HC Deb 11 November 1988 vol 140 cc674-95

Lords amendment: No. 72, in page 46, line 19, after "order" insert after the conduct of a ballot as specified in section 61(2) below, (and subject to the provisions of that subsection)

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Nicholas Ridley)

I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

With this it will be convenient to consider the following: Government amendment (b) to the Lords amendment.

Lords amendment No. 73.

Government motion (b) to disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Government amendments (c) to (e) to the Lords amendment.

Mr. Ridley

I agree with the Lords that there should be a ballot. That is the subject of this debate.

Mr. John Fraser (Norwood)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Ridley

No. Let me get started.

I accept the spirit of the Lords amendment but, as I shall explain, I differ with them on the means by which a ballot should be delivered.

The purpose of housing action trusts is to put right what the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) and the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) were complaining about earlier—the estates of dilapidation and severe disrepair. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, they have a problem. The problem may be the result of bad design leading to dirt and graffiti, a high level of crime, high vacancy rates, high rent arrears and wretched living conditions in many areas of the worst council housing in the country. We all know of such areas because Opposition Members have for many years drawn attention to them and the need for more help for the worst public housing.

I believe that it is right that we should give people who live in such conditions the opportunity to have more choice and diversity and to have repairs and improvements done to their homes. There should be a new way in which to improve the worst estates. One can oppose such a policy only because tenants want to live in such conditions, which I cannot believe possible, or because tenants have been misinformed about what a HAT will do and what will happen after HATs have been established.

Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith)

Does the Secretary of State realise how much anger he creates among the residents of such estates when he describes them in that way? Many of the estates that have been chosen do not fit his description. One, in Sunderland, has had about three years of work done on it. The work is still being carried out and is well advanced.

It is to a high standard and there is a very low level of crime, graffiti and vandalism. That is true of almost all the selected estates. The truth is that the Secretary of State has chosen areas that he can sell off, not the worst areas.

Mr. Ridley

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. I have seen all the areas myself. I have seen what the vacancy rate is, crime records held by the police and many other bits of information—

Mr. Derek Fatchett (Leeds, Central)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Dr. John Cunningham (Copeland)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Ridley

I have a lot to say. I shall give way to the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), but after that I would prefer to get on with what I have to say.

Dr. Cunningham

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. We all know that, thanks to him, we are short of time. Although we do not agree with the principle, why did not the Secretary of State discuss the matter with the local authorities and the tenants before making his designation? Then he could have been sure of getting it right and dealing with those areas with the worst problems. He has made no attempt to do that. He has designated the areas that he chose to suit his own ideological purposes.

1.15 pm
Mr. Ridley

I do not understand how this measure could conceivably benefit any ideological purposes. Opposition Members have been demanding action on the worst council estates in the country. The worst estates were to be determined by the consultants' report, which I have not yet received.

Opposition Members and the councils in their areas have gone in for a campaign of gross misinformation about what HATs will mean. Sandwell NALGO has been saying: The security of every tenant will change if a HAT is allowed to take over.". That is quite untrue. The establishment of a HAT will make no difference to tenants' status rights or rent. Lambeth NALGO has been telling people: The estates will most likely he sold to a private company whose only interest will be making a profit". In Sandwell tenants were told: … under private landlords you will see your rents soar … None of that is true. It is a gross misrepresentation. We have stated quite categorically and made it a statutory requirement in the Bill that HATs may transfer property only back to the councils or to landlords approved by the Housing Corporation. Those landlords will be required to demonstrate stability, viability and a commitment to the long-term provision of rented housing at rents within reach of those in lower-paid jobs. Rents will be frozen in advance of improvements and thereafter will rise at the rate of council rents.

Another case from Sunderland involved scare stories that home owners who bought their houses under the right to buy would have them compulsorily repurchased to make way for redevelopers. That is a quite disgraceful claim; it is not remotely true.

Another disgraceful claim was that HATs could lead to discrimination and harassment. That has absolutely no basis in fact and it is belied by the statutory requirements for HATs to promote racial equality, to prevent sexual discrimination and to pay special attention to the needs of disabled people. At the end of the period of the HAT—which we hope will be soon—tenants can opt for the right to buy, to form a tenants co-operative with help from the Housing Corporation, to have their property transferred to a housing association, to go to an approved private landlord—I emphasise the word "approved"—or to go back to the council. We have undertaken to give additional borrowing approvals to councils so that, if they wish and if the tenants wish, they can buy back the property at the end of the period. That is the deal we have offered, but the misinformation that has been prevalent throughout the affair has obscured that deal and focused on the ballot.

Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South)

Will the Secretary of State give way?

Mr. Ridley

I shall give way in a moment.

Ministers and I have been round all the HATs and have listened to what the people have said, except on the occasion when the tenants walked out, to which I shall refer soon. We have heard wildly exaggerated fears that have been sown in their minds, and the absence of a ballot was the one clear point to unite opposition. I came to the view that real arguments were impossible to get across if the ballot question was obscured. Let there be a ballot. I am proposing that there should be a ballot. Then there will be only one issue. Which is more important—the political opposition of the Labour party, or greatly improved living conditions for the people in those areas?

There is no other way in which large sums of money can be targeted on especially deserving estates. The current capital expenditure system means that receipts lie where they fall and are not available in other areas. I cannot distribute capital allocations taking account of where there are no receipts and the need for the local authority to spend. That is one reason why we shall propose a change to the present capital control system. But we have proposed Estate Action help. The hon. Member for Warley, East was waving a copy of its report, which shows that funds will be targeted on an estate in his constituency. Although the funds for Estate Action will be increased from £140 million this year to £190 million next year, such allocations will have to go round estates in about 100 local authorities and could not be used to concentrate funds only in some local authority areas.

The problems of the worst council estates and the most rundown areas remain to be resolved in any way that we can find. I addressed the problem fairly and squarely—there is no other way of doing it—by bringing to the House a proposal that we should have the power to designate an area as a housing action trust and to concentrate resources in that area. The provision for the next few years is£ 192 million. But the Opposition obstruct, delay and cause scaremongering, and when we give them the very thing that seemed to be preventing people from accepting the idea they accuse the Government of blackmail and of whatever excuse comes to mind next. "Blackmail" means extortion of money; it means hush money. It does not fit the picture of a Government openly offering £192 million during the next three years to six local authorities and their tenants.

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)

Can the Secretary of State tell the House and those tenants why, if he has decided that the estates need repair and improvement—which they do—he is unwilling to offer the money on the basis of a partnership agreement with the local authority in each case, with satisfactory controls by his officials? Then the worst estates could be improved, but on the basis of agreement as opposed to disagreement.

