidents caused by drink driving are already running at £100 million per annum, such an investment would pay for itself in three years. That is a consideration which the Government should bear in mind. They should also consider that we take action without

  969
  eliminating or severely circumscribing the consumption of alcohol, which may or may not be a good thing. Certainly it is not necessarily a good thing because it is associated with this problem.
  What is the alternative? It is a degree of absolutism which would require the closure of virtually all pubs or hotel bars, a virtual prohibition outside private homes of the consumption of alcohol, and large-scale random breath testing, which, for reasons I have already given, is offensive to many people and damaging to the police-public interface. All those measures will not be necessary.
  If our limit of 80 mg is too high, and there are views that it is, we should lower it. In half of Australia the limit is 80 mg and in the other half it is 50 mg. However, the lower the limit, the more necessary it becomes to encourage and facilitate a driver's access to knowledge of his breath-alcohol concentration. The analogy of the speedometer is simple, but effective. We are not told to get in our cars and drive without knowing the speed at which we travel because only the police must know that. If we break the speed limit, we rightly suffer the penalty. We have a speed limit and clearly we must keep within the law. I am suggesting a breath-alcohol limit, and any sane man or woman is entitled to know whether he or she will be within the law.
  Will the Government encourage the use of these devices and advise the police to do likewise? I am under the impression that the police discourage the installation of these devices wherever they come across them. They are not entitled to do that. There is nothing in our laws to permit the police to discourage them. If they go into a hotel, pub or club and say, "I should take that off the wall if I were you," the chances are that the publican will do so. I want a clear statement from the Government that the police are not entitled to do that and that the Government will reverse the policy.
  Secondly, will my hon. Friend the Minister consider the consequential legislation, which is small but rather important? At present an individual walking to his car with the keys in his pocket who has consumed alcohol over the limit can be tested before he reaches the car and prosecuted on a drink-driving charge. If he has this device in his car, it would be absolutely ludicrous for him to be prosecuted when he cannot drive the car if he is over the limit. That is the only change in the law which is required and which I ask my hon. Friend to provide.
  Will my hon. Friend please consult the Australian authorities which are now accumulating immense and valuable experience which we cannot afford to ignore? Will he make it clear that moral absolutism will play no part in our policy now that technology has come to our aid and made it unnecessary? Will he advise the courts to consider compulsory breathalyser ignition locks for convicted breath test offenders? That is an area in which we can make substantial progress to everyone's advantage.
  Finally, will my hon. Friend assure me and the House that the authorities in his Department and the Home Office will not insist on this device being preceded by a red flag while other countries give it the green light? We did that many years ago in another context; I hope we shall not do it in this.
  10.30 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Peter Bottomley): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Sir I. Lloyd) on raising this subject. He has, with his customary clarity, combined his continuing and distinguished service to the cause of science and technology with the issue of road casualty reduction, in which drinking and driving was a major contributory factor to the 5,382 deaths on our roads last year.
  Anyone who recalls the television scenes of, or who was present at, the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert hall will know that every one of the seats there could be filled each year by people who die, mostly unnecessarily, on our roads. Anyone who watches a football match at Wembley should know that each of the places there could be filled three times over with people who have been injured on our roads.
  Of the deaths that I have mentioned, 1,000 are the victims of accidents in which the driver or rider is above the legal blood alcohol limit. About another 400 are victims when the driver or rider may not be above the legal limit but has noticeable amounts of alcohol in the blood. On top of that, 500 drunken pedestrians die. So about 1,800 people are involved—one third of the dead on our roads.
  Imagine what it is like to be a young police officer in the early months of duty having to knock on a stranger's door to say, "I am sorry. Your son—or daughter, or husband, or wife, or parent—won't be coming home again alive."
  My hon. Friend raised the issue of using breath alcohol devices in traffic—and, he could have gone on to say, in industrial—safety. Professor Brakespeare, dean of the faculty of physical sciences at the New South Wales Institute of Technology, has put forward a case, part of which my hon. Friend outlined to the House. Professor Brakespeare has argued that the way to deal with alcoholic drivers—not only people who are drunk, but those who drive with noticeable quantities of alcohol in their blood—even on the scale that obtains in the United Kingdom, which is lower than in Australia, is to lower the limit from 80 to 50 mg and to bring in random breath testing.
