Commons Sitting of 17 April 1989

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

    Widows
    Miss Widdecombe: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what he is doing to help those 20,000 widows caught in an entitlement trap on the basis of the age bands operating before April 1988.
    The Minister for Social Security (Mr. Nicholas Scott): We intend to restore entitlement to widowed mothers' allowance and widows' pension to all women widowed before 11 April 1988.
    Miss Widdecombe: I congratulate my hon. Friend on that proposed action, which will negate the trap. How is he identifying the widows concerned and how soon will the exercise be completed?
    Mr. Scott: We estimate that about 20,000 widows are affected. We have checked our records and we have contacted all those whom we have identified. We believe that we have done so accurately but if anyone feels that she might be entitled and has not been contacted by the Department, she should get in touch with us.
    Mr. Fearn: Has the Minister any proposals for increasing war widows' pensions?
    Mr. Scott: Apart from anything else, I do not think that that supplementary question arises from the main question.

    National Insurance
    Mr. Yeo: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what representations he has received about the effect of the proposed changes in national insurance contributions on the low paid.
    The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. John Moore): The proposals have been widely welcomed. I have received only one representation about the effect on the low paid.
    Mr. Yeo: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the proposed changes are one of the most effective ways of giving help to those earning relatively low wages? Is he aware that 4 million people earning up to £115 a week will benefit by as much as £1·51 per week?
    Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend is precisely right about the number of beneficiaries and the amount by which they will benefit. About 15 million people earning more than £115 per week will also gain considerably. They will benefit by £3 per week.
    We are seeing the completion of the initial changes in the national insurance contribution rates that we introduced in 1985. The combination is an effective way of trying to help and to remove the two awkward steps that are part and parcel of the first stage of the reform.
    Mr. Frank Field: I welcome the changes, but I ask the Government to go a stage further. Are the Government aware that Britain has 40 per cent. of all part-time workers in Europe? That is because the national insurance system rigs the labour market in favour of part-time work. Will the Government consider imposing national insurance contributions on employers from the first pound?
    Mr. Moore: We always consider carefully what the hon. Gentleman suggests, and we shall keep this area of the Departments responsibilities under constant examination. I should stress, however, that I do not share the essential

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    analysis which lies at the back of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. The growth of part-time work in most western societies, and certainly in Britain, is a feature of the changing pattern of work. It is welcomed by employers and employees alike and is important in terms of work incentives and disincentives.

    Transitional Benefit
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people have lost transitional benefit during April of the current year.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Peter Lloyd): Some 610,000 income support recipients have been lifted out of transitional protection as a result of last week's uprating.
    Mr. Bennett: Does the Minister agree that that reply is somewhat disingenuous? Would it not have been better to spell out the fact that last year 2·2 million recipients did not receive the full uprating in line with inflation and that about 1 million lost money? This year, about 500,000 will not receive any uprating and 3·5 million will receive less than the amount necessary to keep up with the inflation figure that the Government have picked. How would the Minister explain to one of my constituents—Mrs. Bridget Williams of 123 Wordsworth road, Haughton Green, Denton—that her uprating this year will be 24p? Does he agree that it is entirely unacceptable in what is basically an oil-rich country for pensioners such as Mrs. Williams to lose in that way?
    Mr. Lloyd: I answered the hon. Gentleman's question precisely as he asked it. It is right that some recipients will not gain from this year's uprating, and I have given the number of recipients who will find themselves in that position. The number on transitional protection remains at about 14 per cent. of all those entitled to income support. The hon. Gentleman refers to a particular case, but I believe that it would be wrong to discuss that case across the Floor of the House. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to contact me about a particular matter, I will reply to him. The overall position of those on transitional support is that while they are on that support they receive more than those in similar circumstances coming newly on to benefit.
    Mr. Baldry: Will my hon. Friend make it clear that the entitlement to income support of the overwhelming majority of claimants will be greater than it was under the supplementary benefit system—those who atcually receive an increase—and that for the 14 per cent. who are not in that category and who are entitled to transitional payments £200 million has been spent on transitional payments in the first year alone?
    Mr. Lloyd: My hon. Friend is correct. At the point of change two thirds of those on income support received either the same amount or more. That explains why 32 per cent. of claimants received transitional payments.
    Mr. John Evans: The Minister must be aware that the withdrawal of transitional payments has created widespread hardship in many parts of the country, but is he aware that a 66-year-old widow in my constituency has
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    just received an increase of 35p per week, giving her a weekly income of £45·75? Does the Minister agree that that is a poverty wage?
    Mr. Lloyd: There were massive changes under the new rules which came in last April. As I said in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry), those changes brought real gains to many people. The changes also produced far greater simplicity in the system and greater fairness as between claimants in similar circumstances. It is not possible to make such massive changes without there being some sad and hard cases during the period of erosion of the transitional payments. I accept that, but I repeat that in all cases where the transitional payment is being made or being eroded, the individual concerned has been receiving payments greater than those to which people in similar circumstances are entitled when coming newly on to benefit.
    Mr. Robin Cook: Did the Under-Secretary of State listen to the BBC feature last week on the loss of transitional protection by disabled people, for which the BBC could not find a Minister willing to take part? Did he hear of the case of Mrs. Hodgson of Northumberland, who cannot even turn over in bed unaided? Is he aware that when her teenage son became 18 he had to leave home so that she would not lose her severe disablement premium but that, as a result, she lost £7 per week in transitional protection? Is the Minister prepared to defend rules which penalise disabled families when they stay together and also when they break up, and if he cannot defend those rules, how does he intend to change them?
    Mr. Lloyd: I am prepared to defend rules which bring in a special disability premium and make it absolutely certain that the premium reaches everyone in that category. I repeat that I cannot comment across the Floor of the House on particular cases for which I do not have the full details. I did not hear the programme, but it was not a question of a Minister being unwilling to take part —the programme makers did not accept our suggestion that a Minister should make a recording for the programme because the time suggested by the BBC was not possible for us due to other departmental commitments.
    Mrs. Margaret Ewing: When the Minister claims that many people are better off as a result of the upratings, has he taken into account the real situation facing many people, especially disabled people and single parents? Will he give an analysis of the 610,000 and tell us how many are better off in real terms? Will he also give details of any regional variations as the loss of transitional benefits at the time of uprating has severely hit many people in Scotland, who now also have to face the reality of the community charge which came into effect on 1 April?
    Mr. Lloyd: All those who had an uprating are better off as a result of it. The question that has been at issue is the difference between the old system of supplementary benefit and that of income support. The figures on transitional protection show clearly that two thirds have gained or are in exactly the same position as previously. As to community charge rebates, that aspect is generously organised and rebates are available to at least 1 million people in Scotland if they will apply for them. Those receiving housing benefit will automatically have rebates incorporated in their community charge bills.

    Widowers' Pension
    Mr. Stern: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will arrange that all public sector staff pension schemes incorporate provision for widowers as a matter of course.
    Mr. Scott: From 6 April this year, all occupational pension schemes used for contracting out of SERPS must provide benefits for widowers. Many public sector schemes have provided widowers' pensions for a number of years, and others are currently amending their rules to introduce them.
    Mr. Stern: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that now that membership of all pension schemes is voluntary it behoves public sector schemes to keep at the forefront of current thinking on pensions? Does he also agree that in introducing funding for widowers' pensions these can be no question of retrospective funding at the taxpayers' expense where the unions did not bother to argue for it in the first place as in the case of teachers?
    Mr. Scott: I certainly agree with my hon. Friend's comment that the question of who pays for any retrospection would arise. Many schemes introducing widowers' benefits provide a way for contributors to purchase backdated entitlement. That is a sensible provision. It is right that the Government should set an example by providing for widowers' benefits in the public sector.

    Family Credit
    Mr. Stevens: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is being done to make it easier to claim family credit.
    Mr. Moore: Last December we amended the regulations to make it easier for claimants who are self-employed to use their accounts as evidence of their income. This month we are bringing into use a simpler and shorter version of the family credit claim form.
    Mr. Stevens: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. I recall that when we reviewed the social security system in 1986 the extension of family credit was an important part of the process. I am sure that my right hon. Friend agrees that the extended help that he mentions will be greatly welcomed throughout the country. I am pleased to hear that the system has been made easier. As part of the publicity campaign, will my right hon. Friend tell the public of the significant number of claimants receiving more than £20 per week in family credit and perhaps comment on the recent uprating at the same time?
    Mr. Moore: Approximately 60 per cent. of recipients receive £20 per week or more. My hon. Friend is right to say that that has been widely welcomed. The average payment per week under family credit is £25 per week compared with £15 under the old family income supplement. I have made it clear to the House in previous answers that we are now spending £422 million on family credit compared with £180 million on FIS.
    Mr. Haynes: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Government spend billions of pounds advertising the sale of state-owned industries and public bodies? Why does he
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    not find money to advertise family credit properly so that the public will understand their entitlement to benefits and claim for them? The Secretary of State is always moaning and groaning about the lack of take-up.
    Mr. Moore: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is also a very old friend of mine, for having arranged so carefully to allow me to express my congratulations to the media on the way in which they handled the family credit launch campaign last week. The hon. Gentleman will be delighted to learn that £7 million is being spent, quite rightly, on an excellent campaign to encourage low-income families to claim those benefits for which they are eligible under family credit. I am delighted to have the hon. Gentleman's warm congratulations in anticipation of that.
    Mrs. Gillian Shephard: Will my right hon. Friend explain how the family credit uprating increases benefits more effectively for target families and children in need than would a simple increase in child benefit across the income board.
    Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the fact that, with the new structure of family credit combined with the system of income support, we have been able in last week's uprating to add substantially to the support that we give to families with children. Had there been a straight across-the-board increase in child benefit, more that 1·1 million families—counting those on family credit, 1·4 million, with more than 3 million children—would not have benefited as they have.