Mr. Ridley

The hon. Gentleman has not been listening. I explained how the capital allocation system works and said that I could not achieve those aims with the present instruments. I cannot give excessive capital allocations to one authority without removing them from another. That is why I propose this special device, which the hon. Gentleman supports in principle. We must consider the co-operation of the local authority. If the tenants and the local authority do not want a housing action trust, under the amendment that I propose they will not have one. There will be no housing action trust where there is no co-operation.

Mr. Spearing

I agree with the Secretary of State that there has been misinformation. A little while ago he talked about what would happen when housing action trusts came to an end. Has he seen the pamphlet issued by his Department entitled "Housing Action Trusts"? It states:

If you went back to the local authority you would remain a secure tenant. If you transferred to a housing association or other landlord, you would have a new form of tenancy, an assured tenancy, which would give you broadly the same security of tenure as you have now". Surely that statement is incorrect, because, if it were the same, the assured tenancy would not be necessary as it would be secure. Surely that is just as much misinformation as anything that the right hon. Gentleman accuses me or my hon. Friends of creating.

Mr. Ridley

No, it is not true. The new housing association assured tenancy that is in this Bill is not identical—[Interruption.] No, I said that the housing association assured tenancy is not the same as the present secure tenancy that a council offers. That is why I said that it is not. I did not say that it was the same. I said in the pamphlet that the hon. Gentleman has, that they were broadly similar in terms of security.

Mr. Spearing

Or other landlords.

Mr. Ridley

If it is another landlord, not a housing association, the hon. Gentleman will perhaps know that the tenants charter requirements will be binding, contractual and supervised by the Housing Corporation, so that no landlord who has not signed up to the same principles as are involved in housing association secure tenancies will be allowed to take over from a HAT, either when a HAT is dissolved or on resale later, after they have acquired housing from a HAT and wish to sell it. The conditions are binding for all time. That is justification of what I said to the hon. Gentleman.

Only two nights ago, before we got to the amendment —I have no complaint about that—the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) expressed concern on behalf of Lambeth tenants living in bad housing. I agree that there is much bad housing in Lambeth. The hon. Gentleman said that I am bribing them to vote for a HAT. Perhaps I should remind him of the meeting that he attended with the council leaders in my office on 27 July. After 15 minutes, the tenants walked out, with the council representatives following them. They did so, they said, because unless they were given a ballot they were not interested in talking to me or to anyone else about a HAT. But I listened, and I am now offering them a ballot. I have done exactly what they asked and what the hon. Gentleman said that I should do. He now says that I am contriving an argument and that I am bribing them or denying them resources. That is the extent of the political manipulation and misinformation to which the hon. Gentleman has stooped.

Mr. Fraser

Will the Secretary of State tell me why, at Question Time last Wednesday week, he said that they should not have a ballot? When did he change his mind? Is it not true that, according to the briefings to the newspapers last Monday, it was made quite clear that, if people did not vote for a HAT, they would not have access to the £192 million? Is that confirmed today? Does it amount to a form of bribery?

Mr. Ridley

I announce decisions when they have been taken and agreed by my colleagues. On Wednesday last week, those decisions had not been agreed by my colleagues. As soon as they were agreed by my colleagues, I announced them. I had to announce them because the amendment had to be tabled on Monday. It seemed to be reasonable at least to inform the public on Sunday rather than wait for them to read the amendments on Monday morning. I gave the information as quickly as I could.

I wonder whether Opposition Members should consider whether I am trying or they are trying to deny tenants the£ 192 million that I am making available for HATs. Perhaps they have forgotten their own words.

Mr. Allan Roberts (Bootle)

rose—

Mr. Ridley

The hon. Gentleman seeks to intervene. Let me quote his own words in Standing Committee. He said:

we do not want to be accused of suggesting to local authorities, once the Government have declared housing action trusts, that they should not co-operate with the Government and take as much of the Government's resources as possible through housing action trusts to encourage the improvement and upgrading of estates. If there are limited resources and the Government are to make them available only to areas where housing action trusts are declared, or provide limited resources elsewhere and extra resources to housing action trusts, no local authority in its right mind would turn that money away or refuse to co-operate to obtain the money for the tenants' benefit.

Mr. Roberts

rose—

Mr. Ridley

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman when I have finished the quote.

Mr. Roberts

The Secretary of State has not finished the quote—that is the trouble. He is quoting selectively. I went on to say that we do not believe that this is the way to make the money available. We believe it should be given to the local authorities. The local authorities should be given resources because they could do the job if they were given them.

1.30 pm
Mr. Ridley

The hon. Gentleman cannot get away from the finality of those statements and, if he tries to do so, I shall quote a third passage from his speech. After saying that he did not like the idea, the hon. Gentleman said:

We are not saying, however, that if the Bill is enacted and housing action trusts are introduced, local authorities should not try to make them work and use the extra resources available for the tenants' benefit."—[Official Report, Standing Committee G, 11 February 1988; c. 754–55.] It seems impossible that the Bill will become law and that it will contain the HAT proposal. Labour Members should reconsider whether it is wise to continue to make this subject a political football when the interests of the very people whom they purport to represent and whom they seek to help are being jeopardised by they campaign of misinformation and the totally false information that they are giving.

The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West began his speech by saying that he acknowledged that there was a problem. He went on to say that he wanted to help tenants but he then talked in Battle of Britain terms about how he hoped that they would have a victory in defeating the housing action trust. That is not in the interests of the tenants. That is putting politics before the interests of his constituency. He made the most disgraceful blatant plea that the steamed-up anger of the tenants, which he has promoted, should be allowed to prevail over their own interests.

Mr. Peter Archer (Warley, West)

I was merely seeking to report to the right hon. Gentleman what I had not had the opportunity of reporting in any other way—what the tenants themselves are saying. I said that I am perfectly happy to leave the decision to the tenants; that is exactly what I want.

Mr. Ridley

Well, we agree on the last point. We are leaving the decision to the tenants. That is no longer a contentious issue. Let me take this a stage further for the right hon. and learned Gentleman. If we are now leaving the decision to the tenants, and if that money is available in my public expenditure line—the right hon. and learned Gentleman can see that it is—what will he advise his tenants? Will he advise them that they should seek to make use of and take advantage of that facility? If not, I must advise him that, if we do not find an estate which is in a bad condition and which is willing to accept a housing action trust, I have no alternative but to return that money to the Treasury because it is in a certain line and allocated for a certain purpose—[HON. MEMBERS: "Blackmail."] There is no way in which that money could otherwise be made available—

Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North)

That is blackmail.