  My hon. Friend, with his scientific background, would not expect me to be able, by myself, to disentangle the effect of the use of the breath alcohol machine in cars, or the machines on the walls in drinking establishments, from the 3 million random breath tests given last year in New South Wales. He and I would agree that it is not necessarily a good use of police resources to switch police tests from those who are likely to have been drinking to those who are not.
  There is much argument about random breath tests. I stand four-square behind the police in this country, who prefer to go on with targeted testing. Even in one of the police areas that has had some publicity recently, a small proportion of the motorists who were required to stop by the police were tested for alcohol.
  The police can require me to give a breath test in one of three circumstances: if I have committed a moving traffic offence; if I have been involved in an accident; and if they have reasonable grounds for suspecting that I have alcohol in me. If I am stopped, as the police have the power to do, and the officer asks me whether I have been drinking

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  and I reply that I have, there are grounds for testing me. If I say that I have not, but the officer can smell alcohol, again there are grounds for testing me.
  Of the approximately 350,000 tests that were required to be given by the police last year, 120,000 were positive. That is about 30 per cent.
  Of every 100 tests, 30 are positive. To get one more positive test under random breath testing, we would need to have another 200 tests. To go from 30 to 31 positives we would need to go from 100 to 300 tests. To put it in simple terms, we would need to switch tests from those who were likely to have been drinking to those who were not. In the long term no one rules that out, but I do not think that it is a priority and it is certainly not a policy that I advocate within Government, if I may be allowed to give away trade secrets.
  I should like to turn to my hon. Friend's suggestion of promoting or encouraging the use of breath alcohol devices. Even when one is just below the legal limit, one can be up to five times more likely to be involved in a crash. I normally put it more strongly and say that one is five times more likely to make a mistake because of the alcohol affecting one's judgment, behaviour and reactions or degree of false confidence.
  Anyone who wants the facts of drinking and driving can ring Freephone 0800 234 888, and we will arrange to send him a straight, factual booklet with no exhortation showing the curves, as far as they are known, on the relationship between alcohol levels in the body and the likelihood of crashes. The booklet comes in a plain brown envelope which does not say, "This contains the facts on drinking and driving." The matter is dealt with rather more sensitively than that.
  During my 26 months as a junior Minister in the Department of Transport, I have seldom put any emphasis on getting drivers to stay just below the legal limit. I think that the House will agree that the only sensible advice to give drivers is not to take alcohol before driving. They should be told that if they do propose to take alcohol, they should preplan the way that they will move and should not drive. To that we add the other sensible advice that one should not encourage or expect other drivers to take alcohol.
  Most of us have had the experience, whether it is because we give alcohol up for Lent or because we do not want to drink and drive, of saying, when asked if we want a drink, that we want a soft drink or a low or non-alcoholic beer. Someone then says, "Are you sure?" We ought to consider whether it is more appropriate to say "Are you sure?" when someone whom we know will drive asks for alcohol. The extent to which we are our brother's or our own keeper is a matter for individual judgment. There is probably a spectrum of opinion about that.
  The third bit of advice, after saying that one should not contribute to the problem and should not urge other people to contribute to the problem, is that one should not accept a lift from a drinking driver. Of the people who die —many of whom probably have children, parents or relations—60 per cent. are the drivers. If I give a party and have no regard for the way in which some of my guests drive home, it means that they have a 60 per cent. chance of being the victims if they are involved in a crash.
  Of the people involved, 20 per cent. are car or pillion passengers, normally members of the driver's family o friends. Twenty per cent. are unknown to the drivers, perfect strangers, and it is a curious way to stay on the
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  same side of the road—if I may turn the story of the Jericho road on its head—to wipe out someone's life rather than take part in the greatest day and night co-operative venture in Britain, the use of our roads.
  There are 56 million of us and we are all potential victims. As my hon. Friend rightly said, there are probably about 2 million adult males, and for the ones who are at or above two and half times the legal limit, research evidence from Nottinghamshire shows that 90 per cent. were drinking beer. A very high proportion of them drank it in pubs and many of them were young. There are also significant numbers of women, more elderly males and so on.
