Commons Sitting of 27 October 1988

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

  Royal Assent
  Mr. Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts and Measures:

  1. South Yorkshire Light Rail Transit Act 1988

  2. Harwich Parkeston Quay Act 1988

  3. Church of England (Pensions) Measure 1988.

  PRIVATE BUSINESS
  CITY OF LONDON (SPITALFIELDS MARKET) BILL
  Order for Third Reading read.
  To be read the Third time upon Tuesday 1 November.
  NORTHAMPTON BILL [Lords]
  Considered; to be read the Third time.
  RIVER HUMBER (BURCOM OUTFALL) BILL [Lords]
  TEIGNMOUTH QUAY COMPANY BILL (By Order)
  YORK CITY COUNCIL BILL [Lords] (By Order)
  CARDIFF BAY BARRAGE BILL (By Order)
  FALMOUTH CONTAINER TERMINAL BILL (By Order)
  PORT OF TYNE BILL [Lords] ( By Order)
  AVON LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT BILL [Lords] (By Order)
  Orders for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Thursday 3 November.

Oral Answers to Questions
  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Balance of Payments
    Mr. Michael: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the outturn of the balance of payments at the end of the current financial year.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Nigel Lawson): I will, as usual, be publishing a new forecast in the Autumn Statement next month.
    Mr. Michael: In the light of the facts that we have now had a deficit for 16 consecutive months, that in this calendar year the deficit is approaching £10 billion and that on the three-monthly figures the level of imports is growing at twice the rate of exports, should not the Chancellor give us a forecast now and, more seriously, tell us what he is going to do about it?
    Mr. Lawson: As I indicated, I have undertaken to make a new forecast in the Autumn Statement next month in the usual way. The hon. Member is quite right to say that imports are rising very fast. That is a consequence of domestic demand rising very fast, and I have taken steps to deal with that by raising interest rates substantially and tightening monetary conditions at a time when the fiscal stance is already very tight indeed, so the necessary steps have been taken.
    As for exports, I think it is striking that today's figures confirm—
    Mr. Skinner: They are only for one month.
    Mr. Lawson: No, I would not rely on one month. I think it is very dangerous to take one month alone; but, taking the whole of the third quarter, exports are set at an all-time record level.
    Mr. John Townsend: Is it not vital, if the balance of payments deficit is to be significantly reduced, that, over the next year, we should have wage restraint to enable British industry to become more competitive? Therefore, would it not be appropriate to use the prices and taxes index—which has gone up over the past 12 months by only 3·9 per cent., compared with the retail prices index at 5·9 per cent.—in wage negotiations? Will the Government set an example in public sector settlements by keeping the increases down to that lower figure?
    Mr. Lawson: The Government are certainly very conscious of their responsibility for public sector pay, at least in that part of the public sector where the Government themselves are directly the employer.
    As for the wider issue which my hon. Friend raises, he is quite right in pointing out that the tax and prices index gives a more accurate account of the overall cost of living than the retail prices index does. It is certainly true that it is very much in the interests of companies and the economy as a whole that those companies keep firm control of their costs, including their wage costs, but that is a matter that they have to decide in the light of business

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    conditions and in the light of what is happening with their competitors overseas. It is not a matter of being tied to a particular index.
    Mr. Darling: Does the Chancellor accept that his policy of high interest rates will make it more difficult for businesses to borrow money to start investing and producing goods in this country and, therefore, make the balance of payments crisis even worse?
    Mr. Lawson: We are having at the moment in this country the greatest investment boom that we have known for a very, very long time, with manufacturing industry leading the way. Not only is there more investment going on, but it is profitable investment—really profitable investment—with a good rate of return on capital. That is something that we never had in the past, and badly lacked.
    New businesses are being created net of those which have failed and those which have died. New businesses are being created this year at the rate of over 1,000 a week—every week this year. That is far higher than we have ever known before.
    Mr. Gordon Brown: Is it not significant that expectations are now so low that the definition of an improvement is a balance of payments deficit of £4 billion over three months, of nearly £10 billion over the year and a trend in which imports are rising twice as fast as exports? Will the Chancellor answer the question that is posed directly by industrialists, by exporters and by small business men up and down the country: when will our interest rates fall to the level of those of our competitors?
    Mr. Lawson: Our interest rates will fall when it is appropriate for them to do so, and not before then. Really I have no idea what the hon. Gentleman's expectations are, but we shall no doubt discover.
    As for the question on the current account of the balance of payments, I would be more impressed by his sudden latching on to the current account of the balance of payments if, during the six years on the trot—from 1980 to 1985—when we had a current account surplus, he was telling us how well we were doing. I do not recall that.

    Manufacturing Investment
    Mr. Hunter: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the latest figures for the growth of manufacturing investment.
    The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Major): In the second quarter of this year the level of manufacturing investment, at constant prices, was at its highest ever level in real terms.
    Mr. Hunter: In the light of that most welcome answer, will my right hon. Friend confirm that, despite what Opposition Members would have us believe, investment in manufacturing industry this year is likely to exceed that achieved in any year under the last Labour Government?
    Mr. Major: I certainly confirm my hon. Friend's point. The DTI investment intentions survey projects 16 per cent. growth in manufacturing investment this year and further significant investment next year.
    Mr. Henderson: What effect does the Minister believe ever-escalating interest rates will have on manufacturing investment in the first six months of next year?
    Mr. Major: The principal threat to investment next year, or at any other time, is inflation. Interest rates and my right hon. Friend's present policy are intended to curb inflation.
    Mrs. Peacock: Does my right hon. Friend agree that investment in manufacturing in areas of Yorkshire and Humberside is at an all-time high and that such areas are seeing new factories being built on a scale that they have not seen for centuries?
    Mr. Major: My hon. Friend is correct. The growth in manufacturing in each and every region of the country is exceedingly good at present, and we hope and expect that it will continue.
    Dr. Marek: For the period 1979 to 1988, does the Chief Secretary know of any country with a worse record in investment in manufacturing than the United Kingdom? If he cannot think of one now, perhaps he will write to me later and I shall give it all the publicity that it deserves. Will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for another of his Back Benchers to ask the same question in a year's time? Will he be telling us then that the rate of manufacturing investment for the last quarter is just another of the Chancellor's blips?
    Mr. Major: The hon. Gentleman clearly has a one-eyed sense on this matter, because productivity, profits and investments are up, and unemployment is down, especially in manufacturing industry. The reality is that the outturn of manufacturing investment this year is on course to be the highest since records were first kept.
    Mr. Cran: Does my right hon. Friend accept that manufacturing in Humberside is hale and hearty, as is evidenced by the fact that unemployment has fallen by 30 per cent. in Beverley during the past year, and that there is now a shortage of factory space?
    Mr. Major: My hon. Friend is quite right about the success of manufacturing. Profits are the best incentive for further investment, and profits are rising.

    Independent Advisers
    Mr. Macdonald: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many independent advisers he has who are paid from public funds.
    Mr. Major: I have one, as does my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary.
    Mr. Macdonald: Given that the Prime Minister is now adding to her economic advisers by hiring Professor Alan Walters from January, and as Professor Walters warned the Chancellor as far back as July that a 12 per cent. interest rate would be required to atone—his word—for the mistakes of the Budget, is the Chancellor looking forward to receiving the benefit of Professor Walters' foresight in future?
    Mr. Major: I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make mischief, but he is wholly unlikely to succeed. As my right hon. Friend made perfectly clear in his Budget speech, the Government's policy remains what was set out in that speech, and it will remain so.
    Mr. Arbuthnot: Have any members of the Labour Front Bench been parliamentary advisers, and can my right hon. Friend comment on their success rate?
    Mr. Major: Speaking from memory, several Opposition Members on both Front and Back Benches were special advisers during the last Labour Government. The fact that it was the last Labour Government amply demonstrates their success rate.
    Mr. Beith: Have any of those advisers, who are currently employed from public funds, made any detailed studies of the poverty trap? Have they given the Chief Secretary, in particular, any advice that would have helped him to consider child benefit so that he might recognise that it is a form of benefit that produces no poverty trap? If he is able to claim victory later this afternoon over the Secretary of State for Social Security, will it not prove to be an own goal on which he should have had better advice?
    Mr. Major: The advice given by advisers to Ministers is for Ministers, and I have no intention of retailing it or saying whether it has been received.

    IMF and World Bank
    Mr. Gwilym Jones: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the outcome of the joint annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
    Mr. William Powell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the outcome of the joint annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
    Mr. Lawson: At the meetings of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and G7 in Berlin last month the major industrialised countries agreed to continue to work closely together and to pursue the policies of sound finance and exchange rate stability which have led to improved growth in the world economy. All countries accepted the need for vigilance against any build-up of inflationary pressures.
    On the debt of the poorest, we secured final agreement on the necessary arrangements to implement a scheme to ease the official debt burden of the poorest and most heavily indebted countries in sub-Saharan Africa, following the initiative which I launched in April 1987.
    On middle income debt, support for the current strategy was reaffirmed, with emphasis on the central role of the IMF and on the importance of encouraging new market-based schemes, without transferring risk from the private to the public sector.
    Mr. Jones: I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's personal contribution to the progress that has been made. Does he agree that there are still many barriers to free trade which ought to come down—especially barriers in advanced countries to exports from developing countries?
    Mr. Lawson: I very strongly agree with my hon. Friend. Of course, it is desirable that trade barriers should come down all round. That is the purpose of the Uruguay round of the GATT, which is going on to negotiate that, and I very much hope that it is successful, but it is particularly important to the developing countries that they have markets open to their goods. I deplore the protectionist tendencies of many in the Labour party, who would like to
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    try to frustrate the opportunities that those countries have, and so badly need, to sell their produce in the developed countries.
    Mr. Powell: Was my right hon. Friend able to discuss with his colleagues the growing confidence, which so many outside Britain feel, in the resurgence of the British economy? Was he able to highlight the fact that half the inward investment into EEC countries at the moment is being made in Britain and that, as a result, there is likely to be a substantial improvement in our balance of manufacturing trade? In particular, exports from Nissan, Peugeot and Ford will redress the imbalance in the motor car industry. Is my right hon. Friend aware that much of the investment is taking place in Corby?
    Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend has an enclyclopaedic knowledge of his own constituency and other important matters, and indeed he is aware of far more things than I am. Therefore, I always find his questions extremely informative, and I am most grateful to him. He is right that I did notice in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meeting in Berlin last month that there was a very strong respect and admiration for the strength and success of the British economy, and I have to say that, if we had not been speaking from that position of strength, I do not think that over the 18 months—or whatever it took—I would have been able to persuade the other countries to come along with the debt initiative which I had earlier launched to help the very poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
    Mr. Skinner: Will the Chancellor confirm that during the past six years there has been an increase in the number of Third world and semi-developed countries that are unable to pay their way? Does he accept that there are now more than 50 countries out of about 160 in the world that are in that category? Will he confirm that the United States cannot do as much as it has done before because of its massive deficit on trade and on its Budget? Will he also confirm that Japan and West Germany have a massive surplus of $120 billion on their trade? What can Britain do about it when it is currently running a balance of payments deficit approaching £15 billion?
    Mr. Lawson: What we can do about the difficult situation—indeed, the hon. Gentleman is right that there are a great many countries in the world today having difficulties with their foreign indebtedness. We are in a particularly strong position. Our net overseas assets are second in the world only to those of Japan, and we are playing a very large part, in the way that I indicated in my answer to an earlier question, through our membership of the IMF, in the debt strategy generally and in another area which is particularly important. Our private investment in the developing countries, which is so important for the success of those countries' economies, is greater than that of the whole of the rest of the European Community put together.
    Mr. Holland: Putting on one side the fine print of the authorship of the debt relief proposals, which come from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs rather than from the Chancellor, and putting on one side the fact that the recent impetus of debt write-off comes from the Government of France rather than from the Government of this country, does the Chancellor recognise that there is no secondary market solution to the debt, and that we

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    really need a public intervention of funding for the developing countries on the lines of the Baker plan, but on a much larger scale?
    Secondly, does he admit that one of the key issues before the recent Bank-Fund meeting in Berlin was that of cross-conditionality, whereby the independent roles of the Bank and the Fund have been merged so that countries have to apply to both rather than to one for funding? What did he do—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Long questions lead to long answers.
    Mr. Holland: What did the right hon. Gentleman do to make a contribution to more positive conditionality for developing countries to help them with programmes for housing, health, education and social services?
    Mr. Lawson: If I can remember the various points which the hon. Gentleman made, on his first point, I am sorry that he has such a distaste—even hatred—for this country that when this country takes a successful international initiative he cannot bear it.
    As for his middle question, I think it was, I certainly do not accept that there should be, as he suggests, a transfer of risks from the private sector to the public sector and a great injection of public funds. Indeed, to say that that was what lay behind the Baker initiative is plain and arrant nonsense. There is no one who alongside myself has maintained the line harder than Jim Baker that the risk that the commercial banks have and that the private sector has should not be transferred to the backs of the taxpayers.
    As for his final point, it is highly damaging if there is any merging of the roles of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. They have to work together; they have to co-operate together. That is sensible in the debt strategy. But they have different roles, and I have been concerned in the recent episode with Argentina that those roles have been merged. I hope that that will not happen and that it will be clearly understood that it is the IMF which is in the lead and it is the IMF's seal of good housekeeping which is all-important.
    Mr. Gow: Did the managing director of the IMF remind my right hon. Friend of the series of begging letters sent to his predecessor by the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey)? Did the managing director mark the contrast between the strength of the United Kingdom economy under my right hon. Friend's stewardship compared with its weakness under the stewardship of the Labour party?
    Mr. Lawson: Mr. Camdessus, the present and highly expert managing director of the International Monetary Fund, is fully appreciative both of the strength of the British economy and of the role that we play in the world economy. Whether he keeps on him, as I know, my hon. Friend does, a copy of Dr. Witteveen's celebrated correspondence with the right hon. Member for Leeds, East, (Mr. Healey) I do not know, but I certainly think that it would be helpful if my hon. Friend were to remind him, because it was a very important episode even if a humiliating one, in our country's history.

    Interest Rates
    Mr. Tom Clarke: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will assess the impact of current levels of interest rates on the economy.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Norman Lamont): The full effects will take some time to come through, but we are already seeing a fall in new mortgage commitments.
    Mr. Clarke: In the light of the 11 increases in interest rates since the Chancellor's Budget, and as that seems to be the only instrument the Chancellor is prepared to use to deal with the present crisis, what action will the Government take in the interests of those regions in Britain which did not experience overheating and which have to meet the growing industrial costs arising from increasing interest rates and to cope with the disincentive to exporting and industrial growth that the Chancellor's policies have brought about?
    Mr. Lamont: All the evidence available from manufacturing industry and commerce is that investment is continuing, and will continue, at a high level in the regions, despite the increase in interest rates. Also, despite the increase in interest rates, the profits of British industry remain at their highest level for 20 years. That is the best hope for the regions as well.
    Mr. Andy Stewart: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Opposition do not seem to understand the elementary rules of economics—that for every pound borrowed, there is a pound lent—and that pensioners and small savers in Britain are receiving a higher income as a result of higher interest rates?
    Mr. Lamont: Higher interest rates are good for savers. We wish to see consumption come down somewhat, and obviously we would like to see savings increase.
    Mr. Nicholas Brown: The Government have probably added over £1 billion to industry's costs since May through high interest rates. Will the Financial Secretary admit to the House that the Government's high interest rates policy is hurting most those whom the Conservative party most purports to support—small business men, those with mortgages and the self-employed?
    Mr. Lamont: Above all, what matters for British industry is that we should get inflation down. That matters more than a temporary rise in interest rates. Profits are strong in British industry and it is able to continue to finance investment from that source. The hon. Gentleman seems to be under the impression that industry finances its investment on overdraft on short-term interest rates. In fact, it is also financed through long-term borrowing, and our long-term interest rates have not moved nearly as much as short-term interest rates.
    Mr. Marland: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the investment plans of emerging small businesses are often inhibited by high interest rates? Would he be prepared to consider once again a system of dual rates—one for consumption and one for investment—bearing in mind that one could link the investment borrowing to a company's VAT number?
    Mr. Lamont: I do not believe that a system of dual interest rates is likely to be practical. Of course high

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    interest rates affect small companies, but I must point out that the high profits made by industry at the moment apply to small businesses as well. The small business sector in our economy is doing better than it has for many years.

    Pound Sterling (Exchange Rate)
    Mr. Turner: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he has received from the Confederation of British Industry about the exchange rate of pound sterling.
    Mr. Lawson: I receive representations from the Confederation of British Industry from time to time on a wide range of matters.
    Mr. Turner: Surely the Chancellor is aware of two extremely hostile resolutions which are down for the CBI conference on 6 November. If he is not aware of them, I shall be very pleased to send him copies of two resolutions. I ask the Chancellor, as I have before, when he will give some support to industry instead of giving support, as he has continued to do, to the City?
    Mr. Lawson: As for the first half of the hon. Gentleman's question, if he had gone on much more about resolutions at the CBI conference I might have read to him one or two resolutions of the Labour party conference. Industry is well satisfied with the policies that the Government are pursuing. If I may, Mr. Speaker, I shall read one quote from Mr. David Wigglesworth, the chairman of the CBI's economic situation committee. On Tuesday, introducing the CBI's quarterly industrial trends survey, he said:
    "Industrialists strongly believe that the Chancellor's measures to curb excessive demand and credit should be given sufficient time to work."
    He went on:
    "Manufacturing industry was not 'losing its nerve' and was still in a 'winning situation'."
    That is the view of the CBI.
    Sir Peter Hordern: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that if industrialists and business men raise the wages and salaries of their workers by nearly 10 per cent. he will not bail them out by reducing the exchange rate? Would it not be a good idea to align sterling more closely with the deutschmark and with the European monetary system when the time is right—which it must nearly be?
    Mr. Lawson: As for the first part of my hon. Friend's question—and over the years he has been a particularly acute observer of economic affairs in this country and in the world as a whole—the answer is yes. As for the second half of the question, yes, indeed, there are many advantages, I believe, for the United Kingdom in joining the exchange rate mechanism of the EMS, and we are committed to do so. As for the question of when the time will be right, that is a matter for the Government as a whole and not just for me.
    Mr. Robert Sheldon: Is not the high exchange rate in danger of repeating the problems of 1979 to 1981, when we had a high exchange rate and high interest rates at the same time? The high exchange rates prevented many people from exporting, and the high interest rates meant that many people could not compete at home in
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    comparison with imports. Are we not in danger of repeating that disaster, and what will the right hon. Gentleman do to alter that?
    Mr. Lawson: A firm exchange rate and adequately high interest rates are absolutely essential in keeping on top of inflation and getting inflation down. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman will recall that they were extremely effective in doing that in the period to which he referred—1980–81. The situation is totally different now. Then, industry was suffering because it was inefficient. It had inherited from the previous Government gross overmanning, inefficiency, in many cases poor management, very low profitability and very poor liquidity. It was extremely vulnerable. Now industry is stronger than it has ever been and is well able to cope with the present level of interest rates and exchange rates.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, when interest rates came down in June, many of us thought that he was right to help the pound not to be so strong? If a strong pound helps to squeeze out inflation, is there not a real chance that it could also squeeze out profit from exports, and that that could be equally damaging?
    Mr. Lawson: What it ought really to squeeze out is excessive pay rises in British industry. That is the lesson that British industry has to learn.
    Mr. Chris Smith: Will the Chancellor confirm to the House what he said on Tuesday? He said:
    "there can be no question of … permitting the exchange rate to depreciate."—[Official Report, 25 October 1988; Vol. 139, c. 185.]
    Does the Chancellor realise that that policy places an enormous burden on British exporters? Does he also realise that his policy of high interest rates to maintain the exchange rate places enormous burdens on British industry and on home buyers in this country?
    Mr. Lawson: To listen to the hon. Gentleman, one would think that it was somewhat unusual for interest rates to be raised. There have been a number of periods during my time as Chancellor during which I have had to put interest rates up, and I have always kept them up for as long as it was necessary to do so. So far from that, damaging British industry, it is doing better than it has ever done before.

    Economic Outlook
    Mr. Knox: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the economic outlook for the remainder of the current financial year.
    Mr. Major: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor will be publishing a new forecast in the Autumn Statement next month.
    Mr. Knox: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the present high interest rates will deflate the domestic economy? Is that wise, given that there are more than 2 million people out of work?
    Mr. Major: As my hon. Friend is aware, unemployment has been falling rapidly and we expect it to fall still further. Of course high interest rates may be unwelcome to some but they are necessary to control inflation, and they will remain high for as long as is necessary.
    Dr. Moonie: In view of the difficulty that the Treasury has in predicting the future, does the Minister agree that he might be well advised to add an astrologer to his special advisers?
    Mr. Major: I am perfectly content with my present special adviser.

    Hospital Radio Broadcasting Equipment
    Mr. Amess: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what further representations he has received seeking the zero rating of value added tax on hospital radio broadcasting equipment.
    The Paymaster General (Mr. Peter Brooke): My right hon. Friend has received one letter since the reply given to my hon. Friend on 14 July at column 313 of the Official Report.
    Mr. Amess: Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the National Association of Hospital Broadcasting Organisations on the excellent work that it does throughout the country? Will he agree to consider carefully representations that may be made to the effect that hospital broadcasting should be treated exactly the same as are talking books for the blind and consider zero rating VAT on hospital radio broadcasting equipment?
    Mr. Brooke: I salute my hon. Friend's interest in these matters and join him in praising the hospital radio services. In these matters I am a pallid understudy for my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary, but I shall tell him that my hon. Friend has raised the subject.

    Corporation and Income Tax Revenues
    Mr. Anthony Coombs: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of (a) corporation and (b) income tax revenues in (i) the fiscal year 1988–89 and (ii) the fiscal year 1987–8.
    Mr. Norman Lamont: The estimates for corporation tax are £19·8 billion for the current year and £15·7 billion in 1987–88. The corresponding figures for income tax are £42·1 billion and £41·4 billion. The forecasts for 1988–89 are those made at the time of the Budget.
    Mr. Coombs: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that that is further proof that a low-tax, high-incentive regime is not only more effective in raising revenue but that, because the top 5 per cent. of taxpayers pay a higher proportion of the tax take, it is also more equitable? Does he agree that demographic changes over the next 25 years will mean that we shall have a higher proportion of elderly people, and that for their needs to be properly met it is essential to continue with such policies?
    Mr. Lamont: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He may have noticed that income tax receipts in the current year are 6½per cent. higher than for the corresponding period last year, indicating the great buoyancy of the economy. We predict that receipts from corporation tax will be some 26 per cent. higher than they were last year. Both those examples illustrate the point made by my hon. Friend—that it is possible to cut rates and generate higher revenue as well. That has been illustrated in change after change that we have made in the tax system, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for underlining the point.
    Ms. Armstrong: The Chancellor told us that the main reason for cutting income tax was to encourage investment in industry. Does the Minister agree with those in the City who say that most of the money given back in income tax—more than 80 per cent., I understand—has been spent on luxury goods and has thus added to our balance of payments problem?
    Mr. Lamont: I do not know what evidence the hon. Lady has for that last assertion, but she has produced none. Investment is at an all-time high. Investment in manufacturing industry is experiencing strong growth this year and investment in the economy as a whole has never been higher. The hon. Lady's question has little substance.

    Privatisation
    Mr. Gerald Howarth: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many share sales have taken place since 1979 as a result of the Government's policy of privatisation.
    Mr. Norman Lamont: Since 1979, the Government have privatised 18 companies, most of them by sale of shares to the public.
    Mr. Howarth: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the principal benefit of privatisation lies not in the sale proceeds, welcome though they are, but in the outstanding improvement in productivity and performance of privatised companies, generated by the psychology of enterprise? Is he aware that the profits of the top five privatised companies have increased threefold since 1979 to £4·3 billion, thereby securing far better job prospects than under social ownership?
    Mr. Lamont: I do indeed agree with my hon. Friend. The main reason for privatisation is the greater freedom that it gives companies, which they have exploited to improve efficiency and increase production. My hon. Friend could have made his point not only about the top five privatised companies, because every one of the quoted privatised companies is making substantially higher profits in the private sector than when they were in the public sector, and that is very good justification for privatisation.
    Mr. Allen McKay: Is it not a fact that, since Barlow Clowes, people's confidence in the City, the Government and the Department of Trade and Industry has been so severely shaken that it is time the Government took the initiative and bailed out Barlow Clowes?
    Mr. Lamont: That does not arise from this question.

    Manufacturing Productivity
    Mr. Burt: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the growth of manufacturing productivity in the economy since 1980.
    Mr. Brooke: Output per head in manufacturing rose by an average of over 5½ per cent. a year between 1980 and the three months ending August 1988—faster than in all other major industrial countries.
    Mr. Burt: Does my right hon. Friend agree that we speak an awful lot about statistics in this place, but that behind the improved figures that he has given are the skills and qualities of individual men and women, who have worked hard to improve their businesses over recent years?

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    Is it not an appropriate time to pay tribute to them and remind them of the debt that they owe to those who are training them increasingly well for the future of industry in this country?
    Mr. Brooke: I wholly agree with my hon. Friend. In terms of his constituency interests, he may be interested to know that regional gross value added in manufacturing in the north-west grew faster than the United Kingdom average between 1979 and 1986.

    Balance of Payments
    Mr. McAvoy: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what forecasts he has regarding long-term trends in the balance of payments.
    Mr. Lawson: I will, as usual, be publishing a new forecast in the Autumn Statement next month.
    Mr. McAvoy: In his Budget speech the Chancellor predicted a current account deficit of £4 billion. Will he be less prudent and more straightforward in answering the question? What is the deficit for the year likely to be?
    Mr. Lawson: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Member, but he will have to be patient for a little while. I shall publish a new forecast at the time of the Autumn Statement in the usual way next month.
    Mr. Yeo: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is an enormous difference between a country that is running a trade deficit and a deficit on its finances—Government finances—and a country that has a huge surplus on its finances and a trade deficit?
    Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend is quite right. I discussed this at some length in my speech at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Berlin last month. There is indeed a fundamental difference between a Government who are running a surplus on their public accounts and one who are running a deficit on their accounts and therefore having to finance that by importing capital from overseas. That must be corrected by direct Government action to bring down their deficit. That is the position in the United States, as the United States authorities widely acknowledge. The United Kingdom is running a surplus on its public accounts; indeed, it is repaying its debt. Where a deficit arises simply and solely as a result of investment in the United Kingdom—private investment being in excess of private savings—it is a self-correcting process, even though it will take a little time for the correction to come through.

    Personal Debt
    Mr. Tony Banks: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the level of personal debt in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Norman Lamont: Personal sector financial liabilities in the first quarter of 1988 were £294 billion, roughly one third the level of personal sector financial assets.
    Mr. Banks: Is the Minister aware of the extreme financial difficulties that large numbers of people are getting themselves into because of the easy availability of credit, albeit at high interest rates? Does the Minister intend taking any action to curb the irresponsible
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    behaviour of banks, finance houses, credit card companies and stores in inducing people to get themselves into a debt that they cannot repay?
    Mr. Lamont: The hon. Gentleman has obviously not noticed that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs has announced a number of changes to the Consumer Credit Act 1974, which will enable the Government to take action against particular lenders, especially those who are in any way acting against the public interest. Obviously, some situations cause difficulty. M y hon. Friend has put forward a number of proposals.

    PRIME MINISTER

      Engagements
      Mr. Ronnie Campbell: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 27 October.
      The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today.
      Mr. Campbell: Given the press speculation this morning about the leaked letter from one of her Departments, is the Prime Minister still committed to the poor and the pensioners on the rebates of the poll tax?
      The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman refers to a leaked document. I remember when a Labour Prime Minister was faced with the publication of a leaked document preceding the statement made by the Secretary of State for Social Services about child benefit. I remember full well what the Labour Prime Minister said—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] In June 1976 he said:
      "This is a very grave matter. For, on the face of it, it could only have been brought about by theft, or by a betrayal of trust involving a breach of an undertaking voluntarily entered into, by someone with access to the documents."
      May I remind the hon. Gentleman—[HON MEMBERS: "What is the right hon. Lady's answer?]
      Mr. Speaker: Order. A question has been asked and we are receiving the answer. It is fair enough.
      The Prime Minister: I remind the hon. Gentleman of the reply by the then Leader of the Opposition, which I well remember.
      Mr. Campbell: I did not ask the Prime Minister that. What is her attitude?
      The Prime Minister: The reply was:
      "Is the Prime Minister aware that we fully share his view about the gravity of this matter? It is essential that confidentiality of discussions and documents should be assured."—[Official Report, 17 June 1976; Vol. 913, c. 738.]
      In those days there were certain standards of conduct and integrity. [Interruption.]
      Mr. Speaker: Order. Prime Minister's Question Time is a very precious time. Interruptions lead to delay.
      Dame Jill Knight: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 27 October.
      The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
      Dame Jill Knight: To what extent is the conduct of Government business affected when ministerial confidence in correspondence cannot be maintained as it should be? Does not the thoroughly dishonest behaviour of one civil servant in this recent leak severely damage the reputation of the whole Civil Service? Does this not reflect equally badly on members of the Opposition who are prepared to receive and use stolen property?
      The Prime Minister: Yes, but let me pay tribute to the loyalty and integrity of the vast majority in the Civil Service. Indeed, I was dismayed to find—[Interruption.]
      Mr. Speaker: Order. Disorderly conduct does not help our reputation in this place.
      The Prime Minister: I was dismayed to find that the Opposition had been party to publishing and destroying highly classified documents. I trust that they will co-operate fully with any investigations.
      Mr. Kinnock rose—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer!"]
      Mr. Speaker: Order. The same rules apply to both sides.
      Mr. Kinnock: I hear the views of the Prime Minister of Westland on these matters. I consider leaks to be grave, but what I consider to be more grave is the theft of child benefit from families who need it.
      It is clear that British Aerospace stands to make a huge killing because it was allowed to buy the Royal Ordnance factories at a give-away price. What does the Prime Minister intend to do to secure the full reward which must be due to the British taxpayer from any sale or development of those assets?
      The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman asked about child benefit—[Interruption.]—for almost all the time and then went on to ask a second question—[Interruption.]
      Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister must be given a chance to answer the question.
      The Prime Minister: I will reply to the three points raised by the right hon. Gentleman. I repeat that I trust that he will attempt to live up to the standards of the Labour Prime Minister in those days and that he will co-operate fully with any investigations. I challenge him to say whether he will do that.
      Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman knows that there will be a statement on child benefit later. He also knows that for almost all the time that Labour was last in government, for families on average earnings the value of the child tax allowance and family allowance or child benefit in real terms was far below what it has been under this Government. That was so for the entire period of the last Labour Government, with the exception of one month. One month before the general election they put up child benefit.
      With regard to Royal Ordnance, the Government will be responding to the Public Accounts Committee by means of a Treasury minute in the normal way in due course. The National Audit Office has already investigated the sale. The report by the Comptroller and Auditor General acknowledged that. It said:
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      "the sale to BAe was achieved in a competitive situation"—[Interruption.]
      I am quoting from the Comptroller and Auditor General's report:
      "The sale to BAe was achieved in a competitive situation and the evidence"—[Interruption.]
      Mr. Speaker: Order. We are making very slow progress, which will be to the detriment of Back Benchers.
      The Prime Minister: I quote:
      "The sale to BAe was achieved in a competitive situation and the evidence available suggested that the competition was sufficiently widely based to secure the highest price likely in the prevailing commercial climate."
      That was the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on this matter.
      Mr. Kinnock: That reply does not begin to answer the question that I addressed to the Prime Minister. Does she not understand that the give-away and any losses that result from it are the fault of her Government? Does she not understand that if she does not take action to recover the money that is due to the British people she will be doing a Barlow Clowes on the British taxpayer?
      The Prime Minister: It is quite clear, then, that the right hon. Gentleman has absolutely no respect for the Comptroller and Auditor General. The right hon. Gentleman has respect for no one, and least of all for the standards of this House.
      Mr. Onslow: I thank my right hon. Friend for those replies and ask her whether she is aware that she will have the full support of Conservative Members and of most people outside the House if, on any future occasion on which she is faced with loutish and unparliamentary insults from the Leader of the Opposition, she continues as she began last Tuesday and treats the little twerp with the contempt that he deserves.
      The Prime Minister: Most of us in this House were brought up to know that those who resort to personal abuse have already lost the argument—if they ever had one.
      Mr. Ashdown: Is the Prime Minister—[Interruption.]
      Mr. Speaker: Order. We are only on the second question and these interruptions take up a lot of time.
      Mr. Ashdown: Is the Prime Minister aware that her new-found concern for the greenhouse effect is most welcome? The House well knows of her love-in with the nuclear industry, but I wonder whether she has read the United States report which shows that measures to improve energy efficiency are seven times more cost-effective than money spent on nuclear power. If the Government are serious about the greenhouse effect, what strategy will they now introduce to improve Britain's appallingly low energy efficiency?
      The Prime Minister: One of the most effective things would be to reduce the amount of fossil fuel that is burnt to provide ordinary energy for domestic and industrial purposes.
      I read a report that sounded similar to the one to which the hon. Gentleman referred. It pointed out that we need an increase of about 2 per cent. a year in energy efficiency and that we also need to go back to afforestation on a

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      considerable scale, to prevent the greenhouse effect from getting worse. We are giving considerable attention to both those items.
      Mr. John Browne: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 recommends that every employer, even in low-hazard industries, of more than 150 people has on-site first aiders, and that no such cover is recommended for schools? Will she ensure that in future schools are brought up to the same level of cover as even low-hazard industries?
      The Prime Minister: With all due respect, I think the two are very different. Some of the industries concerned are very dangerous. I do not think that it would be necessary to have someone on site at schools. Obviously it is necessary to have the capacity to get someone there quickly for help, should it be needed.
      Mrs. Beckett: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 27 October.
      The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Lady to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
      Mrs. Beckett: Will the Prime Minister tell the House whether we should give any more weight to her assurances about poll tax rebates than we now give to her assurances on child benefit, and if so, why?
      The Prime Minister: I think the hon. Lady will find that the assurances on the community charge are fully honoured.
      Mr. Dickens: Does the Prime Minister realise, on a happy note, that her statement that she is prepared to lead
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      the Conservative party at the next general election and beyond has introduced stability to the economy, and that inward investment will grow even more? Will she be sure not to be put off by the carping of one or two of yesterday's men, but to rely on all of us around her who are behind her 100 per cent? [Interruption.]
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sure that the House wants to hear the answer.
      The Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for his support. Everything that I have seen and heard from the Opposition this afternoon reinforces me in what I said to The Times the other day and of the necessity for it.
      Mr. Janner: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 27 October.
      The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
      Mr. Janner: Does the Prime Minister recall recently endorsing a lottery intended to benefit the grossly under-resourced National Health Service and then having to remove her endorsement when the lottery turned out to be illegal? Is she proposing to endorse a further lottery launched today for the same purpose, which appears to be illegal under both current and intended legislation?
      The Prime Minister: If something is illegal, one cannot possibly endorse it.[Interruption.] No, certainly not. On that particular private sector lottery, the advice was that as far as could be seen it was legal. When the advice came that it was illegal, of course one did not endorse it. I have not the slightest intention of having a national lottery organised by the Government. I disapprove of them.