Mr. Ridley

If the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) calls that blackmail, he does not know what the word "blackmail" means in this case. It is extraordinary that year after year he says that there is a need for more expenditure for the worst council estates, but when the money if offered he tries to persuade tenants not to accept it. Then when they do not receive it, he calls that blackmail.

Mr. Winnick

rose—

Mr. Ridley

No, I shall not give way. The hon. Gentleman has a lot to learn about this.

We should give the tenants a vote, and the best way of arranging that is that the majority of those who vote should prevail. It is a yes or no question.

I am sad that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey has put his name to a motion stating that he supported the Lords amendment in the form in which it was drafted. I know that he has since removed it, but it was a mistake for him to put his name to it in the first place if, in the light of what he said earlier —

Mr. Simon Hughes

It has not been removed. The preferred voting system for both HATs and tenants' choice is one that ensures that more than half of those eligible to vote do so and that there is then a majority in favour. That is what the other place achieved for HATs, but, sadly, it missed it for tenants' choice by just two votes. If the right hon. Gentleman had accepted that for HATs and, through an amendment, for tenants' choice, we should have been a great deal happier.

Mr. Ridley

The Lords amendment, with which we are suggesting the House disagrees, provides for a majority of the tenants eligible to vote, not for a majority of the tenants who actually vote. What the hon. Gentleman has said conflicts with that. He is trying to have it both ways.

I commend the system of voting that the Government have proposed. I have had to redraft some of the Lords amendments for technical reasons, and I shall explain them if it is the wish of the House. The fairest way to carry out a ballot is by majority of those who vote.

Several Hon. Members

rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I appeal for brief speeches from Members on both sides of the House because of the prevailing circumstances. In deciding who shall catch my eye, I shall take into account the length and frequency of interventions.

Dr. Cunningham

The House, those listening to the debate and those reporting it could be forgiven for overlooking the fact that we have just heard a speech from a Secretary of State who has been a member of successive Administrations who have, as a deliberate and systematic act of policy, reduced housing investment programmes, in real terms, by less than 70 per cent. That underlying fact —no accident, but a deliberate and regular act of policy —lies at the heart of many, although not all, of the housing problems that the right hon. Gentleman now says he so urgently wants to address and correct. It is an act of the greatest hypocrisy for the Government to say that they have at heart the best interests of those who have suffered those cuts, after almost 10 years of deliberately disabling the ability of local authorities, elected by those people, to deal with housing, neighbourhood and community problems.

We simply cannot stomach that from the right hon. Gentleman without saying that it stinks of hypocrisy to say that the Government are concerned about the very problems for which they are fundamentally responsible. Whichever way the right hon. Gentleman comes at the issue, HATs are a central Government imposition on people, their homes and their neighbourhoods. It is yet another example of the Government's manic determination to circumvent elected local authorities. It is no good the right hon. Gentleman saying that there is no element of coercion. It is coercion to say that unless people do what he wants them to do, their housing problems will be left unattended and no money will be made available. Nothing could be plainer than that.

I certainly welcome the Secretary of State's belated recognition of and conversion to the idea that tenants actually have some rights. We said at the outset that people should have been consulted and that they should have the right to vote. I can imagine the reaction in parts of Mayfair, Park lane or even Cirencester and Tewkesbury in the Cotswolds if a Labour Government had said, "We shall take action in Parliament to change the tenure of your homes and we shall not consult you about it." There would have been a riot. Indeed, it is amazing that those who will be affected by HATs have been so tolerant.

It has taken a year for the message to sink in. Even now, although the right hon. Gentleman has said that he accepts the spirit of the Lords amendment, he is nevertheless trying to fiddle even that.

Mr. Ridley

indicated dissent.

Dr. Cunningham

The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. I shall come to the evidence in a moment.

When I said earlier that the right hon. Gentleman's and the Prime Minister's ideology was the driving force behind the proposals, he denied it. Let us examine that denial. In common with many other people, the Opposition now have the advantage—despite the Government's attempts to deny it both to us and to the people affected—of the report by the property investment company Peat, Marwick, McLintock. On page 13a the report states: HATs—The desired end result drives the means of achieving the result", and the goal is spelt out unequivocally as

Successful transfer to the private sector". The whole object of the exercise is to transfer the properties to the private sector whether the tenants like it or not, and it is utterly dishonest for any Minister to pretend otherwise. It was a remarkable act of candour for the Secretary of State to say that everything was explained by the consultants' report, but the trick was that he never intended us or the tenants to see the report. [Horn. MEMBERS: "How did they get it?"] I do not know how they got it, but I am very glad that they did, because another feature that I cannot stand about the Secretary of State and the Government is the way in which they continually come to Parliament with legislation but deny evidence about it to the House and to the people affected. If the right hon. Gentleman's trickery is exposed, that is ultimately so much the better even for him, not to mention the House of Commons and the tenants.

My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) recently asked what was the cost to the taxpayer of the consultants' reports. The Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Mr. Trippier), replied: The costs of these consultancy studies, which are still under way, are commercially confidential."— [Official report, 2 November 1988; Vol. 139, c. 685.] The Comptroller and Auditor General may have something to say about that. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax will continue to pursue the matter because she is absolutely right to seek to put on record the cost to the taxpayer of the ideological nonsense being perpetrated by the Government at the taxpayers' expense.

I therefore have to say, as gently as I can, that we simply do not believe what the Secretary of State has said to the House today.

We welcome the Lords amendment because it strengthens the tenants' position. If the Secretary of State had been consistent and said from the outset that tenants in proposed housing action trusts could have a vote and that in both that situation and in the pick-a-landlord scheme the vote would be on the basis of a simple majority, everyone would have been content, but that is not what he is proposing. Yet again, he is being deliberately inconsistent. The difference between the Lords amendment and the right hon. Gentleman's counterproposals is extremely important. The Lords amendment guarantees that a ballot will be held. The right hon. Gentleman's amendment does not give that unequivocal guarantee.

Mr. Ridley

Yes, it does.

Dr. Cunningham

The Government amendment gives the Secretary of State all the choices. He will decide whether a ballot is appropriate. He chooses whether to hire an independent body to carry out the ballot, and he chooses the independent body. If the Secretary of State decides against an independent body, he arranges for a ballot to be conducted in the way that he thinks best.

Mr. Ridley

rose—

Dr. Cunningham

I shall give way in a moment.