  One other shocking bit of information is that 10 per cent. of people who are above the legal limit and involved in crashes are disqualified, and 10 per cent. have not passed their full driving test. We must get the message across to young drivers that inexperience of drinking combined with inexperience of driving is the worst possible combination.
  The General Accident Insurance Group commissioned Gallup to carry out a survey. It showed that, between 1986 and 1987, the proportion of adult males prepared to drink and drive, or at least prepared to admit to doing so, had dropped from two out of five to one out of five.
  As more of us decide not to drink and drive and move through the five stages of saying, first, "There is a problem," secondly, "They should not do it," thirdly, "I should not do it," fourthly, "I intend not to do it," and fifthly, saying, truthfully, "I do not do it," we are left with two dominant groups. Those two groups have been called by a psychiatrist the yobs and the dumbos. The yobs are the young over-the-limit beer drinkers and the dumbos are the dangerous upper-middle-class business men who are over the limit.
  We need to recognise that we are all at risk. My hon. Friend the Member for Havant has said that if people know their alcohol level, they are less likely to drive. We are prepared to watch carefully, and with interest, overseas experience with the equipment that my hon. Friend brought into the Chamber and demonstrated tonight. We want to watch to see what happens. I will not ask my hon. Friend now, but perhaps in further discussion we may deal with what would happen if I asked a passenger or a passerby to blow into the tube. There are minor problems such as that.
  I shall not encourage the police to put machines on the wall. If anyone needs to blow into a machine to see whether they have had a significant amount of alcohol, they should not be driving. Anyone who intends to go drinking and says, "I will test myself to see whether I should drive," is more concerned about losing their licence than about losing their own life or somebody else's. That is a point of veiew with which not everyone will necessarily agree, but the logic for it is good.
  The key task is not simply to stop people committing a criminal act. Being over the limit is, of course, a criminal act and, because of different body metabolisms, it is difficult to say how much someone can drink and stay within the limit. It is worth remembering that two thirds of the injuries that occur on our roads are linked not to alcohol but to the other things we do wrong on the roads. The only way in which one can avoid contributing to the extra risk of injury and of making sure that one will never fail a breath test is not to take extra alcohol before driving.

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  I do not want to get involved now in the problem of what happens if someone drinks at night and then drives at midday the following day and there is still a residual trace of alcohol. However, for anyone who goes on a bender and does not drive that night but does drive the following morning, I should say that in Finland they catch most people, under their random breath testing, at 9 o'clock on a Saturday morning.
  The units of alcohol do not go away much faster than one unit an hour. If someone drinks 15 units and drives after six or eight hours, they are likely to be above our legal limit, which some countries would argue is too high. However, the Government have no proposal to change that.
  Sir Ian Lloyd: I am following the speech of my hon. Friend with great interest. Would he not concede that it would be more desirable for the Finnish driver who leaves home the following morning to be in the position of being able to know his alcohol level? In that instance, a sensible and responsible driver would say, "Goodness me. I am over or near the limit set by my country and, therefore, I will not drive." My hon. Friend the Minister said that drivers are five times more dangerous just near the limit.
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  If, for any reason whatsoever, living in the real world, someone has had a drink, would it not be preferable for him to be able to find out whether he is near or over the limit and have the opportunity of saying, "I will not drive."?
  Mr. Bottomley: That may be. I suspect that this discussion, which is informative to the House and useful to me and which, I hope, is a reasonable response to my hon. Friend the Member for Havant, will continue in other ways on other days. In simple terms, 1,000 people a week are caught at more than twice the legal limit. The answer for them is a great deal of individual decision-making and social pressure, with or without machines, to cut out that drinking and driving.
  Not everybody has to take the Minister's advice. Therefore, if a pub or club puts up a device for testing, I cannot do anything about it and neither can the police. If that happens, perhaps we could see whether there is less drinking and driving. However, it may require a survey, even in Sussex, to discover what the baseline for drinking and driving is and then to come back and survey again later.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at sixteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.