Social Security Benefits (Uprating)
3.30 pm
The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. John Moore): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the uprating of social security benefits. The necessary statutory instrument, which will bring my proposals into effect, will be laid before both Houses and debated. Uprating will take place for most benefits in the week beginning 10 April next year, the first full week in the tax year. The provisions will apply in both Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
This year I have more increases than usual to announce. I am varying some of the increases to target them better on those who need them most; and I am pleased to announce additional help for claimants to ensure that we are more than correcting for the error discovered in the retail prices index last year.
I propose to concentrate on the main features. I have set out the details in a full schedule which is now available in the Vote Office and which, with permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall publish in the Official Report.
The social security budget is huge; nearly £50 billion a year, almost one third of all public expenditure. The increases I am announcing today amount to more than £2 billion. It is thanks to the growth in the economy and to the success of our economic policies that we are able to afford to bring this substantial help to pensioners, disabled people and lower income families on benefit. It is right that we should continue to help in this way everyone who needs that help, but it is equally right that we should continue to target this massive expenditure, to ensure that it is concentrated to best effect, on those who need it most. I should like to make it clear that this is where my priorities lie, in carrying forward the policies which I began last year, of redirecting increases within these large sums, to be most helpful to those in most need of help and to stimulate the proper responsibilities and personal efforts of those who do not need to rely on benefit.
I start with the main rates of contributory benefits and benefits for war pensioners, disabled people and others. The retail prices index published on 14 October showed an increase in prices over the 12 months to September 1988 of 5·9 per cent. But the RPI was subject to a minor error which was corrected during this period. That increase of 5·9 per cent. corrects the error which was made earlier in the RPI. That is, 5·9 per cent. includes both the correction for the error and the rise in prices since then, but to make quite sure that benefits are uprated by at least as much as they would have been if the error had not occurred, they will be uprated either by the published figure of 5·9 per cent. or by the amount arrived at by recalculating the benefit from the last correct rate in July 1986, using the adjusted movement in prices since then, whichever figure is the higher.
I should like to emphasise that. We shall pay whichever is the higher figure from the two calculations which we have done for each benefit. If we had not done this, pensioner couples, for example, would, using recalculated figures for past upratings, have been 5p a week worse off. This approach more than fulfils the promise which my hon. Friend the Minister of State gave the House last December, when the error was discovered.
On top of the special payments of over £100 million already made to pensioners and others earlier this year, I
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am now putting the benefit rates right for the future in the most favourable possible way. I am placing in the Library of the House full details of all the rates, and of all the calculations needed to carry out our intention to adopt a "best of both worlds" approach.
The basic retirement pension for a single person will thus rise by £2·45 a week, from £41·15 to £43·60, and for a married couple by £3·90 a week, from £65·90 to £69·80. Pensioners' total incomes, including their occupational pensions and savings, have grown steadily since 1979, by over 23 per cent. on average in real terms compared with a miserable rate of 0·6 per cent. a year between 1974 and 1979. After allowing for inflation, pensioners' incomes have increased twice as fast as those of the population as a whole between 1979 and 1986. A range of Government policies has played its part in this record, and it is one of which we, as a Government, are proud.
Public service pensions will be increased by 5·9 per cent. This fulfils the pledge given by the Paymaster General to correct the RPI error.
I turn now to the income-related benefits. I restructured these benefits last April in a simpler scheme with new rates which is already proving much easier to understand and operate. I propose to uprate these benefits in the normal way by the published movement of prices less housing costs. In addition, in recognition of the minor error in the RPI, there will be further increases for pensioners, disabled people and families comparable to those for people on contributory benefits.
Overall, these measures to take account of the RPI error will cost some £10 million more than simply uprating by the published indices.
We are making a once-and-for-all adjustment to income support levels to help meet the minimum 20 per cent. contribution which recipients will have to make to the community charge. This will also provide help for the rates liability which recipients in England and Wales will face next year. To this end, we are including £1·15 a week for single people under 25 and £2·30 for couples. I am leaving the figure for single people over 25 at £1·30, the present level, since that is the assistance they are currently receiving towards their domestic rate liability. This significant group will thus be more than compensated over the longer term—a more than adequate settlement.
Before I come to the other increases I wish to announce, hon. Members will expect me to say something about child benefit. I have never made any secret of my belief that this benefit is not the most effective use of social security resources. It is paid to virtually every family in the country, no matter how large their income, at a cost of over £4·5 billion this year, a tenth of all benefit expenditure on social security. Furthermore, if we were to uprate it across the board, most of the money would go to better-off families, including the very wealthiest. The poorest—those on income support—would gain nothing at all from the child benefit increase; neither would those claiming family credit. That would, I believe, be perverse targeting in the extreme.
I have decided, therefore, as last year, to direct help where it is most needed, to the lower income families with children. I propose to put substantial aditional resources into the benefits going to those families. I have already said that there will be a prices uprating of the child allowances and premiums in income support, family credit and housing benefit. That uprating will cost £135 million. But, on top of that, I am adding an extra 50p a week to all these

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child allowances. This will cost an additional £70 million. The result is that we shall be directing over £200 million to the greater benefit of some 3 million children in lower income families. The rates for some children—for example those under 11—will go up by as much as 9·3 per cent.: well in excess of a normal uprating. These families will clearly be better off than if we had simply uprated child benefit, which I propose to leave unchanged.
I know that some of my hon. Friends have expressed concern about the position of families on low incomes. Unlike other parts of the benefit system, however, such as income support, when it comes to helping working families with children, there is no cut-off point at low income levels. Family credit goes well up the income scale—for example, to those people earning £9,300 a year with two children aged 12 and 14, and even higher in some cases. I firmly believe that it is better to target resources in this way than to improve child benefit for all, including those on the highest incomes.
I have further increases to announce, for disabled people, the elderly and families with young children. This is the tenth anniversary of Motability, the scheme set up to help disabled people to obtain cars on favourable terms. The scheme has been extended and has a fine record of success. It is now helping 60,000 people. I am pleased that this anniversary has been marked by the grant in May this year of a royal charter. I am very glad to announce today that the Government will be contributing £5 million to a special trust fund which is being set up to celebrate the anniversary. Motability is a joint venture between Government and the private sector, and the clearing banks also will be contributing £5 million. These new funds will increase fivefold the money available for Motability to spend each year, and in particular will in future provide extra help for the more severely disabled people who need a specially adapted vehicle.
I shall also be bringing forward legislation to extend the upper age limit for mobility allowances from 75 to 80. This will be an interim measure pending our consideration of the series of reports on the OPCS survey of disabled people. All this is good news for disabled people.
Finally, I propose useful and what I hope will be welcome improvements to the very good scheme that we already have for giving help during periods of very cold weather to pensioners, disabled people and families with young children on income support. First, I am changing the rules for the period over which temperatures are measured. This will in future be any consecutive seven days, and not limited to seven days starting on a Monday. Secondly, I am raising from two to five the age below which a child can make a family eligible. That will extend the scope of the scheme to nearly half a million more families. I shall be amending the regulations recently laid before the House to include these improvements which, taken together, could double expenditure on the scheme. I believe that it will be extra money well spent.
This is an uprating which directs massive resources to where they are most needed. My proposals amply fulfil our pledges to pensioners and others who receive long-term benefits. They provide substantial extra help to families on low incomes and to disabled people. And, with other measures which I shall be bringing forward, they encourage those who are able to do so to support themselves and their families. Some 16 million pensioners
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and others in all will benefit, at a total cost of over £2 billion. That is the full measure of the success of this Government.
Mr. Robin Cook: The Secretary of State began by saying that the increase that he was announcing would result in an increase in expenditure of over £2 billion. The right hon. Gentleman will recall that the planning figures in January's White Paper showed the social security budget increasing by over £2·5 billion. Is he telling the House that in a year in which inflation has doubled he is to spend less on social security than the planning figures in January? If so, will he explain why he has secured less than his planning figures in a public expenditure round in which his colleagues have secured over £3,000 million for other expenditure?
The Secretary of State has announced that for the sixth year running pensions are not to be uprated by a fraction of 1 per cent. more than the rise in prices. I am sure that pensioners will be grateful that he has secured for them the additional 5p to which he referred. Will he also confirm that if his Government had not smashed the link with earnings the married couple's pension would, after today, be worth £18 per week more than he has announced? Is that not the measure by which his Government have cheated pensioners of their share of Britain's wealth?
The Secretary of State announced that income support is to increase by 4·7 per cent. Is he not aware that one in five of those on income support will not receive even that increase? Will he confirm that half a million of the long-term unemployed, disabled and pensioners who found their benefit cut last April received no increase last year and will receive no increase from this announcement? Is that the way in which the Government protect the income of some of the poorest people in Britain?
Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: The hon. Gentleman did not listen.
Mr. Cook: I not only listened to the statement; I read it.
I invite the Secretary of State to convey our thanks to the Chief Secretary of the Treasury for having obliged him to settle for higher compensation for the poll tax demand than he himself bid for. Will he confirm to the House that the figures he has announced to the House mean that the Government are expecting the average poll tax demand to be £299? That is one fifth higher than any of his colleagues has so far admitted—a clear admission that the poll tax is not only unjust but that it will be expensive and inefficient as a tax as well.
Will the Secretary of State confirm that he is seriously proposing to increase housing benefit by reference to the RPI less housing costs? How does he expect to explain to housing benefit claimants that it makes sense to increase their benefit without reference being made to the rise in rents and rates?
The Secretary of State has announced an extra £70 million for family credit and child additions. Will he concede that the amount that he has saved by freezing child benefit is £206 million, and that therefore he is pocketing £136 million at the expense of child support? Will he admit that current expenditure on family credit is well below planning figures because the take-up rate is a disaster? Does he recall promising the House that the family credit take-up rate would be 60 per cent.? Will he

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confirm that it is currently running at the pathetic level of 30 per cent.—barely half the figure he promised the House?
The Secretary of State keeps telling us that he is in favour of targeting. Why then does he place so much reliance on a benefit that is so badly targeted that it misses two out of three of its targets? Child benefit is the best targeted benefit for putting cash in the hands of mothers who feed and clothe children. Will the right hon. Gentleman admit that the value of child benefit is now £1 less than it was in 1985? To a mother of two children, that is a loss of more than £100 per year—the price of two pairs of shoes and two winter anoraks. If, as we are constantly promised, Britain has the strongest economy in Europe, why are we approaching 1992 with the lowest level of child support in Europe?
Will the Secretary of State explain to the House what was meant by his party's manifesto pledge that
"Child benefit will continue to be paid as now"?
In view of his statement that he has made no secret of his view that it is a poor and badly targeted benefit, why did he not share those beliefs with us before polling day last year? Is not the truth now that all ages, from children to pensioners, are being cheated Out of the full benefit and the full uprating that they should receive?
The Secretary of State has just announced his annual budget for the poor. He will be aware that we shall judge it by the generous standards set by the Chancellor's Budget for the rich. The question asked today by millions of claimants is, "Why can the Government find thousands of millions of pounds for tax handouts but cannot find any extra money for the social security budget?" The Government will be judged on their answer, not by the House, but by a nation that is weary of watching the poor being cheated so that the rich can be rewarded.
Mr. Moore: This statement, as well as the Budget, will continue to be judged by the nation which will continue to return Conservative Governments after performances of the kind that we have seen in the House today.
I shall try to deal as quickly as I can with the points raised by the hon. Gentleman. He will be aware that we are looking forward, in the next month, to the Autumn Statement to be made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He will see the reality of the increase in the size of my overall programmes and he will understand what he might have understood before—I should have expected him to—the relationship between the large reduction in unemployment, happily welcomed by both sides of the House, and the consequential major reduction in unemployment benefit. He will then be able to put the figures together.
On the point about pensioners, I find it extraordinary that a Labour party spokesman should have the temerity even to debate this issue when we have spent the past nine and a half years putting good Labour's dereliction of duty to the pensioners. Over five years of Socialism, the pensioner not only had his savings stolen but saw a mere 3 per cent. average increase in his income. That 3 per cent. over five years can be compared to our record of 23 per cent. For the first time in decades, the pensioner, in comparison to those in work, saw his income decline under Socialism. That was the product of five years of Socialism.
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The hon. Gentleman asked me about income support. He obviously has not checked thoroughly. I will give him more details about the precise position in regard to income support and transitional payments, but for the period that we are discussing, from the uprating forward, for example, 97 per cent. of all pensioners will receive an increase and only 13 per cent. of pensioners still receiving income support will not. The vast majority will be out of transitional protection by the time we reach the second part of this year.
As to the community charge—I say this with great care to an hon. Member whom I have known for a considerable time—I have the greatest contempt for those who steal and leak documents, and for those—[Interruption.]—and for those—[interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Moore: —and for those who traffic in them. I am surprised and dismayed at the actions of the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have some regard, and at the way in which he has damaged his standing and reputation by being a party to receiving, destroying and publishing highly classified documents. [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Moore: He has been misled and has misled others by extracts from a confidential document taken out of context. I trust that the hon. Gentleman is listening very carefully. I hope that he will help to identify the person who gave him that letter; or does he wish us all to assume that he gives his protection to people who handle stolen documents?—[Interruption.] In regard to the hon. Gentleman's question, he is, of course, utterly wrong in his conclusions. We live—this party always does when in government—up to our pledges. We promised that the income support rates would include the average amount that recipients would have to pay towards the community charge, which is not the same as the expected average community charge. The figures that I have announced more than meet that pledge.
The hon. Gentleman asked about housing benefit. I do not begin to understand the nature of his question, because he knows—and those Opposition Members nodding and grinning inanely from a sedentary position also know—that all those uprated on income support will have a 100 per cent. protection.
The hon. Gentleman finally asked about child benefit in comparison to family credit. I find it utterly bewildering that in 1988 the Opposition cannot recognise the massive increased resources that have gone to the poorer families because of this statement. To argue the matter, as they have, in the context of a year when many have seen radical reductions in their taxation and large increases in their earnings is to ignore the enormous targeted impact that we have been able to make. Of course, they are right to say—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. It is very unseemly to shout.—[Interruption.] Order. The House has asked for details. We should now receive them.
Mr. Moore: The Opposition, of course, are also right to say that all of us should encourage better take-up of family credit. I fully accept that, but that is no reason

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indiscriminately to waste taxpayers' money. They conclude by asking whether this matches. It matches completely my party's manifesto pledge at the last election.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I call Back Benchers to ask questions on this very important statement, I remind them, as the Secretary of State has said, there will be debates on these matters. I ask hon. Members to put single questions and not to repeat what may have been said by those who are called before.
Mr. Terence Higgins: Does my right hon. Friend accept that his policy of seeking to concentrate resources on those who are in need, rather than to spread them indiscriminately, must be right? Is it not absurdly inconsistent for Opposition Members to object to reductions in income tax and at the same time say that we should give help on a completely tax-free basis to those same families who in another context they would describe as the super-rich?
Mr. Moore: My right hon. Friend is exactly right. I shall give an illustration of the kind of impact that my announcement will make upon those families for whom I thought that we should all be caring. I shall take a couple with two children, aged 11 and 14, with a father earning gross about £135 a week. As opposed to the £14·70 a week that family is currently able to claim on family credit, it will be able to claim £20·73, which is an extra £6 a week.
Mr. Frank Field: Having made his announcement today, does the Secretary of State have some sympathy for Jimmy Thomas who, after making a similarly difficult statement to the House, said that if one was unable to ride two horses at once one could have no part to play in the "bleeding circus"? Is the Secretary of State's position not more difficult because Government policy is driving the horses in different directions? The more successful he is in targeting help on the poorest families in work, the greater will be his and the Government's defeat in loosening people from long-term welfare dependency.
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, until we get a party, whether on this side of the House or the other, which is prepared to be radical enough to phase out largely middle-class tax welfare so that we can have a standard tax rate of 10p in the pound and a doubling of child benefit, we shall never give people at the bottom of society the incentives that we have given to people at the top?
Mr. Moore: I always listen carefully to the hon. Gentleman. Not everybody is as erudite on this subject as he might be, but I hope that he will enable others to understand the relativity of what we are doing. Approximately 45,000 people on the upper bands of low income are brought into the potential of family credit advantage as a result of what I have announced. That must be seen in the context of the 1·6 million families who benefit directly as a result of what we are doing. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will also remember that, because of the major changes that we made to align income support and family credit earlier this year, there is no longer a poverty trap with rates of tax and benefit withdrawal of over 100 per cent.
There is, therefore, very little impact—other than a beneficial one—on the families we are talking about
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becâuse they are already in work. The impact occurs only when their income increases. I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that being able to help 1·6 million families with 3 million children is a worthwhile target and will have very little effect in terms of bringing people into the benefit culture.
Dame Jill Knight: There will be universal approval, acclamation and congratulation from the ranks behind my right hon. Friend on his statement. We thoroughly approve of and support what my right hon. Friend has said about pensions, help for the disabled and child benefit. Does not my right hon. Friend think it ridiculous that the Opposition support people being able to claim child benefit on the very day that they put their son down for Eton? Will he explain that there is all the difference in the world between giving a handout and allowing people to keep a little more of their own money?
Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend will remember that our hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett) was recently told that about £1 billion of child benefit money goes to families who earn more than £20,000 a year.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: Perhaps the most significant thing about today's statement is the fact that the Secretary of State said nothing about the future of child benefit. It would be of assistance to the House if he could say whether we can expect it to wither on the vine.
Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied with the take-up of family credit? Is it not languishing at a rate of 30 per cent. at the moment? Is that not an indictment of targeting? Will he confirm that, as a result of what he has announced, more families will be brought into high marginal rates of tax? What does that do for personal incentive and the ability to earn more and better oneself? Can the right hon. Gentleman estimate the number of claimants who, by next spring, will lose transitional protection to the extent that they will get no cash increase at all?
Mr. Moore: I thought that I covered the hon. Gentleman's latter point earlier. About 97 per cent. are out of transitional protection, but I shall send the hon. Gentleman the details. The hon. Gentleman is making a valid point about the degree to which some people are included if benefits are extended up the scale. The consequence is that their replacement ratio is changed. The hon. Gentleman must realise that such people's replacement ratios are low. They are not on the highest replacement ratios. The effect that the hon. Gentleman is worrying about is not nearly so significant as the corresponding benefit. The ability to target on 1·6 million families is significant. We have been able to provide help for them.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the future. I am statutorily bound to look at and review, in the context of each year's public expenditure round, the level of child benefit. That is what I have done. The House may have forgotten that, in 1975, when the Child Benefit Act was introduced, a Labour Secretary of State for Social Services—Barbara Castle—refused even to have a statutory review until her Back Benchers, with the support of the Opposition, forced it upon her. She argued, strongly that the benefit should never be indexed, but that it should be

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reviewed annually. That is what we will do. My party keeps its pledges. We said at the general election that we would maintain child benefit as it is. That obviously means that I still have a statutory responsibility next year to reconsider, in the light of the economy and all other factors, what I should do with the benefit system then.
Sir Ian Gilmour: The House will welcome much of the statement. As, on the Government's own optimistic figures, only 60 per cent. of the poorest families will take up family credit, whereas child benefit has a nearly 100 per cent. take-up, how does my right hon. Friend justify making nearly 40 per cent. of the poorest families in Britain even worse off for the second year running?
Mr. Moore: I do not think that my right hon. Friend is as aware as he might be of the working of family credit. I accept what he says about take-up. Our job must surely be to increase take-up rather than indiscriminately to waste public money. The Government will introduce new take-up campaigns and hon. Members should do what they can to encourage take-up. That must be the right way forward, as a result of which I can, as I could today, help 3 million more children, and families who are less well off rather than those who can afford not to hvhave an increase. The House is debating the issue as though we are abolishing child benefit. We are not. Some £4·6 billion will still be sent at a rate of £7·25 to every child indiscriminately.
Mr. Stanley Orme: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the introduction of child benefit—I was one of the Ministers involved in the battle to get it implemented—meant that, for the first time, women got a benefit in their own right? I know from experience in my constituency that there are thousands of women who are grateful for that. Because of the ceiling on child benefit, its value is being reduced. This is a retrograde step. The Secretary of State should upgrade child benefit this year in line with inflation.
Mr. Moore: I should like to remind the right hon. Gentleman of what Mrs. Castle said in July 1975, with, I believe, his and others' support. She said:
"There is a difference between routine national insurance benefits and this new benefit. Indexation of the child benefit is inappropriate. National insurance benefits are major means of support when earning capacity is interrupted, but the child benefit is a tax-free supplement to families whose major source of income is earnings. Clearly maintenance benefits must be capable of moving automatically in line with changes in the cost of living. The child benefit is in a different category."—[Official Report, 7 July 1975; Vol. 895, c. 238.]
The only difference today is that we are in government—we were then in opposition—and recognise some of the arguments that were advanced. The right hon. Gentleman should remember that the Labour Government, in which he was a well-known Minister, decided not to index child benefit automatically.
Sir David Price: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the majority of fair-minded people in this country will accept his broad purpose of concentrating help on the most needy, but does he accept that the most effective way to achieve that yet identified by the House is
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the tax credit scheme that was put forward in 1972 by Lord Barber and supported by an all-party Select Committee which reported to the House in 1973?
Mr. Moore: I am aware of that scheme, but, with great respect to my hon. Friend, the benefit structure has moved on considerably since then. However, I agree with his first remark that we must find better ways of helping the poorest families, as I believe we have done today.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: Is the right hon. Gentleman making any provision for increasing the uptake of benefits? It seems that many voluntary organisations are left to try to increase the number of people who take up benefits. Surely the Government have a moral responsibility, particularly in the light of today's very depressing announcement about not uprating child benefit. Since he is so keen on targeting allowances, will he refer back to the heating allowance scheme which he has announced and say why he does not target such an allowance to take account of climatic conditions, since it is 40 per cent. more expensive to heat a house in Aberdeen than in Bristol? Why do we not have a continuous, automatic payment for pensioners, the ill and the handicapped during winter months?
Mr. Moore: Taking the last point first, the hon. Lady should be aware that we use 63 different weather stations, so we take into account varying weather conditions. On her main point about family credit, we have had two major advertising campaigns using television commercials and the national press. During the summer the Department of Employment had a campaign—"How to be better off in work"—which featured family credit, and I shall be introducing a new campaign in November, trying to contact all those in receipt of child benefit—a very targeted campaign. Obviously, we shall consider whether to introduce even more campaigns, certainly in advance of the uprating next spring.
Mr. Timothy Raison: Does my right hon. Friend recall that in 1985 there was a most exhaustive examination of the whole of our social security policy which led to the conclusion that child benefit should be retained? Is it not the case that to retain child benefit but not to increase it is tantamount to a major change in policy? Does my right hon. Friend recognise that any decision to lower child benefit in real terms would cause great disappointment to many Conservative supporters, and would be a breach of a very long tradition in this country that those with children need special help from the state?
Mr. Moore: I know my right hon. Friend's sincerely held views on the issue. I assure him that I do not consider this to be a change in policy. I am statutorily required to examine the whole pattern of benefits, as well as the way in which earnings and taxation in the economy have changed during the year. I then have to reach a judgment on the most effective way of handling the very important structure of support for children. We are spending nearly £10 billion on helping families with children. I reassure my right hon. Friend that if we express the points that I have sought to make this afternoon, if we show our friends in the country, and all fair-minded people, that we are trying to help families with children even more than we could if we simply raised child benefit, we shall have their universal support.
Mr. Elliot Morley: Is it not the case that all the talk about targeting benefits is completely bogus when the Government gave £3 billion to the richest? Is it not the case that the changes in capital gains tax alone for a minority of the wealthiest people in our society would have covered the uprating of child benefit? The targeting that has taken place under this Government has been targeting money out of the pockets of the poor and into the pockets of the rich.
Mr. Moore: Thanks to the extraordinary success of the economy, and especially to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor's supply side policies, I am able to make massive increases, so that there has not been a single question about the Government's ability to increase pensioners' incomes this year. I am able to do that as a direct consequence of the successful economy from which we are receiving the wealth that comes from taking less instead of giving more.
Miss Emma Nicholson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that his Department's first task is to ensure that the take-up of family credit is heartily increased and is made an excellent first step in totally computerising the system? His Department must move forward into the modern world on all other fronts and computerise all benefit systems so that there is proper take-up of all benefits. While he is doing that, no doubt he will examine the case of families above the £10,000 take-home pay level who still badly need family credit or child benefit.
Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend is right to say that, at the beginning of family credit, it was difficult to set up a completely new system. She will be pleased to know that the turnaround, even with having to contact employers, is now running at the target of 18 days, and there is a 70 per cent. success ratio. All hon. Members should be anxious to encourage people to apply for family credit. On her last point, I reiterate that on top of the measures I have announced today we are still spending £4·5 billion on child benefit for all.
Mrs. Audrey Wise: How can the Secretary of State justify the fact that people with children are now worse off compared with those without children? If he is so keen on targeting to those in need, when will he change the attendance allowance system to provide help for families with severely chronically sick babies? It is nearly a year since Opposition Members proved the necessity for such help.
Mr. Moore: From our discussions in the Social Services Select Committee I know that the hon. Lady makes the mistake that is frequently made of assuming that the only way in which we can help families or anyone else in our society is through the benefits system. She cannot ignore the major changes that have taken place in earnings and in the taxation system in our country over the past few years which have benefited many families.
On the hon. Lady's last point, although I well remember the debate upstairs on that issue in which she participated, we are in the process of receiving the OPCS reports, and we must receive them and digest them in trying to decide what to do on that issue, as well as on the other points she made.
Mr. Robert McCrindle: Although I welcome the changes that my right hoh. Friend has announced on family credit and income support, at the risk of expressing what I know is a minority view on these Benches, may I ask whether he will confirm that no benefit other than child benefit is paid to the woman and has a take-up close to 100 per cent.? In those circumstances, will he confirm that that is ideal targeting and that it is difficult to go beyond that? If we are to take a major decision on these matters, should we not look closely at the continued existence of child benefit altogether? To have it but not to uprate it and to cause it to be eroded seems to be getting the worst of both worlds.
Mr. Moore: I do not think that it is the worst of both worlds when one considers the overall pattern of help to families with children. Each year we are statutorily bound to make a judgment, which in this instance not only targets £4·6 billion indiscriminately to all families with children but gives the families who are least well off more than £200 million. It seems to me that is an intelligent judgment which does not deny our election commitment and does not deny my ability to target more effectively.
As for my hon. Friend's second point, of course family credit goes to the mother, but 100 per cent. take-up is not difficult to achieve if the benefit goes to everybody. I do not understand how people can believe that that is an effective example of how to help, as everybody is given something, including those of us who do not think we merit an increase in our child benefit. I am not quite sure what point that proves in the effectiveness of the delivery of the benefit. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that we must find better ways to get across the exceptional value of family credit.
Mr. Seamus Mallon: The Secretary of State will be aware that basic requirements such as heat, food and electricity cost 30 per cent. more in Northern Ireland than anywhere else in Britain. He will also be aware that no provision was made for that differential when the terms of the new social security provisions were drawn up. Does he agree that that is a basic injustice to the people of the North of Ireland inasmuch as they will always be 30 per cent. poorer in relation to social security than people in the rest of Britain? Will he give a commitment that the differential will be dealt with? If he does not, allied to the freezing of child benefit, the people of the North of Ireland will see themselves as 31·5 per cent. less equal than the rest of the people in Britain.
Mr. Moore: I am not sure that I follow the hon. Gentleman's point. He addresses one particular differential within the kingdom. The benefit structure throughout the United Kingdom has always been such as not to differentiate between different areas. There may be advantages in one or two areas in doing that, but I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman would wish to pursue that point. I shall certainly draw his comments to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and I shall look at his comments myself.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I welcome my right hon. Friend's civilised and well-thought-out statement. However, will he deal in slightly more detail with the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. McCrindle) about the fact

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that child benefit is the only major benefit paid directly to the mother and that that money is used directly to benefit the children, whereas family credit is not? However, we welcome the substantial rise in resources available for family credit. Is not child benefit important because it goes directly to children through their mother?
Mr. Moore: I thank my hon. Friend for the first part of his question and remind him that, although family credit is not as extensive in its coverage, it goes to the mother. That is the point I was trying to make to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. McCrindle).
Mr. James Lamond: If the Secretary of State believes that the child allowance is an indiscriminate waste of taxpayers' money aimed at the wrong people, why did he support the commitment in the manifesto that it would continue?
Mr. Moore: I did not say that. I said carefully—my statement is on record—that I have to make a judgment each year and that I believe we have acted in the most effective way. That is the judgment I have to make in the allocation of the large amount of resources.
Sir Charles Morrison: Last year my right hon. Friend said that, because of the ill-targeted nature of child benefit, he would keep it under review. To my mind, that implied either that, having done so, he would uprate child benefit to take account of inflation or he would abolish it and replace it with something else. Why has neither happened?
Mr. Moore: No. My precise words were that I have a statutory duty under the Social Security Act 1986 to keep it under review and to look at the uprating each year. That is what I will continue to do. That does not imply that we are committed to any change or any decision for next year. It means simply that for this year I do not believe that uprating would be the most effective use of the resources.
Ms. Diane Abbott: Does the Secretary of State agree that it is dishonest to try to make out, as he has, that the uprating of family credit is some form of substitute for index linking child benefit? As he knows, child benefit has an almost 100 per cent. take-up whereas the take-up for family credit is about 50 per cent. Most women who are not taking it up are the poorest and least advantaged women who need it most.
Mr. Moore: Surely the hon. Lady should join me in trying to assist in a series of announcements designed to enable us to help the poorest families with children even more than if I had simply uprated child benefit. The hon. Lady is saying that we are not communicating properly and that we are not reaching those people. That is what we should be doing, not wasting money.
Mr. Robert Key: I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement and on the way in which he delivered it under great provocation. Does he agree that there is a serious problem with the take-up of benefits and that there is a serious problem with fickle men who expect their wives to do without cash and of divorced women who
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cannot get their hands on their just maintenance but that not one of those problems will be solved by uprating child benefit?
Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend has expressed his point extremely well. That is exactly what I was trying to get across. I hope that we will all join in a major national campaign to try to help our constituents to understand the potential benefit for them in family credit.
Mr. Rhodri Morgan: About 10 minutes ago the Secretary of State quoted the answer given to the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett) some time ago that £1 billion of child allowance goes to families earning more than £20,000 a year. That was said with disapproval as if it had been abolished. He has allowed that to continue. He must accept that Members on both sides of the House agree that a judicious mixture of means-tested benefits and universal benefits is what is needed. Universal benefits do not suffer from a stigma and have a high take-up rate, whereas means-tested benefits have a stigma and a low take-up rate. Does he agree that what he has announced today is another step down the slippery slope towards American-style welfare policies, which have been such a disaster in the ghettoes and rural areas of America?
Mr. Moore: I urge the hon. Gentleman to reconsider his comments. When he asked for a judicious mixture of benefits, he expressed almost exactly what I have announced today. I have sought to make a judgment so that some people on means-tested benefits benefit more as a consequence of what I have said. I do not believe that in the world in which we live there is stigma attached to the receipt of benefits such as family credit. If there is such a stigma, it is our job to eradicate it so that we can effectively use public money genuinely to help people.
Sir Giles Shaw: Does my right hon. Friend accept that his statement showed his compassion, commitment and courage? Will he accept that the argument about child benefit is yesterday's argument and that tomorrow's argument is the twin-track view of targeting and take-up? In achieving his objectives for tomorrow, will he please let us know a little more about how he can improve the take-up levels, bearing in mind that it is a matter not just of information but of complexity versus simplicity and of the time available to benefit officials to work through problems with claimants?
Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend is right. We have tried to simplify the system. There was considerable difficulty in starting the new family credit system, especially as there was a postal strike in the middle of it, which did not help—[interruption.] The postal strike was nothing to do with humbug but was to do with people. However, I should not be persuaded to take account of idiotic interruptions from a sedentary position.
We have tried advertising on television, in newspapers and with employers. We will now try targeting specifically those who we feel might be able to take up family credit. I am looking carefully at ways in which we can add to those campaigns. I would appreciate any and all suggestions, including those from my hon. Friend.
Mrs. Rosie Barnes: If the Government feel that child benefit is ineffective because it is universal and not targeted, how can that be reconciled with their commitment to the married man's tax allowance—it will

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become the married couple's tax allowance—which is similar in that it is across the board but addresses a far less tangible cost than that of bringing up children?
Mr. Moore: I repeat that child benefit is one of the benefits on which I have to make a judgment. The rest are related to family credit and income support, to child credits and family premiums. In my judgment, I thought that simply uprating child benefit this year would not be the most effective use of resources. I know that the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mrs. Barnes) follows these matters. I hope she will consider carefully the fact that in particular circumstances major increases in the real incomes of poorer families have occurred as a consequence of the changes that I have been able to announce today.
Mr. George Walden: The logic of my right hon. Friend's decision on child benefit is irrefutable. It is interesting that the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) made no serious attempt to refute it. The trouble with logic is that it carries one forward into unexpected areas. Will my right hon. Friend explain to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the attractions of applying the same logic to tax relief on mortgages—another indiscriminate benefit accounting for precisely the same sum of £4·5 billion? [Interruption.] Perhaps the Opposition will wish to aid the well-off to buy houses as well as to have children. That would be a very interesting ideological position for them to take. Well-off people have had their taxes reduced from 60 to 40 per cent. They still benefit from indiscriminate mortgage tax relief. They still benefit from child benefit which they do not need, and they will benefit from the introduction of the community charge. Will my right hon. Friend therefore talk to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and explain the attractions of a more logical approach by the Government to all these matters?
Mr. Moore: I shall certainly talk to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, as I frequently do. I think that I already have enough issues to cover in the uprating, but I shall draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the point that my hon. Friend has made.
Mr. Allen McKay: Will the Secretary of State consider a return to the system of linking old-age pensions to earnings or to the rate of increase in the cost of living, whichever is higher? Does he agree that that is the only way in which elderly people can have a share in what he calls the growing wealth of this country?
What am I to say to the young women who come to my surgery on Saturdays and Sundays, who have already lost £7, £8, £9 or even £11 a week in housing benefit, and who are now to suffer what is tantamount to a further cut as a result of the freezing of child benefit?
Mr. Moore: It is important to understand what actually happened when pensioners were theoretically advantaged by the existence of the link to which the hon. Gentleman referred. In fact, over the whole period of that link pensioners were much more disadvantaged than they are today. One cannot isolate the effect on pensioners of one part of Government policy. It was a tragedy, and not something that the former Labour Government wanted, that a combination of policies meant that average pensioner incomes decreased in relation to earnings. We have now returned to the position that existed before the
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Labour Government's period in office. I cannot espouse policies, as the last Labour Government did, that would hurt pensioners.
Mr. Robin Squire: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that, despite the welcome aspects of his statement, we are inevitably concentrating attention on ways of getting effective family support? Does he also recognise that that unites us rather than divides us, but that some of us at least believe that until we can substantially increase the take-up of family credit, piling more of the onus on family credit and removing it from child benefit can only mean that many of the poorest families will simply not receive the support which he and I agree they need.
Mr. Moore: I know of my hon. Friend's deep commitment and interest. I am sure that he would not have wished me simply to increase child benefit given that, despite the take-up problem, which I accept, as a result of the changes that I have announced poor families will potentially be better off.
Mr. Brian Wilson: Does the Secretary of State accept that in constituencies such as mine the freezing of child benefit will be viewed with dismay? It will be regarded as another turn of the screw for families living just above the poverty level. Is the Minister honest enough to accept that if the Tory party manifesto had contained a commitment to freeze child benefit for two successive years he would probably not now he sitting on the Treasury Bench?
Will the right hon. Gentleman address himself to a specific question and tell us what his statement contains for the families of 16 and 17-year-olds—of whom there are several hundred in my constituency—who from next Friday, contrary to Government guarantees, will have no jobs, no YTS places, no benefits and no money'? How does he square his unctuous expressions of compassion with the fact that 16 and 17-year-olds, having been betrayed by the Government, are to be cast on to the street without a penny of legal income from any source? Does the Secretary of State accept moral responsibility for that action?
Mr. Moore: The hon. Gentleman's constituents will view what I have said with dismay only as a consequence of the inaccurate way in which their interests are represented in the House and of his continuing to argue the same point. I know something of his constituency, and if the hon. Gentleman did his work as a Member of Parliament rather than pursue that argument, more of his lower-paid constituents could benefit from increased take-up.
Hon. Members: Answer the question.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Mrs. Peacock.
Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock rose—
Mr. Frank Dobson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Surely it is not in order for the Secretary of State to refuse to answer a specific and readily comprehensible question and then to accuse my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) of not doing his job. Surely it is the Secretary of State who is not doing his job.
Mr. Speaker: I am not responsible for answers from the Front Bench, provided that they are in order.
Mr. Wilson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I shall take it, although I suspect that it is a point of irritation.
Mr. Wilson: Is it in order for the Secretary of State to cast such aspersions and, in the course of doing so, to refuse to answer a question about 16 and 17-year-olds? Who is not doing his job properly, given that the Secretary of State refused to answer a specific question affecting a substantial number of people? I am concerned about 16 and 17-year-olds in my constituency; clearly the right hon. Gentleman is not.
Mr. Speaker: I am anxious to call as many hon. Members as possible. I cannot be held responsible for the answers that are given. I am sure that the Secretary of State did not intend to cast any aspersions. [Interruption.] Order. I shall give the Secretary of State an opportunity to say that he did not mean to make any personal aspersions against the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) or any other hon. Member.
Mrs. Peacock: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that all hon. Members would wish to help their constituents to know exactly how to claim family credit? When he prepares his campaign, will he let hon. Members have a draft copy so that we may take it to our local newspapers and radio stations and thus encourage our constituents in need to apply for benefit?
Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. As I said earlier, so far 70 per cent. of applicants for family credit have been successful. It is a high ratio. In the interim—before we have more campaigns—hon. Members wanting to help their constituents could draw their attention to the fact that application forms are available, not just at benefit offices, but at all post offices.
Mr. Peter L. Pike: Does the Minister accept that, despite the pensions uprating announced this afternoon, our state pension provision is among the lowest in the EEC? Does he also accept that, as a result of the phasing out of the state earnings-related pension scheme, many manual workers and women will continue to be worse off? Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that, every time he talks of better targeting, the Government save money at the expense of many of the most deprived and needy people in the country?
Mr. Moore: The hon. Gentleman's EEC comparisons are utterly bogus. Only three EEC states, including the United Kingdom, have flat-rate basic pensions. As to the overall commitment of the state to help pensioners, the United Kingdom comes third for help and support.
Mr. Derek Conway: Will my right hon. Friend accept that he is morally correct and will receive the support of fair-minded people in targeting help on the needy? When my right hon. Friend finds the person who has taken letters in a thieving manner to the Opposition, will he get him to make a photocopy of the Official Report of 25 May 1976, when the Labour Secretary of State for Social Services made a special statement on child benefits and explained precisely why they were being frozen as part of the Government's overall economic strategy? Why should Labour Members carp on and shed crocodile tears when they were having to put up with it at exactly this time in 1976? They are hypocrites.
Mr. Moore: As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister reminded us at Prime Minister's Question Time, it was only in their last month of office—April 1979—that the Labour Government increased child benefit to a level that could be compared with what it has been under this Government.
Mr. Eddie Loyden: Is the Secretary of State aware that thousands of claimants are experiencing serious hardship because of the inadequate provision made through the social fund? Why has he ignored what in all probability is one of the worst aspects of the horrible social security review? Is he aware that many people are being deprived of the means to enable them to sleep on a bed? Why has he ignored this important problem affecting the poor?
Mr. Moore: From the hon. Gentleman's comments, I do not recognise the workings of the social fund, the loan profile of which is running at over 90 per cent., while the figure for community care grants is 52 per cent. I should like to be able to say what we shall be putting into the social fund in the future, but so far I regard it as having been one of the unique successes of the transformed social security system.
Mr. John Maples: I welcome what my right hon. Friend said about child benefit, but many of us think it wrong that the Inland Revenue is allowed to take £4·5 billion from husbands so that the Department of Social Security can give it back to their wives. My right hon. Friend is right to use whatever additional money he has to help low-income families, through family credit and income support. Will he take every opportunity to explain to the country and the Opposition, who do not seem to understand, that increases in child benefit are of no use whatever to 25 per cent. of lowest income families because their income support or family credit will be reduced by exactly the same amount?
Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend is right. It is an exact offset, which is one of the reasons why I was so determined to ensure that those families benefited this year and in double terms.
Mr. Max Madden: What has the Secretary of State to say to the widow living in Bradford with five children, who earlier this year—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. It is perfectly in order for the hon. Gentleman to make that point.
Mr. Madden: It seems that Conservative Members have as much compassion for widows as they have for 16 or 17-year-old youngsters living in this country with no money.
What has the Secretary of State to say to the widow living in Bradford with five children, whose income earlier this year was 14p above income support, thereby depriving her children of free school meals? As a result of the decision made by Tory-controlled Bradford city council to increase the cost of school meals, from a week next Monday she will be paying £20 a week for her children's school meals. Does the Secretary of State realise that that case was referred to my by Bradford's citizens advice bureau, the funding of which has been taken away by Bradford city council, which is threatening to close benefit shops and the welfare rights campaign—
Mr. Speaker: Order. A question must be related to the statement.
Mr. Moore: I do not wish to comment on Bradford city council, because it would not be appropriate to do so. As to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, there is no comparison between the position of a widow under a Conservative Government and the appalling characteristics of being a widow under a Labour Government.
Mr. Michael Stern: Does my right hon. Friend agree that his statement will be welcomed by the recipients of family credit, not only for the substantial additional funding that he has announced, but because the total spending on family credit is already running well above the Government's original estimate? Does he agree that one possible reason for the apparently low take-up might be that families, unlike the offices of the Department of Social Security, have a better idea of all their sources of income and therefore know that they are not entitled to it in the first place?
Mr. Moore: I shall not go into detail on my hon. Friend's last point, but he is right to say that although the caseload is less than we would like, it is running at profiled expenditure, which shows that people are applying effectively for family credit. I should like to encourage further take-up, despite the increased costs that are associated with it.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Is the Minister aware that old-age pensioners in this country receive, on average, £20 a week less than those in the Common Market? Is he further aware that later today a Treasury Minister will introduce the Third Reading of the European Communities (Finance) Bill, which will hand over £765 million to the Common Market? Why did he not have the guts to fight the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for that money and put it on child benefit or give it to old-age pensioners? When he finds the person who leaked the document that has been referred to this afternoon, will he recommend to the Prime Minister that he or she should get a job as a commissioner in Brussels?
Mr. Moore: I understand why the hon. Gentleman is not welcome in the chair of the national executive committee. Never have I heard such complete inaccuracy. His European Economic Community comparisons are utterly wrong. [Interruption.] It is a typical example of latter-day Socialism, and it is a mistake that the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) would never make. Only three EEC states, including the United Kingdom, have flat-rate pensions. The hon. Gentleman seems to want earnings-related pensions, but most poor people in the Community do not have as good pensions as those in the United Kingdom. If that is what the hon. Gentleman wants, it is a new kind of Socialism.
Mr. Jerry Hayes: I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's statement, but does he not think it ridiculous and downright unfair that higher-rate taxpayers should pocket £1·1 billion of taxpayers' money through child benefit? When does he intend to withdraw this privilege, because we then could target the many mothers who rely on child benefit as a lifeline but who are just above the level for family credit?
Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend shared an election platform with me and fought the election on the manifesto,
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which made our position clear. I shall stick to that manifesto commitment. We shall not go the way that my hon. Friend would like, because we are committed to the manifesto for this Parliament. I welcome my hon. Friend's support, and he will know that I have been successful, within that manifesto commitment, in achieving targeting.
Mr. Alistair Darling: Does the Secretary of State accept that the major problem with the benefit system is that he has made thousands of people ineligible for benefit? For those who receive benefits, the amounts that have been announced will not begin to meet their increased housing, heating and food costs. Surely child benefit is no more indiscriminate than giving tax cuts to those on top rates, who can hardly be said to be in need.
Mr. Moore: I genuinely cannot equate the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's question, to which I listened carefully, with the first part of it. If he believes what he said in the first half of his question, he should welcome with open arms all that I have said today.
Mr. Quentin Davies: Does my right hon. Friend recall the inflation rates that prevailed under the last Labour Government, and that benefits, whether they were theoretically indexed or not, were losing 10 or 12 per cent. of their real value every six months? Does my right hon. Friend agree that that casts an interesting light on the meaning of "increasing benefits", as used by the Opposition?
Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend is right and I can give him an exact illustration. Pensioners with savings during that last unlamented period of Labour Government saw a decrease in the value of their income from savings of 3·4 per cent. per year—a fall each year and an overall fall of 16 per cent. over the period—compared with an average increase over the past nine years of 7 per cent. per year. That is the reality of controlling inflation and helping pensioners with their savings.
Mrs. Alice Mahon: Is the Secretary of State aware that, in the real world of the family, income is often not shared fairly? The Government's claim to be taking women's issues and the unfair treatment of women seriously will be viewed cynically because, for two years running, the right hon. Gentleman has taken away the only income that many women in a family have as of right?
Mr. Moore: I again remind the hon. Lady of the reality of family credit, which enables the mother to receive the income. I hope that the hon. Lady will encourage people, especially those with low earnings, to benefit from that. In this uprating statement I have been able to add more than those people would have received if we had simply increased child benefit.
Mr. Peter Thurnham: If payments on family credit are running at about the original provision, does that not show what an excellent scheme this is, targeted towards and paid to those mothers most in need?
Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's remarks about income support assistance to meet the poll tax and rates charges, I remind him that no deduction can be made from a social security payment without the claimant's consent.