1.45 pm

There are no rights and guarantees for tenants in the Secretary of State making all these decisions. The right hon. Gentleman may want to intervene to say what he will write into the Bill. Words spoken in the House in debates are not worth the paper on which they are written in respect of giving people fundamental rights. Repeatedly, Ministers in this and previous Thatcher Administrations have given commitments in the House which subsequently have been cynically and deliberately disregarded. [Interruption.] I do not know what the Under-Secretary of State is laughing at. We do not find any of this funny. If the Secretary of State wants to say that he will write into the Bill an unequivocal guarantee of a ballot, that is fine. If he is just going to say that that is his intention, that is certainly unacceptable.

Mr. Ridley

I agree that all this bumf about which the hon. Gentleman complains is worth nothing, particularly if it is not read. Let me read the amendment to the hon. Gentleman:

no order may be made under section 60(1) above in respect of that estate unless a majority of tenants eligible to vote have approved the proposal. That is unequivocal, clear and—

Dr. Cunningham

What does it mean?

Mr. Ridley

It means "vote for." It says "approved." If one votes against it, that is not approving. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman did not have to be taken through that point. If that is what he thinks, he has not left his private school.

Dr. Cunningham

Perhaps the Secretary of State or the Under-Secretary of State will explain why they should say that the Secretary of State decides whether a ballot is appropriate. Why should that caveat be in the legislation? Is the Secretary of State saying that that will be removed? Will he decide whether a ballot is appropriate? Will there be a ballot? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer"] I am happy to give way to the Secretary of State.

Mr. Ridley

In respect of declaring housing action trusts, the governing subsection in clause 61 is subsection (2). I have quoted it once and I shall quote it again: no order may he made … in respect of that estate unless a majority of tenants eligible to vote have approved the proposal.

Mr. Spearing

Not by ballot.

Mr. Ridley

By ballot. The clause goes on to describe how it is to be done. It could be a ballot or a poll. The difference is that one is postal and the other is not. There are two possibilities: it could be organised directly by my officials or I have the power to delegate it to the Electoral Reform Society. I am happy to tell the House that the Electoral Reform Society has agreed to operate these ballots, so I am able to delegate this function to it.

Dr. Cunningham

I still say that, as written, the right hon. Gentleman's proposals are ambiguous. It is no good his saying that we should stop saying that. Our interpretation of and advice on what he proposes is that, unlike the Lords amendment, which he seeks to change, his proposals are ambiguous. That is a strong point.

In earlier exchanges, the Secretary of State failed to explain why the areas that he has chosen were so designated. We have argued that there are areas of far greater need, with much greater problems and difficulties, than those designated for his housing action trusts. If the right hon. Gentleman says that he wants to help the people facing the worst problems, why has Hulme in Manchester been ignored.? Why have areas of deck-access housing not been included in HATs?

People may think that HATs are well named. There will probably be little action and there is little trust of them among the people who will be affected. The Secretary of State's arguments do not wash. He has chosen areas for designation that he knows will suit his ideological purposes, which are spelt out in the report to which I have already referred. The whole sorry story is one of an attempt to mislead not only hon. Members but the people who will be affected, of prevaricating before appearing —but only appearing— to consent to a ballot in every case and of trying to coerce people in the direction that the Government want them to take by saying, "If you do not support us, no money will be spent on your housing difficulties." It is all too typical of the Government's housing policies, which owe everything to dogma and ideology but nothing to solving housing problems.

Mr. Peter Shore (Bethnal Green and Stepney)

Although there are some a biguities in the clause and amendment that the Secretary of State has not explained, the most remarkable feature of the debate was his statement, "I agree that there shall be a ballot." That is a remarkable reversal of the position that he had so adamantly taken and that he and his junior Ministers had supported in debate in the House and in the House of Lords for a long time.

My constituency contains no fewer than six HATs. About 2,500 families in Tower Hamlets are to be taken from the control of the local authorities and placed under the jurisdiction and powers of HATs. The Under-Secretary visited York hall in my borough on 17 October 1988 to explain why the Government would reject the Lords amendment. He said that there was no chance of balanced and informed opinion if tenants were consulted about whether they wanted a HAT. That was an extremely arrogant statement. I have much confidence in the ability of tenants in my borough to decide sensibly what is in their interests, and, even though it has come late in the day. I welcome the Secretary of State's change of heart or intention.

I should, however, like to make one or two further points in my brief intervention. I support the view, which has already been articulated, that it is not true that a HAT must be established selectively to assist run-down estates. If the right hon. Gentleman had some administrative problems or difficulties in allocating additional funds to the estates action programme or the priority estates project, which I introduced some years ago, he could easily have dispelled them by seeking additional powers from the House.

Having cut two thirds of the allocation to local authorities for housing investment programmes, it is logical that what is left for local authorities to spend should be targeted in the best and most direct way possible. I do not object to that, but it should be done by the local authorities with the Department, not in spite of it, and properties should not be taken out of their control as landlords. The overall control of the modernisation of an estate obviously falls to the contractor carrying out the job.

Ms. Mildred Gordon (Bow and Poplar)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that when the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State came to York hall, he tried to tell tenants that there was too great a percentage of council housing in Tower Hamlets? The tenants made it clear to him that they needed more, not less, council housing so that they could be housed at affordable rents. When he told the tenants that they had been misinformed, the tenants' answer was that they were well informed and knew the difference between assured and secured tenancies, which the Under-Secretary of State did not. He tried to tell them that they were the same. The tenants also know that if their tenancies are eventually transferred to private landlords, they will face service charges and rents that they cannot afford. They know that money can be given in other ways.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The intervention of the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms. Gordon) is longer than a speech. I hope that she will resume her seat.

Ms. Gordon

It is not the worst estates but the best locations that have been chosen for HATs.

Mr. Shore

I thank my hon. Friend for the additional points that she made about the meeting at York hall in Tower Hamlets.

If the Secretary of State has £192 million that he wishes to spend to deal with problems on the worst estates in the country, it is entirely within his power to discuss and agree with the local authorities which estates should be involved and then to allocate the money and see that it is spent for no other purpose. Therefore, the idea of HATs becomes irrelevant, unless there is an ulterior purpose. That ulterior purpose has been expressed and is rightly feared by tenants. It is to bring about the dissolution of local authority housing in a new way by assisting the transfer of such estates to private landlords and housing associations.