    Young People
    Mr. Hind: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what he is doing to help youngsters who for good reason cannot live at home.
    Mr. Scott: I recently announced a package of measures which will be of real help to those relatively few 16 and 17-year-olds who have no choice but to live independently.
    Mr. Hind: I am grateful for that answer, especially because, having promised to monitor the effects of income support, the Department is now matching words with concrete proposals. Will my hon. Friend explain how 16 and 17-year-olds will benefit from the proposed changes?
    Mr. Scott: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for recognising that we are fulfilling our pledge to monitor the impact of the new reforms and, where necessary, to make changes. In effect, 16 and 17-year-olds who have to live away from home will enjoy the enhanced benefit equivalent to that paid to 18 to 25-year-olds.
    Mr. Graham Allen: Will the Minister do anything to help families in my city, with 18-year-old children who next year will have to pay a sum approaching £300 in poll tax that will break up a number of families?
    Mr. Scott: The main question relates directly to 16 and 17-year-olds, not to 18-year-olds, so the hon. Gentleman's question does not arise.
    Mr. Stanbrook: In the light of the campaign by the Children's Society, what is my hon. Friend doing to protect organisations which attempt in good faith to assist children forced to live on their own?
    Mr. Scott: Not only have we changed the rate of benefit for 16 and 17-year-olds who have to live alone, but we have announced changes in the support that the Government give to hostels, with a long transitional protection period both for individuals in hostels and for hostels themselves.
    Mr. Flynn: May we, with our customary magnanimity, welcome the improvements that have taken place? Now that the Government have acknowledged the existence of a labour market which does not differentiate between adults when deciding what is necessary to cover their housing costs, will the Minister go the whole way and pay the full adult rate to these people? Is the Minister not concerned that we may be going down the same road as America where a decade of neglect of social security has created an army of 3 million homeless tent people? When will the Government's actions match the growing and very worrying crisis for young people without homes, money or hope?
    Mr. Scott: I am grateful for the restricted welcome that the hon. Gentleman has given to our proposals. I have to say, however, that I am certain that the broad thrust of our policy on 16 and 17-year-olds is right. It is wrong to give people of that age a perverse incentive to leave home. [Interruption.] I represent a constituency where in years gone by—and, indeed, all too often nowadays—young people believing that they could come to the city and chance their luck have been drawn into all kinds of temptation. I do not want to offer that kind of incentive. I believe that we are right to try to identify those who are estranged from their parents and have no option but to leave home and live independently, and to give them extra help.

    Housing Benefit
    Mr. Martyn Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what consultations he has had recently with local authorities on housing benefit.
    Mr. Peter Lloyd: The Department has regular meetings with the local authority associations throughout the year to discuss housing benefit, and we consult them formally on proposals for regulations.
    Mr. Jones: The Department of the Environment is forcing councils in my area to put up rents. When will housing benefit be raised in line with those increases?
    Mr. Lloyd: All those who pay rents at or below the market level will receive the full housing benefit appropriate to them. There is no problem about that. More people on lower incomes will have a wider choice of accommodation than they had before.
    Mr. Thurnham: Does my hon. Friend accept that it is important that local authorities and local DSS offices should work closely together and co-ordinate their efforts to reduce delay and uncertainty for individual claimants?
    Mr. Lloyd: Housing benefit is paid by the local authority, not by the local DSS, but I agree that there should always be close co-operation between local authorities and DSS offices.
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: Will the Minister take steps to consult one of my local authorities—the borough of Trafford—
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    about my constituent, Mr. Riley? When Mr. Riley's wife died, the joint pension that he and his wife had received was cut to a single pension. As his housing benefit was also cut, he ended up paying more rent out of a smaller income.
    Mr. Lloyd: Again, I do not wish to talk about particular cases, but the personal allowance will be adjusted to meet the person's new and sad circumstances as a single person, which will have an effect on his entitlement to housing benefit. The rule is that people in similar situations should be treated similarly. A married person who, alas, becomes a single person through bereavement will find that the regulations which apply to him are the same as those which apply to unmarried people.
    Mrs. Gorman: Does my hon. Friend agree with me that the root cause of the problem—and of the previous question about young people who cannot find housng on their own—is the fact that antiquated Rent Acts prevent many people from letting a room, a flat or part of their house because, rightly or wrongly, they fear that if they cannot get on with the tenants it will be impossible to get them out? Is my hon. Friend aware that Sweden faced exactly the same problems and has done away entirely with the legislation governing rent which has resulted in a flood of property on to the market and a surplus of accommodation?
    Mr. Lloyd: I cannot follow my hon. Friend down that track because those are matters for the Department of the Envirionment, but to repeat what I said in reply to an earlier question: where market rents are charged in order to draw more property on to the market, full housing benefit will be available.
    Mrs. Beckett: The Minister must be aware that his earlier answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, South-West (Mr. Jones) was a little misleading. He must be aware that in the future, and even in some cases now, it is likely that the ceiling at which housing benefit is paid will not be the same as the rent demanded. If part of the mechanism for deciding the ceiling is to penalise elderly people who keep a spare room for their relatives, is the Minister aware that that will cause not just hardship but outrage?
    Mr. Lloyd: When a person claims housing benefit, the rent officer will take into account the market rent for property of a size suitable for that individual, but the changes will result in a far wider choice of housing than there is now. For suitable property, housing benefit will be paid up to market levels.

    Income Support
    Mr. Pike: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what representations he has received regarding those pensioners on income support who receive no benefit uprating in April.
    Mr. Peter Lloyd: Various representations have been received on this subject.
    Mr. Pike: Does the Minister not recognise that when he replies to cases taken up with him it is no good just saying in his letters that the claimant will find the answer "disappointing". For the second year running 1,700 of my constituents in Burnley and Pendle, who are paid by the Burnley DSS office, have received no benefit uprating, with

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    the result that they are at least 10 per cent. worse off than they were two years ago. They do not find the position disappointing—they find it appalling. Is it not time that the Government did something for those people?
    Mr. Lloyd: As the hon. Gentleman's question refers to pensioners on income support, let me tell him one thing that the Government are doing. From next October, we are raising the rate for couples aged 75 and over by £3·50 a week and the rate for the disabled by the same amount.
    Mr. Charles Wardle: The income support premium for pensioners is most welcome but it applies to people aged 75 and over and does not, therefore, help many women who retired at 60 without an occupational pension before the state earnings-related pension scheme was introduced in 1978. That applies to women now aged between 71 and 74, many of whose incomes have not risen by 23 per cent., more than the rate of inflation. What does my hon. Friend intend to do to help them?
    Mr. Lloyd: The changes that have been announced in benefits for those who are older are not necessarily the last of the improvements that we shall make to the system. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has promised to consider carefully all aspects of the system and no doubt when change is demonstrably needed it will be effected in good time.
    Mr. Kirkwood: If change is contemplated, will the Minister seriously consider helping those elderly people to whom the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle) referred, who have lost out and have no cash increases because transitional protection has been withdrawn? Is the machinery available to ensure that, if pensioners in that category can show, in good faith, that they have not been able to take account of the change—which some of them did not anticipate and of which they were ignorant—the Department can deliver cash help to them immediately?
    Mr. Lloyd: The point about transitional protection being eroded is that it ensures that at no point will there be an actual cash loss or a surprise reduction such as that to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
    Mr. Robin Cook: Was the Under-Secretary of State present last Tuesday when the Prime Minister said that she took credit for the fact that 98 per cent. of pensioners had received this year's uprating? Has he since had the courage to tell her that her figures were misleading? Will he take this opportunity to correct her and confirm that of those pensioners claiming income support, not 98 per cent., but fewer than 68 per cent., received the full uprating? Does the hon. Gentleman believe that it is to the credit of the Government that they have just cut the standard of living of a third of the poorest of all pensioners?
    Mr. Lloyd: I was not present last week, but I understand my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to have said that 98 per cent. of pensioners would receive an increase—not necessarily the full increase, but an increase.
    Mr. John Marshall: Would my hon. Friend care to remind the House what has happened to the standard of living of pensioners over the past 10 years and how that period compares with the previous five years?
    Mr. Lloyd: The figures have often been raised at Question Time and my hon. Friend is right to draw the
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    attention of the House to them once more. The total income of pensioners has risen by 23 per cent. since 1979. That includes SERPS, interest from savings, changes in benefits and the uprating of pensions. All those go to make up an increase of 23 per cent. in total income.