475
Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that that rule will not be changed? Given the lower take-up of community care grants under the social fund, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance than in areas such as the one that I represent, where there is still a lamentably high level of poverty, he will encourage a take-up campaign? I ask the right hon. Gentleman for a fairer-minded answer than the sleekit response that he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson).
Mr. Moore: I never intend to be rude across the Floor of the Chamber and, if I was, I unreservedly apologise. I am always interested in arguing rationally and logically. I genuinely meant that if all of us looked at the relative position of the benefit structure, and looked a little more carefully at family credit, we might be able to help much more of the low-paid employees in our constituencies.
I have listened carefully to the points that have been made. Rather than make a commitment, I should like to consider the hon. Gentleman's first point. I take entirely his second point about community care grants. Over the past six weeks I have visited benefit offices extensively. I have been trying to promote precisely that point. I shall look more carefully at that matter from the hon. Gentleman's point of view.
Mr. John Battle rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member has not been standing.
Mr. Battle: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: It is not a point of order; and I am on my feet. I shall try to call those hon. Members who have been standing. I hope that they will not put questions that have already been put or make debating points which could properly be made in the debates that are certain to follow.
Mr. David Sumberg: I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend, not only on the contents of his statement, but on his robust delivery. Bearing in mind that the Labour party is supposed to believe in the principle "from each according to his means, to each according to his needs", should not my right hon. Friend expect overwhelming support from the Labour Benches for something that does just that?
Mr. Moore: In looking at these issues, I am genuinely bewildered by the inability of the Opposition—other than one or two thoughtful Members—to realise that they seem to be drifting a long way from what I always regarded as the Beveridge base and some parts of Socialism.
Mr. Harry Greenway: Is my right hon. Friend aware that recent winters have been much more severe in London and the south of England than in Scotland and other parts of the nation and that, as a matter of interest, the Scots did not experience the hurricane last year? Will my right hon. Friend say specifically by how much the heating allowance will increase? I warmly welcome his improved arrangements. Will my right hon. Friend undertake to simplify the difficult form which pensioners must complete to obtain their allowance?
Mr. Moore: I shall certainly look at the form. I cannot be precise about the amounts of money, because this is not cash limited. We have enormously increased the number of those potentially eligible for it, and theoretically we will double the approximate amount of money available per year. Because of the extension of eligibility and entitlement—which I think everyone welcomes—if we had a severe winter, we would obviously spend considerably more money than I had allocated to the budget.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Would my right hon. Friend care to reflect and give the House a little more information on the levels of support for the community charge? Will he be careful when listening to the Opposition's complaints, because it is the Opposition who go around the country encouraging Labour councils to spend more? My right hon. Friend's allocation will not go as far as we would like, mainly because Labour-controlled county councils are spending at high levels, which means that they get high levels of community charge. The one way in which the Labour party could help is by starting to encourage their councils to act more responsibly.
Mr. Moore: I take the points that my hon. Friend has made and will draw them to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. The factors that he has mentioned were taken into account in our estimates.
Mr. Neil Hamilton: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that there is a warm welcome from Conservative Members for him personally as well as for his statement? Does he recognise also that there is a growing understanding of the perversity of child benefit, which maximises the benefits for the rich and gives no benefit to the poor, and that there is growing demand among Conservative Members to reconsider the need for this benefit? Where does my right hon. Friend put the behaviour of the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) in the scale of contemptibleness, in acting as an accessory to theft and breach of confidence during the past few days? Does my right hon. Friend regard it as better—
Mr. Dobson rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. That sort of comment does not help. One question is enough to ask. Hon. Members should not make debating points.
Mr. Hamilton: The propriety of such actions is immensely important for our political system, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. There should be consideration for others in the Chamber. Time is getting on.
Mr. Moore: On the specific point about child benefit, my hon. Friend was right to say that there are some perverse features. That, I imagine, is one reason why, when Barbara Castle and the former Labour Government established it, they were anxious not to secure annual indexation.
Mr. James Couchman: Did my right hon. Friend have in mind when he made his decision the fact that the 1985 review found that the greatest poverty occurred among families on low incomes, whether earned or benefit? Is it not therefore nonsense that the product of

477
4p in the pound of income tax should be devoted to a universal benefit which does not differentiate between the duchess and the wife of a dustman?
Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend makes his point, but I remind him that my assessment is entirely on the basis of the existing system and I make judgments, as I must in a statutory sense, only for this particular year.
Mr. John Redwood: Will my right hon. Friend ensure that there is a full inquiry into the leaked letter, even though the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), has discovered that what he thought would he a useful offensive weapon was a boomerang, which has done him great damage?
Mr. Moore: I went as far as I was going to go on this subject earlier in the exchange.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Will my right hon. Friend comment on the justice of a single taxpayer earning £6,000 a year contributing in his taxes to the income of a married couple with a joint income of £50,000 a year, who have two teenage children and live in Ealing? If that is unfair, does my right hon. Friend not think that, when the Conservative Government are re-elected for a fourth term, we should consider taxing child benefit, or at least ensure that those paying the 40 per cent. tax rate are subject to a taper so that that money is taken back?
Mr. Moore: I look forward to the detail of my hon. Friend's ideas in advance of our next election victory.
Mr. Tony Marlow: Can my right hon. Friend say which makes it more difficult to have an objective assessment of this very important issue—the grubby little sneak who smuggles information out of Government Departments, or the weasly little rat who abuses and misconstrues it?
Mr. Dobson rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps I may be allowed to deal with this. If an aspersion was cast in that question on a Member of the Front Bench, will the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) please withdraw it.
Mr. Marlow: In the words of the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Speaker, I respect your judgment greatly, and on that basis I withdraw the word "sneak"—I mean "rat".
Mr. Tim Janman: My right hon. Friend is to be congratulated on negotiating an excellent package in recent negotiations with the Treasury. I am sure that he has done better than many other Departments will do. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the tax cuts of which the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) complains are the driving force behind his ability to deliver this package to the House today in terms of the increase in revenue? On Tuesday the Opposition complained about inflation going up to 5·9 per cent., but today they ask for an increase in spending on a universal benefit which is not directed at those in need and which not only goes to the less well off but is also a millionaire's meal ticket. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is utter hypocrisy?
Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I cannot make a judgment without taking into account the major changes that have occurred in the past year both in
478
our tax system and in the pattern of earnings. I am very mindful of the fact that 80 per cent. of families with children are taxpayers.
Mr. John Battle: When the statement on pensions is put together in people's personal budgets with the statement on housing benefit, pensioners in this country will lose yet again. Are not the Government's manifesto statements and pledges proving to be deliberately placed ambiguities of language calculated to deceive the British people?
Mr. Moore: I have no doubt that the British people will continue, as they have in the past, to elect—[Interruption.] The contempt of some people, including the shadow Leader of the House, for the electorate is almost beyond belief. The British people will recognise the reality of what the Government have achieved in terms of basic improvement in their welfare. In the past eight-plus years pensioners' average income has improved by an average of 3 per cent. per year, compared with an increase of only 0·6 per cent. per year in the five tragic years of Socialism.

Following is the schedule of main proposed social security benefit rates from April 1989:

Weekly rates unless otherwise shown

Old rates 1988 £

New rates 1989 £

Attendance Allowance

higher rate

32·95

34·90

lower rate

22·00

23·30

Child Benefit—each child

7·25

7·25

Child's Special Allowance

8·40

8·95

Dependency Increases

Adult Dependency Increases For spouse or person looking after children, with:—

retirement pension on own insurance, invalidity pension, unemployability supplement and, if beneficiary over pension age, unemployment benefit

24·75

26·20

non-contributory retirement pension, invalid care allowance and severe disablement allowance

14·80

15·65

sickness benefit if beneficiary over pension age

23·65

25·10

unemployment benefit

20·20

21·40

maternity allowance/sickness benefit

19·40

20·55

Child Dependency Increases For each child with:—

retirement pension, widows benefit, invalidity benefit, invalid care allowance, severe disablement allowance, higher rate industrial death benefit, unemployability supplement and sickness/unemployment benefit if beneficiary over pension age

8·40

8·95

Earnings rules

Retirement pension

75·00

75·00

Invalid care allowance

12·00

12·00

Unemployment benefit (daily rate)

2·00

2·00

Therapeutic earnings limit

27·00

28·50

Industrial injuries unemployability supplement permitted earnings level (annual amount)

1,404·00

1,482·00

Weekly rates unless otherwise shown

Old rates 1988 £

New rates 1989 £

War pensioners' unemployability supplement permitted earnings level (annual amount)

1,404·00

1,482·00

Adult dependency increases with sickness benefit where claimant is

(a) under pension age

19·40

20·55

(b) over pension age

23·65

25·10

maternity allowance

19·40

20·55

unemployment benefit where claimant is

(a) under pension age

20·20

21·40

(b) over pension age

24·75

26·20

retirement pension, invalidity pension, severe disablement allowance, unemployability supplement where dependant

(a) is living with claimant

32·75

34·70

(b) still qualifies for the tapered earnings rule

45·09

45·09

retirement pension, invalidity pension, pension and unemployability supplement where dependant not living with claimant

24·75

26·20

severe disablement allowance where dependant not living with claimant

14·80

15·65

invalid care allowance

14·80

15·65

Child dependency increases

level at which CDIs payable with long-term benefits are affected by earnings of claimant's spouse or partner

for first child

90·00

95·00

for each subsequent child

11·00

12·00

Guardian's Allowance—each child

8·40

8·95

Hospital Downrating

20 per cent. rate

8·25

8·70

40 per cent. rate

16·50

17·40

Industrial Death Benefit Widow's pension

higher rate

41·15

43·60

lower rate

12·35

13·08

Industrial Disablement Pension

18 and over, or under 18 with dependants

100 percent.

67·20

71·20

90 per cent.

60·48

64·08

80 per cent.

53·76

56·96

70 per cent.

47·04

49·84

60 per cent.

40·32

42·72

50 per cent.

33·60

35·60

40 per cent.

26·88

28·48

30 per cent.

20·16

21·36

20 per cent.

13·44

14·24

Under 18

100 percent.

41·15

43·60

90 per cent.

37·04

39·24

80 per cent.

32·92

34·88

70percent.

28·81

30·52

60 per cent.

24·69

26·16

50 per cent.

20·58

21·80

40 per cent.

16·46

17·44

30 percent.

12·35

13·08

20 per cent.

8·23

8·72

Maximum life gratuity (lump sum)

4,470·00

4,730·00

Unemployability Supplement

41·15

43·60

plus where appropriate an increase for early incapacity higher rate

8·65

9·20

Weekly rates unless otherwise shown

Old rates 1988 £

New rates 1989 £

middle rate

5·50

5·80

lower rate

2·75

2·90

Maximum special hardship allowance/reduced earnings allowance

26·88

28·48

Constant attendance allowance

exceptional rate

53·80

57·00

intermediate rate

40·35

42·75

normal maximum rate

26·90

28·50

part-time rate

13·45

14·25

Exceptionally severe disablement allowance

26·90

28·50

Invalid Care Allowance

24·75

26·20

Invalidity Benefit

Invalidity pension

41·15

43·60

Invalidity allowance

higher rate

8·65

9·20

middle rate

5·50

5·80

lower rate

2·75

2·90

Maternity Allowance

31·30

33·20

Maternity Payment

85·00

85·00

Mobility Allowance

23·05

24·40

One Parent Benefit

4·90

5·20

Pneumoconiosis, Byssinosis, Workmen's Compensation (Supplementation) and other schemes

Total disablement allowance and major incapacity allowance (maximum)

67·20

71·20

Partial disablement allowance

24·75

26·20

Unemployability supplement

41·15

43·60

plus where appropriate increases for early incapacity

higher rate

8·65

9·20

middle rate

5·50

5·80

lower rate

2·75

2·90

Constant attendance allowance

exceptional rate

53·80

57·00

intermediate rate

40·35

42·75

normal maximum rate

26·90

28·50

part-time rate

13·45

14·25

Exceptionally severe disablement allowance

26·90

28·50

Lesser incapacity allowance

maximum rate of allowance

24·75

26·20

based on loss of earnings over

32·95

34·90

Retirement pension

Category A or B

41·15

43·60

Category B (lower)—husband's insurance

24·75

26·20

Category C or D—non-contributory

24·75

26·20

Category C (lower)—non-contributory

14·80

15·65

Additional pension, guaranteed minimum pension and graduated retirement benefit

increased by 5·9 per cent.

Increments to basic and additional pension, guaranteed minimum pension and graduated retirement benefit

increased by 5·9 per cent.

Graduated retirement benefit (unit) (pence)

5·39

5·71

Weekly rates unless otherwise shown

Old rates 1988 £

New rates 1989 £

Prescribed maximum amount of additional pension (also applies to widow's and invalidity benefits) (from 6 April)

34·75

41·71

Additional at age 80

·25

·25

Severe disablement allowance

24·75

26·20

Sickness benefit

Over pension age

39·45

41·80

Under pension age

31·30

33·20

Statutory maternity pay

Earnings threshold

41·00

43·00

Lower rate

34·25

36·25

Statutory sick pay

Earnings threshold

41·00

43·00

Standard rate threshold

79·50

84·00

Lower rate

34·25

36·25

Standard rate

49·20

52·10

Unemployment Benefit

Over pension age

41·15

43·60

Under pension age

32·75

34·70

Occupational pension abatement

35·00

35·00

War Pensions

Disablement pension (100 per cent. rates)

private or equivalent

67·20

71·20

officer (£ per annum)

3,504·00

3,712·00

Age allowances

40 per cent.—50 per cent.

4·70

5·00

over 50 per cent. but not over 70 per cent.

7·30

7·75

over 70 per cent. but not over 90 per cent.

10·45

11·10

over 90 per cent.

14·60

15·50

Disablement gratuity (base figures for calc purposes only)

specified minor injury

4,470·00

4,730·00

unspecified minor injury

2,458·00

2,601·50

Unemployability allowance

personal

43·70

46·30

adult dependency increase

24·75

26·20

increase for each child

8·40

8·95

Invalidity allowance

higher rate

8·65

9·20

middle rate

5·50

5·80

lower rate

2·75

2·90

Constant attendance allowance

exceptional rate

53·80

57·00

intermediate rate

40·35

42·75

normal maximum rate

26·90

28·50

part-time rate

13·45

14·25

Comforts allowance

higher rate

11·60

12·30

lower rate

5·80

6·15

Mobility supplement

25·60

27·10

Allowance for lowered standard of occupation (maximum)

26·88

28·48

Exceptionally severe disablement allowance

26·90

28·50

Severe disablement occupational allowance

13·45

14·25

Clothing allowance (£ per anum) higher rate

92·00

97·00

Weekly rates unless otherwise shown

Old rates 1988 £

New rates 1989 £

lower rate

58·00

61·00

Education allowance (£ per annum) (max)

120·00

120·00

War widow's pension (private) widow

53·50

56·65

childless widow under 40

12·35

13·08

age allowance

(a) age 65 to 69

5·75

6·10

(b) age 70 to 79

11·50

12·20

(c) age 80 and over

14·45

15·30

child addition

12·00

12·60

Orphan's pension

13·15

13·80

Unmarried dependant living as spouse (maximum)

51·45

54·60

Rent allowance (maximum)

20·35

21·55

Adult orphan's pension (maximum)

41·15

43·60

Widower's pension (maximum)

53·50

54·65

Widow's benefit

Widow's payment (lump sum)

1,000·00

1,000·00

Widowed mother's allowance

41·15

43·60

Widow's pension

standard rate

41·15

43·60

age-related

age 54(49)

38·27

40·55

53(48)

35·39

37·50

52(47)

32·51

34·44

51(46)

29·63

31·39

50(45)

26·75

29·34

49 (44)

23·87

25·29

48 (43)

20·99

22·24

47(42)

18·11

19·18

46(41)

15·23

16·13

45(40)

12·35

13·08

Note: For deaths occurring before 11 April 1988 refer to age-points shown in brackets.

Income Related Benefits

Capital

Housing Benefit upper limit

8,000·00

8,000·00

Income Support and Family Credit upper limit

6,000·00

6,000·00

Amount disregarded (common provision)

3,000·00

3,000·00

Child's limit (common provision)

3,000·00

3,000·00

Tariff Income

£1 for each complete £250 or part thereof between amount of capital disregarded and capital upper limit

Income Support and Housing Benefit—Common Provisions

Personal allowances

Single

under age 18

19·40

20·80

age 18–24

26·05

27·40

age 25 or over

33·40

34·90

Lone parent

under age 18

19·40

20·80

age 18 or over

33·40

34·90

Couple

both under age 18

38·80

41·60

at least one age 18 or over

51·45

54·80

Dependant children

under age 11

10·75

11·75

age 11–15

16·10

17·35

age 16–17

19·40

20·80

age 18

26·05

27·40

Premiums

Family

6·15

6·50

Weekly rates unless otherwise shown

Old rates 1988 £

New rates 1989 £

Lone parent (Income Support)

3·70

3·90

Lone parent (Housing Benefit)

8·60

8·60

Pensioner

single

10·65

11·20

couple

16·25

17·05

Pensioner (higher)

single

13·05

13·70

couple

18·60

19·50

Disability

single

13·05

13·70

couple

18·60

19·50

Severe disability

single

24·75

26·20

couple (one disabled)

24·75

26·20

couple (both disabled)

49·50

52·40

Disabled child

6·15

6·50

Income support

Maximum amounts for accommodation and meals in

(a) Hostels

70·00

70·00

Maximum special increases

17·50

17·50

(b) Residential care homes

old age

130·00

140·00

very dependent elderly

155·00

155·00

mental disorder (not handicap)

130·00

140·00

drug/alcohol dependence

130·00

140·00

mental handicap

160·00

165·00

physical disablement

(under pension age)

190·00

200·00

(over pension age)

130·00

140·00

others

130·00

140·00

maximum Greater London increase

17·50

23·00

(c) Nursing homes

mental disorder (not handicap)

185·00

195·00

drug/alcohol dependence

185·00

190·00

mental handicap

200·00

205·00

terminal illness

230·00

235·00

physical disablement

(under pension age)

230·00

235·00

(over pension age)

185·00

190·00

others (including elderly)

185·00

190·00

maximum Greater London increase

17·50

23·00

Allowances for personal expenses for claimants in hostels

Lower

single

10·30

11·95

couple

20·60

23·90

Higher

single

11·50

13·25

couple

23·00

26·50

Dependent children

under age 11

3·45

4·10

age 11–15

5·30

6·05

age 16–17

6·20

7·00

age 18

10·30

11·95

Private and voluntary residential care and nursing homes

9·55

10·05

Dependent children allowances above apply except—age 18

9·55

10·05

Hospital and local authority (Part III) accommodation

8·25

8·70

The Polish Home Ilford Park Housing costs

11·50

13·25

Deduction for non-dependants aged 18 or over and in remunerative work

8·20

9·15

Weekly rates unless otherwise shown

Old rates 1988 £

New rates 1989 £

others, age 18 or over or on Income support and over 25

3·45

3·85

Low earnings threshold

49·20

52·10

Deductions for direct payment of fuel debt

5 per cent. rate

1·70

1·75

10 per cent. rate

3·35

3·50

Arrears of housing costs

1·70

1·75

Reduction in benefit for strikers

17·70

18·50

Disregards

Standard earnings

5·00

5·00

Higher earnings

15·00

15·00

War pensions

5·00

5·00

Voluntary and charitable payments

5·00

5·00

Students covenanted income

5·00

5·00

Income from boarders

35·00

35·00

Expenses for subtenants

Furnished or unfurnished

4·00

4·00

Where heating is included, additional

6·70

7·00

Housing Benefit

Amenity deductions for

heating

6·70

7·00

hot water

0·80

0·85

lighting

0·50

0·55

cooking

0·80

0·85

all fuel

8·80

9·25

Non-dependant deductions Rent rebates and allowances aged 18 and over and in remunerative work

8·20

9·15

others aged 18 or over or on income support and over 25

3·45

3·85

Rate rebates, aged 18 or over

3·00

3·35

Low earnings threshold

49·20

52·10

Expenses for subtenants

Furnished or unfurnished

4·00

4·00

Where heating is included, additional

6·70

7·00

Earnings disregards where disability

premium awarded

15·00

15·00

various specified employments

15·00

15·00

lone parent

15·00

15·00

one of a couple in employment

10·00

10·00

single claimant

5·00

5·00

Other income disregards

charitable or voluntary payments

5·00

5·00

war pensions

5·00

5·00

students covenanted income

5·00

5·00

Family Credit

Adult Credit

32·10

33·60

Child Credit

under age 11

6·05

7·30

age 11–15

11·40

12·90

age 16–17

14·70

16·35

age 18

21·35

23·30

Disregards

war pensions

5·00

5·00

voluntary and charitable payments

5·00

5·00

students covenanted income

5·00

5·00

Expenses for subtenants

furnished or unfurnished

4·00

4·00

where heating is included, additional

6·70

7·00

Applicable amount (ie taper threshold level)

51·45

54·80

Maternity Payment

85·00

85·00

Business of the House
5.2 pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Wakeham): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the business for next week:
MONDAY 31 OCTOBER—Second Reading of the Rate Support Grants Bill.
Remaining stages of the Foreign Marriage (Amendment) Bill [Lords].
Motion on the Penalty Points (Alteration) Order.
TUESDAY 1 NOVEMBER—Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Health and Medicines Bill.
Motion to take note of EC documents on air pollution from motor vehicles. Details will be given in the Official Report.
WEDNESDAY 2 NOVEMBER—Until about seven o'clock, supplemental timetable motion on and considration of Lords Amendments to the Firearms (Amendment) Bill.
Afterwards there will be a debate on a Government motion on broadcasting and terrorism.
THURSDAY 3 NOVEMBER—Debate on a motion to take note of the outstanding reports of the Public Accounts Committee to which the Government have replied.
FRIDAY 4 NOVEMBER—Debate on the control of pollution of rivers and estuaries and the condition of seas adjacent to Britain on a motion for the Adjournment of the House. Details of relevant Environment Committee reports will be given in the Official Report.
MONDAY 7 NOVEMBER—Committee and remaining stages of the Rate Support Grants Bill.
Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Copyright Design and Patents Bill [Lords].
[Tuesday 1 November 1988
Relevant European Community Document

4637/88

Small cars: gaseous emissions

Relevant Reports of European Legislation Committee
HC 43-xx (1987–88) para 9, HC 43-xxxi (1987–88) para 2 & HC 43-xxxiii (1987–88) para 1
Debate on Friday 4 November:
Environment Committee's Third Report Session 1986–87 (HC 183)
Environment Committee's Third Special Report Session 1987–88 ( HC 543)
Environment Committee's First Report Session 1985–86 (HC 191)
The Government's Second Stage Response to the Environment Committee's Report on Radioactive Waste (Cmnd. 9852).]
Mr. Frank Dobson: I thank the Lord President for his statement. As I understand it, we are in a somewhat ironic position in that, if child benefit had been uprated, we could have debated the uprating; but, as it is not being uprated, there is no automatic opportunity to debate the failure to uprate it. In view of the concern throughout the House and the country, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the House will have an early opportunity specifically to debate the failure to uprate child benefit, with a Division in which Members will be able to vote for or against uprating?
The Leader of the House suggested last week that the provision of some extra Opposition days should be
486
discussed through the usual channels. Can he tell us the outcome? Does he realise that he owes the Opposition at least four more extra days? This parliamentary year began in June 1987 and is heading for a total of 217 days. That exceeds the length of an average parliamentary year by about 45 days, or more than 25 per cent. As we were allocated only the usual 20 days for an average parliamentary year, a pro rata increase in Opposition days should entitle us to five extra days, of which we have been given only one. I should be grateful if the Leader of the House would confirm that the other four will be forthcoming before the Queen's Speech.
Will the right hon. Gentleman also tell the House when we can expect a debate on his failure to set up the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs? Better still, will he agree to set it up? Hitherto, we understand that English Conservative Members were unwilling to take part in the activities of a Scottish Select Committee. In yesterday's debate on the poll tax and housing in Scotland, however, the hon. Members for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Patnick), for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire), for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) and for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Heddle) took part. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could approach those Conservative Members with a view to recruiting them to the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs.
Finally, last week the right hon. Gentleman advised us all to read the report on the Barlow Clowes scandal over the weekend before deciding when it would be debated. Many hon. Members on both sides have taken the right hon. Gentleman at his word and read the report. It is up to the right hon. Gentleman now to find time soon for a debate on the Barlow Clowes scandal.
Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman asked four questions about the business for next week.
First, I believe that his comment about a debate on child benefit is not factually correct. I understand that a whole series of orders, including one on child benefit, will be laid in the usual way. I believe that benefits which remain the same will be included and will have to be debated. I very much hope that we shall be able to arrange a debate before Christmas.
With regard to Opposition days, I thought that the hon. Gentleman, like me, was a member of the usual channels and thus should have some idea of what goes on. As he knows, the business that I have announced for next week does not provide for Opposition time. It is a full programme of essential business. I therefore cannot agree to his request. I must also tell him that although I will do my best, I certainly do not believe in his rather partial interpretation of the Standing Orders of the House, which are fairly clear. Nevertheless, I will do my best.
With regard to the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, I am committed to having a debate, and I have sought to discuss this through the usual channels. I think that that is the best way to deal with the matter.
With regard to Barlow Clowes, I have nothing to add to my statement last week or to the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister of Trade and Industry. I realise that this is a matter to which the House will want to come, but there is a great deal of essential business with which we must deal next week.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: May I make a request from the Conservative Benches for a debate on

487
Barlow Clowes? I hope that my right hon. Friend will be a little more forthcoming in his response than he was in his answer to the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). My right hon. Friend will be aware that 18,000 people are intimately and deeply involved. Bearing in mind last week's statement, I believe that the House should have an opportunity to debate this issue in view of its importance.
Mr. Wakeham: If there were a significant development that required my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to make a statement, of course he would make one. I recognise that my hon. Friend has been active in this matter. I know that he and a number of other hon. Members would like a debate. We have much essential business to get through. I shall do what I can, but I cannot promise a debate at the moment.
Mr. Speaker: May I say to the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) that I am sorry that I incorrectly called him earlier this afternoon? I was talking to someone by the Chair. But I now correctly I call Mr. Kirkwood.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: My hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) is the good-looking one.
Reverting to child benefit, I do not think that the reply that the Leader of the House gave the official Opposition was entirely satisfactory. He knows that a debate on an order or a prayer is an unsatisfactory vehicle. It is restricted to an hour and a half and the voting is confused. Will the right hon. Gentleman actively consider giving more time to this subject, perhaps on a motion for the Adjournment? In that way we could have a positive vote after a full day's debate.
Secondly, the House will be aware that there is one remaining Opposition day for minority parties in this Session. The right hon. Gentleman knows, too, that there are some questions about its present allocation. To allow these discussions to be concluded, would he agree to abandoning the remaining day in the balance of this Session and, with the leave of the House, allowing an additional day some time in the next?
Mr. Wakeham: I recognise that a debate on an order on child benefit does not meet every requirement of every part of the House, but at the moment I can add nothing to what I have already said.
The hon. Gentleman is correct that one Opposition day is still due to the minor parties in this session. If his suggestion is that the day that is not taken this year could in some unofficial way be carried over to the next, I think that it is helpful, and I shall certainly discuss it with the other parties to discover whether it is acceptable.
Mr. Hugh Dykes: In order to improve the House's scrutiny of EC affairs, will my right hon. Friend re-examine the vexed question of the regrettable failure by him, by the usual channels and by the Services Committee to provide proper access to the parliamentary buildings for the British groups of European Members of Parliament? Is not this long overdue? More and more national parliaments provide this access. Admittedly, we have a problem with the Labour party, but will my right hon. Friend use his good offices to persuade the more
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sensible members of the usual Opposition channels—if there are any—that this would be a good idea which would help the House to oversee European Community affairs much more effectively?
Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend knows more about this than he lets on. He knows perfectly well that it is not reasonable to level charges at me for failing to do anything about it. I can make progress only if there is general agreement in the House that this is the right way to proceed. Some Opposition Members, and some Conservative Members, are not as enlightened about these matters, perhaps, as my hon. Friend and I.
Mr. Bob Cryer: Will the hon. Minister give time, after that severe attack on the Prime Minister and her views, for a debate next week on the University Grants Committee's report, in which it is suggested than science and physics departments which are smaller than the criteria laid down by the UGC will have to close? That will mean the closure of 20 out of 47 establishments, including the university of Bradford. Does the right hon. Member accept that Bradford has had too many reverses in the past week, the lord mayor having left an indelible stain of political corruption behind by voting with the Tories for cuts and sackings, without the university being forced to close its physics and science department on criteria laid down by the UGC? It is important and urgent that the report should be rebuffed so that universities such as Bradford can progress, even if the rest of the city is now under the hammer heel of the Tories.
Mr. Wakeham: I do not think that some of the goings on in Bradford are a great credit to the Labour party, but I shall not get involved in that. I cannot promise the hon. Gentleman a debate on this matter immediately, but occasions are coming up in the not-too-distant future when these matters can be properly raised in the course of debate, and no doubt he will seek one of those.
Mr. Andrew MacKay: Although it is welcome that next Friday we are to have a debate on the pollution of our seas, should we not, in the light of the Prime Minister's excellent speech during the recess, have a more wide-ranging and fundamental debate on the environment as soon as possible?
Mr. Wakeham: The debate next week is about the control of the pollution of rivers and estuaries, and it is important that we should discuss what can be done. I agree with my hon. Friend that a more wide-ranging debate would enable other matters to be raised. I have no doubt that we shall find opportunities to return to these important matters from time to time. I cannot promise a debate immediately.
Miss Joan Lestor: Bearing in mind that today the Public Accounts Committee published its report on the privatisation of the Royal Ordnance factories, a report which is highly critical of the way in which that was carried out, and that the Prime Minister, when trying to answer a question about this today, quoted not from that report but from the report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, which preceded the PAC report and was issued at a time when the potential land development values of the Royal Ordnance factories were not known, does the right hon.