The new provision to assist local authorities to reacquire HATs came late in the day and is part of the retreat of the Secretary of State and his Ministers from the original purpose of HATs. Now he says, "They can opt to go back to the council at the end of the HAT period." At this late stage he has answered the question, "What if the council does not have the money to buy back at the new inflated price?" He said, "I will make special money available."

All those arrangements will need to be scrupulously and carefully examined if there is to be any serious change of opinion among the tenants affected by HATs. The tenants are concerned that they should continue to have the security that goes with secured tenancies and that they should have the right, which goes with democratically elected landlords, to be able to approach the responsible member of the council rather than have to negotiate with private or other landlords on the matter of contracts and law.

Mr. Fatchett

I shall speak specifically about Holton moor estate in my constituency, which has been designated as a housing action trust area, but what I say will apply to the Seacroft and Gipton estates, which have also been designated, which are in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey).

First, the Secretary of State's decision to designate Holton moor as a housing action trust area has caused a great deal of disquiet and upset. If the right hon.

Gentleman will study the criteria published by his Department, he will find that the essential characteristic of a housing trust area is that it is deemed to be run down. Tenants of Holton moor strongly object to their estate being described in that way. Earlier, the Secretary of State told the House that he had visited every HAT area. Unless he did so under the cloak of darkness, he never visited Holton moor in Leeds. If he had, he would have encountered a great deal of opposition to his Department's designation.

2 p.m.

Secondly, the Secretary of State takes no account of the effective action that has been taken over a number of years to improve Holton moor's housing and environment. There has been substantial local authority investment, which is already showing significant results. There is an agreement with a local housing association to take over a block of maisonettes there, which will in itself improve the area. The old West Yorkshire county council has improved the estate's overall environment. If the right hon. Gentleman visits Holton moor, he will find not a run-down estate but an area that is improving because of local authority intervention.

My final point is that although we welcome the ballot, we prefer the House of Lords definition. The ballot is not a measure of the Secretary of State's success or of his conversion; it is a major triumph for tenants of housing action trust areas throughout the country who have expressed their profound objections to his proposals. In one sense, I thank him for them, because he has brought to the tenants of Holton moor, Seacroft and Gipton an awareness of the points at issue that has never previously existed. As a result, there have been many tenants' meetings and campaigns.

When the Holton moor, Seacroft and Gipton ballots take place, the Secretary of State's proposals will be overwhelmingly defeated. If the tenants of those estates had seen the right hon. Gentleman's performance this morning, their conviction to rebuff his proposals would be stronger still. Blackmail of the kind hinted at by the Secretary of State today—"If you do not vote for my proposals, you will get no money for your estate"—will not work. People have courage and principles and they will not be browbeaten by the Secretary of State for the Environment.

Mr. Gerald Bowden (Dulwich)

I wish to speak briefly but firmly in favour of housing action trusts. The majority of the cases that come to my advice surgery—and Opposition Members say that they share this experience —relate to housing matters. Most of the letters in my post bag also relate to housing inadequacies of one type or another suffered by my constituents in Dulwich and Southwark. They are increasingly experiencing homelessness and difficulty with obtaining transfers, with waiting lists, repairs, squatters, and from rent and rate debt amounting to above £30 million. Those tenants who do pay are subsidising those who do not. They increasingly encounter difficulties also in respect of lawlessness and violence on the estates on which they live.

In such circumstances, my right hon. Friend's proposals offer a positive and flexible way of dealing with those problems. It is inexplicable that Opposition Members implacably oppose an attempt to make improvements in an area that desperately needs it. In a by-election that is currently under way in my constituency, there is a stage army of agitators running around and sowing the seeds of anxiety in the minds of tenants who are already trapped and imprisoned in their flats, with no opportunity of escape. They are being told that all of the proposals that we are debating today will be for the worse. Nothing is further from the truth.

For that reason I wholeheartedly support the idea of the two HATs proposed for Southwark. I offer my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the opportunity to consider other estates in my constituency which might benefit from that treatment. However, I have one anxiety. After people in HAT areas have experienced the improvements that will flow from the trusts, they will want to be reassured that they will not be thrown willy nilly back on to the mercies of local authorities. They will want reassurances that their right to remain in some form of tenure other than that of council tenants will be safeguarded. They must be reassured that the range of tenures offered to tenants now will be available when HATs have reached maturity. With those reassurances, experience and time will prove that HATs are a major step forward in the provision of public sector housing. I give the concept of HATs my full support and I urge the House to do the same.

Mr. Simon Hughes

The Secretary of State for the Environment introduced the Housing Bill on 19 November last year. When he proposed housing action trusts he will recall that there was no provision for tenants to vote. There would be a vote in this place, but nothing else. Three hundred and fifty three days later, on Sunday television, the Minister for Housing, Environment and Countryside, Lord Caithness, announced that there would be a vote.

It says something about the Government's attitude to tenants that it took them to the last fortnight of the Session before they conceded that there should be a vote and that effectively to nationalise a change of tenure of housing for thousands of people should not have been contemplated without a vote.

Sunday's broadcast was unusual because the programme was followed by a press release from the Department of the Environment. That is not normal practice on a Sunday. The press release was unusual because it stated:

Government Announces a Ballot on HATS. Lord Caithness said: `When we announced our proposals for Housing Action Trusts in July, we said we would take account of local views in deciding whether to establish them. We have spent the past few months listening to what people have to say. Local authorities and tenant groups have greeted the Government's proposals with suspicion and hostility. Mainly, they claim, because no ballot had been allowed for. The Government cannot have been surprised at the response that their idea and visits received because, until a few days ago, tenants were told that they would have no vote. The introduction of the vote is a substantial improvement which I welcome.

My only remaining point relates to the kind of ballot, and the Secretary of State referred to that earlier. An amendment was tabled in another place that the ballot should express the wishes of a majority of those eligible to vote. The Government's concession on tenants' choice includes a proposal, agreed by the other place, that there should be a minimum turnout of 50 per cent. The Secretary of State was right—I stressed that point to the hon.

Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) earlier—in his interpretation of the wording of his amendment which makes it clear that there must be a ballot or poll—there is no substantial difference between those two.

Mr. Ridley

One is a postal operation and the other involves sticking paper in a ballot box.

Mr. Hughes

I accept that a proper vote must take place. The Secretary of State has said that he will use one of the options to delegate the power to conduct the vote to an independent agency, namely the Electoral Reform Society. That is very welcome. However, it would have been better if the Secretary of State had accepted the amendment as drafted in another place, relating to the majority of those eligible to vote in favour, rather than the majority of those who turned out either in a postal or personal ballot. In the Government's own words, it is right to be suspicious of a major change if it is not certain that a real majority is in favour. Only the other day, the Government said of trade union reform:

A simple (or even a substantial) majority … might not actually be representative if many of those given entitlement to vote in the ballots did not actually do so. Because we believe that a majority of eligible tenants as well as a majority in the overall vote should be in favour, we shall support the Lords amendments and oppose the Government's change, which, although an improvement on the original position, is still not as good as it could or should be.