    Disability Benefits
    Mr. Alfred Morris: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if his Department has drawn up proposals for the review of disability benefits; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Scott: The right hon. Gentleman may have heard my exchange with the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) in our debate last week. We have made it clear that we welcome comments and discussion on each of the reports of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys disability surveys, when they are published and in the subsequent period. When we have all the reports, which will be in July, we hope to announce a timetable for further action.
    Mr. Morris: In advance of that review, is it not both shocking and utterly wrong that tens of thousands of severely disabled people should have had not an extra penny from this month's uprating to protect them against an inflation rate that is nudging 8 per cent? Is the Minister aware that, for them, so-called transitional protection is fancy ministerial language for cutting their benefits last year and freezing them this year? Why should any severely disabled person have to sit up and beg for charity to protect already low living standards?
    Mr. Scott: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has made it clear, in his answers to a number of questions, that the essence of transitional protection is that it is eroded over time. Otherwise, we should extend indefinitely the inequalities between claimants in similar circumstances. We should look at the question against the background of a 90 per cent. increase in real terms in expenditure on the disabled and the long-term sick under this Government. Our record compares favourably with that of the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member.
    Mr. Hannam: In looking at the basic financial costs faced by disabled people, will my hon. Friend ignore the ridiculously low figure of some £6 a week in the OPCS report which was based on far too wide an average of disabled people? Will he consider the costs of £40 or £50 a week to disabled people in trying to live normal lives? That estimate was worked out by the disability organisations including the Disablement Income Group and the Disability Alliance?
    Mr. Scott: Of course I shall not ignore anything in the OPCS reports as the Government commissioned them and they provide a tremendous source of information on a scale that never existed before. But I recognise my hon. Friend's point. I shall be meeting a deputation, including DIG, in the not-too-distant future, and no doubt that will be one of the matters to be discussed.
    Mr. Skinner: Is the Minister aware that one of the ways in which we can help the severely disabled is massively to increase the amount of money paid in constant attendance allowance, which is currently at just over £34, to those who

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    look after disabled people? When compared with the amount of money that the state pays to private registered nursing homes which cost way over £200 a week for one individual, does it not make sense to give more money to those being paid constant attendance allowance so that more people can look after their friends, relatives and others?
    Mr. Scott: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point as we consider the balance between the need for institutional care and care in the community. He will know that Sir Roy Griffiths produced an important report on the subject and the Government are considering their response to it. One of the most important matters that will have to be considered in the light of that report is the balance between domiciliary care and care in institutions.

    Family Credit
    Mr. Bowis: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how far up the income scale family credit goes.
    Mr. Moore: Family credit is not just for those on very low wages, and thousands of people have not yet realised the high levels of income that they can have and still get family credit. The level depends on the number of children in the family and their ages. For example, a family with three children aged three, eight and 11 could be taking home up to £141 a week and still be eligible for family credit, and if the children were all teenagers the amount could be over £170 a week; both those amounts are net pay after tax and national insurance deductions.
    One of the main objectives of the major advertising campaign which has just begun is to ensure that people are more aware of the high levels of income at which family credit is payable and how it applies to their families.
    Mr. Bowis: My right hon. Friend's answer highlights the fact that many people do not realise that they qualify for family credit. What is the current take-up in terms of expenditure, and, given my right hon. Friend's answer about the advertising campaign, can he reassure me that if there is a much greater take-up in the future, the speed with which settlements will be made will be at least as good as now, if not better?
    Mr. Moore: My hon. Friend confirms the point identified in the research—people's failure to understand that they are eligible—which we are trying to address in the advertising campaign. In answer to his specific questions, the expenditure take-up is running at 65 per cent. at the moment. In regard to the clearance times, when we introduced family credit, we set up a target of 18 working days. I am happy to tell my hon. Friend and the House that in March the department averaged 17·1 days in clearance time of which only five days involved departmental work and the rest was incurred when we had to receive information from employers.
    Mr. Frank Field: Now that the Government have launched the advertising campaign, which I welcome, will the Secretary of State tell the House what level of take-up of benefit the Government will consider satisfactory?
    Mr. Moore: I shall continue to pursue as hard, as fast and as carefully as I can all those who are eligible. After one year we have reached 65 per cent. of the approximate expenditure, a very sizeable achievement, as the hon.
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    Gentleman knows. While I thank him for his generosity in welcoming our campaign, I prefer to aim for a sizeable increase in take-up and I am not prepared to put a precise figure on the advertising campaign at present. I know that the hon. Gentleman will delight in joining me in welcoming the more than doubling in expenditure on families on low incomes in comparison with FIS.
    Mr. David Nicholson: As my right hon. Friend has made clear, family credit is an excellent benefit in that it is well targeted. However, is he aware of the strong pressure on both sides of the House for its take-up to be increased? Could an improvement be made by simplifying the application form?
    Mr. Moore: We have just been through a process of simplifying the form. The new form is shorter and is not difficult to fill out. The research that has been done—it has been placed in the Library at the request of the Opposition —shows that the length of the form was never seen as a key problem in take-up. I think that my hon. Friend will agree, when he looks at the new form which was published last week, that it is a considerable improvement on the earlier one.

  CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

    Retirement Housing
    Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, as representing the Church Commissioners, what assistance the Church of England gives to its ministers in obtaining housing when they retire and are obliged to vacate their tied accommodation.
    Mr. Michael Alison (Second Church Estates Commissioner, Representing Church Commissioners): The retirement housing scheme administered by the pensions board and largely funded by the Church Commissioners enables all retired clergy, assistant staff and their widows to obtain suitable retirement housing. This can either be by way of an equity sharing mortgage or by renting a property, both on advantageous terms. Full details of the scheme are set out in the pamphlet issued by the pensions board entitled "Retirement Housing", a copy of which I am arranging to be placed in the Library.
    Mr. Hughes: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his reassuring answer. Can he clarify and confirm that spouses of retired clergy can enjoy henceforth security of accommodation for the remainder of their lifetimes?
    Mr. Alison: Yes, I can confirm that. The widows of deceased clergymen who are in houses provided by the pensions board can stay in them and may be eligible for extra financial help. There are some 4,200 clergy widows receiving general assistance from the Church Commissioners at present.
    Mr. Frank Field: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the Church's record towards retired clergy is rather good but what is poor is the amount that we pay clergy when they are working? What plans does he have to improve that?
    Mr. Alison: The hon. Gentleman will know that although the average clergy stipend of roughly £9,100 a year is on the low side, it has been increasing dramatically

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    in recent years. Also, the factor of help in kind which could be worth an extra £4,000 or £5,000 a year in respect of housing help and so on is not an inconsiderable sum.

    Drugs
    Mr. Rathbone: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, as representing the Church Commissioners, what activities the Church Commissioners plan to counter the growing threat of drug increase.
    Mr. Alison: This is not directly a matter for the Church Commissioners whose principal responsibilities relate to the financial support of serving and retired clergy. However, the General Synod's board for social responsibility has published valuable information packs on drugs and alcohol. If my hon. Friend wishes, I shall arrange for the packs to be sent to him. Individual clergy at parish level have access to the information through their diocesan organisations.
    Mr. Rathbone: I welcome that answer and I accept my right hon. Friend's offer to send me the information packs. However, is there no way in which the Church Commissioners can increase the training of clergy so that they can make a greater contribution to the prevention of drug misuse by closer liaison with parents, teachers and social services and through their Church activities?
    Mr. Alison: There is no shortage of the necessary funding for such training. My hon. Friend's point is that there needs to be the greatest possible motivation by local parochial clergy. I shall take note of his point. It is up to the diocese to promote such special interests and the availability of useful information is one way in which the motivation can be stimulated.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: In the light of the strong connection between the Children's Society and the Church of England, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is impressing on the Government the need to accept their amendments in the Lords.
    Mr. Alison: That is a Parthian shaft that I must deflect over my shoulder because I have no direct responsibility for that.
    Mr. Skinner: Is this what is known as the opium of the people?
    Mr. Alison: The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is a renowned spokesman for the people. I am glad to say that the Church of England is the largest and most representative body of voluntary subscribers to an institution in this country. We would vie with the hon. Gentleman in claiming to be fully representative of the people.

    Easter Communicants
    Mr. John Marshall: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, as representing the Church Commissioners, if he will make a statement about the trend in Easter communicants since 1980.
    Mr. Alison: The number of Easter communicants each year is gathered from parish returns by the central board of finance of the Church of England, not by the Church Commissioners. The downward trend in Easter communicants from about 1·7 million in 1980 to about 1·5
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    million in 1986 contrasts with the upward trend in weekly communicants on a normal Sunday from 699,000 to 716,000 over the same period.
    Mr. Marshall: Would not the trend be more favourable if certain leaders of the Church, such as the Bishop of Durham, did not use Easter as an occasion to declare spiritual UDI? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the leaders of the Church should confirm the faithful in our faith rather than sow the seeds of doubt?
    Mr. Alison: I gladly remind my hon. Friend of the upward trend in weekly communicants. The main line to observe is that taken by the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose clear and forceful exposition of the fundamental truths and doctrine of the bodily resurrection of Christ was a prominent feature of his sermon on Easter Sunday.
    Mr. Cormack: Would it not be helpful if my right hon. Friend took aside the Bishop of Durham, told him that he is likely to go down in history as the Salman Rushdie of the Church of England, and advised him to stick to politics rather than religion?
    Mr. Alison: I am not sure where I would draw the Bishop of Durham aside. If I bring him to the Palace of Westminster, there may be a local riot.
    Mr. Latham: At the risk of seeming to support a theocratic state, does my right hon. Friend think that the number of Easter communicants in 1989 is seriously a matter for the House of Commons?
    Mr. Alison: I think that it is. The existence of a leaven of believers in the most fundamental and relevant of all human truths affects and benefits a lump of secular and civilised society, although it may not have a direct connection with it.