489
Gentleman agree that it is high time that he gave a whole day in which to debate this appalling scandal, which is now receiving a great deal of public attention?
Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Lady will have to contain herself. The Government will respond to the PAC by means of a Treasury Minute, in the normal way and in due course. We shall co-operate fully in any investigations that the Comptroller and Auditor General then wishes to undertake. As the hon. Lady knows, the matter was well ventilated in the defence debate not many days ago.
Mr. Christopher Gill: May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to early-day motion 1513 on rural housing, which is supported by a substantial number of hon. Members who represent rural constituencies?
[That this House welcomes the recent statement on rural housing by the Rural Development Commission; and calls upon the Government to take vigorous and urgent action to facilitate the provision of low cost housing in rural areas.]
Will my right hon. Friend consider making time available for a debate on rural housing?
Mr. Wakeham: As my hon. Friend knows, the Government have announced a package of measures to facilitate the provision of low-cost housing in rural areas. It includes a fourfold increase in the number of housing association homes to be funded by the Housing Corporation in small villages by 1990–91. The Government urge rural communities to take advantage of the opportunities that will he provided by the Housing Bill to work with housing associations and private developers so as to ensure that their housing needs are met.
Mr. David Winnick: Will there be an opportunity in the near future to discuss the Prime Minister's statement that no one in the Cabinet is capable of doing her job? What satisfaction does she get from humiliating her Cabinet colleagues at every opportunity?
Mr. Wakeham: I know that the hon. Gentleman is seeking to be helpful. However, I suggest that if he wants to quote the Prime Minister, he had better start by being reasonably accurate.
Mr. William Cash: Will my right hon. Friend tell us whether we shall have one or more debates on child benefit?
Mr. Wakeham: I can add nothing to what I have already said about that.
Mr. Seamus Mallon: The Leader of the House will be aware that during the past three years there has not been a single debate specifically about agriculture in the north of Ireland. That is a tremendous defect, in that it has unique problems that do not obtain elsewhere in Britain. Agriculture is the biggest employer in the north of Ireland. In conjunction with his colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office, will the right hon. Gentleman arrange to have such a debate early in the next Session?
Mr. Wakeham: I recognise that the way in which we discuss Northern Ireland business in the House is not entirely satisfactory. I know that a number of hon. Members find that subjects that should be debated are not. However, there are debates on the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund, and so on, during which these matters
490
could be raised. I should like to promise the hon. Gentleman an early debate on agriculture. I shall consider the matter, but I am not too hopeful.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: I appreciate the great pressure for time on my right hon. Friend, but will he consider organising a full debate on the recently published report by the Select Committee on Private Bill Procedure as early as possible, as it concerns many people?
Mr. Wakeham: I recognise that a debate on procedure is outstanding. I have had a number of discussions through the usual channels and with interested parties and Back Benchers on both sides of the House about how best to proceed. I believe that the maximum amount of agreement about the way in which we conduct ourselves in the House is desirable. I cannot promise an early debate, but I recognise that there must be one ere long.
Mr. Tony Banks: I am disappointed that the Leader of the House cannot promise us an early debate on the excellent report on the private Bill procedure, because it is a good read. It is a snip at £15·90. Some of us struggled for many months on that report and it would get us out of a lot of difficulty if we could have an early debate. If we cannot have an early debate on the private Bill procedure, may we have a debate about London before the Session ends, as that would allow us to discuss the activities of Westminster borough council and its relationship with the Conservative party, among other London issues?
Mr. Wakeham: London is an appropriate subject for a debate and I hope that we shall be able to have such a debate before too long, but at the moment I cannot promise the hon. Gentleman a debate.
On the private Bill procedure, the House will be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson), for chairing the Committee that considered that matter and to those hon. Members who laboured hard on what is not the most exciting subject in our parliamentary life. As I said, I cannot promise to find time for a debate before the House prorogues, but if the hon. Gentleman is fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, he will be able to raise these matters during the debate on the Loyal Address, which will start on 22 November.
Mr. David Shaw: Will my right hon. Friend consider carefully to the request made by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) for a debate on Barlow Clowes? Many Conservative Members would like to express their support for the line taken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on Sir Godfray le Quesne's report. Many Conservative Members believe that the City has a substantial responsibility for policing the matter and that the Bank of England and the Securities and Investments Board should consider organising a lifeboat. I have been approached by well over 100 Conservative Members of Parliament in the last week who would support a move for such a lifeboat.
Mr. Wakeham: I recognise my hon. Friend's concern in these matters and I shall take note of what he said. However, I cannot add anything to what I have already said to the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman.
Mr. Paul Flynn: Can the Leader of the House give us some guidance on whether the most titanic threat to the environment will be considered in the two debates on the subject next week? Is he aware that already 27 tonnes of PCBs have been transported by air to a spot near my constituency and that, given the danger of transporting dangerous goods by air, a further threat is posed by the insane plan to export 45 tonnes of plutonium from Prestwick airport? Is that not one of the greatest threats of pollution? Should not the regulations under which those two transportations are legal be overhauled swiftly and speedily in line with early-day motion 1596?
[That this House calls for a thorough review of the regulations controlling the transport of dangerous goods by air, especially plutonium, PCBs and other materials that cannot be fully safeguarded against catastrophic accidental damage.]
Mr. Wakeham: As the hon. Gentleman went on he went wider and wider of next week's business. I recognise his interest in that important matter, but whether it is in order for next week's debate is a matter not for me but for you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. David Sumberg: In line with my right hon. Friend's responsibilities for the House in general, may I ask whether he is aware that every secretary in the House of Commons has received a letter from the publishers, Mills and Boon, inviting them to nominate the most romantic politician in the country? Can my right hon. Friend offer the House and those who work here any advice and guidance on their reply?
Mr. Wakeham: I have no doubt that it is a publicity stunt for the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner).
Mr. Dennis Skinner: I suppose that that is why I was moved out of the chair yesterday.
The Leader of the House will have heard several comments about the way in which the private Bill procedure is being used. He may also be aware that, as I said in a point of order last Thursday, a Conservative Member, whom I informed before I raised the matter, had been placed in the predicament of chairing the Committee on the North Killingholme Cargo Terminal Bill, despite his being parliamentary adviser to the British Chemical Engineering Contractors Association, one of the members of which is a sponsor of that Bill.
As I pointed out last week, a Member sponsored by the National Union of Mineworkers would not be expected to serve on that Bill and there seems to be a decreasing number of Members of Parliament who could be called upon to serve on such a Bill, the content of which is so political and in which many people have interests on one side or the other. I respectfully suggest that something should be done about the matter as soon as possible so that representation does not appear to he other than even-handed.
Mr. Wakeham: I agree that the report on the private Bill procedure is important. The issues raised are complex and require careful consideration. I am sure that the House will want to consider it carefully before we have a debate, which I promise in due course. The membership of the private Bill Committee on the North Killingholme Cargo Terminal Bill is a matter not for me but for my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Sir M. Fox), the Chairman of the Committee of Selection. I understand
492
that he has been consulted and is satisfied that there is no difficulty about the appointment to that Committee of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford (Dr. Clark).
Mr. Anthony Coombs: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the great concern of many hon. Members on the subject of human embryo research, as evidenced by early-day motion 1460 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Hargreaves)?
[That this House welcomes the commitment given by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the House and the Secretary of State that legislation on the subject of human embryo research will be brought forward as soon as practical; and hopes that progress in this vital area can be made in the very near future.]
The Government have given a commitment to legislate on that matter, but can my right hon. Friend say when that might be brought forward?
Mr. Wakeham: As my hon. Friend will be aware, I cannot anticipate the business for the next Session, which will be announced in the proper way. As my hon. Friend rightly says, the Government's commitment is to legislate in this Parliament, and I can assure him that we shall stick to our commitment.
Mr. Pat Wall: When we next consider the issues arising from the Widdicombe report, will the Leader of the House ensure that that includes the conduct of lord mayors in local authorities? In the city of Bradford, where the lord mayor has two votes with a casting vote, the local authority is carrying through draconian redundancies and cuts in services. Will the right hon. Gentleman consider that issue, which is inflaming passions in our city and in many other areas?
Mr. Wakeham: I have no doubt that such matters can be raised, but, as I read the situation, the lord mayor of Bradford has conducted himself in a most correct and proper fashion in accordance with the law, despite considerable provocation from the hon. Gentleman's friends, and he is to be congratulated on what he has done.
Mr. Max Madden: As the Leader of the House revealed last week that he has prepared statements in support of early-day motions, would he care to read out his prepared statement on early-day motion 1526?
[That this House notes that the hon. Member for Shipley is the Chairman of the Committee of Selection and that, according to his entry in the Register of Members' Interests of 8th December 1987, he is a director of eight companies: Westminster (Communications) Ltd., the Care Services Group, Rigidized Metals Ltd., Ceema Group and Companies, Tele-Stage Associates Ltd., McCarthy & Stone Ltd., Malibu Estates Ltd., and Grantham O'Donnell Estates Ltd.; further notes the hon. Member for Shipley is also a parliamentary consultant to four companies: 3M (UK) Ltd., Shepherd (Construction) Ltd., Alcrafield Ltd., and Sherwood Homes ( Southern) Ltd.; believes that the holding of such interests by the Chairman of the Committee of Selection, which appoints right hon. and hon. Members to parliamentary committees, represents a potential conflict of interest; and calls upon the hon. Member for Shipley to consider his position immediately.]
In view of his earlier reply and the extensive commercial interests held by the hon. Member for Shipley (Sir M.

493
Fox), does the Leader of the House think that the hon. Member for Shipley is best placed to judge who is the most appropriate Member to serve on a particular Committee?
Mr. Wakeham: I am quite sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Sir M. Fox) is fully equipped to make such judgments and is aware of his responsibilities to the House. If the hon. Gentleman has any complaints, he should take the matter up with the Select Committee on Members' Interests.

Official Report
5.28 pm
Mr. Tim Yeo: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am concerned about the way in which changes are made in the Official Report which are damaging to Back-Bench Members.
On Tuesday the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) responded to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) on the subject of the Labour patty's £38 million spending measures by saying:
"there are no such commitments."
In using those words the hon. Gentleman was effectively repudiating every pledge that we have had from the Labour party during the 16 months since the general election. Therefore, not surprisingly, the hon. Gentleman then went to the Official Report and requested that the words be changed. He was then reported as saying:
"there is no such commitment."—[Official Report, 25 October 1988; Vol. 139, c. 174.]
Those words convey a completely different meaning from the words used in the debate.
I do not attach any blame to the Editor of the Official Report or its Reporters, who may not entirely have appreciated the significance of the change. Nevertheless, it is of the greatest importance that hon. Members who were not present at 3·45 on Tuesday afternoon should immediately be made aware of the fact that the Labour party is now reneging on every pledge that it has made on—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman raised a point of order with me about a change in the Official Report. I have to tell him that he is correct and that the original words were:
"there are no such commitments"
and that these were changed to:
"there is no such commitment.".
On reflection, the Official Report accepts that this change should not have been made and has expressed its regret.
Mr. Yeo: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I very much welcome the Fact that that regret has been expressed, but I am sure you will agree with me that many Members rely exclusively on the daily issue of Hansard to learn what has been said in a debate. How, therefore, can you help us to ensure that all those Members who are not present are immediately informed of this very important change in the wording?
Mr. Speaker: They should read today's Hansard and they will be so informed.
Mr. Peter Thurnham: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will you give some guidance as to which is the true record? If there is a difference between the electronic Hansard and the written Hansard, which should be regarded as the true record? There is a time limit of 24 hours in which to point out such matters. If that is not done, the written record presumably remains as it is.
Mr. Speaker: The published Hansard is the official report.

Members' Correspondence
5.30 pm
Mr. Graham Riddick: On a different point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would it be appropriate for you to consider what action you should take in respect of the stealing and leaking of a letter from one Member to another, which was mentioned earlier?
Mr. Speaker: I do not think there is any action that I can take. We have heard all about that today.

Child Benefit
5.31 pm
Mr. Robin Cook: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the impact of the announcement that there is to be no uprating of child benefit."
I shall submit full reasons why I seek this debate, all of which are relevant to the considerations set out in the Standing Order which specifies that the matter must be urgent, specific and important.
First, the matter is urgent. Work on the new books will start immediately and, if the House wishes to vary the decision to freeze child benefit, it must express its will now if the change is to take effect in time.
Secondly, the matter is specific and there is no other opportunity for the House to condescend on the specific matter of child benefit. Today's statement will eventually be presented to the House in a portmanteau order not open to amendment, and on which the House will be able to express its will to increase child benefit only by the perverse device of voting against the increase in a dozen other social security benefits. At present, we are not aware whether the Opposition will have a further Supply day this Session on which they might raise the matter.
Thirdly, the matter is important. It affects the weekly budgets of 7 million mothers who may find it strange that the Government can cut the value of their benefit without specific debate on it in Parliament. During the lifetime of this Government the number of children living below the poverty line has increased to one in five. For them, the value of child support is a matter of the greatest importance.
Finally, the importance of this matter goes beyond the immediate impact on the value of child benefit. Today's freeze and the exchanges in the House are clear signals that the Government are not committed to child benefit, whatever they said before the last election. They are now seeking the abolition of child benefit by stealth. It is essential that they are not permitted to do it in stealth, but are obliged to come openly to the House and establish whether they have a majority in Parliament for cutting child benefit.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the impact of the announcement that there is to be no uprating of child benefit."
I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman's submission and to what was said during the answers following the statement. As he knows, my sole duty in considering an application under Standing Order No. 20 is to decide whether it should be given priority over the business set down for this evening or on Monday. I regret that I cannot find that the matter meets all the criteria laid down in the Standing Order and I cannot therefore submit his application to the House.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
Ordered,
That the Farm Diversification Grant (Variation) Scheme 1988 (S.I., 1988, No. 1398) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Lightbown.]

Orders of the Day

  European Communities (Finance) Bill
  Mr. Speaker: I have to announce that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.
  5.35 pm
  The Paymaster General (Mr. Peter Brooke): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
  The background and purpose of the Bill have already been described and discussed at some length, both on Second Reading and earlier this week in Committee. I shall not go over all the same points in detail again today. Instead, I should like to set the scene briefly and then respond to some of the main concerns expressed by the House in our recent debate.
  The general point that I should like to make about the Bill at the outset is that the measures for which it seeks parliamentary approval—the own resources decision and payments under the intergovernmental agreement—are part of a larger package. The package was agreed in principle in February and in detail in June, after long and hard negotiations.
  The Commission's original proposals were something of a curate's egg. Some parts were welcome and other parts less so. On the one hand, they included practical measures to reform the common agricultural policy and improve spending controls, both measures for which we had ourselves been pressing. On the other hand, they involved an increase approaching 50 per cent. in the potential size of the Community budget, a substantial cut in our abatement negotiated at Fontainebleau in 1984 and a tax on consumption of oils and fats. Other elements in the plans included a restructuring of the own resources system and a large increase in the structural funds.
  Mr. Tony Marlow: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, as we were always told in the past, our rebate mechanism was totally safe and therefore, despite what happened earlier this year, it was not at risk and was not an issue? Why therefore, has my right hon. Friend brought it to the debate?
  Mr. Brooke: I referred to the matter only because it is part of the history. The Commission put forward a proposal that would have involved a reduction, and that was the background against which we entered into the negotiations. My hon. Friend is correct in saying that it would have required a unanimous vote of the Council of Ministers to change it.
  Our response was that any further increase in Community resources must be accompanied by effective and legally binding controls on spending, that agriculture surpluses must be reduced, that the Fontainebleau abatement must not be diluted and that there should be no tax on oils and fats. We made it clear that we would not agree to individual elements without a satisfactory agreement on the entire package.
  These objectives were by no means shared by all other member states. Some of them were distinctly lukewarm about reform of the CAP and bringing spending under stricter legal controls. Some argued that the Fontainebleau

  499
  abatement should be ended or phased out. However, our objectives were achieved. I believe, therefore, that it is in the interest of the United Kingdom to preserve the package that was agreed in February by giving parliamentary approval to the own resources decision and the IGA payments, which form an integral part of the package.
  I recognise that concerns have been expressed about aspects of the Bill in our recent debates. I attempted to reply to detailed questions in the course of the debates, but perhaps it would be helpful if I were to draw together some of the main themes and respond to them rather more generally now.
  First, I shall refer to the place of the agreement on the future financing of the Community budget in the context of our overall approach to the European Community. On Monday, some of my hon. Friends and some Opposition Members suggested that the Bill is no longer necessary because the future financing agreement is inconsistent with the vision of Europe that was set out in the Bruges speech of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. In fact, the opposite is the case.
  It may be that some hon. Members have not read what my right hon. Friend said, or have not read it in extenso. I shall quote some of my right hon. Friend's remarks. She said:
  "If we cannot reform those Community policies which are patently wrong or ineffective … then we shall not get the public support for the Community's future development and that is why the achievements of the European Council in Brussels last February are so important. It was not right that half the total Community budget was being spent on the storing and disposal of surplus food. Now, those stocks are being sharply reduced. It was absolutely right to decide that agriculture's share of the budget should be cut in order to free resources for other policies such as helping the less well-off regions and helping training for jobs. It was right, too, to introduce tighter budgetary discipline … to bring the Community's spending under better control."
  Thus, far from there being any inconsistency between what my right hon. Friend said in Bruges and the changes agreed at Brussels, at Bruges my right hon. Friend went out of her way to commend the main elements of the Brussels package. I urge strongly those who support the views set out in my right hon. Friend's speech to follow through the logic of their position and to vote in favour of the Bill this evening.
  Mr. George Robertson: I listened carefully to the Minister and followed the quotation from the Prime Minister's speech, which was presumably as delivered. It is slightly different from the text that was issued by the British embassy in Belgium on one specific and important point that is relevant to the debate. I refer to the sentence which begins:
  "It was right, too, to introduce tighter budgetary discipline".
  In the original text, the passage continued:
  "to enforce these decisions and to bring total EC spending under better control."
  That is not what the Minister read out. Why was a change made?
  Mr. Brooke: That is a textual matter, and I shall make some inquiries during the debate. As neither the hon.
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  Gentleman nor I were present at Bruges on the day in question, neither of us can be certain at this moment which were the words actually uttered.
  Mr. Teddy Taylor: Before we make up our minds on the important issue that my right hon. Friend has put before us, will he amplify what he said in Committee about a possible breach of the strict financial guidelines? My right hon. Friend will be aware that the last strict budgetary controls broke down because the EEC asked for advance moneys and created the 10-month year of 1987. On Monday my right hon. Friend appeared to say that the same thing could happen all over again because the EEC could again ask for advance moneys and thereby overspend like mad. Will he explain whether there has been a change and whether there will be a stop, by means of these proposals, to the Common Market asking for advance moneys and thereby overspending by breaching its strict budgetary control?
  Mr. Brooke: As my hon. Friend said, he raised the matter during the debate on Monday. I shall deal with his question at various levels. First, I said that there was nothing in the new arrangements which precluded the Commission from coming forward with a proposal, such as it made during 1987, for reimbursements. How the Council reacts to it is a matter for the Council when the occasion arises. I said that there were strong reasons on the previous occasion why, in the Government's view, it was in the interest of controlling expenditure to carry out the change that was made.
  Mr. Marlow: We, as keen students and supporters of the Government, have been told over the years that regional policy is something that should be run down slightly, if not dismantled. This has happened in the United Kingdom and it has had the right results. We have appreciated and supported it. Are we now to believe that the Government feel that regional policy is a panacea for the Community? If that is the case, how much further do we intend to extend it?
  Mr. Brooke: Although I yield to no one in my admiration for the loyalty with which my hon. Friend supports the Government, to describe him as a keen and enthusiastic supporter of the Government's proposals in this area would be slight exaggeration.
  During the negotiations on structural funds, a powerful case was made about the work that needed to be done in southern Europe and the expenditure that would have to take place. The Government accepted the proposals as part of the overall negotiations.
  Some related matters were discussed on Second Reading and in Committee. First, will the new budget discipline arrangements, especially for spending on agriculture, work?
  Mr. Teddy Taylor: No.
  Mr. Brooke: If so, how will they differ from the arrangements which were agreed in 1984? I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor), who uttered an observation in response to my rhetorical question, that the question is a fair one, and I believe that we have a good answer.
  The February European package includes five major improvements. First, the guideline limit for spending on agriculture is legally binding. On Monday, my right hon.

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  Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) asked where that legal enforceability is reflected. The answer is that it is in a Council decision on budgetary discipline, which has been deposited in Parliament. The decision is not included in the Bill, because, unlike the own resources decision, under the terms of the treaty it does not require the approval of national Parliaments to come into force. Nevertheless, the budget discipline decision is legally binding in Community law. The guideline will grow at no more than 74 per cent. of the rate of growth of Community gross national product, which is likely to mean a real growth of about 2 per cent. a year compared with real growth of 10 per cent. a year between 1984 and 1987.
  Secondly, the general provision to exceed the guideline in "exceptional circumstances" has been abolished. In its place there is a monetary reserve of up to 1 billion ecu to cover unforeseen expenditure resulting from substantial movements in the dollar. That money will be called up only if needed. The reserve will work both ways, so that provision for agriculture will be reduced if the dollar appreciates. The reserve is not expected to be activated in 1988, and on current estimates we would expect reduced spending in 1989.
  Thirdly, a new early warning system monitors spending on a monthly basis for each main commodity regime. When there is a risk of overspending, the Commission, and, when appropriate, the Council, will take the necessary action.
  Fourthly, automatic stabilisers have been introduced for all the main CAP products. These mostly take the form of automatic price cuts if production exceeds maximum quantities set by the Council.
  Finally, new stocks from now on are being depreciated systematically in the year in which they are purchased, and special funds have been set aside to pay for the disposal of existing stocks. These provisions should produce a normal stock situation by 1992.
  Nor are the new arrangements limited to agriculture. We also have a series of legally binding sub-ceilings which will constrain all expenditure, and an inter-institutional agreement under which all three institutions bind themselves to respect ceilings on each major area of Community spending.
  I suggest that these arrangements are a significant improvement on the arrangements for budgetary discipline that were agreed after Fontainebleau. It was only because the new arrangements were secured that we were prepared to agree to the new own resources decision for which the Bill seeks approval.
  Mr. Teddy Taylor: The stabiliser mechanism is an important new factor. Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that there is no legal or other mechanism that will result in the stabiliser being undermined? A change in price or a widespread change in the green pound would effectively undermine the effect of the stabiliser. Can he give us any assurance that the impact of the stabiliser will not be undermined by other decisions of the Council? Are there any legal requirements?
  Mr. Brooke: I have no grounds for supposing that there are. If I need to gloss my statement in answer to my hon. Friend, I shall do so at the end of the debate, if I am given leave to speak a second time.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of discipline. Will he now
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  address the question that I put to him on Monday? No one would disagree that the arithmetic mechanism that he has outlined will have legal substance and can be applied. Does he agree that neither the Commission nor even the magnificent and mighty European Court can control the weather or the rate of the dollar? If those two combine in such a way that they make those arithmetical matters nonsense, the rain, the wind, the climate and the dollar rate will overcome the discipline. In such circumstances, how can there be financial discipline?
  Mr. Brooke: I say to the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), as I stated earlier, that what has been eliminated from the Community arrangements is the appeal to exceptional circumstances. When that phrase was composed at Fontainebleau, no doubt it was thought to represent exceptionality, but it was one to which frequent recourse was made—notably in terms of the exchange rate.
  Mr. Spearing: Does the Minister accept that one cannot stop changes in the dollar or in the climate?
  Mr. Brooke: I shall expand on my remarks to the hon. Member for Newham, South concerning the arrangements in relation to the reserve. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well how it operates. It is triggered after there has been a 5 per cent. movement in the dollar-ecu exchange rate and 400 million ecu of appropriate expenditure. There is then a reserve of 1 billion ecu. If that reserve is exhausted, it is the responsibility of the Commission to return to the Council with proposals as to how that overspending is to be curbed, and it is the Council's responsibility to act on those recommendations within two months.
  Mr. Stuart Holland: I am sure that the Treasury is well aware that many independent commentators anticipate that, whoever becomes the next President of the United States, interest rates there are likely to rise, which will strengthen the dollar. What calculations has the Treasury made, apart from anything that it may have urged upon the Commission, to take into account the strengthening of the dollar against the kind of sums that we have before us for consideration?
  Mr. Brooke: As the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) knows, the arrangements in relation to the monetary reserve are symmetrical. If the dollar strengthens, money is taken out of the agriculture budget and transferred to the reserve. Again, that is done with exactly the same kind of trigger mechanism, with a 5 per cent. adjustment and 400 million ecu. There is then the transfer of up to 1 billion ecu into the reserve, which remains there during the course of that year.
  In that respect, one of the differences that obtains, which in this sense is asymmetrical, is that if the monetary reserve is required because of a depreciation of the dollar, the resources are called up from the member states. If the dollar appreciates, the money is taken out of the agriculture budget and moved into the reserve, and at the end of the year it is not returned to the member states but is transferred into the following year as revenue under the own resources decision.
  I turn to the intergovernmental agreement. The February agreement covered the Community's revenue expenditure policies and budgetary controls for the years 1988 to 1992. The 1988 budget needed to be settled

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  consistent with that agreement, but it was known that the various national procedures for approving the new own resources decision could take some time to complete. Therefore, the IGA was needed to balance this year's budget, pending entry into force of the new own resources decision. Nevertheless, we made it clear that we could not make any payments under the IGA until parliamentary approval had been obtained.
  In our recent debates, the need for the IGA has been questioned on two counts in particular. First, it was suggested that the IGA is financing past overspends. Presumably that is what the Opposition have in mind in the reference in their motion for today's debate to an
  "ex gratia payment to cover past Community financial excesses".
  I make it clear that the 1988 IGA is needed to finance the 1988 budget—not any other. It is true that there were budgetary problems in 1987, to which I alluded when responding to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East. The measures taken to resolve them included switching from advances to reimbursement of agricultural guarantee payments and the deferment to 1988 of certain refunds to member states. However, those refunds totalled less than 700 million ecu for the Community as a whole, compared with an IGA for 1988 of 6 billion ecu, excluding the monetary reserve.
  The main element of the 1987 solution—the switch in agricultural guarantee payments—was something that we wanted in any case, because it allows better budgetary control by basing payments on actual rather than estimated needs. I referred to that point in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East. That switch did not have any significant effect on the 1988 budget. It did not mean that in 1988 there would be more than 12 months' agricultural guarantee payments. There was simply a one-off saving to the Community budget in 1987.
  Secondly, my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) and other hon. Members picked up the good news that there will be a budget surplus in 1988. To go on to say that the IGA is no longer needed is to be a little hasty in one's arithmetic.
  Mr. George Foulkes: Can the Minister tell the House why?
  Mr. Brooke: I shall expand on that remark. The 1988 surplus anticipated by the Commission is in the region of 2 billion ecu. It arises from higher than expected customs duties and levies and lower spending, particularly on agriculture. The IGA—even excluding the monetary reserve, which is unlikely to be used this year—is three times that amount. So it is not correct to say that the two can simply cancel each other out. I may add that the 1988 surplus will not be used to fuel overspending. A budget surplus must be treated as revenue in the following year's budget, and the Commission has introduced an amending budget for next year to cut member states' contributions accordingly. In those circumstances, I hope that right hon. and hon. Members anticipate no problems in agreeing that payments should be made under this year's IGA.
  Mr. Marlow: Ever eager to come to the common ground, would not the sensible thing be to amend the Bill, such that the IGA is only as much as is required, rather than to leave it open as it is at the moment?
  Mr. Brooke: My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North will recall an exchange between myself and my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing in Monday's debate, in which reference was made to a very precise figure. However, there were also qualifying words in that regard. The Commission will only apply for the resources that it actually requires for the monetary reserve.
  Mr. Hugh Dykes: Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is both a fascinating and an ironical development? The diminishing number of anti-Marketeers on both sides of the House last year were gloating with tremendous joy at the idea of the Community being financially bankrupt. Of course it was not, and those right hon. and hon. Members were using a technically erroneous description of the phrase. Now that, as a result of the Commission's successful management, we have a surplus that will allow a more modest budget requirement next year, is my right hon. Friend planning to send the Commission a message of congratulation from the whole House on its excellent financial husbandry?
  Mr. Brooke: My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) is correct in saying that a number of right hon. and hon. Members rushed in to comment on the very favourable way in which the resources are going. However, it is my perennial experience in these affairs that no news is ever as good or as bad as it first appears.
  Before concluding, I shall comment on another allegation in the Opposition motion—namely, that the Bill contains
  "automatic provisions for future financing which bypass parliamentary approval".
  I am a little puzzled by that, but no doubt all will be revealed later when the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) moves his amendment. I place on record the fact that the Bill does not bypass parliamentary approval. On the contrary, the treaty requires that the basic decision on own resources should not only be agreed unanimously by member states but be adopted by them in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. Hence the inclusion of the own resources decision in the Bill. The provisions of that decision cannot be changed or disregarded without a further process of unanimous agreement and parliamentary approval.
  It is true that implementing regulations, such as that numbered 2891/77, on which we touched briefly in Monday's debate, can be agreed by the Council without needing further domestic legislation, and so can the annual Community budget. However, such regulations and budgets must be consistent with the terms of the own resources decision that has been approved by Parliament. The position under the new own resources decision will be no different in that respect from the position under the decision agreed in 1985.
  Mr. Spearing: I thought it best to intervene at this point to explain what I think is the wording in the amendment, which I support, but to which the Minister takes exception.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. It might be a good idea if we wait until the amendment is moved, and then we can have explanations.
  Mr. Spearing: In that case, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall make my point as though the amendment were not there. Does the Minister agree that, once this goes through, both a normal annual approval of taxation and a formal approval of expenditure by Parliament are unnecessary? We give this until 1992 if we vote in favour of Third Reading tonight, and surely that is the point. The Minister makes his plea, having turned down, last Monday, an amendment that asked at least for a report. That does not sound to me even like accountability, let alone a decision-making power.
  Mr. Brooke: Although I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, it is not particularly new in the context of our 16-year membership of the Community. The famous regulation 2891/77, to which we devoted a fair amount of time on Monday, appeared in our affairs during the lifetime of the last Labour Government, and the Scrutiny Committee of that era appears not even to have recommended it for debate in the Chamber.
  Mr. Bob Cryer: It was chaired by a Tory.
  Mr. Brooke: The Committee will have had a bipartisan membership, and I have every confidence that there was at least one Labour Member on it taking a vigilant interest in these affairs.
  Moreover, the arrangements for parliamentary scrutiny ensure that the Committee that the hon. Member for Newham, South so ably chairs has opportunities to consider proposals for European legislation and can recommend them for debate if it sees fit. I assure the House that in giving approval to the Bill, it will not be giving up any of the control that it currently has over the European budgetary arrangements.
  I have tried to focus on some of the main concerns aired during the passage of the Bill rather than go once more into each point in the Bill and the own resources decision and the IGA for which the Bill seeks approval. If hon. Members wish to raise other matters, provided that I catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and with the leave of the House, I shall be happy to try to answer such points later.
  I commend to the House a Bill that seeks approval on three points. The first is an own resources decision that preserves intact our Fontainebleau arrangement that has been worth more than £4·5 billion over the past years and that brings the structure of own resources more into line with member states' ability to pay as measured by shares in Community GNP. The second is an IGA that ends the uncertainty over the 1988 budget and enables the reforms agreed in February to be put into effect this year. The third, by implication, is a package of measures including legally binding budget discipline and the reform of the CAP, which should ensure that the Community budget is based on a sound financial footing until 1992 at least. It is always easy to say that one or two elements in a package as wide ranging as this could have been improved, but the impotant thing is whether the package as a whole is welcome. I trust that hon. Members will recognise that it is and will accordingly give the Bill a Third Reading.
  6.3 pm
  Mr. George Robertson: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "this House declines to give a Third Reading to a Bill which provides for a wholly unjustified ex gratia payment to cover past Community financial excesses, which makes automatic provisions for future financing which bypass parliamentary approval, and whose provisions for the Regional Development and Social Funds risk leading to wider disparities in income and wealth in Britain as well as throughout the Community."
  It is a pity that the Minister who launched this ship is not here as it sails through rocky waters. The Foreign Secretary graced us with his appearance on 11 July, paying only a brief visit to the House of Commons en route to the Terry Wogan show. One might have thought that, out of a sense of decency or fraternity, he would grace us again with his presence tonight. I had thought that his plenipotentiary and deputy, who listened to the earlier part of the debate, might have stayed, as I have a special word of warm welcome for her later in my speech. As it is, we shall have to remain comforted by the presence of the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar), the Under-Secretary of State who is here representing the greatness of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
  On 11 July the Foreign Secretary came to the House, then departed, and later told the viewers of the Terry Wogan show that Members of Parliament would be wondering where he had got to. Most of us wonder that when he is actually at the Dispatch Box, never mind when he is on television. The rocketing that the right hon. and learned Gentleman got from my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), when the House learned where he was, was as nothing to the revenge from No. 10 when it eventually came in Bruges. There, the empress struck back, and now we are told in newspapers that the Foreign Secretary has been sent to all parts of Europe to try to sort out the mess that the Prime Minister caused first by her speech in Bruges and then by the comments that followed it.
  The Guardian headline said:
  "Howe launches diplomatic drive to heal rift on EEC union".
  The article continued:
  "The British government is to make an all-out diplomatic effort to heal the breach that has opened up with its European Community partners before the EEC heads of government summit in Rhodes in December."
  The Times, not given to sensational headlines, said:
  "Howe moves to head off EC split. Sir Geoffrey Howe is spearheading a diplomatic effort inside the European Community to head off the potentially disastrous row between Margaret Thatcher and her counterparts at the EC".
  That should be the ultimate lesson for the Foreign Secretary that he should stay for debates and avoid the enticing limelight offered by Mr. Terry Wogan.
  Sir Richard Body: In view of what the hon. Gentleman has said about Bruges, will he tell us the Labour party's view on this subject? To what extent do he and his colleagues on the Front Bench agree, or disagree, with that speech?
  Mr. Robertson: I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman, being fairly long in the tooth here, would expect me to go back to the Bruges speech. No Opposition politician could avoid such fertile ground. He can be sure that the points on which he seeks clarification will be

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  coming up. Just watch this space. Should he catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) will also comment on that significant speech.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that both sides of the House will not lose sight of the normal conventions that govern the scope of Third Reading debates.
  Mr. Robertson: I shall bear that caveat in mind, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This Third Reading marks a watershed in what has been a truly remarkable year for the Government's EEC policy. In February of this year the Prime Minister went, as the Paymaster General told us, to Brussels for the summit meeting. In advance of it she was saying that doubling the original social fund of the European Community would be
  "lacking in any rational justification."
  She said before the summit that cereal production targets of higher than 150 million tonnes would be
  "an attack on the taxpayer and the housewife."
  She said that if farm spending were to rise at more than 60 per cent. it would be "extravagant and indefensible". However, she came back from Brussels in February with structural funds agreed at a level rising to 100 per cent. of the previous level, with cereal limits, not at 150 million tonnes, but at 160 million tonnes, and with the growth in farm spending fixed at more than 74 per cent. Although that calculation has been given temporary relief by the one-off circumstance of this year, to quote Mr. Christoffersen, we know that it will rise more rapidly.
  Mr. Brooke: So that the hon. Gentleman does not have to go through the exercise of having to speak to the Official Report afterwards to revise what he said, I should draw his attention to what he did say. He said that the proposal was to increase agricultural spending by 74 per cent. I think that he wants to qualify that phrase.
  Mr. Robertson: The 74 per cent. is 74 per cent. of GNP. I have used that in this complicated debate to show that the Prime Minister was outdone on that as well. She was conned, and she had to accept something much higher than she originally intended as a limit.
  The Bill is the account rendered for that summit—£738 million in an intergovernmental agreement. I hope the House will appreciate that I try not to use those dreadful acronyms that confuse the outside world and behind which Ministers hide. The most dazzling one of those is the invention of "mecu", which disguises the fact that expenditure goes up. I remind the Paymaster General that we are talking about millions of ecu. I commend and congratulate his Department on its new practice of putting the sterling equivalent of mecu into parliametary answers. That is something that should come through in parliamentary debates too, because I do not believe that the British public are aware of the significance of European Community expenditure when that foreign form of currency measurement is used. This intergovernmental agreement means that £738 million is being used to pay off yesterday's debts, and that £300 million a year on top of our already annual contribution of £1·38 million is to be used to pay off what the right hon. Lady conceded in the middle of that humiliating Saturday night in February.
  In July, the Foreign Secretary, in paying his flying visit to the House before his television appearance, came to sell
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  us the Brussels package and to tell us that the bad news was really good news, that the cash increase was a saving, that financial promises were legal commitments and that it was all an integral part of the grand design for the new Cockfield-type big business market.
  Mr. Brooke: The habit of intervening in these debates becomes infectious, but that is the spirit in which the debate is conducted. As the hon. Gentleman, when referring to yesterday's debts, is referring back to the wording of his amendment, perhaps he will itemise the figure of £738 million and tell us how yesterday's debts are constituted.
  Mr. Robertson: Yesterday's debts are constituted inasmuch as yesterday's budget happens to be the 1988 Budget. Today's budget is the 1989 budget in the bizarre world of EEC finance. Yesterday's hole that we are having to fill with an extra £738 million of taxpayers' money is therefore yesterday's debt to fill the hole in the 1988 budget. We have just had an afternoon of high drama in the House, where a Minister's reputation has perhaps disappeared for ever—if it existed at all—over £200 million. We were talking about the amount of money required to uprate child benefit to the inflation rate, which was £200 million. Yet this intergovernmental agreement—[Interruption.]
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: That is completely irrelevant.
  Mr. Robertson: The hon. Lady has just appeared in the Chamber.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I have been here.
  Mr. Robertson: I apologise to the hon. Lady on that one account. She probably has been here, but clearly was not listening to my argument.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I was listening. I was taking notes.
  Mr. Robertson: If the hon. Lady had been listening, she would not have made the mistake that she has made. I am contrasting the quite proper indignation on both sides of the House today about a sum of £200 million for child benefit with the absence of any feeling at all about a payment of £738 million to the European Community for previous debts. That is the true scandal.
  In September the Prime Minister blew the Foreign Secretary—and, indeed, herself—well out of the water. The right hon. Lady, who had signed the Single European Act, suddenly had a blinding flash of inspiration about what she had actually done. She had railroaded through the House the Single European Act by means of guillotine, which was, of course, introduced by the right hon. Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen), who is well-known as a passionate European. I note from Monday's Hansard that the right hon. Member for Shropshire, North voted with his right hon. Friend, which I think he should count as a bit of a record.
  In September the Prime Minister woke up, and did not like what she had woken up to. Now, in October, the Foreign Secretary is being sent out again, like some tired old jazz singer, to repair the damage that was done at Bruges. However, even as he sets out on that ambulance trip—one must assume that that is where he is this afternoon—the Prime Minister is still causing damage for