Ms. Harriet Harman (Peckham)

My starting point is the interests of the tenants on the North Peckham and Gloucester grove estates, whom I was elected to represent. I also represent their concerns for their children and for future tenants who will need housing on such estates.

I take it ill that the Secretary of State, who represents a constituency in Gloucestershire, should tell me that he knows more about what is in the interests of the tenants on the estates that I have mentioned than they do—and more than me, the Member of Parliament elected to represent them. Perhaps I can enlighten the right hon. Gentleman by telling him that in Peckham there is a rare degree of unanimity on this issue. Tenants, the councillors elected by them, those who work in the housing service—many of whom are themselves tenants on those estates—and I, as their Member of Parliament, believe that the present position is not satisfactory. We feel that the quality of service that tenants receive is not good enough, and that the design of the buildings needs improvement.

No one, least of all the tenants, is complacent about the circumstances in which they currently live. But they all believe, as do I, that working with a council that is properly funded by central Government is the route out of the present problems. None of them wants housing action trusts, especially if they are imposed by a Government who think that a ballot should not be allowed because they will not be able to tell the difference between genuine information and misinformation. They are insulted by the idea that a housing action trust is to be imposed on them and the right to vote only dragged out in equivocal terms by a Minister who has been forced back by political reaction to his proposals.

All the tenants in the North Peckham and Gloucester grove estates know that it now takes longer to obtain Health Service treatment and benefits, and that those benefits are not enough to live on. They have seen the deterioration of public transport in south-east London, on which they have to depend. They have no confidence in the solution that the Government wish to impose. I hope, therefore, that the Secretary of State will accept the Lords amendment, which would allow tenants a watertight ballot and prevent his equivocations from being forced on them.

Mr. Fraser

I speak on behalf of the tenants of 3,000 dwellings on the Old Loughborough, New Loughborough and Angell Town estates in Brixton. Two of those estates belonged not to Lambeth council but to the GLC, which was forced to hand them over to Lambeth with insufficient investment to bring them up to date. The blame for the problems in two thirds of the properties, therefore, does not lie with Lambeth council.

The Secretary of State wholly misunderstands the decision by tenants about HATs. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman), I have encountered considerable dissatisfaction among tenants about the management, investment and design of their estates, and a wide measure of criticism about Lambeth's services and some of its housing officers. It would be silly for me to deny that.

I was genuinely surprised at the unanimity of the opposition to HATs. I had thought that some people, if not a majority, would speak in favour, seeing HATs as a solution to some of their problems in getting improvements carried out. If the Secretary of State thinks that NALGO has influenced tenants, he has made a great mistake. He has misjudged their political reaction, and he had better come to terms with that fact.

2.15 pm

A very happy development at a late stage in the Bill is that there is to be a ballot, but I want to turn to the more sinister side of it. Unless tenants vote for the local authority's loss of democratic accountability and for the privatisation of revitalised housing estates with a good future, the Secretary of State has made it clear that not a penny of additional resources will go to those who reject housing action trusts.

The Secretary of State has referred to estates that he has described as dilapidated and in a state of disrepair. If people choose to reject housing action trusts, there will be the same dilapidation and disrepair and the same frustration. Whenever there is rain, water will still come into the flats from the balconies and flood them. The heating will remain unsatisfactory. Water will leak between one flat and another across heavy concrete barriers. Asbestos will need to be removed and insulation will still be needed. Cavernous, unused garages will remain hostile and depressing. Those are the unsatisfactory features of some estates where murders, rape and many other serious offences have been far too common. Conditions will remain exactly the same, but treatment will depend not on the merit of the argument but on the outcome of the ballot. That is callous.

The Secretary of State objects to the terms "blackmail" and "bribery". I think that they call it pork-barrelling in the United States. If people do not vote for the right decision, there is no Government investment. That seems to me to be a callous, unprincipled and perverted use of public money. Poor tenants are being punished for pitting their judgment against the Secretary of State's wishes. He proposes that the professionals should be put in charge of the tenants. I want tenants to be in charge of the professionals.

I have put my tenants on the Angell Town estate in touch with Oxford polytechnic school of architecture. It now acts as their professional adviser. The tenants resent the idea of housing action trusts because, using their own professionals, they have developed both inner city and estate action schemes to improve their estates.

The tenants thought that they had the confidence of the Housing Corporation and the Department of the Environment. However, the Department of the Environment turned on them, as it turned on the tenants of estates in other parts of the country, and sought to seize the estates from them. The tenants have won a considerable victory, but I want my tenants to have the victory not just of the vote but of a Government assurance that they will not be punished for the choice that they have made and for their success.

Mr. John Heddle (Mid-Staffordshire)

I voted in favour of the guillotine motion because I want this legislation, which formed a major part of the Conservative party's manifesto at the last general election, to receive Royal Assent as soon as possible so that municipal harassment, misleading information and the threats that have been made to tenants in certain housing action trust areas can be redressed. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his colleagues in the Department of the Environment will then be able to publish unbiased, straightforward literature that explains the rights that the members of housing action trust boards will have when the Bill becomes law.

I have to declare an interest. Together with right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, I am an honorary vice-president of the Building Societies Association. The building societies and other responsible financial institutions have a responsibility and duty, as well as an opportunity when housing action trusts have been established, to play a specific role in improving their neighbourhoods. That point was expressed most eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden). Such areas have been starved of investment and care by housing departments. One has only to examine Lambeth, Southwark and Tower Hamlets and their rent arrears and voids to realise that their housing stock has not been cared for as it would have been if the tenants' voice had been heard more loudly and sympathetically.

I welcome four things which have come out of today's debate and which also came out of our debates in Committee during the summer. First, through the powers devolved to the Housing Corporation by the Bill, my right hon. Friend will seek legally binding guarantees on rents from future landlords, whoever they may be. Secondly, local residents and people who live in a HAT area can be represented on the HAT board. Thirdly, new landlords, whether from the private sector, the voluntary housing movement, housing associations or building societies such as the Nationwide Anglia, will need approval from the Housing Corporation. Fourthly, HATs will have a duty to co-operate with local authorities which ask for assistance in discharging their responsibilities to solve the problem of homelessness.