    Sales of Goods
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, as representing the Church Commissioners, how much money was raised from sales of goods in cathedrals and churches in each of the last three years; what account the commissioners take of these finances; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Alison: The commissioners do not hold statistics of the amounts raised from the sale of goods in cathedrals and churches. In so far as income from this source forms part of cathedrals' overall income, the commissioners take account of it when they make grants on a selective basis towards the pay of cathedral staff.
    Mr. Greenway: Is it not a fact that many shops, churches and cathedrals open for long hours but would like to be able to sell a wider range of goods than they are currently permitted by the Sunday trading laws? Will my right hon. Friend impress on shopkeepers that they should observe a national compromise like everyone else and not open for four hours on any Sunday?
    Mr. Alison: The laws governing Sunday trading apply to cathedrals and churches in the same way as they do to other bodies. It is in the nature of the Church establishment that it should observe not only the letter but the spirit of the law. I take note of my hon. Friend's point.
    Mr. Thurnham: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the Church Commissioners are increasing their investment in retail businesses? Will he ask them whether they intend to take advantage of the offer to purchase the House of Fraser—whose owner said, "Only God can take it from me."?
    Mr. Alison: I shall seek divine guidance before I reply to that sensitive and rather puzzling question.
    Mr. Kirkhope: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be wrong for some of our greater and finer churches and cathedrals to be turned too much into places of commercial activity? Many people are already, to some extent, put off going to them by this activity when they wish to worship privately.
    Mr. Alison: I take my hon. Friend's point. However, I hope that he will bear in mind that there is a genuine and legitimate tourist interest—not least from overseas visitors —in the heritage of our churches and cathedrals. It is up to the day-to-day management of the churches, by responsible parochial church councils or cathedral staff, to ensure that the proper balance is struck between those who wish to sightsee and those who wish to worship.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS

    Food (Health Implications)
    Mr. Janner: To ask the Lord President of the Council whether he will post a notice in all cafeterias and restaurants open to hon. Members, giving advice on the health implications of various foods available.
    The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Wakeham): No, Sir. I am not convinced that such a notice would fulfil any meaningful purpose.
    Mr. Janner: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that he ought to advise colleagues about whether the Government think it is reasonable, right and safe to eat, for example, eggs, mayonnaise, chicken meat or apples, or to drink water? As most of us are against by-elections—although we are prepared to make some exceptions—does the right hon. Gentleman not consider that, having failed to advise the country competently on what foods are safe, he at least ought to advise Members of Parliament?
    Mr. Wakeham: I do not accept a single word of that. As my previous replies on this subject have shown, the Refreshment Department places great emphasis on making available food and menus of good quality, which provide a nutritious and balanced diet. However, there is a point where the Department's responsibilities end and the individual's good sense must prevail.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Does my right hon. Friend accept that we are much heartened by his response? Will he continue to bear in mind that this is not a kindergarten, but a place for responsible adults who are quite capable of looking after their own health?
    Mr. Wakeham: Certainly. I am grateful for my hon. Friend's support.
    Mr. Walley: Is not the reply that we have just received indicative of the fact that there is no health policy for eating in the Palace of Westminster? The Government
    16
    allowed the Catering Sub-Committee to consider for 18 months how to introduce healthy food and then to come up with a decision to employ consultants who, we are told, are not suitable to do this work. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the person who was going to do the consultative work had a degree in hotel and catering management, was a state registered dietician and, what is more, co-ordinated the textbook on GCSE nutrition? Why cannot we have a proper, healthy eating policy in the palace of Westminster?
    Mr. Wakeham: As the hon. Lady knows, the Catering Sub-Committee retains the services of a qualified nutritional and dietary expert. The Sub-Committee put forward a proposal and I understand the hon. Lady's disappointment. However, the Services Committee is entirely free to accept, change or reject any resolution from its Sub-Committee. There would be little point in it reconsidering such resolutions if it were not able to do so.

    Table Office
    Mr. Thurnham: To ask the Lord President of the Council what representations he has received about the new procedures for access to the Table Office; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Wakeham: I have received only one such representation since Monday 6 February, the date on which the restrictions came into effect. The representation was in the form of a parliamentary question from the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies).
    Mr. Thurnham: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that the crush in the Table Office is much eased after tea time? Will he consider allowing those research assistants who have Library passes to enter the Table Office after about half past four?
    Hon. Members: No.
    Mr. Wakeham: The rules on access to the Table Office were agreed by the House as part of its endorsement of the Services Committee's recommendation in its second report of the Session 1987–88. Any modification to those rules would first be a matter for the Accommodation and Administration Sub-Committee. As my hon. Friend may be aware, the rules which were agreed by the House prohibit Members' staff using the Table Office after 2 pm, Mondays to Thursdays. However, during those times, Members' staff may deposit questions and notices of motion in a box which has been installed outside the Table Office and which is regularly cleared.

    Accommodation
    Mr. Knox: To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will take steps to ensure that the standard of accommodation and fittings to be provided for Members and staff of the House in phases 1 and 2 of the Bridge street development will be at least equivalent to that which has been provided for Ministers and their civil servants in the recently completed Richmond terrace development.
    Mr. Wakeham: I am fully aware of the need to ensure that the accommodation and fittings in the Bridge street development are provided to a standard sufficient to meet the needs of right hon. and hon. Members and others who will be using them. Immediate responsibility for the

    17
    achievement of these standards lies with the New Buildings sub-committee of the Services Committee, which I am sure is aware of the need to protect and promote the interests of the House.
    Mr. Knox: Can my right hon. Friend guarantee that as much money will be spent on the accommodation of Members of Parliament as has been spent on Ministers' and civil servants' accommodation in Richmond house?
    Mr. Wakeham: I am sure that my hon. Friend is thinking of the restored eighteenth century rooms fronting Richmond terrace. A decision was quite properly taken to restore and refurbish these rooms in a way that was appropriate to their age and artistic distinction. The other accommodation in Richmond house is equipped from standard Civil Service ranges, and, as I have said, the standard of furnishings and fittings for Members in phase 1 of the new buildings is already being looked at.

    Terrace
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Lord President of the Council whether he has any plans to arrange for the establishment of permanently constructed reception and dining areas on the Terrace of the House of Commons; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Wakeham: No, Sir. The Terrace pavilion is intended to operate from Easter until Christmas.
    Mr. Greenway: Can my right hon. Friend tell us more about the facility that was unveiled last week? How much did it cost; how many will it accommodate and for what principal functions; and when does he expect it to be in general use?
    Mr. Wakeham: I can tell my hon. Friend some of the information that he requires. The total cost is not expected to exceed £150,000; 75 per cent. of that will come from the Refreshment Department's trading fund account and the remainder from the parliamentary works account. It is planned as a viable project that will not only pay its own costs but is expected to contribute to the general running costs of the Refreshment Department. It will operate from Easter until Christmas each year.
    Mr. John Evans: Was the green and white candy-striped edifice that has just been erected sanctioned by the Royal Fine Art Commission?
    Mr. Wakeham: I think that it was to replace a temporary building that was put up before. That question did not arise.
    Mr. McLoughlin: I welcome my right hon. Friend's answer, but does he accept that the first priority should be to provide a reception area at the Norman Porch, so that when constituents come down they do not have to stand in the rain to wait to see the place to which they should have access?
    Mr. Wakeham: There is a question later on the Order Paper on that subject. Certain proposals are being discussed by the authorities in this House and in another place. We hope to make some progress shortly.

    Closed Circuit link
    Mr. Allen: To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will make it his policy to make available to all Members who wish it, a closed circuit television link from the Chamber.
    Mr. Wakeham: As Chairman of the Select Committee that is currently considering the televising of our proceedings, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on such matters before the recommendation of the Committee are known.
    Mr. Allen: Is the Lord President aware that in the United States members of Congress have access to a sound link and to closed-circuit television? Will he at least consider incorporating such a proposal for the consideration of the House in the forthcoming report?
    Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman will have to wait for our report. I am sure that a number of hon. Members feel that colleagues already spend too little time in the Chamber and would strongly oppose any further move that would worsen that situation.
    Mr. Latham: My right hon. Friend is right. Is not the best way to find out what is going on in the Chamber to come in here and listen?
    Mr. Wakeham: I agree with my hon. Friend, but he will have to await publication of our report to see our views on that.