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  him to clear up by denouncing the likes of Chancellor Kohl and Prime Minister De Mita in Wednesday's Times as "socialists and standardisers". The right hon. Lady's vitriolic comments about all foreigners is breathtaking. This is the very right hon. Lady who, just three weeks ago, embraced the Single European Act which says in its preamble:
  "Moved by the will to continue the work undertaken on the basis of the Treaties establishing the European Communities, and to transform relations as a whole among their States into a European Union."
  That is the right hon. Lady who, in Bruges violently attacked
  "people trying to suppress nationhood and concentrate power at the centre of a European conglomerate."
  Mr. William Cash: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Robertson: Let me just finish this contrast, on which I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree with me.
  The very same right hon. Lady signed the Single European Act, which amends article 100A of the treaty of Rome, thus:
  "The Commission, in its proposals envisaged in paragraph 1 concerning health, safety, environmental protection and consumer protection,"—
  note the words that follow—
  "will take as a base a high level of protection."
  This is the same right hon. Lady who last week hit out at
  "a lot of countries in Europe who think in a socialist way."
  Mr. Cash rose—
  Mr. Robertson: Who is the right hon. Lady thinking of? Is it Italy, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal or Ireland? Which of those are the covert Marxists under the bed of the European Community who were singled out for that vitriolic attack?
  Mr. Cash: The hon. Gentleman referred to what the Prime Minister said with regard to European union, but, as he well knows, the expression "European union" means many things to many people. What is clear beyond all doubt is that the Prime Minister is rejecting a united states of Europe of a federal kind. Does he accept that there is a great distinction between that and a lot of the verbiage and woolliness that is associated with the expression "European union"?
  Mr. Robertson: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that "European union" means as much as anybody cares to make it mean. The preamble to the Single European Act refers to a precise form of wording adopted in Stuttgart. I advise the hon. Gentleman to look at that.
  We know some of the things that the Prime Minister is against—Socialist standardisers, and the harmonisation of workers' rights—but no improvement is made to the way in which people are looked after by way of improved child benefit and social welfare in general. What we would like to know—as would other Conservative leaders in Europe—is what the Prime Minister is in favour of. The Prime Minister's incoherence is matched only by her inconsistency. She has created a ruin of European policy and has left her hapless Foreign Secretary to travel the capitals of Europe trying to rescue this country's reputation.
  If the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) looks at the shambles among the Members of the European Parliament representing the Conservative party, he will see that great divide taking place there, too. I believe that one
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  group of them are called the blue circle group. Before I heard that expression relating to Members of the European Parliament, I thought that the blue circle was something to do with cement—but perhaps the density of both have something in common.
  The Bill is about real cash. It is about lots and lots of cash. It is about so much cash that it makes the child benefit uprating look like small change indeed. The Secretary of State for Social Security died a political death this afternoon over £200 million, but the Paymaster General was made chairman of the Tory party for losing £1 billion to the Brussels bureaucracy. Where is the justice in that?
  The Bill legitimises a contribution of £765 million for past overspending by the Community. The bulk of it was spent on producing and destroying food that nobody ate or wanted. The Bill provides for an automatic cash transfusion to Brussels, thus ending the embarrassing democratic necessity of coming to the elected Parliament of the United Kingdom to gain authority to pay ever larger subventions to the EC. The Paymaster General is disingenuous, to say the least, when he suggests that there is no change. The scale of the increased contribution and the increase in own resources will preclude further debates such as this. That may come as a relief to him. It may come as a relief to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but our democratic process has hitherto provided us with many opportunities to discuss the implications of added expenditure on the EC.
  The Prime Minister gave us an idea of her view about a united Europe when, at Bruges, she said:
  "Certainly we want to see Europe more united and with a greater sense of common purpose. But it must be in a way which preserves the different traditions, Parliamentary powers and sense of national pride in one's own country; for these have been the source of Europe's vitality through the centuries."
  That is what we have said in every debate on the Single European Act. It is what we have said in every debate on European Community finance. I am glad that the Prime Minister has been converted. One assumes, therefore, that she will tonight vote for our reasoned amendment.
  Mr. Dykes: If the hon. Gentleman compares this extra money with that required for the child benefit uprating again, it will be the fifth time that he has done it, so presumably it would be unnecessary repetition. We thank him, however, for drawing our attention to that point. Will he now get on to the more important argument and tell us why the Labour party is now enthusiastic about membership of the EC, whereas it was not before? Why the change?
  Mr. Robertson rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Such a response would be a bit wide of the matter before the House.
  Mr. Robertson: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has underlined the importance of the contrast between the Government's parsimonious attitude towards the welfare of small children and their profligacy with regard to the European Community. The hon. Gentleman and I share some views about the future direction of Europe. Perhaps we can discuss them at another time and at another venue. As he says, the Labour party's policy is evolving, just as

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  the Community's policy is evolving. The Prime Minister's policy, however, is revolving and nobody knows from one minute to the next where she will point.
  The same lady has lauded parliamentary power, but we are to be denied the fundamental and elemental power to decide what we should pay to the EC. The Bill rubber-stamps a huge and unprecedented increase of more than 25 per cent. in our contribution to the EC. Some £300 million a year is to go—in addition to the present £1·3 billion contribution.
  One of the House's most assiduous attenders of these debates is absent today. I noticed that he paid a fleeting visit to the Bar of the House and then shot off as quickly as he could. We all miss the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth), who accepted the Queen's shilling. His criticism of the Government in these matters will now be completely muted and I am sure that, at 10 pm, he will vote loyally with the Government so that they can make the payments to which he has previously spent so much time objecting.
  Despite all the savings in the Community during the summer and the freak "one-off" conditions that led to a 2 billion ecu ceiling in the 1989 budget, cereal surpluses are still set to rise again next year and the cost of the farmers will continue to cripple us all. Like the 1985 Fontainebleau miracle cure, this package is wrapped up in so-called legally binding financial disciplines. We are told to trust these promises, just as pensioners were told by the same Government to trust their savings to the promises of Barlow Clowes. As the Brussels promises go sour like those of Barlow Clowes, the Government will exonerate themselves, just as they have in the City of London.
  The Bill represents another tragedy. It is the manifestation of the iron lady who melted—the empress with no clothes left on her, or the warrior winning battles but forever losing wars. Her petulance certainly gets attention, but in the bargaining about Europe's future it loses us the case. As she abuses Right-wing leaders of Germany and Italy as if they were London borough Labour leaders, their technical standards are chosen for the European norm and their qualifications get common endorsement throughout the Community. She gets the headlines—they get the goods. As she resiles on everything that she has signed, they are making the rules for the future and we have to follow. It is a dangerous and unproductive tactic for our country, and the right hon. Lady is being exposed every day.
  Nowhere is the Government's failure more marked than in the help provided for Britain's hard-pressed regions. In her Bruges speech, the Prime Minister said:
  "It was absolutely right to decide that agriculture's share of the budget should be cut in order to free resources for other policies, such as helping the less well off regions and training for jobs."
  The Paymaster General had the nerve and brass neck to quote that sentence to us from the great Bruges speech.
  Mr. Alex Carlile: The hon. Gentleman has delivered us a very amusing, destructive speech, which we have all enjoyed. His party seems to be against the intergovernmental agreement and against the own resources decision. What would a Labour Government have attempted to negotiate as an alternative? What is the Labour party's policy on European funding?
  Mr. Robertson rose—
  Mr Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the House will have regard to the fact that we are debating the Third Reading of the European Communities (Finance) Bill.
  Mr. Robertson: If the hon. and learned Gentleman will wait, he will hear, in the context of this Third Reading debate, our vision of what Europe should be doing. It is in stark contrast to the remarkable vision that we are being offered in Bruges and in the columns of The Times. It is nice to welcome the hon. and learned Gentleman, who is a rarely seen face, to these debates. We always like to add to the small club of Members who have been to many such debates. I believe that the general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has joined the pocket commando who leads the hon. and learned Gentleman's party today. It will be interesting to see what his party's European policy, never mind its defence policy, will be.
  We all say, "Too true," in response to what the Prime Minister has said about regional aid. We all agree that helping the less well-off regions is a commendable objective. That is especially true for those of us who come from Scotland, where we have 20 per cent. unemployment, where manufacturing industry has been devastated and where poverty and deprivation are at historically high levels. The Prime Minister promised aid for hard-pressed regions, but there are several in her own country. I refer not only to Scotland, but to Wales, the north of England, Merseyside, the west midlands and the north-west, which have also fallen into that category. They all look forward to hugely increased Community funding.
  The lamentable truth is that the Government agreed to a doubling of the EC's structural funds to help the regions—the European regional development fund, the European social fund and the guidance component of the common agricultural policy. They agreed to a doubling to £8·5 billion a year by 1992. The Bill would make that agreement legal, six months and £700 million later, but Britain's regions will be worse off.
  Mr. Brooke: It will be 1993.
  Mr. Robertson: It will be the end of 1992 or the beginning of 1993, but I stand corrected if that is of any symbolic importance. By the end of 1992, the figure will be £8·5 million. The question that the House needs to ask this evening, even if there is no expectation of a reply, is, how much of that will Britain get?
  I believe that Britain will be worse off as a direct result of Conservative Government policy and incompetence on a monumental scale. The Government have so downgraded Britain's own regional aid, as the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) had the nerve to proclaim earlier, that they have as a consequence disqualified virtually the whole nation from a new source of cash, because 80 per cent. of all the newly inflated funds will go to objective 1 designated areas, which will not be reviewed until 1992 or 1993, as the Paymaster General reminds us.
  In the whole of the United Kingdom, only Northern Ireland falls into that category. All the rest of Britain's hard-pressed regions will have to fight it out for what remains—20 per cent. of the cake. To get even what we get at the moment—last year we got £848 million in structural funding—Britain will have to collar three quarters of all

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  that is left of the funds after objective 1. In anyone's language that is simply not on, as we have to compete with all the deprived and poorer areas of the other 11 nations.
  In February, the Prime Minister boasted to the House that we could expect to get £1,000 million from the structural funds by 1992. Not for the first time, she is living in a fantasy. Reliable estimates suggest that Britain's take from the newly doubled funds will probably not be more than £200 million next year—a cut of 75 per cent.—when tonight we are endorsing a 100 per cent. increase in the total available for dispersal. Is that what the Prime Minister means by value for money?
  The dismal story does not end there. This week the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) who regrettably cannot be present, and who I had warned about such a view, spent her time at the Foreign Affairs Council mounting a bid to prevent the European Community from insisting that payments from the Community must finance new job-creating projects and not just subsidise those that had already been planned by the Government.
  Britain alone of all the European Community countries wants all the cash to go into the Treasury black hole, thus depriving the regions of even the little that will be salvaged from the structural funds next year. Rather than match the Community's spending in Britain's poorest, hardest-hit and most deprived areas, it is clear that Ministers will be prepared to sacrifice the lot. That is only one illustration of the parsimonious way in which the Government are treating the regions and the structural funds. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) who has been pursuing the matter with Ministers, has more than adequate case law to suggest that the Government are penalising local authority schemes in favour of the schemes dreamed up by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
  Mr. Holland: That is really scandalous.
  Mr. Robertson: It takes special, almost unique incompetence—as the Bill does today—to be forced into upping Britain's payments by 25 per cent. and doubling the structural funds, only simultaneously to see Britain's revenue from them drop from £800 million to £200 million. It takes real malicious, malign incompetence then to demand that we do not even spend on the new programmes for which the funds were designed. The Government stand indicted.
  There is a real vision of Europe that the Prime Minister very often seems to forget. We share the vision of economic expansion in the European Community, but economic expansion that lives side by side with balance in the Community, with fairness and with a sense of community. We seek, not bureaucracy, but proper curbs on unrestrained free movement of capital and business; not centralisation, but joint action to deal with the problems that we face in Europe; not the paranoid nationalism that we seem to be hearing from the Prime Minister, but a genuine awareness of what can be done and what needs to be done for the people of Europe.
  The very wise commentator in the International Herald Tribune, Mr. William Pfaff, who by no stretch of the imagination can be described as a Marxist—even by the Prime Minister, who believes that Chancellor Kohl is a covert Marxist—talks about the useful, constructive and
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  valuable project that the Community is embracing in research, artificial intelligence, advanced electronics and space. He writes:
  "These are providing Europe with basic research and technological applications crucial to European industrial competitivity, but come at a time when Britain, once Europe's leader in science, has abandoned or drastically reduced public funding for basic research, cutting itself off from research which private business is unwilling or unable to pay for."
  He concludes by referring to
  "the political impulse to put shallow thoughts into gross slogans."
  That sums up Her Majesty's Government's view of the European future more properly than anything that the Prime Minister said in Bruges.
  The Bill represents the Prime Minister's failure and her reckless submission on financial common sense, but Europe is now moving ahead. Our amendment reflects the Bill's defects and the wasted chances, but it is now time that we learned from these defects and these problems what represents our collective future. I urge all hon. Members to support the amendment.
  6·37 pm
  Mr. Hugh Dykes: I wish to intervene at this early stage to make just three or four points, as I know that quite a large number of hon. Members wish to speak in this Third Reading debate.
  It was pleasurable, fascinating and interesting to hear from the spokesman for the Labour party, the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), perhaps the strongest words in favour of the Community that we have heard from the Labour party. We were urging him to reveal some aspects of Labour policy directly related to the Bill on Third Reading so that we can know what transformation has been achieved, apparently, since the conference season—the TUC conference and the Labour party conference, where the Labour party seemed as usual to respond to the urging of its TUC paymasters and TUC directors of studies—so that it should now become more enthusiastic about membership of the EC.
  Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman said only that the House, Parliament and hon. Members must wait. He said, "Labour policy is evolving; give us a chance to make sure that we know how to construct it and what it is." We recall that Labour's response to the Brussels summit was uniformly hostile. Now, grudgingly at least, the Labour party is taking the first step in the right direction and saying that the Community and our membership of it are a good thing. All the nit-picking about the excellent Bill so ably promoted by my right hon. Friend on Monday and today is just so much smoke-screening, as the House will fully recognise in the hon. Gentleman's remarks and, presumably, those of his colleague who winds up the debate.
  Mr. Robertson: I intervene at this stage to allow the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) to get on to more constructive things. I shall not delay the House. The decisions of the Labour party conference are published and available to the hon. Gentleman and to the public in general. I quote simply one sentence from the report of the policy review group "Britain in the World", which states:
  "Labour will work within the Community to achieve our democratic socialist objectives in Britain and construct a new agenda for Europe."

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  I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can make much more heavy weather of making fun of the Labour party. The policy is there and I advise him to read it before he makes his next speech.
  Mr Dykes: I am still puzzled by the fact that the hon. Gentleman, who is usually properly thick-skinned, was so touchy that he felt he had to intervene to make that point. It shows how brittle things are in the Labour party.
  I am not saying that simply as an irritating point but because, by direct inference and linkage, the hon. Gentleman was saying that there had been a "revolving" of the policy stance of the two major parties. The hon. Gentleman used the word "revolving" in a different context, but it fits in here. He was saying that Labour is, magically, and at long last, what constructive Europeans and honest patriots—I hope that I am both—have been waiting for. He said that the first sign of enthusiasm by the Labour party about the details as well as the general aspects of our membership of the Community is at last here to be testified.
  That was also interesting for the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), who is to speak for the Democrats. The hon. Member for Hamilton sought to imply that there had been a change of attitude among Conservative Members about our membership of the Community, as well as a change in our response to the Bill. I can assure him that he need not worry about that, because that is not the case.
  I wish to develop the notion, which is entirely credible, not least when one examines the Bruges speech, that the Conservative party is still quintessentially the enthusiastic European party and that nothing has changed fundamentally or in certain important details. That is why the Bill will be overwhelmingly passed by Conservative Members.
  Mr. Marlow: My hon. Friend has noticed the way in which the Labour party is embracing Europeanism. My hon. Friend, as we all know, is a fanatical European, and that is surpassed only by his fanatical Conservatism. Does it not give him cause for concern that the visit of Mr. Delors to the TUC and the change in Labour party policy has come about because it sees that we now have a Europe fit for Socialism?
  Mr. Dykes: My hon. Friend is famous for his simplistic explanations. I wish that such a simplistic explanation were the case. However, it is not as simple as that. The Labour party is obstruse, complicated and incomprehensible to its members in the House and outside, and Mr. Delors has been misquoted and misrepresented. In response to the urging of Members of the European Parliament, he was partly giving some of his personal views.
  However, he also said—I do not have the exact quotation, but I remember it vividly—that it is essential for the national parliamentary systems and the governmental responses of all member states to be thorough, adequate, robust and vigilant to ensure that they respond to the possibility of the centre of gravity moving to Brussels. In our constitutional description, we would, of course, talk of the centre of gravity moving to the Council of Ministers.
  As a result of that, scrutiny exercises such as those pursued by the House would be even more important in
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  the future, as would the welcome development of the European Parliament—[Interruption.] It is a pity that the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) does not approve of that. Such scrutiny exercises would provide an extra democratic layer of supervision and control of the developing Community. Mr. Delors was urging Community states to proceed along those lines. I am sure that I am not misrepresenting him.
  My next point involves major areas of constitutional supervision by the House. The Chairman of the Select Committee on European Legislation, the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) is in his place. I pay tribute to him for the quality of his contributions in debates as well as his amazingly assiduous attendance. I hope that I have not embarrassed him by that genuine tribute.
  On Monday, we saw nit-picking about the Bill by a few hon. Members. There are a diminishing number of anti-marketeers still in the House. Some of those anti-marketeers are members of the Conservative party, although not many. They are not of tremendous significance in the total contribution, although they are all as individuals distinguished Members who make distinguished contributions. They know that they are on a losing wicket and are fighting a losing battle.
  The Bill is a major constitutional matter as well as a financial measure, and I contrast the nit-picking on such measures with the deserted character of the Chamber when we are carrying out late-night scrutiny of individual instruments. I say that, not in respect of the hon. Members present today, but in respect of others who attend only on occasions such as this or during the height of our principal deliberations, but do not become involved in the individual late night scrutiny of items that is needed on many measures. That is a pity. They pay lip service to scrutiny, pretend that it is important, but do not take the slightest interest themselves.
  I link to that the amazing double standard that is illustrated by the fact that they do not pay the slightest attention also to the billions of pounds of national public spending on which we often vote late at night and about which we read in the newspapers the following day and their nit-picking, hysterical reaction to the smallest amounts of Community money voted in collective decisions between member states or agreed in Community budgets.
  I welcome the Bill and I congratulate heartily the Government, the Prime Minister and the Treasury team on their achievements. This is pleasurable for those of us who are impatient about the slow development of the Community. We do not wish to see anything like the terrible "federalism", which is a word now replacing the phrase "Reds under the bed" as the scare story of the late 1980s and early 1990s. As far as I am aware, no one is suggesting that we should move towards federalism, and certainly no one supports the United States concept of one federal Government. The Bill represents sovereign countries co-operating more and more with collective benefit and genuine reciprocal enthusiasm because they observe greater benefits for the greater good.
  Mr. Cash: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Dykes: I would like to, but time is moving on.
  Developing the Community is directly to be compared with history. There is the old argument about getting one

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  single nation together for the common good. We see the same thing now increasingly accepted as a matter of little controversy in member states. Unfortunately, it is controversial in this Parliament, but it should not be. In Denmark there is an eccentric attitude from some Members of Parliament, but not many. The other member states take a calm stance and it is not a controversial matter.
  When the scare story of federalism was raised again, the reaction from French politicians, the French Government and French official spokesmen was just as sharp. They said that it was an absurd idea and that things would not develop in that way. In many ways, France is as nationalistic as Britain.
  Mr. Cash: Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?
  Mr. Dykes: I will not give way, because my hon. Friend has intervened several times.
  Mr. Cash rose—
  Mr. Dykes: I do not intend to give way.
  Mr. Cash rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. It has been made clear that the hon. Gentleman does not intend to give way.
  Mr. Dykes: If my hon. Friend travelled to European countries more often, he would see the way in which politicians operate a restrained political system rather than a hysterical one, which is what we see so often here.
  Mr. Cryer: Dull, like a graveyard.
  Mr. Dykes: That is a matter of opinion. It is more mature in many ways, unlike the hon. Member for Bradford, South.
  The reaction to the canard that federalism was on the way was just as sharp from France as from Britain. No one has suggested that, least of all Mr. Delors.
  In practical ways, through the own resources decision and the intergovernmental agreement, the Bill takes our practical, financial, political and operational membership of the Community a vital and useful stage further. The Treasury Ministers have led the way by negotiating the decisions and putting them into the Bill. As the Bill is passed, which I hope it will be, it will become part of the treaty and part of the constitutional background of the Community. Because of the surplus of resources that appears to he developing, and which may continue into 1990–91, I hope that the Community will be spared the superficial attacks that it has received in recent years.
  There have been phoney arguments about extravagance and overspending. I agree that agricultural spending needed to be curbed and controlled more effectively, and that now appears to have happened. When compared with the way in which the Governments of member states, including ourselves, were spending public money, the arguments were phoney, as we are realising more and more.
  If, as I assume the Bill is passed tonight, we can proceed, armed with it, to the next, more mature stage of our membership of the European Community. We shall get rid of silly debates in which we are extremely offensive about foreigners. We should be very offended if we read of references in the National Assembly or the Bundestag to foreigners who cannot be trusted or worked with because
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  they do not have a sense of fair play, yet we hear such nonsense again and again in the House. We should welcome and accept membership of the European Community, which fortunately, as I acknowledge with pleasure, the Government do. As was shown in the Bruges speech, the Government remain in all fundamental details an enthusiastic member of the European Community.
  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has reiterated her profound commitment to it. That is the reality of our political, financial and economic position of the future. I therefore welcome the Bill.
  6.51 pm
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes). He and I have disagreed on these matters over the years, but in more recent times we have understood our differences better. I shall follow him with what I hope will be a measured speech which takes an entirely different point of view from his.
  The Bill provides a further tranche of money—which does not have to be voted on in the House for the next five years—to a Community that is now a different legislative machine from the one that it was 18 months ago. The Community is not only spending money on various programmes—familiar to those of us who attend late-night debates—but it has new legislative powers. The money on which we are voting is to fuel that legislative machine—modest though our portion may be—and to provide for money services, which we habitually debate.
  I am grateful for the tribute paid by the hon. Member for Harrow, East for some of the work that we do in the Select Committee on European Legislation. He is a regular attender and he contributes most usefully to its procedural work. But even he will agree that, however perfect any scrutiny is—and it is by no means perfect at the moment—what is decided in debates on European legislation in the House, which are thinly attended, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is only advisory. I suggest to him and to other hon. Members that some late-night debates are poorly attended, partly because of the technicalities involved and partly because their outcome may have no decisive effect, as the Government themselves have to make decisions.
  In Committee on Monday, I made comments about media gaps. In the past few weeks, we have read a great deal about the Community. I made the extraordinary allegation that most of the comments that I read, heard or saw on television avoided the centralities. I have not been challenged by the media since then and, as I am the Chairman of the Select Committee to which the hon. Member for Harrow, East referred, I must put on record five gaps that I espied, not as Chairman of that Committee but as an individual, although I have knowledge that arises from membership of that Committee.
  The first relates to the Government's publicity campaign about 1992, "Open for Business", for which the Bill provides money. The campaign speaks of barriers coming down, of great opportunities and a great leap forward. However, in 1973 it was said that that would happen by 1979, at the end of the years of transition. We now have a manufacturing debt to the EEC of £10 billion a year, although we began in 1972 with a modest surplus. If that has happened since 1973, when tariff barriers began gradually to disappear, what will happen between now and 1992? On common-sense grounds, one would assume that

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  the position would get worse. Nothing in the Government's £1 million advertising campaign and nothing that has been said by the hon. Member for Harrow, East leads me to believe otherwise.
  Apparently, the media have accepted that the opportunities will be of net benefit rather than net disbenefit, forgetting that the White Paper produced by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) in 1972 said that the benefits of entering the Community would be positive and substantial, and they turned out to be substantial and negative. What is to prevent the same thing from happening between now and—I am tempted to say—1992, which brings me to my second point? There is a further lacuna in the media coverage—a major fault even at the BBC. The date is not 1992; the change is taking place now. The period finishes formally on 31 December 1992 when article 100B takes effect, but legislation is coming forward now. There is to be no big bang at any time, let alone in 1992.
  My third point relates to M. Delors's "social dimension". It is not part of the Cockfield package, and article 100A specifically omits rights of employed persons. Their interests are still protected—some would say advanced—by unanimity. They are not part of the package specifically singled out for legislation. The proposition is therefore of a different order from that to which we are already committed.
  Fourthly, majority voting, with a requirement of 54 votes and a blocking section of 23 votes, means that legislation opposed by the Government and the House can still become law in the United Kingdom.
  My fifth point is perhaps the most important of all. We are told that the frontiers are coming down. We see pictures of lorries and there is talk about tariffs, customs posts and all the rest of it. That may be true, but the fundamentals are very much more important. Article 8A refers to an area of a single market "without internal frontiers". If we took a ship from London to Lisbon, we should not pass a geographical frontier. In terms of trade and in other ways, however, we should be passing a frontier because Portugal has different laws, regulations and habits from ours.
  It is clear that the frontiers are not geographical frontiers, which we pass with luggage or lorries; they are differences of law. Any statute capable of amendment under the treaty of Rome that affects competition or could be said to create different conditions—any commercial or industrial regulations, for example—will thus constitute a frontier. Therefore, we do not know which areas will be susceptible to the application of articles 100A and 8A. Any difference of law either side of the industrial, or paper, frontier thus becomes potentially susceptible to the application of article 100A. At that point, the central power takes over and national legislation is potentially subject to legislation from the centre.
  The potential area for legislation is great indeed. We are used to talking about scope in the House. The competence of the emerging European union to impose pre-emptive legislation on its member states is colossal and as yet undefined. I can say that clearly because the Select Committee on European Legislation is examining an aspect of that subject in one of its inquiries. Before suggesting possible legislation, any member of any
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  legislature—any official in Whitehall—will have to ascertain whether it is covered by the treaty powers that the House voted to give to the emerging central European union.
  We shall have to think whether we can put anything in place that might clash with what the Commission might propose. The Commission has enormous powers of proposition. It may appear to be a small civil service—it has been compared to Scotland's—but the Council of Ministers cannot propose legislation or regulations because the proposal must come from the Commission. The actual and potential powers of the Commission precede, pre-empt and prevent wide sectors of national legislation. By treaty, the Commission alone has the prerogative of initiative.
  We are living under a written constitution for a European union. I stress to Conservative Members—even to the hon. Member for Harrow, East, who knows much about these matters—that talk of federalism is not accurate because it immediately conjures up something that is not in the treaty of Rome. The Prime Minister either knows that very well when she talks about a united states of Europe, or she does not understand the point.
  Nation states may be federal or unitary in structure. The nature of the European union is unitary and does not need any new legislation to create a federation such as the United States of America or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The constitutions of those countries are remarkably alike. All that is required is competence ceded to a central law-making authority, which by treaty or constitution automatically takes precedence over anything else.
  Mr. Cash: The hon. Gentleman and I are on the Select Committee on European Legislation. It strikes me as odd that he is saying that there is no federalism in the structure of the European Community. He is attempting to say that, effectively, it is a unitary state in embryo. I refer him to any work of standing on the subject, especially a book published by Professor Rasmussen, in which he says:
  "Do the fundamental characteristics of the European Community's governmental structures and its division of powers exhibit the essential features of federalism? The reply is in the affirmative."
  Mr. Spearing: I have not read the chapter to which the hon. Gentleman alludes, but I should be pleased to enter into correspondence with the author of the book or anyone else, because I fail to detect any element of federalism, to which the book refers.
  Britain is a party to the Struttgart declaration, which was quoted in Committee last Monday,
  "to transform the whole complex of relations between their States into a European Union."
  When the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs was asked about this by a Select Committee, he said that it was done by a variety of legal bases, including the treaty of Rome, the Single European Act and a number of other unspecified treaties. I believe that that is the reality because it is a written constitution.
  Mr. Spinelli and Mr. Tindemans have produced constitutions that were widely discussed at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. They may have contained elements of what the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) referred to or what was hoped for by people who are generally called European federalists.
  Mr. Dykes: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we are not discussing a federal proposition or structure either now or in the future, but is he not wrong in saying that it is unitary because it is a unique new creation of sovereign member Governments increasingly working together and, we hope, with majority rule? We can call it by a new designation, say it is a confederation, a community or what it is—a treaty, like the Atlantic treaty or the NATO arrangements, albeit with more institutional effort and substance. To say that it is like a unitary state is manifestly absurd.
  Mr. Spearing: These are vital matters. The structure is not like NATO because the EEC is not a taxing or law-making body. It is true that it is a new sort of unitary machine, but it is, nevertheless, unitary, and that is a distinction that the hon. Gentleman should make. There is no place in the treaty of Rome for participation by national bodies other than by their customary constitutional requirements, as the Paymaster General said earlier. There is no formal giving or division of powers as one finds in a federation or confederation.
  Article 236 of the treaty requires common accord and, despite the opposition of the Prime Minister at Milan, a conference was called to bring forward the proposals regarding the Single European Act. That whittled down many of the aspirations of Mr. Spinelli and his friends. I have no doubt that the Foreign Office thought that they had been whittled down so much that their "federalist aspects and tendencies" had disappeared.
  There was much disappointment in Strasbourg when the Single European Act appeared. I have no doubt that the Government were not enthusiastic about it and said, as we often say ourselves, "It was the best we could do." What was not understood—I am not sure whether the Prime Minister, the Foreign Office or anyone else understood this—was that the Single European Act, especially article 8A, contained the magical words "without internal frontiers." That is the fulcrum of an enormous edifice of legislative prerogative, which we are only just beginning to understand.
  If the House or any listener or professor who writes books on the subject disagrees with me, I should say that this insight came only through listening to the exposition of Lord Cockfield, who before the Treasury Select Committee emphasised this very point. The whole edifice of the CAP is founded on the magic words "stabilisation of markets", which are found in the treaty. The three words "without internal frontiers" create a new legislative machine, of the boundaries of which we are unaware.
  A few hours ago we were discussing a subject of tremendous public concern—social benefits. Under a unitary European state, if there is to be perfect competition, social benefits and taxation will surely have to be harmonised. I was reading some Conservative literature from about 15 years ago in which that was foreseen.
  Powers that we think lie with Whitehall are moving. We have recently heard much talk about mergers. Does the House realise that the powers to determine whether mergers should take place will move from Whitehall to Brussels? In an answer to me on 25 October, the Attorney-General said that six courts in this country have referred cases on Sunday trading to the European Court, and 100 laws have been passed under the Cockfield package on majority. What next?
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  In the referendum we were told that the position of the Queen would not be affected. I suspect that people who said that did not understand what the position of the Queen meant, because all the legislation from Brussels does not come before the House, receive Royal Assent or go to the Privy Council; it bypasses the sovereign and therefore bypasses sovereignty. It represents a new European imperium whose prerogatives of legislation are so wide that they are indefinable.
  Realisation of that fact, as well as other factors, caused the Prime Minister to make her Bruges speech. She now realises that Government and Parliament may he facing some very nasty medicine, which has been brought upon us by the Single European Act. If the Prime Minister realised that, why did she espouse it and not bring the information to the House? 11 have a charitable solution to that conundrum. I do not necessarily think that the Foreign Office or the Prime Minister knew of its implications; or if they did, they did not tell us. It is one or the other—either they did know and did not tell, or they did not know, and we are now finding out. I suggest that this is a major constitutional matter.
  If the Foreign Office and the Prime Minister knew and did not tell us, that is a major political and constitutional issue. If they did not know, we have been conned as a nation, both while going into the European Community and while staying in it on the terms so far negotiated. We are now just waking up—even those of us who try to follow these matters—to the details of the constitutional mechanism by which we have been made subject people in respect of majority decisions on Brussels laws.
  Because what we read in the press is not always accurate, I should like to get on the record exactly what Mr. Delors said when he spoke, not to the TUC, but to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 6 July this year. He said:
  "In ten years time 80 per cent. of economic legislation and perhaps even fiscal and social legislation will be of community origin."
  That was a forecast. He did not say, "of all legislation"; he said:
  "of economic and perhaps even fiscal and social legislation".
  He implied that, of the totality of legislation, less than 80 per cent. would be from the Community. The Sunday Times was aghast at that. In its leading article on 25 September 1988, it said:
  "No serious person, bar Mr. Delors, really believes that 80 per cent. of Europe's social and economic legislation will be decided in Brussels within 10 years; or that, in Mr. Delors' phrase, it is time to create 'an embryo European Government'."
  I have news for Mr. Delors, and perhaps for the Prime Minister and hon. Members. What proportion of the laws to which we are now subject have originated in the United Kingdom, in this Chamber, and what proportion in Brussels? I had a look the other day and found that there is about 65 ft of library space of combined United Kingdom and Brussels legislation to which we are all subject and which has been passed since 1958. One may say, "Why 1958? I thought that we had joined in 1972." But when we joined in 1972, we took aboard everything which the EEC had legislated for since it started and which had not been repealed. I hasten to add that some of that EEC legislation would have been repealed since that time.
  What is the proportion? Between 10 and 11 ft is United Kingdom legislation and about 54 ft EEC legislation. One

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  may say, "But the EEC legislation is much more 'detailed." It is, and we must remember that our legislation is on smaller paper with larger print.
  All that legislation is not from a proto-federal EEC, but a European union that now exists. The volume of legislation can be measured, but measurement is not necessarily the critical indicator. What is important is the nature of the legislation and the scope of the legislative superiority already ceded by treaty to EEC legislation. The Bill provides the political petrol for that emerging European Union. It does so automaticaly, without vote, for funds of between £4 billion and £5 billion a year, not just to pursue policies on which we can at best only comment and advise, but to support a legislative apparatus which, if it wishes, can dominate the executive and legislative arms of the United Kingdom—in common parlance, No. 10 and Parliament. It reverses in constitutional terms the events of 1688.
  The power of this new European union has increased, it is increasing and, to modify the old phrase, has now to be contained. The question to which Parliament must now turn its attention and to which the Prime Minister has already directed our attention is, bearing in mind our treaty commitments, how can that be achieved?
  7.16 pm
  Mr. William Cash: Because many hon. Members wish to speak, I shall curtail my points and limit them largely to the speech of the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson). I should like to make passing references to the speech of the hon. Member for Harrow, Central—
  Mr. Dykes: I am an hon. Friend.
  Mr. Cash: —who referred to what he regarded as my hysterical outburst on the question whether the French had any federalist tendencies. If he had been kind enough to give way, I would merely have mentioned gently what Mr. Rocard, the Prime Minister of France, is reported as saying in the Financial Times on 24 October:
  "I am clearly a European federalist".
  I thought that it would be in accordance with the conventions of the House politely to correct the hon. Member on a matter of some importance.
  Mr. Dykes rose—
  Mr. Cash: The hon. Member would obviously like me to give way to him. I shall be delighted to do so, although he was not prepared to do the same for me.
  Mr. Dykes: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but then I have not intervened as often as he has. By the way, I am an hon. Friend and the constituency of Harrow, Central has been abolished. It is Harrow, East.
  The expression of personal opinions by various politicians in various member states does not constitute a graphology of Community policy. Why does my hon. Friend misrepresent Mr. Rocard's comments? French politicians, including members of Mr. Rocard's party, have been equally severe in saying, "No, we believe in a Europe of nation states." I do not think that my hon. Friend's point adds up to much in this debate.
  Mr. Cash: We know that President de Gaulle believed in Europe des patries. I do not think that Mr. Rocard does.
  The hon. Member for Hamilton made an interesting speech, turning his withering fire power on my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. In doing so, he revealed the deficiencies in the Labour party's policy on Europe. The Labour party's policy on Europe is that it does not have a policy; in this matter I agree with remarks made over the past few weeks by some of my colleagues.
  What do the Opposition make of the statements by their Socialist colleagues elsewhere in Europe? I have questions to put to them. On budgetary policy, the issue is whether we would want to move to a central bank. Without one, we cannot have the kind of policies proposed by Mr. Rocard. Recently, Mr. Rocard was reported as saying:
  "The French Government would continue to call for the constitution of a European central bank and would make the required concessions to German sensibility to get it. 'It is an absolute necessity,' said Mr. Rocard".
  Am I right in thinking that that policy would be pursued by the hon. Member for Hamilton and the Labour party? Do they want a central bank in Europe? Is that Socialist policy? Do they want a situation in which this country no longer has any control over economic policy? That is the corollary to the position that they have adopted. The hon. Member for Hamilton might also ask himself whether he would favour a joint Franco-German brigade in Europe as the embryo of a European army. The budgetary matters with which the Bill deals are directly related to those questions because it is the money that comes to the European Community, through the mixture of own resources and VAT, which enables such things to be paid for.
  That brings me to the next question—the very important debate in the European Parliament today in relation to the Prime Minister's statement in Bruges about the future of Europe.
  Mr. Robertson: That was yesterday.
  Mr. Cash: The hon. Gentleman says that it was yesterday, but the important point is this. One of the main points of a report produced by the Communist Mr. Graziani, with a large number of Socialist colleagues, concerned the attainment of European union. It suggested that the European Parliament
  "Notes that, even if the full potential of the Single Act is exploited to the maximum, it falls short of the Community's requirements, particularly as regards"—
  these are things that we would be expected to pay for out of the budgetary arrangements, which the hon. Member for Hamilton and his Socialist colleagues in Europe presumbly wish to support—
  "the competence of the Community which is still deprived of adequate means of action in the areas of"—
  wait for it
  "common foreign policy, security, a common currency with a central bank, energy, development aid, cultural co-operation, eduation, and European citizenship".
  That is just a sprinkling of the functions to be conferred on the European Government proposed by Socialists such as Mr. Rocard, Vice-President Siegbert Alber of the European Parliament, and so on.
  The Labour party is in an impossible situation. On the one hand, Labour Members say that they intend to change the whole policy towards the European Community that they have developed in the past 20 years. On the other hand, they seek to repudiate the very sound position

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  adopted by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. They are making complete nonsense of the policies that they have pursued in Europe for the past 15 to 20 years.
  Mr. Robertson: I am not sure what that has to do with this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) seems to be winding himself up. He did not know that the debate in the European Parliament took place yesterday. Had he realised that, he could have read in today's papers that the fate of the report to which he so lovingly refers was to be shelved for the time being. There is a diversity of view about the future of Europe among the various Socialist parties in Europe just as there is among the component parts of the European democratic group, in which the Conservative party remains. Conservative Members of the European Parliament provide a diversity of view ranging from ultra-federalist to ultra-nationalist, which might be a better subject to exercise the hon. Gentleman's mind today.
  Mr. Cash: My main point is that the Labour party has in no way explained its policy on Europe. Labour Members' criticism of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's Bruges speech has no validity, because my right hon. Friend's statement was entirely consistent with Conservative party policy. She explained in very clear terms that we will not have a united states of Europe, but that our policy will be for a Europe essentially directed towards the peace and security of the people in this country and in Europe as a whole. The Labour party has totally failed to explain what its policies are and on that it stands condemned.
  7.24 pm
  Mr. Alex Carlile: In the past, I have been accustomed to speaking in home affairs debates, so I am suffering something of a culture shock today. It has been an interesting experience to read the earlier debates on the Bill, which seem to have thrown up three schools of thought in the House in relation to Europe.
  The first might loosely be called the school of European development. I believe that the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) belongs to that school, as do I. It consists of those who believe that the Community is not just a beneficial economic organisation but has important political implications for the future. We in that school believe that our prosperity and the essence of our sovereignty are strengthened by joining in the genuine unification of purpose and institutions in Europe. We are the people who have actually read the Single European Act, have understood what it means and have some belief in its aspirations.
  The second might be called the school of European nihilism. The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) spoke from almost the same position in the Chamber as that from which Mr. Enoch Powell used to speak. Apart from the voice—and, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive my saying so, the structure of his sentences, which were Rover rather than Rolls-Royce—it was very much the same speech. It harboured the quaint view that prosperity corresponds with insularity. Members of that school seem to see no value whatever in internationalism and no security in a safe exchange rate mechanism, and to regard Mr. Delors as a nasty foreigner.
  Mr. Spearing: I hesitate to intervene, as I had a good slice of time, but I cannot let the hon. and learned Gentleman's comments pass, although I am grateful for his compliments. Is he not aware that I am a very strong internationalist and against the organisation in question because it is not international but supranational? Secondly, does the hon. Gentleman agree that my constitutional points have some validity. Does he also agree that our prosperity is not built just on market philosophies and megamarkets, which may not produce the universal prosperity that the EEC promises?
  Mr. Carlile: I will answer the second of the hon. Gentleman's three questions, as it is the most important. The hon. Gentleman's constitutional theories are nonsense. He suggests that the European Community is a unitary state when that is demonstrably not so. I need only repeat what the hon. Member for Harrow, East had to say about that.
  The third school of European thought in the House might be called the school of European grudgingness. The Prime Minister seems to belong to that school. She charges from one speech to the next proclaiming, in effect, that we have little interest in political developments in the Community but that we shall continue to take whatever economic advantage there is for as long as it is available. It is not surprising that her approach causes such nervousness and anger even among her conservative colleagues in the Federal Republic of Germany, in Italy and elsewhere, because what she says has diluted confidence in the Community's durability now that the United Kingdom is such an essential member.
  It is a matter of regret to me that the Prime Minister is so grudging in her membership of the European Community. However, when the hon. Member for Hamilton quoted a sentence from the Labour party's policy review and gave us the Labour party's so-called vision, the thought crossed my mind that if that was Labour Members' vision they had better get their eyes tested before the Government introduced charges for eye tests. It was an extraordinarily general sentence that could be interpreted by by-election candidates in Govan, Epping or Richmond according to the needs of those respectively inner-city, broadly urban and agricultural constituencies.
  The Bill deals with two important issues, the second of which does not merit most of the critical attention given it in the House. The provision for payments to be made under the 1988 intergovernmental agreement is a piece of good housekeeping to ensure that the Community can meet its commitments for the remainder of this year. Opposition to that is opposition to membership—a refusal to pay current debts. Every business organisation, society with members or club keeps accounts at least one year in arrears. This part of the Bill deals merely with reasonable accounting practice.
  The first issue, which is much more important, is the approval of the new own resources decision. It is consistent with what my hon. Friends and I have been saying for many years: there should continue to he steady economic and financial integration of the Community.
  The concept of structural funds is based on an integrated Community. That does not mean a single nation state; it means an integrated community of a new type and of which the hon. Member for Harrow, East spoke. Parts of our country have benefited greatly from these structural funds.