I believe that the housing action trust is a further imaginative way in which to improve the environment in parts of the six selected boroughs.

Mr. Spearing

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. During his speech, the Secretary of State read a statement about ballots. During the Division which is to take place shortly, will he check that his quotation was from the Bill that was sent to the other place and not an amendment put in by somebody else? There has been some confusion, and I hope that the matter can be clarified before the debate on the next group of Lords amendments.

Mr. Ridley

rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The Secretary of State is trying to catch my eye. Does he have the leave of the House to speak again?

Hon. Members

Aye.

Mr. Ridley

With the leave of the House, I should like to reply. I was quoting from the amendment which I have tabled on the Order Paper.

Mr. Soley

The Secretary of State's error was to quote from the Lords amendment. He will need to check the record, but that is generally understood to be the case.

Mr. Ridley

I immediately apologise.

I must reinforce, for the benefit of the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), that there is no way in which I can designate a HAT under the amendment that I have proposed unless a ballot has taken place and the majority of those who vote and are entitled to vote are in favour of it. He is quite wrong to doubt that.

There is one unresolved issue—whether the ballot should he conducted directly by me or whether it should be conducted by an independent body such as the Electoral Reform Society. Those are the options for which the amendment provides. I am happy to say that the Electoral Reform Society will, I think, agree to conduct ballots, so there will be no need for me to do it. I prefer it that way.

The hon. Member for Copeland and the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) complained about cuts in housing investment. When we consider housing capital, we have to take into account the growing quantity of receipts available to and spent by councils. On that basis, spending by councils on housing has increased from £2.251 billion in 1980–81 to an estimated £3375 billion in 1988–89. That is not a cut of 70 per cent.—it is an increase of about 50 per cent. That is a point which I must get the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen to understand. The difficulty is that, within that greatly increased total, receipts lie in areas that are often quite different from where the needs are. Therefore, I cannot increase allocations—indeed, I have to reduce them—because I have to accommodate the fact that councils have the right to spend 20 per cent. of those receipts, and nearly always do so.

The total figures have risen greatly, but I concede that in the process the areas of greatest need have suffered because allocations have been reduced. Therefore, if we want to give. an area special help, we have to find some device such as the one that I have proposed—the housing action trust—to bring new money outside the capital control system to that particular area. That is what I have sought to do.

Dr. Cunningham

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way and for confessing on the record that because of Government policy the areas of greatest housing need have suffered expenditure cuts. That is what he has just admitted. Why has it taken him so long to be honest with the House?

Mr. Ridley

I did not say that those areas suffered cuts in their expenditure, I said that there had been cuts in their capital allocation. That has never been concealed. It is public knowledge that during the past eight years there have been progressive cuts in capital allocations for the reasons that I have just given, but total spending has increased. The hon. Gentleman has never been able to understand that. I hope that he understands it at last.

Mr. Shore

I do not wish to mislead the House, but surely the figures that the Secretary of State has quoted are current prices and were not adjusted for changes in price during the eight years. Although the figures, allowing for inflation, are up, there has been a reduction in real terms.

Mr. Ridley

I was quoting the cash prices. Even then that is not a 70 per cent. cut. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman understands that, but he should have a word with his hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) and explain the difference between allocation and spending which his hon. Friend has consistently failed to understand.

Turning to the right hon. Gentleman's later point, it would be possible to legislate some biased system, to give some extra money over and above the normal allocation to certain councils. That would be possible, but we are not proposing to do that. I shall not switch money to councils which have vacancy rates, have failed to collect rents and rent arrears and have the sort of management records that we have heard about this morning. It is better to switch that money so that it goes to repair and not to the various evils we have been discussing.

I must tell the hon. Members for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) and for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) that that is not blackmail. If estates refuse to accept a housing action trust, all that will happen is that they will go back into the current system of capital allocations plus 20 per cent. of housing receipts which are available to be spent, plus estate action provision which will be available to all councils as it is now, on an equal and fair basis. We are offering the tenants of the estates a priority, and they can turn it down. That is not a punishment; it is a conscious decision. I hope that I have now cleared up that point.

The hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) described the amendment as equivocal. It is not. It is typical of the misunderstanding or the misinformation which she deliberately spreads. I do not accuse her of deliberate misinformation, but she does not understand. If she is going to talk to her tenant constituents, will she please take the trouble to get it right? There is nothing equivocal about the amendment. There will be a ballot and a decision by a majority of those who vote. If she, as a Member of Parliament, cannot get that right, how on earth will she give her constituents the proper information which they need?

Mr. Soley

There is genuine confusion. Perhaps the Secretary of State has been advised by his solicitors. Two choices are open to him: first, to hand over the job to an independent body, which he has said he wants to do; and, secondly, to conduct a ballot or poll if he thinks fit. In the second case, the key words are "ballot or poll". We are not sure whether a vote is implied by the use of the word "poll". A ballot must be a vote, whereas in everyday parlance a poll does not necessarily mean a vote.

2.30 pm
Mr. Ridley

I am advised by the parliamentary draftsmen that they are the correct terms to use if we wish to cover the two possibilities of the Electoral Reform Society deciding, first, to have a postal ballot or, secondly, to set up boxes in polling booths into which people may place their votes, as we do when we vote in parliamentary elections. The phrase that the draftsmen suggested is apparently a well-known phrase that covers either alternative. I give that assurance to the hon. Gentleman, and I hope that that point will no longer be a subject of questions.

I agree with the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney that we should put tenants in charge of officials instead of officials being in charge of tenants. But does he believe that the tenants on the estate in his constituency, or those in the constituency of the hon. Member for Peckham, are in charge of the officials who run those housing departments? If they are, I can assume only that they must like living in such conditions. But of course they are not. Tenants need liberation. There is now no reason why Labour Members should not decide on a free vote whether they put their political prejudices in front of the interests of their constituents.

Question put, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment:

The House divided: Ayes 246, Noes 74.