    Visitors
    Mr. Skinner: To ask the Lord President of the Council if he has any further statement to make with regard to providing improved facilities for visitors to the Houses of Parliament; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Wakeham: The Accommodation and Administration Sub-Committee has submitted specific proposals to the Administration Committee of the other place, where it is generally recognised that there is a need to improve the arrangements for visitors at the Norman Porch. Those proposals are, I understand, receiving sympathetic consideration.
    Mr. Skinner: Why does it take so long to resolve this problem? For donkey's years questions have been asked in the House about improving facilities for visitors coming to this place, yet when somebody decides to build a boudoir with Liberace-type candelabra on the Terrace for the top people, the necessary money can be found at the drop of a hat. If we cannot get the other matter resolved would it not be a good idea to allow visitors to occupy that place?
    Mr. Wakeham: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that the problems in dealing with this are not just concerned with money, because there is also the question of security. Some steps have been taken but, unfortunately, discussions are still going on and at this stage I am not in a position to say anything further.
    Mr. Jessel: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I have been here for nearly 19 years? During that time I have had over 300 visitors and not one of them has ever complained about the facilities.
    Mr. Wakeham: I am delighted to hear that.

Hillsborough Stadium Disaster
3.30 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the disaster at the Sheffield Wednesday football club ground at Hillsborough on Saturday. Everyone has been horrified by this incredible tragedy in which 94 lost their lives and 174 were injured.
Shortly after the start of the match, there was a surge of spectators on the Leppings lane terrace, which crushed many at the front against the perimeter fence. This accounted for most of the deaths and injuries.
The match was due to start at 3 pm. To help ensure orderly access, the gates of the ground were opened at 12 noon. At 2.30 pm most of the Nottingham fans were in the ground, but many of the Liverpool supporters were still arriving. It was clear to the police officers in charge that there was ample capacity still to be filled in some parts of the enclosure allocated to Liverpool.
At about 2.45 pm there was a large crowd of Liverpool supporters at the turnstiles in Leppings lane behind the west stand. There was difficulty in coping with the pressure on the turnstiles, and the police used loud hailers to urge the crowd to be patient. At about 2.50, more Liverpool supporters arrived and the numbers in front of the turnstiles increased. Some supporters started to climb the walls and turnstiles, and those at the front of the crowd outside the stadium were under considerable pressure from those behind.
The senior police officer present considered that there was a possible danger to the lives of the spectators at the front of the crowd outside the stadium. In order to relieve the pressure, he arranged for an exit gate near the turnstiles to be opened to let a section of the crowd through. The relationship of that action to the disaster on the terrace shortly afterwards is clearly a central question to be investigated.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I yesterday visited the football ground and the two Sheffield hospitals which received casualties. I should like to pay tribute to all those involved in the rescue operations at the ground, including the many spectators who gave their help, and to those others, including the hospital staffs and voluntary agencies, who have since been working so hard treating the injured and consoling the bereaved. We heard many accounts of courage exerted on behalf of others.
I have asked for further factual reports from the police and other services, the local authority and the Football Association. Inquests will be held in due course. But over and above this, there is clearly need for a full and independent inquiry to identify the causes of the disaster and to examine what needs to be done to prevent such an accident happening again. I have therefore asked Lord Justice Taylor to carry out an inquiry with the following terms of reference:
"To inquire into the events at Sheffield Wednesday football ground on 15 April 1989 and to make recommendations about the needs of crowd control and safety at sports grounds."
Mr. Brian Johnson, the chief constable of Lancashire, has agreed to assist the inquiry as an assessor, and arrangements will be made as necessary for other qualified assessors to be appointed and for the inquiry to be provided with technical advice and support. I am asking that the inquiry should proceed with all possible speed.
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Lord Justice Taylor will visit Sheffield tomorrow to begin his investigation. I am grateful to him for agreeing to undertake this task.
However, we need also to take a wider view. The Government believe that the future of football in this country lies in a national membership scheme in designated grounds—[Interruption.]—and now, it seems, also in providing all-seated accommodation at major football clubs. This would involve the disappearance of terraces at those grounds. It might also involve amendments to strengthen the Football Spectators Bill so that its provision for the licensing of grounds matched this concept. We shall be considering these matters urgently.
An appeal fund is being set up by the civic authorities of Liverpool, Nottingham and Sheffield. The Government will be contributing £500,000 immediately towards this fund.
This was a devastating tragedy. Our deep sympathy goes to the families of those who died, to those recovering, and—particularly moving yesterday—to those young people who are still fighting for life and health. We owe a duty, it seems to us, to these passionate supporters of football to examine urgently and thoroughly the causes and the background, and to do all in our power to prevent such a thing from happening again. We have to set our sights high and find a better way for British football.
Mr. Roy Hattersley: May I, first of all, offer the deepest sympathy of my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself to all those who were injured in or bereaved by this terrible tragedy. Little that we say will help them at this moment, but I hope that they find some comfort in the knowledge that the whole country shares their grief and suffering. We also offer our hopes for a full recovery to those 17 patients still in intensive care.
May I also express our gratitude to and our admiration for all those individuals who did such remarkable work saving lives, comforting the dying, and helping the injured —police, fire officers, the ambulance service, St. John Ambulance Brigade, doctors and nurses, the staff of the club, and the football supporters who acted with such great discipline and compassion?
May I go on to welcome the Home Secretary's decision to set up a public inquiry, and express our hope that its report will lead to immediate and decisive action? May I ask the Home Secretary about the police inquiry that is to be carried out at the same time? Can we be assured that neither its proceedings nor its conclusions will delay or inhibit the public inquiry that he has announced today? We need an unequivocal and authoritative account of what happened at Hillsborough, why it happened, and what must be done to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. On the face of it, two parallel inquiries are not the best way to achieve that result.
The report emanating from the public inquiry must be followed by a reorganisation of football ground control, which may take some time to achieve. I refer, for example, to the replacement of terraces with seats. But some action must be taken at once. Will the Home Secretary issue an immediate instruction to those safety committees and chief constables who have insisted upon football clubs installing perimeter fences? Many football clubs have warned for years that perimeter fencing is a potential danger. On Saturday it proved lethal. It must not be maintained where lives are put at risk.