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  The concept of 1992 is based on an integrated Community, and there will be great benefit to our citizens—scientists, engineers, business men and professional people—who will be unshackled in the development of British enterprise in the much larger market of the Community. Our financial services sector, especially the big banks, can view 1992 with great enthusiasm, as their greatest opportunity since the heydays of the British empire—provided that we enter fully into the spirit of deregulation and reform. The banks are nervous because they believe that the reluctance of the British Government to deregulate may produce reciprocal action from the French and other Governments.
  The Commission's publication, "European Economy No. 35", published in March 1988, shows, without undue optimism, the potential benefits of 1992 for six of our great industries—food processing, pharmaceuticals, motor vehicles, textiles and clothing, building products and telecommunications. Those are only examples of the benefits of 1992.
  Of course, the own resources decision has at its core the need to control expenditure, so that national sovereign Parliaments can be persuaded of its propriety. We retain ultimate sovereignty over what is decided; 1992 depends on our retention of that sovereignty, although momentous political changes thereafter may well be the consequence of successful economic integration.
  It was with this parliamentary sovereignty in mind that the Twelve arrived at the inevitable decision that there should be stronger limits on Community expenditure, as shown most clearly by the controls provided in the new decision of 24 June this year.
  The Government seem to have convinced themselves that they alone, with little contribution from other member states in terms of argument and insistence, have been responsible for the changes now incorporated in the Bill and for new financial discipline in the Community. That is far too smug a claim to be worthy of credence. However, I am happy to see the Government confidently claiming their negotiating successes in the Community and having confidence in their position in it, provided that they are prepared to take that confidence fully into the progress towards 1992.
  A confident Government would be prepared at least to examine and discuss the creation of some form of European central bank. They would be prepared to dismantle unnecessary currency barriers which are more appropriate to the politics of Napoleonic Europe than to those of today. They would be confident enough to allow electoral arrangements for the European Parliament to be standardised throughout the Community on the fair basis of proportional representation. I urge the Government to have the courage to show that confidence.
  7·35 pm
  Mr. Edward Leigh: Like the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), I have taken care to study some of the debates in the House on these matters, particularly the speeches made by the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing). He is obviously an enthusiast for these debates, if not for
  528
  Europe. Like many enthusiasts for a cause, he shows the attention to detail and the speed, verve and vim of a Geoffrey Boycott innings.
  The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery, in his interesting analysis of these debates, was right to say that there has in the past been a dreary stand-off between committed anti-marketeers and the peddlers of European dreams. But he was absolutely wrong to describe the Prime Minister's as a grudging way. What she was trying to say and what the Bill should be striving towards is a truly free-trade Europe, not a harmonised Europe, and a market-oriented Europe, not a profligate one.
  As we consider the Bill, we must ask ourselves whether the nations of Europe will be encouraged, as they should be, to retain their national identity and their cultural and linguistic differences. There are other great differences, too—for example, trading and commercial practices. Will the Bill preserve the multi-patterned European heritage? We should not see it as a signpost on a dreary slide to a harmonised, homogenised, sterilised, socialised, federalised, bureaucratised and extravagant pale reflection of the United States.
  Will the Bill and our debates on these issues create something entirely new, exciting and beneficial? Will it help to create a new drive towards a deregulated trading consortium of equal sovereign partners, in which goods and services from one country compete freely with different goods and services—unharmonised, if necessary—from other countries across national boundaries, under a system in which the best product at the best price is allowed to win, to the benefit of all consumers? Or does the Bill enhance a process in which harmonisation stifles, rather than boosts, trade? Is the Bill, as it should be, part of a process to give greater, not smaller, powers to the markets, as well as fewer, not more, powers to the Brussels Commission?
  The benefits of a single market are enormous, but does the Bill encompass the philosophy that gain in a single market invariably entails pain? The so-called regional or social policy must not be allowed to interrupt the necessity of siting production where it is most beneficial to the consumer, rather than where politicians believe it to be beneficial to their future. Does the Bill encapsulate the essential philosophy of the Government—that a single European economy must respond to the myriad spending decisions of 240 million citizens on the European continent—or will that be stifled by what is politically expedient for a few thousand politicians and officials? Will old-style syndicalism and interventionism of the type that still abound in Europe slow down the process from Brussels, just at the time when those things have lost influence in London?
  Will the Bill give more chances for markets to grow unhindered to the benefit of all, or will it enable short-sighted politicians and officials to preserve this or that part of inefficient farming practice or local industry on the altar of national pride and paternalistic regional and social policy?
  Does the Bill help to transfer decisions from Westminster and this House, not to Brussels, which would be wholly retrograde, but to a wider and freer market? Will the Bill allow national identities and differences, the very stuff of our history, to compete and flourish while power is decentralised to the individual consumer, not centralised to the European Commission?

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  The destruction of tariff barriers or tolls that catapulted this country into 19th century pre-eminence, is an essential part of European history. In time, trade barriers between nations will seem as outdated as the old customs barriers that used to divide France into six parts before the revolution, or the 1,000 different customs territories that divided Germany before 1815.
  That realisation will bring the greatest leap forward in prosperity in Europe's history. That is the true challenge that faces the House, and the question to which we must address ourselves is whether the Bill meets that challenge.
  7.40 pm
  Dr. John Reid: Even as a relatively new Member, I have come to realise that in debates such as this one tends to see the same old familiar faces, none of them more familiar—I shall not say old—than that of the Paymaster General, who once again this year has been asked to bear the burden and carry the cross of the Market while the twin Pontius Pilates, the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister, again manage to wash their hands of the consequences of their statements.
  Once again we are looking at fairly familiar ground in so far as we are discussing the latest in a long series of mechanisms for financing the European Community. What, unfortunately, casts a shadow over this debate, and no doubt any other future debate on the EC, is the Prime Minister's neo-Gaullist romp round Europe. It was not so much the grand Charles of European politics as the petite Maggie who was romping around Europe with her views on the future development of the continent. That is primarily because she has found the erstwhile Churchillian rhetoric to be useless. In Churchill's own phrase, she has been "resolute in her equivocation" for too long. Every time that she has skirmished in her Churchillian mode, we have ended up paying more.
  In the course of the proceedings on the Bill and the statements surrounding it, the Prime Minister is trying a different tack. She has now attempted the old warlike Churchillian tactic of the smokescreen. Let us get the facts straight at the beginning. No Opposition Member is suggesting a united states of Europe. Contrary to what the tabloid press has told us, no thinking European, no thinking Briton, is impressed or misled by that charade. It only diverts us from the real issue.
  European finance and integration, the open market and 1992 are serious issues. But they exist not to massage the egos of the Prime Minister, Amstrad's Alan Sugar, Sir John Harvey-Jones, William Egan, or any other entrepreneur who wants to parade in the Department of Trade and Industry's £7·9 million advertising circus; 1992 should be about opportunities for people such as my constituents who stand in the shadow of steel privatisation and the economic neglect that the Opposition hammered home to the Government on Tuesday.
  We must ask whether the Government are confident that their advertising campaign—their propaganda—is really reaching the parts that it should be reaching. Let me digress for one second to give an example not from my constituency but from another in Scotland. I was recently discussing with a number of managers the prospects for 1992. I said to one, "What about 1992?" He looked at me rather blankly and said, "Well, what about it?" I said, "How do you think we will do?" After thinking for a while, he said, "Well, John, I think that we will qualify again."
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  He obviously thought that 1992 related to Scotland re-entering the World Cup—[Interruption.] Yes, we will qualify. However, more important for that year is whether we will qualify for the challenge of the opening up of the European markets.
  All the work on Europe is being hampered by the hoary old ghosts which are being given new life by the Government. In the past few months, the Prime Minister has been busy lampooning some European politicians. I was reminded tonight that if we have learnt one thing during the months of speeches by the Prime Minister, it is that her favourite negro spiritual is not "Hear the word of Delors." It is not that Jacques Delors wants a united states of Europe that so unnerves the Prime Minister; it is the idea that Jacques Delors and those of us who are building a real vision of Europe want to see a liberalised internal market, complemented by a social market. That is clearly not on the Prime Minister's agenda.
  It is worth dwelling for a moment on the astonishing rhetoric of a Prime Minister who builds up a bogus issue, primarily to hide the true picture of how little Britain has been able to win from the EC. We have heard tonight in considerable detail from hon. Members with much more experience than I of the negotiations on EC financing over recent years. Let me ask a few simple questions, less detailed but more pertinent.
  How is it that, despite the Prime Minister's years of rhetoric, we are still on the receiving end of a CAP budget? How is it that that budget is still out of control? Why is it that the social and regional fund is still merely papering over the cracks of industrial decline and inner-city decay in Britain? We have heard those questions so often before, but every time that they have been asked they have been answered with a deafening silence.
  We are now reaching a point where we are becoming desensitised to the obscene level of spending on the CAP, but one fact above all others remains clear. The commitments made at Fontainebleau have not been realised and we have not reduced spending on the CAP.
  When the Prime Minister banged her fist on the table in Dublin and talked about "our money" in relation to the EC budget, when she huffed about Fontainebleau, when she puffed about the victorious rebate, we could have been forgiven for thinking, even after so many false starts, that at last we had taken the first steps on the long road to economic sanity. But no such thing. The bitter fact is that next year we face a 25 per cent. increase in our contributions to the EC budget. That the Bill should permit a dramatic increase of 25 per cent. in the budget, after nine years of prime ministerial Churchillian skirmishes in Europe, is a sign of the right hon. Lady's abject failure.
  I know that Conservative Members do not wish to be reminded of the comparable value of their contribution to the European budget, but it is worth remembering that last year Britain's net contribution to the EC was £1,649 million. That is more than the Government spent on the National Health Service's capital investment programme last year; it is more than this year's overseas aid budget of £1,247 million; it is more than last year's estimated unemployment benefit of £1,543 million; it is five times more than the Government's capital expenditure of £310 million on education; and it is eight times more than the £200 million of which the Government have, without shame, deprived Britain's mothers and children today.

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  The Prime Minister's victories in Europe are as empty as her European speeches when it is clear that the figure is expected to increase by about £200 million to £300 million in additional contributions in coming years. It is no wonder that there has been little talk of victories from the Paymaster General today. It is little wonder that the Prime Minister desperately needs to manufacture the spectre of the united states of Europe to divert us from what is really happening to Britain in Europe.
  We are in a European Community where new, relatively poorer entrants will be competing for what little money there is in the social and regional fund. The Government do not have a decent social and regional fund for Britain. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) pointed out earlier, we have a Prime Minister who does not believe that society exists, and a Cabinet which does not believe in the principle of regional aid. Therefore, the notion of them struggling for European social and regional aid is alien to the Government. When it comes to the Government and European regional assistance, it is a case of the incredulous in pursuit of the inadequate.
  Nevertheless, the debate is timely, coming at a time when we hear that the Government may be forced by new Community rules to increase public spending in the poorer regions and the inner cities by as much as £6 billion more than they had planned over the next four years. Even the Treasury has been shocked into having to face the fact that it is completely out of line with the new rules of the Council of Ministers, who will force the British Government to match EC spending in the regions pound for pound.
  The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker), earlier this week in Luxembourg, refused to agree to that scheme, but the idea of spending £6 billion on areas devastated by the Government's economic policies must have seemed like a bad dream to the Minister and the prospect of communicating that news to her mistress in Downing street must have seemed like a nightmare. I can scarcely imagine the scene when the Minister had to brief the Prime Minister on the fact that the Single European Act means that Britain can disagree with but cannot veto the new rules which will potentially boost the resources of many local and regional authorities hitherto starved of resources by the Government's cost-cutting exercises.
  The tragedy is that, despite the doubling of Common Market social and regional funds, forced through against the Prime Minister's violent opposition, up to a total of £8·5 billion a year by 1992, Britain will be worse off because the downgrading of Britain's regional assistance areas has virtually disqualified the whole nation from the new EC cash.
  Lest it be thought that Opposition Members are always critical of and pessimistic about Europe, it must be said that, on this occasion, Europe is moving in the right direction as regards the future of regional finance after 1992. It is leaving the Government behind in terms of imagination, foresight and practical plans to alleviate the worst effects of industrial recession. The Government are now out of tune with the reality of what is hapening not only in our regions, but in European politics, even among their erstwhile cronies on the Right of European politics.
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  At the Brussels summit in February, the right decision was taken to double spending on regional and social development as we move towards 1992, but all of us in this country must be on our guard to ensure that EC assistance is not undermined by the withdrawal of United Kingdom Government funds. We can no longer allow the Government to cheat—a word much in vogue this week—on their fiscal obligations by allowing Brussels to fund regional programmes which would have to be met, and should have been met, by the Government in any case.
  That is not an unfounded fear, because the doctrine of robbing poor Peter to line the pocket of privileged Paul finds no place among the carefully selected biblical quotations employed by the Prime Minister when she gave us the famous sermon on the mount in Edinburgh earlier this year. That doctrine has characterised the Government's philosophy and actions over the past 10 years. At long last, that doctrine has been isolated, even within the Conservative quarters of European thought. The Government and their doctrine are now isolated, even within the hidden recesses of Right-wing European thought.
  Time is running out for a Government who can dodge their obligations to invest in our country's future by leaving it to Brussels, in order to reduce their public sector borrowing requirement. Time is running out for a Government who have allowed regions such as Scotland and Northern Ireland to have their flow of resources halved compared with what they should have been under EC law. Time is running out for a Government who have no regional policy and no apparent commitment to investing in regional policy in the coming years.
  The new rules point exactly to the difference between the Prime Minister and the rest of Europe, not because they outline any grandiose or misleading concepts of federalism or even because they represent the Prime Minister's European bete noire of creeping Euro-Socialism, but because of the common-sense intent of revitalising the regions of Europe with carefully targeted investment.
  The tragedy is that the Prime Minister and her Government could be giving a lead in Europe. They could sponsor a Community where co-operation between sovereign nations stands as an alternative, not a concession, to the integration of sovereign states. They could be fostering a European framework where economic co-ordination and major issues take precedence over enforced harmonisation of industrial bagatelles. They could be promoting a Europe where real competition is promoted by anti-trust legislation, where real individual involvement is enhanced by worker participation and where substantial progress is made in health, safety and security for the vast majority of citizens living within the borders of the Community.
  Conservative Members laughed at the word "vision". The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) demanded details. A vision is not a blueprint, but it is nevertheless powerful. The Prime Minister is incapable of a vision of Europe because she is haunted, in the words of the Communist manifesto of 140 years ago, by the spectre that she thinks haunts Europe. She is living in the past with her political fears, as she is living in the past with her economic policies.
  A recent semi-royal tour of an understandably confused Europe confirmed our worst fears. There is no vision of a Europe where all corners of the continent can

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  say that Europe means we can help our unemployed and under-privileged people. There is no vision which says that Europe stands for investment in the inner cities and the poverty-stricken regions. The only real vision that the Prime Minister has, like that of the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh), is of a deregulated Europe thrown open to the powers of the multinational companies which can make a quick buck.
  That is why I maintain that regional policy means more than just money and funds. It is an expression of political will that is now coming from Europe—the will to take compensatory measures so that Scotland, Northern Ireland, the north of England, Wales and the inner cities are not bypassed by the pre-Market orientation of 1992.
  That sort of vision takes courage. The Prime Minister revels in her reputation as a courageous politician. She need not fear that a concession in that direction would be jeered or sneered at by Opposition Members. I understand the fears that an admission that we want a Community that will allow us a decent share of regional assistance and compensation for the regions might be seen as an admission that Britain is not doing well, but it is already patently obvious in my part of the country, as it is in many regions of a wealthy Europe, that Britain is not doing well.
  Resistance to European assistance in the solution will not disguise the problem, nor will it avoid it; it will only prolong it. That would be bad for the regions, the Government and, ultimately, the future of the European Community. In the long run, the Government will be judged on their actions and on the Prime Minister's statements and attitude towards Europe. Their actions will be judged by the House and by history as a political tragedy of the first order.
  7.57 pm
  Sir Richard Body: I hope that, before the hon. Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) makes another speech on this subject, he will do a little arithmetic and add up the hundreds of millions of pounds for which the Government have been responsible in enabling the regions to benefit from such sums of money.
  When the hon. Member for Motherwell, North admonishes us for not facing reality, I suggest that he studies the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), who warned us that we were moving towards a unitary state and that it would not be a federal union. The essence of a unitary state is, as I am sure the hon. Member for Motherwell, North will agree, that a legislative body makes laws that apply immediately throughout that state. That is exactly what the Council of Ministers is now doing.
  That is also the case in a federal union, but the difference is that, in a federal union, there is a constitution which lays down a clear dividing line between the legislative powers of the federal assembly and those of the state assembly. That is now lacking in the European Community. That is why the hon. Member for Newham, South is right when he says that European union will evolve into a unitary state unless we do something about it rapidly.
  I am against the Bill because I think that it will cause us to miss an opportunity, and this we shall come to regret. The Bill is about giving a great deal more money to the European Community for the purpose of promoting further common policies. I have often said in debates of
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  this sort that I am all in favour of common policies for the various parts of Europe, but my Europe consists of 38 countries, not 12. The lesson of Chernobyl, acid rain and many other environmental casualties of the century is that we must work together. As the hon. Member for Newham, South would say, we must work internationally, not supranationally. It will be necessary to spend a great deal of money to save certain parts of Europe.
  My constituency borders the North sea, which is highly polluted. Hundreds of millions of pounds will be needed to cleanse the North sea to make it fit for fishing and many other purposes. Other countries border the North sea but are outside the European Community. It is impractical to think that the Community, as it is now constituted, will be capable of formulating a common policy for that purpose. Why should it? Why should countries such as Greece and Spain contribute a penny towards solving the North sea problem?
  I am glad that the European Community has been making some noises about the destruction of the Alps. We must understand, however, that the Alps cross the frontiers of seven countries, only three of which are members of the European Community. Those of us who have taken an interest in the matter have seen the Alps deteriorate over the past 20 years. We realise that they are heading towards a major environmental crisis, but we cannot expect the European Community to embark upon a scheme to save them.
  Europe, be it 12, 38 or whatever number of states, is not some homogeneous entity. It is enormously diverse in its interests and we need an institutional mechanism that will enable the circles of interest to be identified. The countries that come within the various circles must co-operate internationally to overcome the problems that they share. It will be futile and disastrous for the future of Europe if we assert that Europe is so homogeneous that we can impose common policies even when interests do not converge. I have in mind the new common policies that have been envisaged in our debates and those that we have read about that are being discussed in Brussels, Strasbourg and elsewhere. Common policies will lead only to friction and disenchantment, the very things which the Community is against.
  We must realise sooner or later that there is a great diversity of interest. Equally, there are numerous convergences of interest. We need an institutional mechanism—I should like it to be the European Community—that can help to co-ordinate common policies. At the same time, it should act internationally with a view to ensuring that the countries that are in the different circles of interest raise the necessary revenue and enable the common policies to be implemented successfully.
  I believe that sooner or later we shall have such a European Community, but the Bill does nothing to advance that ideal. It is an ideal that I believe I share with the hon. Member for Newham, South. Indeed, it is one that is shared by most of us in this place. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) will insist that we are little Englanders, but those who believe that Europe consists of only 12 countries —I do not wish to be harsh—are in danger of becoming little Europeans.
  Europe consists of many more states than 12, and must do many things together to ensure that our continent is

  535
  habitable and safe for the next century. The Bill will do nothing towards that end, and that is why I regret that it has reached this stage.
  8.5 pm
  Mr. Bob Cryer: I declare a financial interest. I am a Member of the Common Market Assembly. Anyone who reads the "Members' Register of Interests" will learn that my parliamentary salary is divided between the Labour movements in Sheffield and Bradford. I mention that because when I last spoke of these matters the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Fallon), who subsequently took the Queen's shilling, as they say, to count Members through the Government Lobby—it is not the most exacting task in Parliament, but the hon. Gentleman decided to take it on instead of remaining on the Back Benches and contributing to our debates from that position—suggested that I was spending a good deal of time junketing. That is not correct.
  Junketing takes place in the Common Market, but I do not participate in it. I am not a member of any of the numerous delegations that travel round the world complete with interpreters, interpretation boxes, wissiers and the lot at enormous expense. I condemn it and I do not participate in it. Similarly, I do not participate in the political party groupings that cost £200,000, £300,000 or £400,000.
  I am a member of the Common Market Assembly, but that does not mean that I shall stop talking about the Common Market. I shall not be stopped by those who say that I am prejudiced. My prejudice has been reinforced by membership of the Common Market Assembly. I believe that the Common Market is a mess and that it is getting messier.
  Labour party policy on these matters was established by a two-thirds majority in 1981, which stated that we should withdraw on a political basis. That was clarified subsequently in a document entitled "Campaigning for a Fairer Britain", which maintained the right of withdrawal. That policy still stands. It is true that it is being reviewed, but the review has yet to be presented to conference for a two-thirds majority with a view to changing our policy.
  The Bill commits us to expenditure to 1992 without any adequate right of veto by Parliament. Incidentally, it involves retrospective legislation for the convenience of the Common Market. I can remember when a measure was introduced that contained retrospective legislation for the Clay Cross councillors. We wished to give them the right to undertake civic duties and the then Labour Government produced the Housing Finance (Special Provisions) Act. The Tory view was that retrospective legislation was at the top of the slippery slope towards Fascism. They have demonstrated that they have significant double standards. Retrospection was not appropriate for 11 ordinary workers who had had the effrontery to keep down rents for council houses and provide decent standards of repair, but it is all right for the Common Market to lash out billions of pounds on the storage and distribution, or destruction, of food. That is the double standard that the Government are perpetuating in the Bill.
  The only success that Delors has enjoyed in the Common Market is the diverting of attention from the Common Market's failures. The intergovernmental
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  agreement—when dealing with it, the Minister did not talk about 1990, 1991 and 1992—will increase expenditure on agriculture, which is compulsory under the treaty of Rome. There are those who say that the social fund increases will provide significant benefits, but that is the non-compulsory section of expenditure. If there are any expenditure adjustments, they are always in favour of agriculture and always against the social fund and other similar areas of expenditure which we on the Opposition Benches would support.
  It is claimed that there has been a reduction of food surpluses, but I remind the House of what is being undertaken. Food surpluses will be destroyed. They are currently valued at £7·7 billion. The cost of that destruction, or distribution, will be £2·45 billion, with £630 million spent immediately and an annual expenditure of £980 million for each year until 1991, in order to subsidise the food which is being sold off outside the EEC and which United Kingdom citizens have little chance of obtaining.
  The European Court of Auditors, an EEC institution, had this to say about the checking of food stocks in its own press release on its recent audit:
  "The report shows that the safeguards for the Community's interests in the value of stocks are in practice inadequate. Only three Member States … make any serious attempt at full annual stocktaking and only for certain products. The Court's inspection visits produced some alarming results."
  The press release concludes:
  "In these circumstances the Court concludes that it is technically impossible to arrive at any audit opinion whatever on the view presented by the EAGGF budget accounts of public storage expenditure."
  Money from this Bill will be spent on disposing of stocks that the EEC says are not being accounted for and about which no account can be given to the EEC. The House is being asked to hand over hundreds of millions of pounds to an organisation that cannot and does not, according to its own audit body, check the amount of food that it has in stock.
  Use will also be made of that money to create a united states of Europe. I have with me the Strasbourg Notebook for Wednesday 26 October—the midday edition. It states:
  "The Single Act and European Union. European Democratic Group Leader Christopher Prout (Shropshire and Stafford), speaking for his British colleagues, underlined his commitment to a strong and united Europe which, he said, had never been as important as now."
  Sir Ian Lloyd: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Cryer: I hear that there is some support for that view from the hon. Member for Havant (Sir I. Lloyd). The Prime Minister will be going through the green Government Benches as well as weeding out some of the federalists inside the Common Market. She has quite a task ahead of her.
  I take it that, when Christopher Prout refers to Europe, he does so with the usual arrogance of those who talk about the Common Market, and who ignore 22 or 23 European states and assume that only 12 have the right to the title of "Europe". What outrageous effrontery that is to the rest of the continent.
  Mr. Alex Carlile: What misrepresentation that is.
  Mr. Cryer: The hon. and learned Member says that I am guilty of a misrepresentation. Europe is a continent, not a collection of 12 states with a trading relationship.

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  The other document that I wish to bring to the attention of the House is the Graziani report, which is being presented to the European Parliament this week and will be voted for overwhelmingly.
  Mr. Dykes: He must be an Italian.
  Mr. Cryer: The hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) comments that Mr. Graziani is Italian. Earlier, the hon. Member said something that was completely untrue, in a false attempt to present critics of the Common Market as being little Englanders and against foreigners. The hon. Gentleman said that the debate had been peppered with criticisms of foreigners. That is not true. Neither Front Bench has referred to foreigners in derogatory terms; they have not even used the word "foreigners". In his blind obsession with the Common Market, the hon. Member for Harrow, East attempts to put words into right hon. and hon. Members' mouths. He can read the report of our debate to find out that that is so.
  The Graziani report, which is being debated this week, and which will be passed overwhelmingly, notes that,
  "even if the full potential of the Single Act is exploited to the maximum, it falls short of the Community's requirements, particularly as regards:
  —the competences of the Community, which is still deprived of adequate means of action in the areas of the common foreign policy, security, a common currency with a central bank, energy, development aid, cultural cooperation, education and European citizenship,
  —efficient decision-making where the Commission does still not enjoy appropriate executive power and the Council still remains subject to the unanimity rule in areas that are vital to the Community,
  —democracy, since the competences which are being transferred to the Community by the national Parliaments are not subject to adequate powers on the part of the European Parliament."
  The report concludes, in paragraph 20:
  "Believes that Parliament will have to prepare a new draft proposal for European Union before the 1992 deadline and that it will be for the Parliament elected in 1989 to accomplish this task."
  The House should be under no illusion that some of the money will be used for the development of European union, whereas sovereign states meeting together do so far more effectively than if they are compulsorily harmonized on every issue. [Interruption.] I am trying to finish, and I may point out to the Whips, who seem to be twirling their fingers round their wristwatch dials, that I keep being interrupted by the Euro-fanatics, who try to misrepresent the position taken by people such as myself who criticise the Common Market.
  The Bill will throw good money after bad, and I shall vote against it. I shall be voting not just for the amendment but against the Bill itself.
  Mr. Alex Carlile: How surprising of the hon. Gentleman!
  Mr. Cryer: The hon. and learned Member may like to bear in mind that in Bradford the Tories are putting 9,000 people on the dole because they do not have enough money—that is what they claim.
  I say that there are higher priorities on which to spend the £7·4 billion that the Government have spent on the Common Market since 1984, in providing decent social services, a decent livelihood for pensioners and single parent families, adequate housing, and other adequate facilities in Bradford and the rest of the country. If the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery, who has paid
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  lickspittle subservience to the Common Market, listened more carefully, he would realise that people in all parts of the country are suffering under the Tory Government, whose supporters will be going into the Lobby tonight to vote for this Bill.
  Mr. Carlile: Will the hon. Member for Bradford, South accept from me, as the Member representing a large rural constituency, that the workers there, who include members of trade unions—which I thought the hon. Member supported—have benefited enormously from our membership of the European Community? We would not have a farming industry left in Mid Wales, in the hills, were it not for the Community.
  Mr. Cryer: If one is to define the benefits, the hon. and learned Member must explain how it is that we have a trade deficit of £10 billion and why we have paid £7·4 billion into the Common Market since 1984. He will have to explain also why we are pouring out money under this legislation that could go instead to benefit rural communities and industrial manufacturing in this country.
  Those who support the Common Market have yet to produce a shred of evidence to back their arguments. It is a terrible organisation. It has lost us millions of jobs, and I shall vote against it tonight.
  8.18 pm
  Mr. Stuart Holland: This debate has apparently been divided between Europhobes and Europhiles, but my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) pointed out, in my view quite rightly, that the term "Europe" is too liberally or freely applied to matters that are more strictly concerned with the Community rather than being genuinely European.
  This week the House has had plenty of opportunity to address the issues that are the subject of the Bill, and I for one do not seek to detain the House by reiterating some of the arguments adduced from the Dispatch Box earlier. Instead, I shall focus on two or three points.
  One must ask what is the nature of the Government's policy in relation to the Bruges speech. Frankly, the Prime Minister's position, at least in one respect, is consistent and logical. She can ideologically support the case for the creation of a genuine free trade area inside the European Community. This is what the single market proposals are all about. My hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) pointed out that she may have more difficulty with the declaration of the intention of member countries to proceed with political co-operation with a view to economic union. But in the other respect the Prime Minister may be able to claim that she is being consistent—she believes in a level playing field for the competitive process here at home and abroad.
  What does that mean? It is consistent with the Prime Minister's attitude towards intervention, where she believes that the role of the state should be negative—to prevent frictions to the market mechanism by Government policies. In the Community, she believes in negative integration. She believes in breaking down what is already there rather than positive co-operation to build up what is not there. These are the reasons why she has no readiness to co-operate with other Governments on industrial, regional and social policies.
  However, there is a contradiction. If 1992 is only about levelling the playing field, big firms will win over the small

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  and medium firms that the Government and the Prime Minister seek to defend. Certainly strong regions will dominate weaker regions, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. It may be a common market, but it certainly will not be a community.
  These are the differences between the approach of the Government and the Prime Minister and our approach, because we want to put community into the common market. We want to see joint social, industrial and regional policies adopted in the Community, not on the federalist basis, not as a denial of nation states or national Governments, but as the extension of joint co-operative policies whereby Governments can do together what they cannot best do for themselves and can do by themselves what they can best do alone.
  These are the differences between the Government and the Opposition on the Community and what it should do until 1992. The Government are negative in their philosophy on the internal market. They favour a breaking down of what impedes trade rather than being positive about intergovernmental joint action to recover spending and trade. The Government are negative towards the social market proposals not only made by Jacques Delors but backed by other Governments in the Community. They alone in the Community believe that one can strengthen competitiveness by weakening labour and its institutions, and that one can gain by confronting rather than working with the trades unions.
  Sir Ian Lloyd: This is most important. The hon. Gentleman has said that a future Labour Government would favour co-operation on this basis and that they would favour co-operation based entirely on supervision by national Governments and national Parliaments. Is he aware—I am sure he must be—of the research document produced by the European Parliament analysing the position of some 60 of the 76 political parties in Europe? It is clear that those 60 parties collectively are insisting that the democratic deficits in Europe can be solved only by adding to the powers of the European Parliament. Does the Labour party agree with that?
  Mr. Holland: I do not need lectures from the hon. Gentleman on what parties in Europe are doing on this matter. We are in constant dialogue and I have represented my party in that dialogue with, for example, the Confederation of Socialist Parties of the European Community, which is by far the largest single federation. That grouping of parties outweighs the sister parties of the Tories and causes some embarrassment to the Liberals, who do not know whether they are sitting left, right or centre when they join Liberals abroad.
  We need to ensure that there is effective accountability over what the Community does, but that does not mean that the European Assembly should be a Parliament with powers above national Parliaments. Many members of the European Parliament may want that, but it does not mean that they should have it. Nor does it mean that there is no role for the European Assembly in assessing what the Community is doing, nor even proposing what the Community should do.
  But such proposals, which at the moment can be made only on a limited basis to the Council of Ministers, and its power to amend Community legislation, do not of
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  themselves mean a supranational assembly over national Governments. That is one of the reasons why we need more co-operation between what the Assembly of the Community is doing and what national Governments are doing. It is one of the reasons why we tabled our amendment on Monday, which suggested that the House should have the power of scrutiny, and our amendments this evening and in the debate on 11 July proposing that there should be more co-operation on that basis.
  The Government are negative in their attitude towards the social market and industrial and regional policies. They do not want joint ventures with other Governments in Europe. Nor do they have a positive policy of industrial co-operation between British and other companies. They leave that entirely to the market, despite the fact that the Japanese, for example, are making joint ventures with everybody under their rising sun. The Government refuse Community offers for a framework of joint ventures within Europe, as they did the proposal made last year for a networking of regional enterprise agencies and local and regional governments in the Community.
  The Prime Minister probably likes the Gaullist comparison made by commentators and cartoonists following her Bruges speech, but her policies are not Gaullist and nor is she Charles de Gaulle. Charles de Gaulle was aganst federalism, but he was strongly in favour of international joint action by Community Governments. I give two illustrations of that. First, in 1967, the Gaullist Government proposed joint ventures between European companies to strengthen Europe's industrial base. That was a positive policy made on the supply side of the European Community that is not matched by anything coming from the Government.
  Secondly, on the demand management side, de Gaulle supported the medium-term economic policy committee of the Community, which was chaired by Robert Marjolin, then the vice-president of the Commission, a former head of the OEEC, and a former deputy head of the French plan. They gave their active support to this policy so that Europe could project its mutual spending and trade and have some coherence in its economic policy. The Government are doing nothing of that kind. They are not proposing that Governments at the European level should take joint action on spending and trade, despite the severe risks that could be faced following the forthcoming election in the United States of a slowdown in the world economy if the United States budget deficit is cut and United States imports are cut.
  Further, on international policy, de Gaulle wanted and worked for real European co-operation from the Atlantic to the Urals, not half-hearted, small-minded co-operation on harmonising a free trade area while retaining one foot in Europe and the other in Washington. He was opposed to such a stance, castigating it as the Trojan horse approach to Europe. In that respect, again, the Prime Minister is not Gaullist. De Gaulle had a vision of Europe, but the Prime Minister has not. He had international stature of a kind that, precisely because she has no vision for Europe, the Prime Minister has not.
  It is this failure to work within a non-federal framework for European co-operation that has meant that the real political leadership in Europe has passed from the Prime Minister. It is not Charles de Gaulle but another Frenchman who has proved more prescient about the leadership of the British nation, 150 years after his death. The Prime Minister is the daughter of a shopkeeper, with

  541
  the attitudes of a shopkeeper, anxious to project a nation of shopkeepers in her own image. It is a stunted image for a stunted European policy. It does no credit to the Government, nor to this House, nor to the British people.
  8·30 pm
  Mr. Brooke: As I remarked earlier in the debates on this Bill, I am approaching my third anniversary as the relevant Minister. I am approaching my 17th Budget Council, and it is my experience that the Budget Council shares with these debates the fact that they are conducted by a small number of people with whom one becomes very friendly and familiar.
  The right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlie) is a newcomer to our debates, so I hope that I am not committing a Euro-offence in describing my familiarity with the dramatis personae in both places. I welcome him and, in the characteristic and familiar words that one uses about maiden speeches, we look forward to his future contributions. However, in his description of the flexibility of the Labour vision, he was rejecting the view that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The description that he gave of a speech which could be used in by-elections up and down the country seemed to be in line with standard Liberal practice.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) intervened in my earlier speech, and I said that I would come back if I had anything further to add on agriculture. The crucial point is that, according to the legally binding decision on budget discipline, the agricultural guideline limit must be respected. On the one hand, that decision requires the Commission to make its price proposals consistent with the guideline. On the other hand, the Commission must monitor spending to ensure that it is kept within the guideline and must use the stabilisers about which my hon. Friend asked me, where necessary, to achieve that aim. Although the operation of stabilisers is independent of the Commission's proposals for changes in prices or in the agri-monetary system in the annual price fixing, the overall aim of keeping spending within the guideline is assured by the budget discipline decision, which was agreed by the February European Council.
  Mr. Teddy Taylor: My right hon. Friend has been most kind and courteous, but my question did not concern the most helpful information that he has just given. I was simply asking whether the automatic stabiliser could be overcome by an increase in price at the same time as an alteration of the green pound, as happened this year. Is there not a danger that, like all wonderful Euro-plans and dreams, it will, in fact, be undermined and there will be no lawful method of stopping it in any way?
  Mr. Brooke: My hon. Friend's advice to us is so consistent that I am quite certain that we shall mount vigilance against the line that he has suggested. I was seeking to suggest that the stabilisers cannot be used in that way because that would take us outside the overall policy.
  The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) went on a bit. I apologise for the fact that, in seeking to abbreviate my speech, I omitted three or four words from the Prime Minister's speech. I acknowledge that those words were uttered. I am delighted that he has produced
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  the equivalent of a manuscript amendment, because it unquestionably strengthens the thought that underlies the Prime Minister's observation.
  I appreciate that the hon. Member for Hamilton is the spokesman for foreign affairs on the Labour Front Bench, but he has never really understood the technicalities of this legislation. The negative reserve is something that he never mastered. I am glad to say that we have corralled and curtailed it. Tonight, he went on and on about £738 million. I say encouragingly to him, because it demonstrated a certain distance from the detail, that the figure is in fact £620 million, as there is, of course, a substantial amount that was earmarked for the monetary reserve.
  To be fair, the hon. Gentleman did acknowledge that, because our net receipts would be going up by £300 million, a lot of that money will he coming back to us. However, where he took off was in introducing £200 million as the amount that we were likely to get back from the structural funds annually in the future. If I may say so, his hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) was simultaneously quoting an article in The Guardian which said that the British Government would have to find £6 billion over the next four years in extra expenditure in exactly the same areas of endeavour.
  The difference between the £200 million of the hon. Member for Hamilton and the £6 billion of the hon. Member for Motherwell, North is considerable. It is true that they are different sums and the distance between them shows an error in both directions. The hon. Member for Hamilton always strays a little from the detail, and he suggested that 80 per cent. of the structural funds had to go into objective 1 regions. However, it was in fact 80 per cent. of the regional funds which had to go into objective 1 regions. If he had read the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East (Ms. Quin) and her exchange with me on Second Reading, he would have seen that there is a substantial emphasis in the Social Fund on youth training and the long-term unemployed in both areas, for which the United Kingdom will continue to receive substantial resources.
  The hon. Member for Hamilton also raised the question of structural funds receipts. It is not true that such receipts simply finance projects that would have taken place anyway. Ministers take account of their respective level of receipts when reaching their expenditure decisions each year. The receipts enable spending programmes to be set at a higher level than otherwise would be possible.
  The hon. Member for Hamilton then quoted from a clause in the preamble to the Single European Act and talked about the Stuttgart declaration on European union. We discussed this on Monday, when I made it clear that neither the Single European Act nor the treaty of Rome imposes an obligation upon the Community to introduce European monetary union. Under article 102A of the treaty, any institutional changes in economic and monetary policy require the calling of an intergovernmental conference, the unanimous agreement of all member states and approval by national Parliaments. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) congratulated the Government on the Bill and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on her Bruges speech. He introduced—possibly unconsiously—a transfer from reds under the bed to feds under the bed.