Division No. 491] [2.32 pm
AYES
Adley, Robert Burns, Simon
Aitken, Jonathan Burt, Alistair
Alexander, Richard Butler, Chris
Alison, Rt Hon Michael Butterfill, John
Allason, Rupert Carlisle, John, (Luton N)
Amess, David Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Amos, Alan Carrington, Matthew
Arbuthnot, James Carttiss, Michael
Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove) Cash, William
Ashby, David Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Atkinson, David Chope, Christopher
Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley) Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N) Cope, Rt Hon John
Baldry, Tony Couchman, James
Banks, Robert (Harrogate) Cran, James
Bellingham, Henry Currie, Mrs Edwina
Bendall, Vivian Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)
Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke) Davis, David (Boothferry)
Benyon, W. Day, Stephen
Bevan, David Gilroy Devlin, Tim
Biffen, Rt Hon John Dicks, Terry
Blackburn, Dr John G. Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Body, Sir Richard Dover, Den
Boscawen, Hon Robert Dunn, Bob
Boswell, Tim Durant, Tony
Bottomley, Peter Dykes, Hugh
Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n) Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)
Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich) Evennett, David
Bowis, John Fallon, Michael
Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes Favell, Tony
Brandon-Bravo, Martin Fenner, Dame Peggy
Brazier, Julian Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)
Bright, Graham Fishburn, John Dudley
Brittan, Rt Hon Leon Fookes, Miss Janet
Bruce, Ian (Dorset South) Forman, Nigel
Buck, Sir Antony Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Forth, Eric Meyer, Sir Anthony
Fowler, Rt Hon Norman Miller, Sir Hal
Fox, Sir Marcus Mills, Iain
Freeman, Roger Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)
French, Douglas Mitchell, David (Hants NW)
Gale, Roger Monro, Sir Hector
Gardiner, George Montgomery, Sir Fergus
Gill, Christopher Morris, M (N'hampton S)
Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian Moss, Malcolm
Goodhart, Sir Philip Moynihan, Hon Colin
Gorst, John Nelson, Anthony
Gow, Ian Neubert, Michael
Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW) Newton, Rt Hon Tony
Greenway, Harry (Ealing N) Nicholls, Patrick
Greenway, John (Ryedale) Nicholson, David (Taunton)
Gregory, Conal Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley
Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn Oppenheim, Phillip
Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom) Page, Richard
Hanley, Jeremy Paice, James
Hannam, John Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil
Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr') Patnick, Irvine
Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn) Pawsey, James
Harris, David Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth
Haselhurst, Alan Porter, Barry (Wirral S)
Hayes, Jerry Porter, David (Waveney)
Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney Portillo, Michael
Hayward, Robert Powell, William (Corby)
Heathcoat-Amory, David Price, Sir David
Heddle, John Raffan, Keith
Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael Raison, Rt Hon Timothy
Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE) Redwood, John
Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L. Riddick, Graham
Hill, James Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm) Rossi, Sir Hugh
Hordern, Sir Peter Rowe, Andrew
Howarth, Alan (Strat'd-on-A) Rumbold, Mrs Angela
Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd) Sainsbury, Hon Tim
Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford) Scott, Nicholas
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk) Shaw, David (Dover)
Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W) Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')
Hunt, David (Wirral W) Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne) Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Hunter, Andrew Shersby, Michael
Irvine, Michael Sims, Roger
Irving, Charles Skeet, Sir Trevor
Jack, Michael Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)
Jackson, Robert Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Janman, Tim Speed, Keith
Jessel, Toby Speller, Tony
Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N) Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)
Jones, Robert B (Herts W) Squire, Robin
Key, Robert Stanbrook, Ivor
King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield) Stern, Michael
Kirkhope, Timothy Stevens, Lewis
Knapman, Roger Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)
Knowles, Michael Stokes, Sir John
Lamont, Rt Hon Norman Stradling Thomas, Sir John
Latham, Michael Summerson, Hugo
Lawrence, Ivan Taylor, Ian (Esher)
Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel Taylor, John M (Solihull)
Lee, John (Pendle) Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)
Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh) Temple-Morris, Peter
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe) Thornton, Malcolm
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham) Thurnham, Peter
Lord, Michael Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)
Lyell, Sir Nicholas Tracey, Richard
McCrindle, Robert Tredinnick, David
Maclean, David Trippier, David
McLoughlin, Patrick Trotter, Neville
Malins, Humfrey Twinn, Dr Ian
Mans, Keith Waddington, Rt Hon David
Maples, John Wakeham, Rt Hon John
Marland, Paul Waldegrave, Hon William
Marshall, Michael (Arundel) Walden, George
Martin, David (Portsmouth S) Waller, Gary
Mawhinney, Dr Brian Walters, Sir Dennis
Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick Ward, John
Mellor, David Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)
Warren, Kenneth Wolfson, Mark
Watts, John Wood, Timothy
Wells, Bowen Yeo, Tim
Wheeler, John Young, Sir George (Acton)
Whitney, Ray Younger, Rt Hon George
Widdecombe, Ann
Wiggin, Jerry Tellers for the Ayes:
Wilshire, David Mr. Tom Sackville and
Winterton, Mrs Ann Mr. Stephen Dorrell.
NOES
Abbott, Ms Diane Ingram, Adam
Allen, Graham Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil
Archer, Rt Hon Peter Livingstone, Ken
Ashdown, Paddy Livsey, Richard
Ashley, Rt Hon Jack McAvoy, Thomas
Banks, Tony (Newham NW) McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)
Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE) Mahon, Mrs Alice
Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich) Martlew, Eric
Battle, John Meacher, Michael
Beckett, Margaret Meale, Alan
Beith, A. J. Michael, Alun
Bermingham, Gerald Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)
Blunkett, David Morgan, Rhodri
Boateng, Paul Mowlam, Marjorie
Bradley, Keith Murphy, Paul
Bray, Dr Jeremy Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Campbell-Savours, D. N. Owen, Rt Hon Dr David
Clarke, Tom (Monklands W) Patchett, Terry
Clwyd, Mrs Ann Pendry, Tom
Cohen, Harry Pike, Peter L.
Crowther, Stan Primarolo, Dawn
Cryer, Bob Richardson, Jo
Cummings, John Roberts, Allan (Bootle)
Cunningham, Dr John Robinson, Geoffrey
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli) Ruddock, Joan
Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l) Shore, Rt Hon Peter
Dixon, Don Skinner, Dennis
Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)
Fatchett, Derek Soley, Clive
Fearn, Ronald Spearing, Nigel
Foulkes, George Taylor, Matthew (Truro)
Fraser, John Wareing, Robert N.
Fyfe, Maria Winnick, David
Galloway, George Wise, Mrs Audrey
Gordon, Mildred Young, David (Bolton SE)
Harman, Ms Harriet
Holland, Stuart Tellers for the Noes:
Howells, Geraint Mr. Frank Haynes and
Hughes, Simon (Southwark) Mr. Frank Cook.

Question accordingly agreed to.

2.45 pm

Amendment (b) made to the Bill in lieu of the Lords amendment, in page 46, line 19, at beginning insert 'Subject to section 61 below'.—[Mr. Maclean.]

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