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We assume that the recommendations of the public inquiry will concern crowd control outside the turnstiles and on the way to matches—not simply organisation and accommodation inside grounds. In the light of that, will the Home Secretary consider the implications of any policy or legislation that results in concentration of crowds outside grounds immediately before matches? The potential consequences of football supporters being held in large numbers outside turnstiles was demonstrated yesterday. Nothing must be done to make such concentrations more likely or more frequent.
Most informed opinion, including that of the police, insists that the concentration of supporters outside turnstiles would be the certain result of part I of the Football Spectators Bill. This morning's decision to push that Bill through Parliament even while the inquiry is sitting is neither rational nor sensitive to the mood of the country. We shall oppose it with every legitimate means at our disposal.
I offer the co-operation of the Opposition for any legislation that is genuinely concerned with football safety. Indeed, I do more: I assure the Home Secretary of my party's profound wish that proposals on safety at football grounds can be made with the general support of all political parties and wholly free from political controversy. It will clearly be in the interests of everybody to obtain unanimous agreement on a subject that has nothing whatever to do with party politics. I ask the Home Secretary to try to achieve that agreement.
Mr. Hurd: I am grateful for the earlier part of the right hon. Gentleman's statement, which expressed sentiments on which the House is united. He raised several particular points. The chief constable of South Yorkshire took the view, which I think the right hon. Gentleman will probably consider right, that since the actions of some of his force will be central to any inquiry, it is right that another force, and one with experience in these matters, should undertake the police work that is necessary both in preparation for inquests and to submit the necessary information to Lord Taylor's inquiry. Therefore, he made the announcement to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. I do not think that there is any confusion or duplication. The work to be carried out by the chief constable of the West Midlands force will be at the service of Lord Justice Taylor, and will not cut across what he does.
The right hon. Gentleman spoke about barriers and perimeter fencing, and it is worth answering that point in a little detail. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, they are not a statutory requirement, but they are in many places a requirement imposed by the local authorities as a condition of the safety certificate, which is required under the law. The purpose of the barriers and in particular of the perimeter fences is to increase security and improve protection from one type of threat—that of violence.
Mr. Hattersley: Not violence—hooliganism.
Mr. Hurd: That is their purpose. We have yet to find satisfactory means of ensuring that, in removing one hazard, the authorities do not create another.
The Home Office guidance, which the right hon. Gentleman will have studied, specifically lays down the importance of exits on to the pitch through the perimeter fence for emergency purposes. No one who saw the fence and the gate at Hillsborough or listened to those who tried
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to get through it, often in vain, can believe that the right answer was found on that occasion. It must be for Lord Justice Taylor and the inquiry to look into that. He is aware—I discussed the matter with him this morning—that if he believes, as he may well, that there are certain matters—perhaps this one—that require an urgent interim report, so that steps can be taken in advance of the next football season, he will be able to do that.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Football Spectators Bill. The next stage of the Bill was to have been Third Reading in another place, on Monday next. We believe that the House and the other place will agree that it is seemly to have a short delay in that. Perhaps after that delay, the best course would be for the Bill to complete its stages in the other place so that any additions that we propose in the light of my earlier statement can be introduced when it comes to this House. In the first instance, that is a matter for the usual channels in another place.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I know that I speak for the whole House when I say that we are all appalled at this tragedy. Our sympathy goes out to the relatives of those who have been killed and to the injured. It may not be possible for me to call every hon. Member who wishes to ask a question, but I propose to give precedence to those whose constituencies are most directly affected.
Mr. David Blunkett: As the Member of Parliament representing the area that covers the ground and the Northern general hospital, I wish to reiterate what has already been said in paying tribute to those who helped, in the ground, in the community around and at the two major hospitals in Sheffield, to deal with the dead and injured. I offer my sympathy and those of colleagues in the city of Sheffield to the bereaved arid to those families whose relatives have been injured. I am sure that we all want to consider every possible way of avoiding such an incident ever occurring again.
I ask the Home Secretary to confirm that the Sheffield Wednesday football club has done more than most clubs in investing more than £1 million over the past 10 years in improving safety and facilities in a ground that must be one of the best of the top two or three football league grounds in the country.
I hope that the Home Secretary will confirm that the inquiry will accept the task of considering how we might change the image of football. Will it be possible for us to take a fresh look at how we treat football spectators? The behaviour of a few has led to a concentration on actions and attitudes whereby fans are treated as hooligans, or potential hooligans, rather than as human beings.
No one would condone the pressure and the late arrival of fans outside the game on Saturday, but we want to see facilities for entertainment, catering and comfort in grounds begin to restore decency and a sense of purpose. I speak as someone who sat on a small wall behind the goal at Hillsborough when I was a child without fear or anything happening to me or to those around me.
I ask the Home Secretary to reject the alleged statement this afternoon by the president of UEFA, in which he described fans as "beasts". I hope that the Home Secretary will say that we shall restore dignity and a sense of decency to our football supporters and to the viewing of football in Britain.
Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I agree willingly that Sheffield Wednesday has put massive investment into modern facilities at the Hillsborough ground. The terms of reference of Lord Justice Taylor are wide and will enable him to range over what he thinks is essential. I agree that those whom my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I visited yesterday in the hospitals were human beings who had suffered greatly in body and, sometimes, in mind as well. No one who made those visits could conceivably think of them in any other way.
I agree also with the main thrust of the question of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett). It is by building up the comfort and the conditions of the game and its high reputation that we can attract more and more people to become spectators and restore the attractiveness of the game. That will mean raising our sights, and thinking of new ways of doing that. That is why we have come to the conclusion that seated accommodation in the larger stadiums is an important part of the objective which the hon. Gentleman states.
Sir Bernard Braine: Our hearts go out to the bereaved families, but surely our thoughts should be concentrated on what lessons should be learned for general application thoughout the country. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary did not refer to one pressing matter. Is he aware that, over the past three years, ever since the inquiry of Mr. Justice Popplewell, the St. John Ambulance Brigade, which has unrivalled experience in providing first aid at sports grounds, has been pressing the Home Office, local authorities and the Football Association to provide much higher standards of medical care and equipment at football stadiums throughout the country?
If it has not been possible outside London to achieve these standards—in London it has been all right—will my right hon. Friend take appropriate action in advance of the inquiry? There is clearly a need to ensure that, in any breakdown where injury is inflicted, the rescue services and the magnificient work done by the St. John Ambulance Brigade are not frustrated by a lack of proper facilities.
Mr. Hurd: My right hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the criticisms that have been made. He may have heard the doctor from Glasgow give his considered talk on that matter on the radio this morning. I understand that before the match began two ambulances were at the ground together with attendants from the St. John Ambulance Brigade. The first call for additional ambulances was received by the ambulance service at eight minutes past 3 and within 17 minutes a total of 10 additional ambulances had attended. We spoke yesterday to the head of the ambulance service. Its record of quick recourse is a good one. However, it does not help with my right hon. Friend's point about the facilities already at the ground. I imagine that that is a matter to which Lord Justice Taylor will want to give urgent attention.
Mr. Eric S. Heller: These are probably the most difficult questions that I have ever had to ask in the House of Commons. I say that because many of my constituents and many of the constituents of my colleagues who represent Liverpool and Merseyside, as well as elsewhere, are dead or injured because of the great tragedy at Hillsborough. I am thinking of the families and of the people who are bereaved.
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It is a tragedy that should never have happened. The people of Liverpool in particular are in deep mourning but there is also a measure of anger because, as has been urged elsewhere, they feel that steps should have been taken well before the match to avoid such things happening.
Although the attitude that the Government have adopted has been sympathetic, may I urge them not to go ahead at the moment with their proposals? Please be sensitive to the feelings of our people. Is the Home Secretary aware that I have recently received letters from some of those who died urging that the Government should not introduce the scheme because they felt that it would add to the existing problems? I urge the Government: please desist at least until the report is published. Let us have another look at the situation.
May I also urge the Government to take some immediate steps? For God's sake, do not let our people be trapped like animals again. I am an Evertonian—I do not often attend Liverpool matches and I was not at this one—but I saw on television the agony and the dreadful scenes when young people, children and others had their lives crushed out of them, not only because of the perimeter fences but because of the barriers. We must ensure that this never happens again anywhere in the country.
Those who are in authority and who had not foreseen that such a situation could develop cannot run away from their responsibilities. The last thing that I want to do is to create a scapegoat and I do not want to condemn the policeman outside the ground who made a decision, thinking, perhaps, that he was saving lives. I just want us to look at the whole situation again, again and again, so that such a tragedy does not happen again.
The interests of the spectators should be put before the interests of everybody else. They must be treated as civilised human beings, not as the enemies of society. Yes, a few enemies of society may get into football grounds from time to time, but our lovely people of Liverpool—and those elsewhere—must never suffer again because they have suffered too much already.
Mr. Hurd: Anyone who watched on television the reaction of people in Liverpool, particularly at the services in and outside the cathedrals yesterday, will know that the hon. Gentleman was right in the way that he started his question. There is also absolutely no doubt from what we heard yesterday that the hon. Gentleman is right to talk about people being trapped, crushed and helpless. That leads back to the point about perimeter fences. The hon. Gentleman is right also to advise against a rush to judgment. Yesterday, we listened to many accounts of what happened from casualties and witnesses. The broad thrust of what they said tallied. However, there were discrepancies—as there usually are—on many important points of detail. It is for precisely that reason that an inquiry is needed.
There is no particular difficulty about part II of the Football Spectators Bill. As to part I, the national membership scheme is designed as a remedy against violence. Violence was not present at Hillsborough on Saturday, but it has been the curse of the game and might be again unless we find the right remedy. The remedy in the Bill flows from the Popplewell report on the last disaster—[Interruption.] In considering the Hillsborough disaster, it would be foolish to forget the lessons of earlier disasters.

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The action that we propose is reasonable. I mentioned the parliamentary delay that we believe to be seemly. I mentioned also that we want to go forward and not back on the Football Spectators Bill and on the concept of a national membership scheme, which we believe to be necessary and right. We must go forward, to see whether the Bill's licensing provisions need to be strengthened, to make possible the move to all-seated accommodation in big stadiums, which we believe is the right way to proceed. There will be consultations and discussions about that possibility. If we reach the conclusion that the Bill needs to be altered and strengthened in that way, we shall bring that conclusion to the House.
Sir Neil Macfarlane: Is my right hon. Friend aware that right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House wholeheartedly share his sentiments about the heroic acts that took place on Saturday? I shall be grateful if he will address his mind to two points that I will put to him. I associate myself in many ways with the comments of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heifer). Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the inquiry will be all-embracing, because the disaster has major implications for many other major spectator sports? Also, can the inquiry be speeded up? Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends feel that the inquiry is desperately important, even allowing for the recommendations made four years ago by Mr. Justice Popplewell. If some of them had been acknowledged, perhaps we would not find ourselves where we are today.
Does my right hon. Friend hold the opinion that it would be premature and foolhardy to proceed with the national membership scheme until he has an opportunity to consider all the contributory factors, both inside and outside the ground, to the Hillsborough tragedy? Those factors clearly included panic on the part of the police and of spectators. I am certain that it would be premature to proceed with the scheme until the inquiry has been concluded.
Mr. Hurd: Lord Justice Taylor's report must be speedy and thorough. In theory, there can be a contradiction between the two. However, I have made it clear to Lord Justice Taylor—and he accepts this—that he may encounter matters and issues that need to be tackled with particular urgency and upon which he may wish to make pressing recommendations. If that is the case, it will be open to him—and I have the impression that he will take this course—to submit an interim report on such matters before he has finished reaching all of his conclusions, so that they may be acted upon. Lord Justice Taylor has it in mind that, as with the Popplewell inquiry, the proceedings of his inquiry will be in public, unless there is a particular reason in any case against allowing that. That is the procedure. I do not want to pin Lord Justice Taylor down to a specific timetable before he has even visited Sheffield, which he is to do tomorrow, but I hope that my hon. Friend feels reassured.
I note what my hon. Friend said about the comments of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heller), and he will have noted what I said in reply. I agree to the extent that we need to set our sights high, and that, apart from other considerations, a delay would be seemly. As I have said, we shall need to look at the Bill to see how it might be strengthened to meet the extra points that I have mentioned. I do not consider that it would be right or
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sensible to resile from the concept of a national membership scheme or from that of designated grounds, for reasons that I have already given. If Lord Justice Taylor wishes to comment on that, nothing in his terms of reference will prevent him from doing so.
Mr. Menzies Campbell: On behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, let me offer my sympathy to the bereaved and injured. Let me also acknowledge the efforts of those who rendered assistance, especially the unsung acts of heroism performed by many young people.
I should like to press the Home Secretary a little on the scope of the inquiry. Will it be wide enough to enable the inquiry to consider whether lessons should have been learned from an alleged incident in 1981, in the same part of the same ground? It is said that there was severe overcrowding on that occasion, but mercifully no one was killed or injured.
The Home Secretary would receive support from both sides of the House if he took a much more robust attitude to the football membership scheme. Many of us feel that even proceeding in the way that he has outlined will inevitably pre-empt Lord Justice Taylor's report.
Mr. Hurd: On the second point, I do not think that I have anything to add to what I have already said. As for the first point, Lord Justice Taylor will of course be able to look at evidence from the past if he considers if relevant.
The hon. and learned Gentleman asked me about the kind of issues that Lord Justice Taylor will need to address. I have already mentioned the decision to open the outside gate. There is also the question why, once in the ground, fans were propelled into the central tunnel rather than to the side entrances to the terraces, and the question why those responsible did not notice earlier what was happening on the central terrace behind the goal posts. Then there is the whole question—which we have already discussed—of the perimeter barrier and the gates within it, which were designed to serve as an emergency exit but which obviously failed to do so.
Mr. John Carlisle: As my right hon. Friend knows, I am one of the strongest supporters of the Football Spectators Bill, and I remain committed to the principle of membership to combat football hooliganism. Does my right hon. Friend accept, however, that in consideration of what has been said this afternoon—and, indeed, of the tragic circumstances—it would be wise to postpone any further discussion until the full results of the public inquiry are known? I hope that my right hon. Friend will then bring to the House a Bill that will receive not merely all-party support but support from outside the House, to combat the terrible problems that have been highlighted by Saturday's tragic events.
Mr. Hurd: As I have said, there will be a pause for the sake of seemliness—as the House would wish—and also for consultations on the possible strengthening of the Bill. Both purposes are, I think, important from the point of view of my hon. Friend.
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that the events at Hillsborough ought to make us all step aside from preconceptions and look afresh at how we are to find a better way for British football. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] However, I think that my hon. Friend will agree, even if the Opposition do not, that an important part of that must be protection against hooliganism and violence,