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  The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) is an old friend in these debates. I do not share all his views, but I was wounded by the scathing comment by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery about the hon. Gentleman's contribution to the debate. The hon. Gentleman's chairmanship of the Scrutiny Committee means that he must make very informed speeches in these debates. I think we are all grateful to him for the quotation from Mr. Delors's speech on 6 July, which otherwise has some danger of passing into legend, as have other remarks like "Tory vermin" and "Exporting is fun", none of which was actually uttered by the people to whom they were attributed.
  The hon. Member for Newham, South asked about the balance of trade. Whether or not our balance of trade in manufacturing will worsen depends on how British industry reponds. There is no predetermined conclusion on that. The year 1992 represents both an opportunity and a challenge, and the Government's approach is that industry and services should be aware of that oportunity and challenge so that they can approach 1992 with readiness and confidence. The experience of improving competition and sweeping away red tape in the United Kingdom has been immensely beneficial and we trust that opening up the internal market throughout Europe will have a similar beneficial effect.
  Mr. Spearing rose—
  Mr. Brooke: I was asked to be brisk.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash), who was shut out of the debate on Monday by the informal deadline, gave an immensely worthwhile exposure of the Opposition's position. The hon. Member for Hamilton asked my hon. Friend why he was dwelling on it, but it was simply because that was the main arena in which the hon. Member for Hamilton had deployed himself.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh)—[Interruption]
  Mr. Spearing: Will the right hon Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Brooke: I will not give way, because I understand that there is a general pressure that we should bring these matters to a conclusion.
  Mr. Spearing: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can you indicate to the House the time at which this debate must finish unless the Government move a motion to suspend the rule?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): The right hon. Gentleman is correct in what he says.
  Mr. Brooke: Provided I am not going to be rebuked by the Opposition Whip. I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Spearing: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his courtesy. He was very courteous to me a moment ago. I am wondering whether, in using the scrutiny function of questions in speeches to which he referred, he could answer two questions. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Stuttgart declaration, signed by this Government, as being in favour of and being
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  committed to European Union—with a capital "E" and a capital "U". Will he confirm that there is a Government commitment to that, whatever it may be?
  Secondly, in his kindly reference to my quotation from Mr. Delors, will he acknowledge that at the moment more than 80 per cent. of law that is applicable to the people and citizens of the United Kingdom in the courts of this country originated in Brussels 10 years before Mr. Delors's forecast?
  Mr. Brooke: Of course I give the acknowledgement in connection with the declaration. As I said on Monday, there has been a series of political declarations about political union by both parties over the years. The hon. Gentleman's calculation about the balance between European and British legislation seems to me to be determined by the amount of paper on which the legislation is written, and I am not quite sure that that is the way in which one should establish the balance.
  Mr. Spearing: How else?
  Mr. Brooke: The hon. Member for Motherwell, North again mentioned the treatment of grants from the structural funds. As I implied in terms of my reference to The Guardian, he should not believe everything that he reads in the newspapers. He suggested that, until now, we have not paid our share of the cost of structural projects financed by Community aid. That is not so. Projects simply cannot go ahead unless member states provide their share of the money. I shall not do an analysis of the £6 billion that he mentioned. For the reason that the hon. Member for Hamilton gave, it seems an exaggerated figure.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Sir R. Body), who is a veteran of these debates, emphasised the continuity of the dialogue. The title of his constituency serves as a bridge between continental Europe and the United States.
  The hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer)—I hope I am not doing him a disservice by saying that one of my great disappointments of this year was not to play cricket under his captaincy—like all great slow left-arm Yorkshire bowlers, bowls with a nagging length. In these debates he bowls with a nagging length only if provoked. I found him admirably brief and pertinent. Despite his disclaimer about his membership of what he described as "the assembly", the House gains from the dual mandate that he represents.
  I have to protest about what the hon. Gentleman said late on Monday night about Euro-fanatics among Treasury officials. Treasury officials give very objective advice to Ministers. He referred to the Court of Auditors' report on public storage. I share his concern about financial irregularities and fraud against the Community budget. The Government of the United Kingdom have been at the forefront of attempts in the Council, and elsewhere, to tackle the problem of fraud and to improve financial management. Recently I had useful discussions in London with the head of the Commission's new anti-fraud unit.
  The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) drew on the Prime Minister's Bruges speech, which provided the pabulum for many Opposition Members' speeches. He referred to the structural funds. In view of what has been done in regard to the structural funds, I am bound to say that there is no pleasing some people. He said that the

  545
  Prime Minister is not de Gaulle, which is self-evident, just as those who have made the pilgrimage to Colombey-les-deux-Églises know that there is only one church there.
  The British people warmly approve of the Prime Minister's stand and position on Europe. She may be the daughter of a shopkeeper, but she is also the daughter of an alderman—that most Saxon of governing titles—and she speaks for the spirit of England. The office of Paymaster General goes back to being Treasurer of the Navy under Henry VIII, but its climax came when Lord North conducted an investigation in the 1780s which showed that, rather like the fraud investigation of the hon. Member for Bradford, South, there was £500,000 missing in 1780s sterling. The following year, the great Burke—appointed Mr. Clean—took through an Act which said that the penalty for forging the Paymaster General's signature should be death without benefit of clergy.
  I am delighted, in my present role, to have responsibility for saving and constraint in the European budget. The negotiations that have given rise to the Bill were a remarkable negotiating achievement by my right hon. Friends, and they were conducted in the interests of Europe as a whole. I am merely a journeyman in the task of helping to put this historic legislation on the statute book, and I have no hesitation in commending the Third Reading of the Bill to the House.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 79, Noes 252.

  Division No. 459]

  [8.44 pm

  AYES

  Anderson, Donald

  Lamond, James

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Loyden, Eddie

  Battle, John

  McAvoy, Thomas

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

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Bermingham, Gerald

  McWilliam, John

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Madden, Max

  Boyes, Roland

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Buckley, George J.

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Morley, Elliott

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Mullin, Chris

  Clay, Bob

  Murphy, Paul

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Nellist, Dave

  Cohen, Harry

  Pike, Peter L.

  Coleman, Donald

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Cryer, Bob

  Randall, Stuart

  Darling, Alistair

  Redmond, Martin

  Dixon, Don

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Eadie, Alexander

  Reid, Dr John

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

  Robertson, George

  Fisher, Mark

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Flynn, Paul

  Short, Clare

  Foster, Derek

  Skinner, Dennis

  Foulkes, George

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  George, Bruce

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

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Snape, Peter

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Soley, Clive

  Haynes, Frank

  Spearing, Nigel

  Holland, Stuart

  Turner, Dennis

  Hood, Jimmy

  Walker, A. Cecil (Belfast N)

  Hoyle, Doug

  Wall, Pat

  Illsley, Eric

  Walley, Joan

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Wareing, Robert N.

  546

  Winnick, David

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Mr. Allen McKay and

  Worthington, Tony

  Mr. Alun Michael.

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Alexander, Richard

  Fallon, Michael

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Allason, Rupert

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Alton, David

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Amess, David

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Amos, Alan

  Forman, Nigel

  Arbuthnot, James

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Forth, Eric

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Ashby, David

  Franks, Cecil

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Freeman, Roger

  Atkinson, David

  French, Douglas

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Gale, Roger

  Baldry, Tony

  Gardiner, George

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Bellingham, Henry

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Gorst, John

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Gow, Ian

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Boswell, Tim

  Gregory, Conal

  Bottomley, Peter

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Grist, Ian

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Ground, Patrick

  Bowis, John

  Grylls, Michael

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Brazier, Julian

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

  Bright, Graham

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

  Harris, David

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Haselhurst, Alan

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

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Hayes, Jerry

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Hayward, Robert

  Burns, Simon

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Burt, Alistair

  Hill, James

  Butcher, John

  Hind, Kenneth

  Butler, Chris

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Butterfill, John

  Howard, Michael

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Howells, Geraint

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Carrington, Matthew

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Carttiss, Michael

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Cash, William

  Hunter, Andrew

  Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

  Irvine, Michael

  Chapman, Sydney

  Jack, Michael

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Janman, Tim

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Colvin, Michael

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Conway, Derek

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Cran, James

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Critchley, Julian

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Kirkwood, Archy

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

  Knapman, Roger

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Day, Stephen

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Devlin, Tim

  Knowles, Michael

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Lang, Ian

  Dunn, Bob

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Durant, Tony

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Dykes, Hugh

  Lightbown, David

  Eggar, Tim

  Lilley, Peter

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Evennett, David

  Lord, Michael

  547

  McCrindle, Robert

  Ryder, Richard

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Sackville, Hon Tom

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Malins, Humfrey

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Mans, Keith

  Shersby, Michael

  Maples, John

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Marland, Paul

  Speed, Keith

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Squire, Robin

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Mellor, David

  Steen, Anthony

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Stern, Michael

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Stewart, Ian (Hertfordshire N)

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Summerson, Hugo

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Moss, Malcolm

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Neale, Gerrard

  Thorne, Neil

  Needham, Richard

  Thurnham, Peter

  Nelson, Anthony

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Neubert, Michael

  Tracey, Richard

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Trippier, David

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  Viggers, Peter

  Page, Richard

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Patnick, Irvine

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Patten, Chris (Bath)

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Patten, John (Oxford W)

  Walden, George

  Pawsey, James

  Waller, Gary

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Walters, Sir Dennis

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Ward, John

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Price, Sir David

  Warren, Kenneth

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Wheeler, John

  Rathbone, Tim

  Whitney, Ray

  Redwood, John

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Renton, Tim

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Wilkinson, John

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Wilshire, David

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Wood, Timothy

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Yeo, Tim

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Rost, Peter

  Mr. Alan Howarth and

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Mr. David Maclean.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Main Question put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 247, Noes 34.

  Division No. 460]

  [8.57 pm

  AYES

  Adley, Robert

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Alexander, Richard

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Allason, Rupert

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Alton, David

  Boswell, Tim

  Amess, David

  Bottomley, Peter

  Amos, Alan

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Arbuthnot, James

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Bowis, John

  Ashby, David

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Atkinson, David

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Brazier, Julian

  Baldry, Tony

  Bright, Graham

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Bellingham, Henry

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

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  548

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Howells, Geraint

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Burns, Simon

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Burt, Alistair

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Butcher, John

  Hunter, Andrew

  Butler, Chris

  Irvine, Michael

  Butterfill, John

  Jack, Michael

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Carrington, Matthew

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Carttiss, Michael

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Cash, William

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Chapman, Sydney

  Knapman, Roger

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Colvin, Michael

  Knowles, Michael

  Conway, Derek

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Lang, Ian

  Cran, James

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Critchley, Julian

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Lightbown, David

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

  Lilley, Peter

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Day, Stephen

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Devlin, Tim

  Lord, Michael

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  McCrindle, Robert

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Dunn, Bob

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Durant, Tony

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Dykes, Hugh

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Eggar, Tim

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Malins, Humfrey

  Evennett, David

  Mans, Keith

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Maples, John

  Fallon, Michael

  Marland, Paul

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Forman, Nigel

  Mellor, David

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Forth, Eric

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Franks, Cecil

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Freeman, Roger

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  French, Douglas

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Gale, Roger

  Moss, Malcolm

  Gardiner, George

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Neale, Gerrard

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Needham, Richard

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Nelson, Anthony

  Gorst, John

  Neubert, Michael

  Gow, Ian

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  Gregory, Conal

  Page, Richard

  Grist, Ian

  Patnick, Irvine

  Ground, Patrick

  Patten, Chris (Bath)

  Grylls, Michael

  Patten, John (Oxford W)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Pawsey, James

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Porter, David (Waveney)

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

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Price, Sir David

  Harris, David

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Rathbone, Tim

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Redwood, John

  Hayes, Jerry

  Renton, Tim

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Hayward, Robert

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Hill, James

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Hind, Kenneth

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Howard, Michael

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Rost, Peter

  549

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Tracey, Richard

  Ryder, Richard

  Trippier, David

  Sackville, Hon Tom

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Viggers, Peter

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Walden, George

  Shersby, Michael

  Waller, Gary

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Walters, Sir Dennis

  Speed, Keith

  Ward, John

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Warren, Kenneth

  Squire, Robin

  Wheeler, John

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Whitney, Ray

  Steen, Anthony

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Stern, Michael

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Wilkinson, John

  Stewart, Ian (Hertfordshire N)

  Wilshire, David

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Wood, Timothy

  Summerson, Hugo

  Yeo, Tim

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Thorne, Neil

  Mr. David Maclean and

  Thurnham, Peter

  Mr. Alan Howarth.

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  NOES

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Mullin, Chris

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Nellist, Dave

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Pike, Peter L.

  Body, Sir Richard

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Buckley, George J.

  Redmond, Martin

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Clay, Bob

  Skinner, Dennis

  Cohen, Harry

  Spearing, Nigel

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

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Flynn, Paul

  Walker, A. Cecil (Belfast N)

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Janman, Tim

  Wall, Pat

  Lamond, James

  Walley, Joan

  Loyden, Eddie

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Madden, Max

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Marlow, Tony

  Mr. Bob Cryer and

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Mr. Harry Barnes.

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

  Housing (Northern Ireland)
  9.8 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Richard Needham): I beg to move,
  That the draft Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 13th July 1988, be approved.
  The main purpose of the order is to introduce provisions for homeless people in Northern Ireland which correspond to those that apply in England and Wales. Great Britain has had legislation dealing with homelessness which was first introduced during the life of the previous Government in 1977 with all-party support. The order also contains some important amendments to the present right-to-buy legislation and extends the Housing Executive's powers to control houses in multiple occupation. It also introduces a series of technical measures.
  During the consultation period, I received a wide range of submissions. Most of the representations dealt with homelessness. I also met a number of voluntary groups to discuss the homeless. These groups generally welcomed the order, but felt that we should have broadened the proposed legislation. I considered their views carefully, but in the end I decided that what was appropriate for the rest of the United Kingdom was also right for Northern Ireland.
  Homelessness is, of course, a serious problem, but despite reports that have recently been published, the problem is not as widespread or as intractable in Northern Ireland as in many other parts of the United Kingdom. Hon. Members will no doubt be aware of a recent report on homelessness published by Shelter and the Simon Community, which claims that between 6,000 and as many as 8,320 households are homeless each year in Northern Ireland. Those figures have little or no basis in fact.
  Some indication of the real extent of the problem can be gained from the number of people awarded emergency status under the Housing Executive's selection scheme. During 1987, some 2,200 were awarded emergency status, and about 75 per cent. of those received an offer of rehousing within three months. In addition—this is the important point—the area health and social services boards provided temporary accommodation for 316 families and 271 single people during 1986. At 31 December 1987, 26 homeless families and 75 homeless single people were living in temporary accommodation arranged by the boards. Those are the figures which I intend to keep a close eye on.
  I am sure that the House will be interested to know that, in the whole of Northern Ireland there are no more families living in temporary accommodation than there are in the New Forest, and that there are fewer such families than in Bristol, Ipswich, Reading or Lewisham. It is important not to exaggerate the problem in Northern Ireland, although that is not to belittle the impact of homelessness on those affected.
  The area boards have used their discretionary powers under the Health and Personal Social Services Order 1972 to provide temporary accommodation for vulnerable homeless people. However, the division of responsibilities between the boards, which look after the temporarily homeless, and the executive, which has control over

  551
  permanent housing, is no longer ideal, as some people fall between two stools. The order will enable assistance to be provided in a more planned and co-ordinated way.
  The order also sets out the vulnerable groups that will have a right to immediate accommodation. Six categories are listed in article 5. The first four are the same as those listed in the Housing Act 1985, but I have added two more: first, people subjected to violence; and secondly, young people at risk of sexual or financial exploitation. I believe that those two additional classes will be welcomed by all.
  The main debate that has taken place in the Province prior to the introduction of this order is whether the Government should have done more to help single homeless people. It would be impossible to cater for all those who, having had a row with their parents or a row with one another, suddenly decided on a whim to leave home and fall back on the Housing Executive for accommodation. Not only would it be impossible to deal with them all; it would be quite wrong, as such people would automatically jump the list above those who may well have waited many months in housing that was not particularly appropriate. A young married couple living with their parents would hardly be happy to find themselves pipped at the post by someone who had committed what they could well see as an act of irresponsibility or fecklessness. To write into law such a duty for single people would in my judgment be as irresponsible as it would be impossible to fulfil and would create considerable community antagonism.
  The Housing Executive will continue to do all that it can to provide for the single homeless. At present, about one third of all lettings by the executive go to single people. The lettings are not made in an ill-planned and inappropriate way. I am well aware of the need to avoid ghettos of either single people from troubled backgrounds or single-parent families and it is very important to get as much of a social mix as possible. I am convinced that the Housing Executive will consider the points thoroughly in defining its future policy on single homeless people.
  It is worth adding that single homeless people can also continue to be housed in the private sector and by housing associations, which have been a great support to them and have provided accommodation for more than 750 single people in the past five years. I see that as a continuing partnership.
  The second concern was intentionality. Worry was expressed to me that the Housing Executive might try to avoid its responsibilities to homeless people by insisting on very tight intentionality provisions. I believe that those fears are unfounded.
  The purpose of article 6 is to ensure that people do not deliberately make themselves homeless in order to jump the queue ahead of others who have been waiting patiently on the housing list, and the same principle must apply to them as it does to single people who may demand rehousing without reasonable cause. I think everyone will agree that the executive has a good record under its existing housing selection scheme in making similar decisions to the intentionality rules under the present guidelines, which deny housing to people who have deliberately worsened their circumstances. I have no
  552
  reason to believe that it will not adopt a similar and sensible approach on intentionality, but I accept that this is something that we shall need to keep under review.
  There were also some suggestions that it would be right to have an independent appeal system included in the order. When the Housing (Homeless Persons) Bill was debated in the House in 1977, both sides accepted that it would be illogical to include such a right of appeal when no such right existed against many other types of housing management decisions taken by local housing authorities every day. The Housing Executive operates an internal complaints procedure which deals with cases where people are not satisfied with its decisions or actions, and I am pleased that the executive has agreed to review its procedures to make sure that they are appropriate once its new homelessness responsibilities take effect.
  Clearly the change in responsibility from area boards to the executive will require funds to be transferred to the housing authority. We have not yet finalised the amount, but it will be those sums which the boards are currently spending. The Housing Executive has made it clear to me that in addition it will require further funds to enable it to carry out these new duties fully. I will look closely at this bid by the executive in the context of the current public expenditure review.
  The most important point to stress about the homelessness part of the order is that its effectiveness will depend on the way that the Housing Executive operates it. I am reassured—I hope that hon. Members will be—by the quality of those who serve on the Housing Executive as officers and board members. I am sure that the incoming chairman, Mr. McEvoy, ably assisted by all his board, who have wide experience of the problems of social deprivation, homelessness and morbidity, will ensure that the executive deals fairly and sensitively with applicants.
  Success will depend on the executive maintaining close relationships with the area boards and the voluntary agencies. For example, I will wish to see the boards keep closely in touch with the problems that are associated with the health and social care of homeless families. I have asked the Housing Executive, in conjunction with these other agencies, to draw up a detailed code of practice and guidance which can set out the role of each in the operation of the new order. This code will be freely available so that everyone will know what the precise responsibilities of each statutory body are, and I will ensure that the code is made available to hon. Members.
  To make certain that we have the code of practice and guidance right, I am arranging for a seminar to be held at the end of November, where all those involved in homelessness will be asked to participate. Using the draft code of practice and guidance, the seminar will discuss how each group or agency, both public and voluntary, can play its part under the umbrella of the legislation to provide the best possible service to those who are homeless. I hope that these initiatives will do much to dispel the doubts in the minds of some of the voluntary bodies and, more important, help to develop good working relationships and practices between everyone involved.
  I turn briefly to the other provisions which, first, deal with right-to-buy amendments and increase the scale of discounts on the purchase of executive flats to a maximum of 70 per cent. The order reduces the period during which there is a liability to repay the discount from five to three

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  years. In addition, we are extending from two to three years the period during which a right-to-buy purchase can be deferred.
  There is a continuing interest by the people of Northern Ireland in buying their homes, I am glad to say. Last year, over 2,800 executive tenants took this step, and this makes a total of over 36,000 houses sold to date. I am confident that these amendments, which have already been incorporated in the executive's voluntary sales scheme, will keep that interest going.
  I am also introducing an amendment to the Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1981 which gives the executive powers to enforce notices that it has served requiring execution of repair works in houses of multiple occupation. This will close a gap in its existing powers and should help the executive to develop its programme to improve conditions for those people currently in houses of multiple occupation where conditions are often far from perfect.
  I shall do all that I can to answer hon. Members in my summing up. I should like to reiterate the point that we are building on a piece of legislation brought forward in the House by both sides and with the support of the last Labour Government which I believe treads carefully between what is impracticable and what is necessary. I commend the order to the House.
  9.20 pm
  Mr. Jim Marshall: Those of us who participate in these debates on Northern Ireland usually are a small proportion of the House. We soon realise if one familiar face is no longer here. It is with sadness that I notice that Sir John Biggs-Davison is not in his place. He always participated in our debates and always had some thoughtful and often pungent comments to make. I rarely agreed with anything he said, but it was always a pleasure to see him participate in Northern Ireland business. I am sure that he will be sorely missed, not only by the people of Northern Ireland but by the House.
  Ministers, especially Irish Ministers, always begin a good excuse by saying that they are copying a piece of legislation that has been operative in Great Britain for a number of years and therefore see no good reason why it should not automatically apply in the North of Ireland. The Under-Secretary of State adopted that technique. Despite the praise that he has heaped on the homeless legislation which has operated in Great Britain over the past few years, there is increasing evidence that that legislation is insufficient to deal with the problems.
  I hoped that the Northern Ireland Office would take the opportunity to introduce legislation building upon existing legislation and taking into account many of the deficiencies which have been found over the past few years. Alas, that option has not been taken. Again, a Minister has said that what is good for Great Britain is good for the North of Ireland. I regret that the Minister did not take the opportunity to bring forward better legislation to deal with the homeless in Northern Ireland.
  The Minister knows that we welcome the draft order because, for the first time, it imposes a statutory duty on the Housing Executive to deal with at least part of the homelessness problem. As the Minister will probably guess, we regret that the new law will offer protection to only a small number of those who find themselves homeless. The order defines those in priority need and
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  specifically excludes single people and childless couples, despite the fact that statistics show that as many 80 per cent. of homeless people are in one of those two categories. The provisions of the draft order, especially article 5, fail to provide recognition for the largest group of homeless people in Northern Ireland.
  I deprecate the cavalier way in which the Minister disregards the needs of young single homeless people. To pretend that the majority leave home and seek their own accommodation purely because they have had a tiff with a parent calls into question the Minister's understanding and casts aspersions on those young people which I find it difficult to accept. I hope that in his reply the Minister will offer more serious and thoughtful reasons for excluding single people from the scope of the draft order. To categorise all the young people now homeless as being in that position due to some whim or fancy reflects great discredit on the Minister and casts an aspersion on those young people which is both unnecessary and unwarranted.
  The Labour party's view is that all homeless people are in priority need and should be recognised as such, and we regret that the Government have failed to extend article 5 to include single homeless people.
  I recognise that the Housing Executive discharges responsibilities towards single people and I accept the Minister's figure that one third of Housing Executive lettings in 1987–88 were to single young people. If the information in his letter to me is correct, the total number of dwellings is 3,700. That is commendable, but if we are to solve the problem of single homeless people it is not sufficient to rest on the laurels of the past. We must ensure that more suitable accommodation is provided in the future. I urge the Minister to convey to the Housing Executive the need to make more small unit accommodation available for single homeless people.
  The problems of homelessness cannot be treated in isolation. They are inextricably intertwined with housing policy. It is fairly obvious that if insufficient homes are coming forward the problem of homelessness will increase. In this context, I am concerned about the financial situation which the Housing Executive claims may face it in the coming years. I understand that in its latest annual report—I have not read the report, so I depend on press statements—the Housing Executive estimates that in the next two years there will be a shortfall of £38·5 million between the funding that the Government are prepared to provide and the amount needed by the Housing Executive to fund its work.
  I understand that the Housing Executive also claims that, if the present situation continues, the shortfall may be £100 million by the end of the century. According to the chairman of the Housing Executive, the result could be
  "a drastic reduction in public sector housebuilding, full improvement schemes and renovation grants".
  In my view, that would be disastrous for the Province and a disaster for the homeless. The. Government must ensure that the Housing Executive programme is fully funded.
  In the context of finance, I express today in the House a concern which I expressed in a letter to the Minister making representations on the draft order. I am concerned about the adequacy of the funds to be made available to the Housing Executive to administer the homelessness legislation. I accept that the Government have given a commitment that the resources that are now available through the Department of Health and Social Services and the area health and social services boards will transfer to

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  the Department of the Environment and the Housing Executive when the legislation comes into force. I also accept the assurance that that transfer of resources will be enough to cover current levels of activity.
  However, I and, I am sure, most Opposition Members are concerned that there is no commitment about future expenditure. As the Government conceded in a reply that the Minister sent me, the legislation may result in an increase in the amount of resources needed to deal with homelessness. The Government also said:
  "It will be up to the Housing Executive to seek such additional funds as it estimates will be required when submitting annual reviews of its housing strategy."
  So the Government accept that there may well be an increase in the financial burden on the Housing Executive as a result of this legislation and that, to cope with it, the Housing Executive should include an estimate in its annual review estimates for the money to meet that increased expenditure. But it is not enough to include an estimate based on previous years' expenditure, only to find that the budget as a whole is reduced in public expenditure cuts which will, if this policy is operated, reduce the amount available to the Housing Executive to deal with the problems of homelessness.
  I hope that the Minister will give a commitment on the Government's behalf that the Northern Ireland Office will fund in full any additional expenditure, not only next year but in the years to come. Unless such a commitment is given, the Housing Executive may have to cut other parts of its budget to meet its statutory obligations to the homeless. I hope that the Minister will not allow that to happen and will give an absolute guarantee that the Government will fully fund the exenditure involved in carrying out the Housing Executive's statutory duties.
  We welcome the inclusion of articles 15 and 28. The former enables the Housing Executive to help voluntary organisations that are concerned with homelessness. We all agree that these organisations do a good job and should continue to receive support.
  As the Minister said, article 28 provides the Housing Executive with powers to enforce notices requiring the carrying out of remedial repairs to properties in multiple occupation. In some cases, these repairs are more than necessary and it is only right and just that the Housing Executive should have these powers.
  If a Division is called—I doubt very much whether one will be—the Minister may count on our support in the Lobbies.
  9·33 pm
  Mr. A. Cecil Walker: I add my voice to that of the hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) in expressing my sadness at the passing of a great dear friend of Northern Ireland, Sir John Biggs-Davison, who was always here to help us and to contribute to debates on the Province. He will be sorely missed.
  The House owes you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, a sincere apology for asking you to preside over the play-acting farce that is taking place here this evening called the Housing (Northern Ireland) Order. We are being requested to comment on yet another order where we do not have the power to dot an "i" or cross a "t".
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  Many hon. Members, together with other concerned organisations, totalling 58 bodies in all, including 11 district council and other professional and representative groups, have submitted comments and submissions on the draft. But as for a positive reaction from the Government, they could be whistling in the wind. Therefore, with your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I again register in the strongest possible manner my abhorrence of this dictatorial imposition of Government intention with no opportunity to amend or debate in a meaningful way the contents of the order.
  You must also be aware, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that in an attempt to justify this thoroughly reprehensible form of government it has been suggested from time to time that such orders could be debated in the Northern Ireland Committee. The House knows that such a system would achieve nothing in real terms and cannot compare with real government as applied to all matters relating to other parts of the United Kingdom.
  Nevertheless, although at this stage nothing can be done about the shortcomings of the order, I wish to acquaint the Minister with my reservations about some of the matters that are of concern to those in Northern Ireland who have the interests of this section of the population very much at heart.
  It is an irrefutable fact that single people make up the largest percentage of the homeless population. It is stated that the Housing Executive will now be the main agency for housing homeless people, but it has intimated that the section making up the single homeless will have no right to housing unless they fall into a priority group.
  The existence of priority groups means that some groups are being seen as having special cause to be given accommodation, leaving others, mainly single people and childless couples, with no accommodation. Only if single people are accepted as vulnerable can they be housed. Experience has shown that vulnerability is a difficult concept to prove. Therefore, clearer guidelines are required to assist in the assessment of physical, mental and other types of vulnerability.
  In my constituency there is a high rate of intimidation from outside the home. Many young persons who have not acquiesced to the pressures of paramilitary organisations have had to move out of the family home for their own and their families' safety, and therefore are homeless. Moreover, no allowance appears to be made for people with family problems, for marital breakdowns or where a person is discharged from institutional care.
  There is nothing in the legislation that enforces standards to prevent people from being placed in unsuitable substandard accommodation. Some adults and young children in my constituency are living in intolerable conditions in houses with inadequate roofs or ceilings or with rotten floors. Thought must be given to defining those standards, together with providing adequate resources, so that temporary accommodation in particular can be properly planned.
  The concept of intentionality, as we call it, is thorny. The decision whether a person has made himself intentionally homeless is wide open to debate. Judgments about intentionality are bound to be subjective and lead to arguments about the deserving and undeserving homeless.
  I am also worried that no reference has been made to any independent housing appeals procedure in the legislation. I know that the Minister mentioned that in his

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  speech. Such a procedure would have avoided lengthy, complex and expensive court procedures as experienced in this part of the mainland.
  Another dangerous aspect of the order concerns those people who already have priority under the existing selection scheme where there is no limitation in law on single people or childless couples. It is therefore important that the legislation does not undermine these positive aspects of the Housing Executive's existing selection scheme.
  The Minister has stated that the funds required by the Housing Executive to meet additional responsibilities in respect of homeless people will come from a transfer of resources allocated to homelessness elsewhere and that the executive's estimate of its requirements for dealing with homelessness will form part of the annual process of needs assessment and costing in the review of housing strategy.
  The Minister should be aware of the magnitude of the task that he has set the executive in dealing with homelessness, and, in view of the swingeing cuts that have been imposed on the executive's budget in recent years, and the pessimistic forecasts for the future, I hope that specific funds will be available to ensure that the executive will not be hamstrung in its administrative responsibilities to this section of the population.
  To achieve the standards of service required, concentrated attention will have to be given to providing staff with proper training in respect of homelessness, improving the provision of temporary accommodation for the homeless and increasing general housing provision to meet the needs of the homeless. Legislation is needed, and the measure at least represents an advance on the present situation.
  The Minister has said that the legislation will give the executive considerable discretion to deal sympathetically with homeless applicants, but unless he backs his statement with the finance necessary to carry out that commitment, the situation will not improve. I wish to compliment the hon. Member for Leicester, South on making that point so strongly in his speech.
  We do not want the scandal of sleazy bed-and-breakfast establishments littered around the Province of Northern Ireland. Carrick House is an example of an establishment where adequate funds have not been provided, although it is a credit to the hard-working and caring staff who are doing their best in completely unacceptable circumstances. The Minister should take time off from his more pleasant pursuits to look at Carrick House, which the executive will inherit under the provisions of the order.
  We need new hostels, specially designed and equipped for the welfare of the homeless, but not at the expense of the existing housing programme, which is already extremely underfunded.
  In that connection, I have been requested by my colleague, the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe), who cannot, unfortunately, be with us this evening, to acquaint the Minister with the complete lack of facilities for the homeless in Newton Abbey. He hopes that, when conisderation is given to the provision of such facilities in the future, that fact will be kept uppermost in the Minister's mind.
  9.43 pm
  Mr. Eddie McGrady: Like hon. Members who have spoken before me, I welcome this piece of legislation, not because it covers all the problems that arise from homelessness and other matters such as multiple occupation, but because it is at least a step in the right direction. Like the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Walker), I am disappointed that the Minister has not taken the opportunity, in view of the experiences of the past 10 years since the legislation for England, Scotland and Wales came into force, to amend that legislation and to improve it.
  In welcoming the order, I am sure that I am only echoing the sentiments of the Simon community in Northern Ireland, Shelter and the Council for the Homeless, all of which have been agitating for many years for such a provision. It might surprise the House to know that, until now, there has been no statutory obligation on any authority in Northern Ireland to house a homeless person.
  The Housing Executive has no statutory duty and the health boards have a discretionary involvement. The statistics show that the boards' discretion is rather meagrely exercised. It is the voluntary sector that has carried the burden of providing accommodation and other necessities for the homeless. Its budget is restricted, as are its physical assets, and I pay tribute to it for what it has been able to achieve. The House might be interested to know that of the 39 hostels and other units of accommodation for the homeless in Northern Ireland, only three were provided by the four health boards. The House will appreciate immediately that the remaining 36 were provided by the meagrely funded voluntary sector. Great tribute must be paid to it. I am sure that the Minister will wish it to be closely involved in any further and continuing provisions.
  The order is timely because of two further factors. Perhaps I should point out at the outset that the Minister will not agree with what I am about to say. I fear that there will be increased demand for provision for the homeless because of the new provisions for health care in the community. According to those who are in the know, this care is grossly underfunded. It is almost inevitable that some of those who have been put out of institutions into the community will drift into homelessness as a result of lack of care. We see in the United States the horrific consequences of unwarranted de-institutionalisation of those who are not able to look after themselves.
  The order is timely also, given the stringent social security cuts which will bite more deeply on the family. I am convinced that there will be an acceleration of the breakdown of the containment of the family within the household. I believe that young people especially will be forced into leaving home and seeking help elsewhere. The disintegration of the family will contribute furher to the demand for provision for the homeless.
  It is important that young people should have access to immediate help. In many parts of Northern Ireland, boys and girls without homes are recruitment targets for the paramilitarists. The paramilitarists have mafia-type operations and it is easy for them to provide immediate funding, ostensibly to help young people to get over a diffcult time. They are approached when they need material help, when it is clear that they are under mental stress. As I have said, the agencies that provide housing

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  provision should be immediately sympathetic and responsive to the individual's problem. If that help is not available, young people will be enticed into paramilitary operations, to the detriment of the community.
  The order should have three broad attributes. It should definitely, positively and unequivocally identify responsibility for the succour of the homeless. This has been successfully achieved by transferring the function to the Housing Executive.
  Secondly, the accommodation provided by the executive, be it interim or long term, must be of an acceptable standard. There must be an initial insistence on the part of the Ministry, the health boards and the executive that the accommodation must meet minimum reasonable standards.
  The third requisite that I wish to mention—it is one on which other hon. Members have touched, and on which the legislation will, to a large extent, either succeed or fail—is funding. Like faith and hope, if one does not enjoy charity then the other two cannot survive. If there is no funding, there will not be the exercise of responsibility and the provision of meaningful and suitable accommodation.
  The order has seen few changes since its original draft, despite the fact that, as the hon. Member for Belfast, North, said there have been 58 representations. In a short debate such as this, it is not possible to deal with every aspect, so I shall restrict myself to just a few of them. First, I thank the Minister for his detailed and lengthy reply to the submission that I made to him on behalf of the Social, Democratic and Labour party when the draft order was published.
  The first point that I should like to have clarified—it is not written into the order but it is in the Minister's letter—concerns whether or not people who are in temporary accommodation are deemed homeless. In his letter to me, in respect of article 3, the Minister wrote:
  "It is clear, depending on individual circumstances, that a person living in unsatisfactory temporary accommodation could be regarded either as homeless or threatened with homelessness for the purpose of this Order."
  That is a significant comment. It could have been included in the order, but unfortunately it is not. However, it may still be taken as a strong indication of ministerial attitude, which the Minister can convey to the Housing Executive in interpreting the order.
  My second concern relates to interim accommodation, its duration and type. I sincerely hope that we shall not see introduced into Northern Ireland something that we do not yet have—the bed-and-breakfast syndrome. It is so debilitating and restrictive in every way—both psychologically and otherwise—for a man, his wife and family to be placed in such circumstances. If it is necessary for some reason to make such provision, I hope that it will be done for as short a time as possible, and that it will be replaced by properly standardised and permanent accommodation.
  Article 5 of the order deals with priority need. I accept the six categories of priority listed in article 5, but it excludes, as has been mentioned by other hon. Members, the young, single, divorced or widowed person. While I accept the categories already included in article 5, there is a danger that, because others are excluded, in administering the legislation the Housing Executive, whose responsibility that will be, might treat those existing six categories as the only definitions of priority need.
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  I am greatly concerned that those people, whom the Minister in his opening remarks said constituted one third of the demand in the homeless market, if I might use that crude expression, would be disadvantaged. I ask the Minister to give an assurance that his instruction and the code of practice, if he is referring to a code of practice, will deal with that particular problem.
  It is coincidental that other hon. Members have touched on the same kernel subjects, which obviously give us all cause for concern. Another is the question of "intentionality" and of "worsening one's circumstances". Again, I agree with the principle that anyone who deliberately worsens their own circumstances should not earn great sympathy or deserve immediate consideration.
  The great problem is that the interpretation of intentionality will be left to an individual or group of individuals in the Housing Executive. Like the Minister, I have the greatest admiration for the Housing Executive and the way that it carries out its duties, but its staff are human and errors will be made. I have already suggested to the Minister—he rejected the suggestion—that there be some appeal procedure. He said that an appeal could be made by way of internal review in the Housing Executive and, failing that, a complaint could be made to the complaints commissioner.
  However, if a homeless person in immediate need of accommodation is told by the Housing Executive that he has intentionally worsened his circumstances to put himself outside the scope of the order, but denies the circumstances, what redress has he for immediate review? The answer is none, because the internal review within the Housing Executive will take at least a couple of weeks; and as to a complaint being made to the complaints commissioner, a family may be dead and buried before getting an answer, never mind getting a house. I ask the Minister to take on board the suggestion that some tribunal, independent of the deciding officers in the Housing Executive, should be established, even on a local basis, to give redress to those who feel that they have been neglected.
  The scheme for the purchase of evacuated dwellings is known in Northern Ireland as SPED. I urge the Minister to ask the Housing Executive to reappraise its attitudes towards SPED. It seems to think that only evacuated urban dwellings can be bought, whereas in many parts of rural Northern Ireland, because of intimidation or community factors, people have been forced to leave their homes and those homes connot be sold on the market because of the very circumstances which forced the people to leave—intimidation or sectarian attitudes. The Housing Executive must be made aware that that applies equally to the rural communities as to the urban conurbations.
  The emergency repairs article in the order is almost a contradiction. If emergency repairs go through the administrative procedure, and there has to be a wait before the procedure is adopted, they will not be emergency repairs.
  Funding exercised the minds of those who preceded me. It was with great concern that I noted what the Minister said in his opening comments and in the replies that he has made to others and to me. The funds available appear to be those that will be transferred from the four health boards, which will in effect be the proportion of their budget that they have utilised in helping the homeless. We already know that, of 39 hostels, only three are operated by the health boards, so amount of money transferred will

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  do precious little. I was interested to note that the Minister would be robbing his left hand pocket to pay his right hand pocket, because he has responsibility for both.
  The Housing Executive will also be required to make a bid for additional funding. One has only to look at the experience of the Housing Executive budget in the past couple of years to see the problem: stop, start, stop, go—£5 million knocked off, £5 million added on, a £35 million reduction here and an increase coming back again there. The Housing Executive does not know whether there is a real new build programme or an approved grant system that is not restrictive as it is at the moment. The Housing Executive does not have adequate funding at present. The general house condition survey shows that it is falling back in its repairs. It does not have adequate funding for its existing function. If we add the homeless function and put that into competition with its existing function, I fear that the homeless will fare poorly.
  Unless the Minister is prepared to give a special new allocation of funding to the Housing Executive for the purpose of this order, it will be nothing more than a cosmetic exercise that will not deserve any time for debate or be worth the paper that it is written on. I hope that the Minister will assure us that he will make a special budgetary provision for the transition period and for the couple of years that will be necessary to set up the hostels. Unless that is done, this whole exercise will be a charade.
  10 pm
  Mr. Archy Kirkwood: I begin by echoing on behalf of my party the tributes paid by hon. Members to the contribution to Northern Ireland discussions by the former Member for Epping Forest, Sir John Biggs-Davison. I am not a familiar and regular participant in these debates, but even I know that he made a signal and significant contribution to past discussions in the House on the thorny problems of the Province. As has been said, he will be very sadly missed.
  I should like, too, to echo what was said by the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Walker), because again, as someone who is relatively new to these debates, I know that it must be frustrating for hon. Members who represent constituencies in the Province to have to subject themselves to this kind of legislative procedure. As a Member from a Scottish constituency, I say to the hon. Gentleman that, if I went back to Scotland and tried to justify this sort of machinery to my constituents, I would not last very long. That is something which we should never miss an opportunity to remind the Government.
  I feel that the Minister has missed an opportunity to make some real and progressive improvements in the provisions for homelessness, especially in the Province. Of course, I recognise that this order is an improvement, and I certainly subscribe to the comment of the hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall)—the official Opposition—that he would support it if a Division was called.
  It is a bit complacent for the Ministers to say that we have pushed the arguments along a little in some of these areas and the problems are really not as bad as the Simon Community, Shelter and Housing Aid in the Province make out. Therefore, we should be grateful for small mercies. Of course, Governments have a difficult job. I am realistic about these matters, and I agree with the Minister that it does not do anyone any good to exaggerate the
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  problems of homelessness in the Province and in other parts of the country. However, 1 do not think it is good enough—this point also was made by the hon. Member for Leicester, South—to say that it is what we have here and, therefore, by definition it must be good enough for Northern Ireland.
  As I am sure the Minister will know, this legislation was introduced in 1977 by the former Liberal Member of Parliament for the Isle of Wight, now Lord Ross. I am sure that if he were taking part in the debate he would say that the thinking on the way that provisions are made for homeless people has moved quite considerably since the original legislation was passed. That is a process of evolution that should rightly continue.
  We are making important orders for an important part of the United Kingdom. Lessons have been learnt since 1977. Why should we not take advantage of our recent experience and make improvements in Northern Ireland? What would be wrong with that? I believe that it is incumbent upon the Minister not to say that it is good enough for us, so it must be good enough for them. The onus is upon him to state why the many sensible improvements suggested this evening are not acceptable to the Government.
  I listened carefully to the Minister. He said that there is some dispute about the extent of the problem. He said that some 2,200 people have been awarded emergency status and been accommodated within three months. How many applications were there? The number of people who have been awarded emergency status does not tell us much if five or 10 times that number applied but were rejected. It is important to know what proportion of applicants succeeded.
  The Government have taken the opportunity to improve article 5, which deals with priority need for accommodation. They have included the categories of violence and financial and sexual exploitation, but they have set their face against other improvements, which seems a bit of a contradiction. The problem of single homelessness will have to be tackled in United Kingdom terms as well, as existing provisions are not working acceptably, at least not in my experience.
  The Minister forgot to say that single people would be excluded by the intentionally homeless provisions if they tried to jump the queue and abuse the system. I sympathise with housing authorities, which have to make extremely difficult decisions. I should not like to have to make them, but it is incumbent on us to try to lay down the best possible guidelines.
  The Minister can help housing authorities and the Housing Executive in Northern Ireland by drawing attention to the fact that they are able to reject applications by single people if they are able to show that such applicants have taken steps which make them intentionally homeless.
  Agencies have drawn up a list of other groups who deserve to be treated as a priority. That list should be discussed. I should like to put forward the example of people who are homeless because of repossession. Such people would merit prima facie consideration as being in need of priority accommodation. A person who is homeless because of a marital dispute merits some priority. People who are homeless because of intimidation are in a category which, par excellence in terms of what is happening in the Province, might have been mentioned on the face of the order as in priority need. A young person

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  who is homeless because of the poor family relationships might be in another category which deserves priority treatment. Such a category might deal with the single homeless problem which the Minister thinks he has. I think that he is exaggerating.
  I have heard of 17-year-old girls in the Province whose parents refuse to take them back. The social security changes, about which I try to take an interest on a United Kingdom basis, are relevant in that respect. Another priority group might be people who have been discharged from institutional care. Community care and the Griffiths report are of United Kingdom wide relevance, but the issue could have been embraced here. People with alcohol and drug addiction problems could be argued to be a priority on a United Kingdom basis also. All those groups deserve careful attention, even if they are not given immediate attention by the order.
  My penultimate point concerns intentionality, which, of course, has created difficulties and has been abused by some housing authorities on the mainland. There is evidence that the provisions as they operate in the United Kingdom are largely unsatisfactory, and an opportunity could have been taken to include in the order a more stringent and more easily interpreted definition. For example, the Housing Executive could have been given a time limit, possibly a year, in which it would be required to prove—the onus of proof would be on the Housing Executive—that somebody was becoming homeless intentionally.
  There is a world of difference between doing something that leads to being classed as intentionally homeless and doing something with the intention of becoming homeless. I came across that point in my previous incarnation as a practising solicitor. A number of people have no idea that, technically, the consequences of their actions will catch them under the intentionally homeless provisions. Local authorities have not been paying enough attention to that very small but important legal distinction. The opportunity could have been taken in the order to put that right.
  My final point concerns the appeal procedure. I am not an expert on the appeal procedure that applies in the Province, but I am sure that the Minister will put me right if I am wrong. Certainly my experience of the social security system is that an independent appeal procedure is a valuable longstop which gives confidence to everybody that, although there may be very difficult decisions and discretion being exercised by officers acting in good faith—as I said earlier, many of them have difficult jobs—there is many a slip between cup and lip.
  The existence of an independent, free-standing appeal procedure gives everybody confidence that, at the end of the day, if a perverse decision has been taken or action taken contrary to natural justice, the appeals system will iron it out. It has to be independent, and it has to be seen to be independent. I am advised that an independent appeal system for housing benefit cases exists in the Province. If that is the case, it would be entirely appropriate to have the same system for decisions about homelessness. I cannot see the argument against that.
  If the Minister sets his face against that provision, I warn him now that the process of judicial review, which I understand operates through the Northern Ireland courts in the same way as it does in Scotland and in England, will
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  be used time and again. An expensive, extensive and complicated legal procedure using the full panoply of the civil law will operate to review such decisions. An independent appeal procedure would amass a body of precedents on decisions taken on questions which would be operated by people in the Housing Executive making day-to-day decisions on who is homeless and who is not.
  That would be by far the preferable route, and if the Minister sets his face against taking that route he will be lumbered with the whole panoply of the judicial review procedure, which would not be sensible from anybody's point of view.
  I have some worries about the lack of funding that seems to lie behind the order. I am advised that there have been recent Government cuts in the Housing Executive's budget of £24 million—£46 million and £48 million for the period 1988–90—but the hon. Gentlemen behind me will know more about that than I do. If that is the level of the recent cuts, we are right to advert to the lack of resources as a potential problem. It is not just a question of money for the bricks and mortar for new houses that we consider should be built; we need counselling and proper facilities to make the provisions work.
  The order deserves qualified support. It is largely a wasted opportunity. I hope that the debate will give the Minister pause for thought and that some of the points raised will be reconsidered in the Department at a future date as a matter of urgency.
  10.15 pm
  Mr. Needham: The hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) and others have paid tribute to the late Sir John Biggs-Davison. I add my words in support of that. He was the first or second Member of Parliament whom I met. He managed to persuade me to join the Monday Club, which in retrospect was not the wisest decision in my political career, and he sent me to the junior Königswinter conference. He was a man with enormous strengths and interests in Ulster, and he will be sorely missed.
  The hon. Member for Leicester, South said that he felt that deficiencies that had been found in homelessness legislation for Britain should have been remedied in Northern Ireland legislation. Very few, if any, of the criticisms have much relevance in Northern Ireland. The hon. Gentleman suggested that I adopted a flippant attitude towards the problems of single homelessness. Nothing could be further from the truth. He said that in his judgment single homelessness accounted for about 80 per cent. of those who sought help. I pointed out to him that one third of the placements from the Housing Executive deal with the single homeless.
  Is the hon. Gentleman really suggesting that we should give a priority right to single homeless people? It was not a position that his party took when it was in government in 1977, and it does not appear to have been the position that his party took in its 1987 manifesto, which said:
  "We will launch a major housebuilding and public and private sector housing renovation drive as part of our jobs programme and to combat the problems of bad housing, overcrowding and homelessness."
  It does not do the hon. Gentleman credit to make a submission which did not appear in his Government's actions, which did not appear in the 1987 manifesto, and which I doubt would appear in any forthcoming

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  manifesto. Giving priority to the single homeless does not make sense in any sensible measure of public sector housing policy.
  Mr. Jim Marshall: The Minister referred to logic. Can he not see that, logically, if the Government bring forward a proposal to define homelessness, they have to include all categories of homelessness? They may not like one particular category or another, but legislation on homelessness has to include all categories. Within those categories are single homeless people. Surely, if they are homeless for what the Minister would consider to be genuine reasons, they have a right, like other homeless people, to be considered for housing.
  Mr. Needham: The question is not about whether they are not homeless or whether they should not be classed as homeless, but whether they should be given a priority right. The answer is that they cannot be. They were not given a priority under the Labour Government's proposals in 1977 nor in the 1987 manifesto. The order accepts that some single people are homeless and that there are duties on the Housing Executive to provide consultation and advice for them. What it does not do, and cannot do—the hon. Gentleman's party would not do this if it were in government—is to give them a priority right to housing. That is the most important point.
  I shall now deal with the point made by the hon. Member about the Housing Executive's funding. The Housing Executive's funding is still running at more than £500 million a year. That is over two and a half times the per capita funding in the rest of the United Kingdom. It would be nice if it were possible to increase that funding, but the problem that the Government face—as any government would—is one of priorities in funding programmes.
  I should like the hon. Gentleman to consider what would happen if, were he in government, he honoured the commitments that he has given to increase funding to meet the housing priorities that he put forward. What would those of his hon. Friends who are not sitting behind him think—especially those who represent constituencies with major housing problems—if funding were increased beyond what the Government give in Northern Ireland—already two and a half times more per capita than elsewhere in the country?
  The Government will continue to give housing in Northern Ireland as high a priority as possible.
  Mr. Marshall: The Minister and I agree that housing policy in Northern Ireland is a success in terms of levels of expenditure over a number of years. I gave credit to the Government for that policy on a previous occasion. However, does the Minister accept that, in terms of relative deprivation, housing in Northern Ireland is still substantially worse than it is in the remainder of the United Kingdom? It is likely to become even worse unless the Housing Executive has sufficient funds. The Government have a duty to make priorities. Will the Minister accept that Northern Ireland has to be at the top of that list of priorities? It is vital that increased funds are made available.
  Mr. Needham: That is why the Government spend two and a half times more per capita on housing in Northern Ireland than elsewhere in the country. That is why the levels of unfitness in Northern Ireland are continuing to
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  come down and the quality of public housing in Northern Ireland continues to improve. Nothing that the Government are bringing forward in the housing expenditure profile will mean that levels of housing in Northern Ireland will not continue to improve. The position will not get worse. If we have to spend slightly less than the amount that the Housing Executive asks us to spend, the position will not improve as rapidly as we wish. Of course, we have continually have to switch our expenditure from priorities such as housing to law and order because of the problems of terrorism in Northern Ireland.
  I must correct the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) by saying that we have not cut the housing budget. It is £508 million this year, whereas last year it was £500 million. We should, of course, like to spend more, and I am sorry that no one told the hon. Gentleman that. I realise that he is to give us his views on Northern Ireland only on a temporary basis.
  The hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Walker) talked about the problems of dealing with orders such as this in the present unamendable way. He knows that I have much sympathy with his view on that. It is not the ideal method for any Minister.
  I enjoyed the ribaldry of the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, although I am not certain that his party has ever made concrete proposals for what should be done instead. If it has, let us hear them on another occasion. The hon. Gentleman is new to the debate and is perhaps not entirely aware of his own party's policy.
  Mr. James Molyneaux: The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) and the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) may be too modest to defend themselves, but if the Minister does his research he will discover that members of what is now the Social and Liberal Democratic party have repeatedly made a plea that Northern Ireland legislation should be by Bill, not by diktat or Order in Council.
  Mr. Needham: I shall not bandy words with the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux), who, outside the Chamber, refuses to address a word to me. Many Conservative Members would give greater credence to the right hon. Gentleman's arguments if he would enter into discussions with Ministers about the problems of Northern Ireland instead of fitfully and occasionally raising them here.
  Although the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire has the support of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley, I do not believe for one moment that the Social and Liberal Democratic party believes that the best way to deal with Northern Ireland business is by Bill. I suppose it would mean that Social and Liberal Democratic Members would be here even less often then they already.
  Hon. Members fairly mentioned the need to make it clear whether accommodation is suitable for homeless people. I am not sure that they have all read the order carefully, and if the hon. Member for Belfast, North looks at article 12(1) he will see that it says:
  "The Executive may perform any duty under Article 8 or 10 …
  (b) securing that he obtains suitable accommodation from some other person".

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  The hon. Members for Belfast, North and for South Down (Mr. McGrady), and other hon. Members, raised the issue of intentionality. Intentionality has not been a problem in Northern Ireland. Under the housing selection scheme which the Housing Executive operates, deliberately worsening one's circumstances has been the criterion. So far as I am aware, that has been handled sensitively and professionally by the Housing Executive, and there is no record of large numbers of complaints.
  We are proposing a draft code of practice and guidance within which we shall be able to discuss how the order will work on the ground. The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire mentioned appeals. He was not right to draw an analogy with housing benefit, because if an appeal is made regarding homelessness, it must be against the Housing Executive's decision. That creates precedents for appeals on any decision made by the Housing Executive about the way in which it handles its tenants.
  The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire is a solicitor. I am glad to say that I am not a lawyer, but if the Pandora's box of appeals is opened, much time of Housing Executive officers will be spent on appeals, to the detriment of the good organisation and running of the Housing Executive. I do not foresee how the system could be confined as narrowly as the hon. Gentleman wishes. However, I accept that the Housing Executive must have an alternative appeals procedure that meets the fears and worries of hon. Members.
  I am sure that, with the code of practice and guidance, and following the seminar that we intend to hold, we shall be able to reach agreement. I think that there is high regard in Northern Ireland for the way in which the Housing Executive works, and I am sure that hon. Members—including the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley and the hon. Member for Belfast, North—will attend the seminar with me in a month's time so that we can discuss these issues in detail.
  The hon. Members for South Down and for Roxburgh and Berwickshire referred to intimidation. That is covered
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  by the SPED scheme. I note the point made by the hon. Member for South Down about that scheme. [Interruption.] The SPED scheme is not in the order, but works outside it. I make that point before the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire searches in vain in the order for it. The hon. Member for South Down said that it was not working in rural areas as well as it was in the city. If that is so, we must work with the Housing Executive to find out whether there are any particular problems. It is important that people in those circumstances are sensitively and properly treated.
  I am not complacent about the problem of homelessness in Northern Ireland, but nor am I prepared to accept the views of Shelter and the Simon Community, which, according to the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, have some weight in their arguments, but which could not be bothered to send us their figures, most of which were based on Housing Executive submissions, which the executive itself said were not properly thought through.
  Under the proposals in the order, and with the code of practice and guidance, we shall be able to give the homeless people of Northern Ireland a sensible way forward which will handle the vast majority of the single homeless and those in the other priority categories.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the draft Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 13th July 1988, be approved.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

  REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.)
  That the draft Parliamentary Constituencies (Scotland) (Miscellaneous Changes) Order 1988, which was laid before this House on 13th July 1988, be approved.—[Mr. Fallon.]
  Question agreed to.

  Haringey and Hampstead Health Districts
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Fallon]
  10·31 pm
  Mr. Bernie Grant: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for choosing the subject of the merger of the Hampstead and Haringey health districts for the Adjournment debate.
  The proposal to merge the Hampstead and Haringey health districts has caused widespread alarm in my constituency. This is clearly demonstrated by the number of my constituents who have come to the House at this late hour to hear the debate. I welcome them and hope that the Minister will give my constituents some assurances.
  This proposal emerged in March this year and is an initiative from the regional health authority. The proposed merger has come about because of two main factors. According to the regional health authority, these are: first, concern over the viability of the Hampstead health authority and in particular the Royal Free medical school; secondly, concern over the viability of the Haringey health authority, which is experiencing massive cuts and recruitment problems. It is described as an "administrative change" by the regional health authority. The proposal is out for consultation until 30 November. It will be considered by the region at its January 1989 meeting and, if agreed, will be passed to the Secretary of State for formal approval.
  The region states that it cannot predict what any new authority may wish to do as regards its services and structures and says:
  "No proposals can be or should be put forward in this document for changes to service provision. If the merger goes ahead the first task the new authority would face would be the development of a service strategy which would involve extensive research, discussion, debate and public consultation."
  Basically, we are asked to give a blank cheque to the regional offices and, having agreed to the merger, we may then have a look at the effect on services. That is not satisfactory.
  The regional health authority document states that the Hampstead and Haringey district health authorities would be disbanded and a new one established to take their place. It states that the health service across the two present districts would be managed by the single authority and a single management structure and that, as a single health authority, it would relate to the Royal Free medical school in all matters concerning medical education, including recruitment, training and research.
  It states that there would be a single financial allocation to the new district and that the contracts of all staff, including medical staff, would be held by the new merged authority. The document adds that both the Royal Free for Hampstead and the North Middlesex for Haringey would continue to act as the district general hospital, so that there should not need to be any changes in patient flow or GP referral patterns.
  A number of regional policy directions have led to this proposal being pursued. First, there is a desire to get teaching hospitals to spread their expertise and develop links with hospitals outside central London. Secondly, it is said that many specialist services are not viable within
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  small districts. Thirdly, the desperate financial position of the region has led managers to look for even more radical measures.
  The Royal Free medical school is the second smallest in London. It has an intake of 100 students a year, and for an intake of that size the regional guidelines say that there should be a catchment population of about 320,000 people. Hampstead has a population of only 108,000; and because of the loss of 112 beds at the Royal Free, it is becoming increasingly difficult to provide sufficient teaching practice for students. Indeed, we understand that the medical school feels it is in danger of being gobbled up by London university.
  The Hampstead health district is not considered to be viable because a number of the services currently managed by Hampstead will pass into other hands over the next five years. Friern Barnet is due to close in 1993 and there is a proposal to transfer Coppetts Wood to a new specialist unit at the North Middlesex. That will call into question whether such a district can survive.
  Haringey health district is facing extreme financial difficulty as well as recruitment problems. As of 1 August this year, the district has closed, temporarily or permanently, over 200 beds, representing a 40 per cent. cut. The Prince of Wales hospital has closed permanently and the district health authority has decided to end all acute work at St. Ann's hospital, Tottenham. The main hospital in the district is the North Middlesex in Edmonton, and a considerable number of its patients come from Enfield, not Haringey. This sad state of affairs has come about as the result of regional directions, and in our view it will not be corrected by the merger.
  The consultation document lists a number of spin-offs that could arise from the merger. First, in terms of the use of the estate, it is argued that the merger would allow the Royal Free room for expansion and an opportunity for more land sales. Secondly, it claims that there would be more scope for income generation. Thirdly, it is said that there would be more scope for greater efficiency and getting better value for money, with the possibility of sharing facilities, such as works computing and physical services.
  But why should there be a formal merger? Why cannot some of those benefits be achieved by greater collaboration? The three main reasons are said to be, first, that the district health authority would be able to hold consultants' contracts at district rather than regional level, and that, it is argued, would give the district more control. The second reason, it is said, is that Haringey would receive access to funds such as research money that is available for teaching districts only through the merger. It is argued, thirdly, that only through a formal merger would there be the necessary impetus for increased collaboration, particularly on the teaching front; only with the merger would the medical school be prepared to support academic departments at the North Middlesex.
  Hampstead has a population of 108,000, although there is a large influx of patients from Barnet, and it is accepted that the district has the primary responsibility for patients from south Barnet. It has 710 acute beds, mainly at the Royal Free, but includes 70 beds for infectious diseases at Coppetts Wood, 130 care-of-the-elderly beds, and 810 mental beds, most of them at Friern. The number of acute beds has been cut by 112 since 1986, when beds were redesignated to receive the elderly people from New End

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  hospital, which has now closed. Coppetts Wood is to move to a district general hospital site and Friern is to close by 1993. The district has a budget of £63·7 million.
  Haringey, on the other hand, has a population of 196,000. The North Middlesex hospital is the main acute hospital, in Edmonton. Residents of Hornsey and parts of Wood Green use the Whittington hospital for acute services. The other hospital in Haringey proper is the St. Ann's hospital. There is a proposal in the region to end all acute work there. It will become mainly long-stay. It has a budget of £50 million and had cut £3 million from its budget this year to stay legal. That has resulted in a freeze on the use of all agency staff for six months, and four wards are temporarily closed.
  But there are other options for possible mergers and the consultation document looks at some of them. The three main ones are: Hampstead and Bloomsbury, Hampstead, Haringey and Enfield, and Hampstead and Barnet. They have all been rejected for various reasons.
  Let me briefly examine the Hampstead and Barnet option. A number of things have happened. Barnet has refused any advances and wants to stay independent and conterminous with its borough. A merger would create one district in two separate regions—the North West and North East Thames regions. North West Thames does not want another teaching district or merged authority at present.
  I wonder whether there have been other reasons why the merger has not gone ahead. These are neighbouring health districts, and they should merge. Is it true, for example, that the Prime Minister has had a word to say about this, as it lies in her constituency? Could it be that she wants her district health authority to stay small and beautiful at the expense of other health authorities such as Haringey? I look forward to the Minister's reply.
  We are opposed to the merger for a number of reasons. Why does the North East Thames regional health authority need four medical schools in its region? Why does it not merge the Hampstead district with Barnet and, in so doing, transfer one of its four medical schools to the North West Thames regional health authority? Is it true that the only reason for keeping the Hampstead district is so that the region may retain £9 million of SIFT money that it would otherwise lose?
  Why the haste? We understand that the Prime Minister's review of the National Health Service may do away with regional health authorities altogether—or at least alter their boundaries. Should not the merger wait until we are clear what the Prime Minister has in store for us?
  As patient flows will not change, 40 per cent. of the patients will come from Barnet, not from Haringey—another reason why the neighbouring districts should merge. As a new district, a substantial proportion of these resources will go out of the district and into Barnet.
  We want to know where the district general hospital will be. I do not accept the idea of two district general hospitals, or one in two parts. We want to know whether the district general hospital will be the Royal Free or the North Middlesex.
  We are concerned about the movement of staff, of which we have had some experience. We understand that, under the merger, consultants will move between the
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  Royal Free hospital and the North Middlesex hospital at will, but we do not believe that. We could not get consultants to travel one mile between the North Middlesex hospital and the Prince of Wales hospital or between the North Middlesex hospital and St. Ann's hospital. Can we seriously expect them to travel many miles between the Royal Free and the North Middlesex hospitals? Will the Minister give us some assurances on that tonight?
  The waiting lists are much worse in Hampstead than in Haringey. Is the merger just to make the figures look better so that the average figure will lower the Hampstead health authority's figures? Will Haringey people have to wait longer as a result of the merger?
  A report which appeared in the Haringey Post of 13 October this year under the headline "Hospital queue crisis" said:
  "Health watchdogs are warning that women and the elderly are casualties of soaring hospital waiting lists. The picture is bleak across the North East of London. At the Royal Free, Hampstead, queues grew last year by 45 per cent. Nearly 1,000 patients have been waiting two years for surgery. A spokesman for North East Thames Health Authority, which covers Haringey, said GPs are referring more patients to crowded hospitals. 'Lists have grown, but we are getting through more patients.'"
  The waiting lists are grim.
  One of the innovations in the Haringey health district has been the upgrading of the haematology department which has done excellent work for sufferers of sickle anaemia, sickle cell disease and thalassaemia. That is because our district has large numbers of people from black and minority ethnic communities. West Indians, Africans and so on suffer from sickle cell and Cypriots suffer from thalassaemia. The North Middlesex hospital made special arrangements for those two diseases because the people are there on the doorstep. However, we understand that under the merger the haematology department is scheduled to go to the Royal Free hospital. Thus the department looking after those with sickle cell and thalassaemia will be miles away from the sufferers. That is a disgrace.
  Recruitment is another reason offered for the merger, but in Hampstead vacancies stand at 8 per cent. and in Haringey at 10 per cent.—not enough of a reason for the merger.
  We also note that community services in Haringey are good. They have been built up over a period of years. We have not drained our key services as other regions have done in order to build up our community services. We fear that the community services that have been fought for in Haringey will be put at risk under the merger.
  We are also worried about the community health council. We have an excellent council in Haringey. What will happen after such a merger? Will there be two officers, one at the Royal Free hospital in Hampstead and one in Tottenham? On the basis of our experience, we are sure that that will not happen.
  One of our major problems is the cost of travel. People from my constituency have to take three buses to reach the Royal Free which takes two hours, and the return journey takes four hours. If they go by tube they have to go to the City and then come back into London. It is even more ludicrous that people from Tottenham have to leapfrog the Islington health district to get to Hampstead. My

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  constituents will have to go past the Whittington hospital in order to reach the Royal Free. Time prevents me from developing that argument further.
  We are very worried about the merger. Teaching hospitals may be prestigious, but they drain resources, particularly when the Government are cutting money available for universities, asking them to go to private industry. This is a retrograde step. It is a bad, ill-conceived proposal that should be withdrawn now.
  10.49 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mrs. Edwina Currie): I congratulate the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant) on his success in proposing this subject for debate and presenting his concerns and those of his constituents about the possible merger of Haringey and Hampstead health authorities. It is a pity that other Opposition Members have been unable to support him. Perhaps the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), whose constituency is affected by the proposed merger, has been unavoidably detained elsewhere.
  For the debate, I have looked at a number of cuttings from local newspapers serving the hon. Gentleman's constituency and seen how the possibility of change has aroused genuine concern about the future of local health services. I remind the hon. Gentleman—he mentioned this matter in his speech—that general practitioners refer wherever they think is appropriate for the patient whom they are treating, and they will continue to refer to the North Middlesex, whether or not there is a merger. No one will be forced to refer patients to the Royal Free hospital. As I understand the proposal, both hospitals will continue to serve as major hospitals in their areas. In that sense, therefore, the travel worries are probably somewhat exaggerated.
  I was also rather sad to hear the hon. Gentleman's comments about the disadvantages of being in a teaching district. As he probably knows, I used to be chairman of a teaching district. Teaching authorities and medical schools are now trying very much to avoid hunting around the country for small numbers of esoteric, difficult cases which might provide teaching material. They are trying to respond to the health needs of the local population. Some fine work of that kind goes on in the teaching hospitals in London, and, therefore, I should have thought that that would be regarded as an advantage of the merger
  I offer the hon. Gentleman some reassurance about the proposed merger. I wish to clarify how the proposal may be carried forward. I am keen for him to understand the legal situation, which should be put on the record tonight. If I have time, I may describe some of the recent developments in the neighbourhood.
  The hon. Gentleman will have read the consultation document from the North-East Thames regional health authority, which sets out exactly what it wishes to do. I wish to quote what the authority says on this matter. The document states:
  "The amalgamation would enable the new authority and its managers to organise and deliver health services to people in Haringey and north Camden more effectively and to higher standards than are possible at present. It would provide wider opportunities for medical undergraduate education and better career opportunities for trained staff."
  However, the main improvements, in the view of the regional health authority, would be to acute hospital services. The document states:
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  "health care services in the community, although less obviously affected by the changes"—
  those services are very good in Haringey—
  "would also benefit from the increased influence of the medical school and opportunities to attract financial investment and manpower."
  Paragraph 1.2.3 of the consultation document states:
  "Both the Royal Free Hospital"—
  that is, Hampstead health authority—
  "and the North Middlesex Hospital"—
  that is, Haringey health authority—
  "would continue to provide the main acute services for their localities. The range and scope of specialist acute services would he increased."
  Paragraph 1.2.4 states:
  "There is no intention to try to alter existing patterns of patient flows."
  That needs to be understood. Those are the proposals as they stand. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will convey to his constituents the fact that they should not feel agitated about things that have not been proposed.
  The discussion document has been produced by the regional health authority and, since August, copies have been issued widely for informal consultation to various interested parties, including the hon. Gentleman, his hon. Friends and my hon. Friends whose constituents may be affected. Comments have been invited by the end of November and will be considered by the regional health authority at its meeting in January next year. This debate and the hon. Gentleman's remarks will no doubt be considered, along with other representations on that date. It will then be for the regional health authority to decide whether it wishes to continue with the proposal.
  The responsibility for making the decision whether there should be a merger rests firmly with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State. If the regional health authority wants to pursue that course, it will need to put a submission to him making the case for a merger.
  I apologise to the House, and to the hon. Gentleman especially, but I cannot respond in detail to some of the arguments that he has advanced or offer opinions on them. The issue may come to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State, and to effect the merger my right hon. and learned Friend would need to lay orders before Parliament to define the new district and establish the authority. Before doing so, he would be required to consult interested bodies. That would allow those concerned to put their views direct to us. I am not trying to fudge the issue and I am not trying to avoid it. I have listened with the greatest care to the hon. Gentleman, but it is the legal position that precludes me from commenting directly on what he has said. I can guarantee, however, that there is no possibility that such a proposal could be achieved without close scrutiny and full consultation with all those who might be affected by it.
  I know that Haringey has various difficulties, and, because of the measured and careful way in which the hon. Gentleman has made his case, I shall merely say that he and I know that the Haringey social services department has serious problems. That does not help in resettling and helping those who are being discharged from hospital. I ask the hon. Gentleman to use his good offices to ensure that the people of Haringey get a good service from the authorities, be they health authorities, which are part of my responsibility, or the social services and local authorities. Given the hon. Gentleman's experience before

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  he came to this place, I know that he has considerable influence with the social services and local authorities. I ask him to use his good offices as well as he possibly can.
  The hon. Gentleman drew attention to waiting lists and said that the lists in Haringey are rather better than in Hampstead. That is partly because Hampstead, being a teaching hospital, attracts patients from a wider area. Some of the cases are the trickier ones, and it is sometimes probably more appropriate that they should be referred there to await the careful attention of the distinguished people they will see.
  The hon. Gentleman asked me a question about waiting lists in Haringey, to which I replied on 15 April. I stated that on 31 March 1979 the number of those on the in-patient waiting list—the hon. Gentleman asked for an annual comparison—was 2,063. The number had fallen to 1,004 by 1987. In other words, the length of the list had been cut by half. The only times when the lists in Haringey have been high are 1979 and 1982—years when people had decided to take industrial action. That merely proves that industrial action hurts only patients. It does not hurt the Government or many of those whom it is thought will suffer by the making of a point. We should do all that we can to ensure that the flow of activity of patient care is not interrupted in an inappropriate way.
  The hon. Gentleman may be aware of the marvellous plans for St. Ann's hospital and for some of the other developments that are taking place. I understand that the St. Ann's development is to be financed by the sale of the Prince of Wales site. That has been agreed, and a substantial sum has been made available by the Housing Corporation to enable some extremely useful and valuable housing associations to take over the site and provide housing. It seems that it will be a thoroughly beneficial proposal.
  I was attracted by an article in a local newspaper, entitled The Journal, that appeared on 20 October. It set out in detail exactly what is proposed for St. Ann's hospital. I am not the first always to commend what is to be read in newspapers, but there are many occasions when they contain much good sense. The St. Ann's unit would in future be called the St. Ann's centre for health care. I understand that much of the emphasis would be on promoting the positive theme of healthier living and the
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  prevention of illness wherever possible. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join me in commending that approach.
  The article reads:
  "The main emphasis of care would be on the elderly and the mentally ill."
  Research in the neighbourhood shows that that key group is not getting quite the attention that it should. In addition, St. Ann's will have an expanded children's centre. This will include, in addition to existing facilities, speech therapy, audiology, a community health clinic and a team of children's nurses who will work in the community.
  The hon. Gentleman talked about services for those with the condition that is known as haemoglobinopathies, sickle cell anaemia, thalassaemia and the like. St. Ann's would include the first centre in the area completely dedicated to these blood disorders. That, I think, is the answer to the problem that the hon. Gentleman has posed.
  The hon. Gentleman will know that my officials have written to all health authorities throughout the country to ask what services they are providing for haemoglobinopathies, because I for one am not satisfied that many parts of the country are getting a service. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that my constituents are not getting a service of that quality, and I commend those, as the hon. Gentleman has rightly done, who have worked so hard to improve the chances of people with those conditions or with the traits that might lead to them.
  Similarly, I would like the hon. Gentleman to approach some of these topics with rather more optimism. Change is sometimes necessary. The districts that were drawn up in London some years ago have not always fulfilled expectations. Nearly all have falling populations, which makes it much harder for teaching hospitals that are an invaluable part of the medical services in London to draw on an adequate population. It also makes it much harder, as we now seem to have more boundaries than we need, to ensure that we have good links between the hospital services and the community services.
  On that basis, I ask the hon. Gentleman to join me in a note of optimism for the future of the care provided by Haringey health authority. I repeat that the proposal for a merger with Hampstead will be the subject of full public consultation before the Secretary of State makes a decision.
  Question put and agreed.
  Adjourned accordingly at Eleven o'clock.