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and that in that context a national membership scheme, or the kind that flows from the Popplewell report, has a crucial part to play.
Mr. Joseph Ashton: I was at the match on Saturday and saw everything that happened. If those events had taken place at a mid-week Cup tie replay on a black, dark January night, with people dashing from work in the rush hour trying to get in, it would have been twice as bad. Most of the fans had a ticket, which is a form of membership card. If the Secretary of State introduces a computer system and a membership card, all we shall need is one idiot to take a piece of chewing gum and jam it into the slot. That would put the turnstile out of action. The police would then have no option but to allow people to rush into the ground through the emergency exit. They would not then be in a position, especially on a dark night, to direct the fans to the proper entrances.
If this tragedy had happened after the Football Spectators Bill had been introduced, the Secretary of State would certainly have had to resign. Will he not wait until the report is published? In the meantime, will he not arrange for the barriers to be taken down? Will he not insist that all big matches are played live on television on Sunday afternoons so that there is less reason for people without tickets to turn up at the ground, as they did on Saturday, and fewer traffic problems? If the Secretary of State took those interim measures and introduced in the next Session of Parliament a safety of sports grounds Bill, we should certainly support him.
Mr. Hurd: The tragedy happened under the existing system, not under any future system. [Interruption.] No, the hon. Gentleman has not proved that point. Part of the problem on Saturday, as on other occasions, was that people turned up without tickets, as the hon. Gentleman said, in the belief, which tragically turned out to be correct, that some of them would find a way in. Under the scheme, that would not have been possible because they would or would not have a football membership card. They would not travel to the game in the expectation that they would be let in without one.
Mr. Michael Shersby: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Police Federation welcomes both the public and the police inquiry? Will the inquiry particularly consider the safety of stadiums and will it have the power to recommend temporary closure, should that prove necessary? Can he also say whether the inquiry will further consider how supporters travel to matches, the parking arrangements and the way in which supporters approach the ground? Can he further say whether the inquiry will consider the role of the Football Association in connection with the proposed football membership scheme?
Mr. Hurd: We have deliberately cast very widely the terms of reference for Lord Justice Taylor, so that he can examine all those matters that my hon. Friend has listed, I believe without straining at the terms of reference. There are many angles to this—many points of comment and criticism that have already arisen, even in the last 48 hours—and it is right that Lord Justice Taylor should be able to look at them all. The existing system of safety certificates under the 1975 Act and the responsibility of local
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authorities—how that works out in practice and whether it is right, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) pointed out earlier, that perimeter fences should in many cases be regarded as a requirement for a safety certificate—are matters on which Lord Justice Taylor could comment.
Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: We all grieve today, but some of us are angry. I speak not only as a Sheffield Member of Parliament but also as someone who still stands on the popular side week in, week out. Is the Home Secretary aware that, in the aftermath of Heysel and Bradford, I wrote to his Department and described the extensive improvements that had been put in hand at Hillsborough, costing £750,000 for crowd control and police liaison, and that I invited the Minister who was then responsible for these matters to come up and see them? He did not. Will he caution those who would make whipping boys of Sheffied Wednesday and the South Yorkshire police? Will he concentrate on those who, in trying to shape our safety requirements since Heysel and Bradford, have taken us in a impractical and unreal direction?
Will the right hon. Gentleman look hard at football—its structure, greed and psyche, and its contempt for ordinary working-class lads—and ask how far the football establishment is responsible for the continuing slaughter? During the past three or four years cages have been set up to contain visiting supporters at football grounds that detain them more severely than prisoners of war were detained in world war 2 Britain.
Mr. Hurd: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is unreal and wrong, at this stage and with our present knowledge to look for, or talk about, whipping boys. I am glad that, from the Opposition Benches and from all parts of the House, that has been stated clearly. As the hon. Gentleman said, we have endured—and football supporters in particular have endured—a series of tragedies at home and abroad. We have had a tragic fire, a number of tragedies brought about by violence—Birmingham and Heysel—and now a tragedy brought about not by violence but by physical pressures because too many people were concentrated in one narrow part of the ground.
Each of those different tragedies has brought forth a series of answers, inquiries, reports and guidance designed to avert a recurrence of the most recent tragedy—the one that is on everyone's mind. We must not forget the earlier lessons as we concentrate on the new lessons. We must look at the whole picture. That includes protection against violence and hooliganism and what Popplewell said about fire. It also includes the problems that we have naturally been discussing following the Hillsborough tragedy—the problems of perimeter fences and pressure exerted on people by physical objects that can wound and crush them. Unless we are prepared to consider all these matters, we shall continue to chase partial solutions. That was the nature of my statement today.
Mr. Irvine Patnick: May I join the hon. Members for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and Sheffield, Atterliffe (Mr. Duffy) in speaking about the tragedy that occurred in Sheffield? I pay my compliments to the emergency services on the way in which they handled themselves at the weekend and to Sheffield people who volunteered to give accommodation to those from Liverpool who were bereaved. When I visited the

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temporary morgue that had been set up with my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport I was appalled by the tragedy. Only when one sees the bodies laid out can one fully appreciate the extent of the tragedy that happened in Sheffield.
I ask my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to bear in mind that it was apparent to me that there was a lack of a disaster plan for that sports ground, which is one of the major sports grounds in the United Kingdom. As the hon. Member for Attercliffe said, there are few better grounds than that ground. Nevertheless, shortcomings were apparent.
I congratulate the two radio stations, Radio Hallam and Radio Sheffield, which kept up a non-stop commentary on what help was needed for people in the area and the Sheffield Star on its special edition—a copy of which I gave to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—which showed graphically the horror and mayhem.
Will my right hon. Friend examine two questions—first, the apparent lack of a disaster plan and, secondly, the part that alcohol played in the disaster?
Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend is right to the extent that Lord Justice Taylor will have to look very carefully at the shortcomings in control and communication which seem to have been present at the crucial moments that afternoon. If the hon. Gentleman's second point becomes substantiated, it will certainly fall within Lord Justice Taylor's terms of reference.
Mr. Eddie Loyden: Can I say to the Home Secretary that I am probably one of the few people in the House who was at the game, if it can be called a game. I was in the Leppings lane area and I was pinned against a wall for about 20 minutes. One of my immediate observations was the inadequate policing of the Leppings lane entrance. People were coming down the road in quite large numbers and there was virtually no direction. What could have and should have happened is that the outer gates to that enclosure should have been closed to limit the number of people within it. That did not happen, and the police cannot be blamed for removing themselves from within that enclosure as the crushing became greater.
In my view the disaster had nothing to do with late arrivals. When I go to Anfield road to see a football match, I arrive at ten to 3 and walk through with no problem at all, because the policing there is quite adequate and the crowds are broken up by the police outside the ground.
As has been said, football supporters have been virtually disregarded because of the behaviour of a tiny minority of fans, and have been typecast as gorillas and inhuman people. That image develops in the mind of police, politicians and others the idea that everyone who goes to watch a football match falls into that category, and that influences the way that people treat football supporters. That did not happen in Sheffield, because the community around the football ground understood the situation, because their sons, daughters, fathers and brothers are probably football fans. They gave immediate sustenance and help to the football supporters. I wish to express my gratitude to the working-class people in Sheffield who did all they could to assist those who were distressed and injured and to deal with other minor matters.
I do not understand how the Home Secretary can continue to defend a scheme that, had it been in operation
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on that day, would have caused even greater damage, if that is possible. It is about time that the football industry, the Home Secretary, the House and society in general concentrated their minds on bringing in legislation to make football grounds safe and deal with the hooligan element. No genuine football supporter wants to tolerate that. We want those people rooted out of our sport, and they can be rooted out.
But let us not categorise football spectators so that anybody and everybody will look for an excuse not to listen to them. They know about the grounds, as they visit them week after week, and they know where the faults lie. I hope the Home Secretary will say that the inquiry will have full regard to those people who go to foot ball matches and know the problems. If we listen to them and act upon what they say, the game will be brought back to what it was—a game that families can watch and enjoy without any danger to themselves or to other people.
Mr. Hurd: I hope indeed that football supporters will find their voices and mobilise their ideas and put them to Lord Justice Taylor, for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman has given. As regards the police, there was no shortage of police officers—there were upwards of 770 police officers in or around the ground. The hon. Gentleman will agree that many of them showed great heroism for an hour or more trying to extricate people, help people and restore people to consciousness and life.
Of course he is right to say that, as the chief constable has recognised, the decisions of the police and the general question of control and communication will have to be examined by Lord Justice Taylor.
Because of the passionate loyalty of so many for football—we all know of it even if we do not share it—it must be right to do everything we can to restore the game's reputation.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask for brief questions on this matter, please, because a great many hon. Members wish to take part, and it is difficult if long questions are asked.
Mr. Malcolm Thornton: I am sure the House and the country sense the feeling of tragedy that every person on Merseyside feels today because of the events of Saturday, when what should have been one of the great showpieces of our sporting calendar turned into such a tragedy. On behalf of my constituents and all the people of Merseyside who were helped, I thank the people of Sheffield for all they did. I am sure that I can speak for all my colleagues on Merseyside when I say that our heartfelt sympathy goes to the families of all those who were bereaved, including the family of a 17-year-old boy from Crosby who was named today as one of the dead. It is an absolute tragedy.
I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement about a wide-ranging inquiry. May I ask him to take one particular thing on board, because many lessons must be learned from the events at Hillsborough on Saturday? Will he see that part of the inquiry looks at the way in which the Football Association allocates tickets to the clubs involved in major sporting occasions? For clubs such as Liverpool, Manchester United, Everton, Arsenal and Tottenham, with huge followings, the allocation is often fearfully

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inadequate and exacerbates a problem which should not exist but which we all know was part and parcel of the problem causing the fatal events on Saturday.
Mr. Hurd: That point will certainly come within the review. There seems to be a general opinion—Lord Justice Taylor will test this—that there was still room at the Liverpool end of the ground. The trouble was not that the total space was overcrowded but that particular area—[Interruption.] Yes, as the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) said, the distribution was wrong. That is what I was referring to when I talked of people being propelled through the central tunnel rather than directed round the sides where there was access to parts of the Liverpool terraces. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw also mentioned that people came from Liverpool without tickets in the hope of getting in. Both those facts aggravated the situation.
Mr. Martin Flannery: Yesterday afternoon at this time, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and myself, together with dignitaries from the three cities involved, were standing on the turf in front of where all those people were killed. Everyone stood silently; there were no photographers present. Our hearts went out from Sheffield to the people of Liverpool. The heart of Sheffield is collectively a great heart and the people of Sheffield are appalled at what happened. The last time I stood in such a way was a long time ago during the war. The sense of what had occurred was horrific to me, and, I hope, to everybody.
We all have our opinions about what went wrong. I know the ground intimately, the exact spot and all the details, but I do not want to apportion blame now. When the inquiry takes place, we should all realise that it is the most important inquiry in the history of football in this country and what it decides will decide the future of football. Football is a dynamic, not a static, sport. It will not stand still and will never go away—thank heaven—but we want to make the proper decisions.
Therefore, I want voices that say, "Do it rapidly," to be listened to with much care. I do not want skimping. The decisions that we take must be long-term decisions. Every aspect must be considered; otherwise, this will occur again and we shall once again need to have another melancholy inquiry into what went wrong. I want an assurance from the Secretary of State that we shall have such an inquiry and that it will not be rushed in any way whatever.
Mr. Hurd: I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman said. I should like to mention the generosity of the people of Sheffield, which has been evident. I have heard many stories of offers of help, accommodation and transport to complete strangers from his constituents and other citizens of Sheffield.
I repeat, without wishing to be tedious, what seems to be the crux of the matter. We have had a series of disasters and tragedies arising from different causes and circumstances. We must not simply ignore the earlier lessons and concentrate on the latest ones. The latest one is terrible and perhaps more appalling than the others because of its nature. It therefore needs to be thoroughly and urgently investigated, and the totals must be added together to find a new way for British football. The hon. Gentleman rightly
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said that the inquiry must be dynamic. There must be no resting on ancient attitudes as the right foundation for the future of the game.
Mr. Kenneth Hind: I am sure that the House will join me in sending condolences to the families of Colin Sefton and David Rimmer, constituents of mine, who died, and Robert Graham, who is fighting for his life in intensive care. May I express, on behalf of the people of Skelmersdale and Ormskirk, who are ardent Liverpool supporters, our appreciation of the Sheffield services, which acted so quickly?
I support my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on the introduction of all-seated grounds, which I have advocated for some time and regard as a solution. Will he return to the Bradford City fire report by Mr. Justice Popplewell, in which he will find among the 63 recommendations one that says that it is essential to have exit gates in perimeter fencing that keeps in the crowd to give an exit on to the field should there be disturbances? Will he reconsider that and bear in mind that such gates do not exist at 16 first division grounds, including Manchester United's ground, Old Trafford, where it is proposed to hold the rematch of this game in the next week or two?
Mr. Hurd: One point on which we can all agree is the absolute necessity of emergency exits through perimeter fences. As my hon. Friend said, that is contained in the Popplewell report and is clearly spelled out, with specifications about the widths of gates, in paragraph 215 of the Home Office guide to safety at sports grounds. Anyone will agree that if the guidance is implemented it is adequate. There must be an investigation in to why the exit gate was not an effective way in which desperate people could get on to the pitch.
Mr. David Alton: In the face of this terrible and wholly avoidable tragedy—many of the fatalities were young children, including a 13-year-old boy from my constituency—expressions of condolences and sympathy seem inadequate to sum up the enormity of it for a city that is mourning its dead and is united in its grief.
A time will come when grief will give way to anger and questions will have to be answered. I should like an assurance from the Home Secretary that it will be made clear why the gate was opened and who took that decision. Why were emergency arrangements so pitifully inadequate? I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman said about the provision of seats in our national stadiums, but will he take urgent action to ensure that those terrible metal cages are put on the scrap heap and people are treated like human beings instead of animals?
On 22 March, I wrote to the Minister about the ticket allocation for Saturday's match. I enclosed a statement from Mr. Peter Robinson, the chief executive of Liverpool football ground, who said:
"I made it plain that there was no way I could support the choice of Hillsborough this year with the same ticket allocations applying."
When I received a reply dated 11 April from the Minister of Sport, he said that the mater was entirely for the football authorities. In the light of what has happened, will the Home Secretary accept that the Minister should take an interest in this matter? Will he confirm that which the Minister said, that the allocations were made on the basis of police advice? I ask that because there have been conflicting statements in the past 24 hours.

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Liverpool is a city schooled in adversity. However, not since the blitz has it had to face a tragedy on such a shocking scale. I am sure that the House today will wish to express its solidarity with those who grieve and those awaiting news of loved ones, whose lives still lie in the balance.
Mr. Hurd: All the points raised by the hon. Gentleman are clearly covered by the terms of reference of the inquiry, and Lord Justice Taylor will be able to look into them. I am slightly surprised that he suggests that Ministers should become involved in deciding, match by match, how tickets should be allocated. He is perfectly right in his understanding—these are matters for the football authorities. They consult on them and are guided by the police. I shall repeat my earlier point that, although the matter of total allocation will certainly be looked into, it was not the total allocation, so much as the concentration of that allocation in a part of the Liverpool terrace, which resulted in the terrible damage.
Mr. Jim Lester: May I, as a regular supporter of the Nottingham Forest team, speak on behalf of all its fans and the people of Nottinghamshire, and associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heller)? It was a most tragic accident and, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, no words uttered in this place will fill the gaps in those families who have lost young people who went out on a happy day which ended in tragedy.
We should recollect that more factors unite football fans than divide them. That was clearly shown at the Hillsborough ground when the Nottingham Forest supporters—as soon as they realised that a tragedy was taking place—behaved in an exemplary fashion and helped in every way. The majority of people who follow football are united in the game's interests. The Home Secretary has an opportunity to utilise that good will on all sides. There is no shortage of suggestions or ideas. I beg him not to rush ahead too far but to think carefully before he proceeds in any direction. He should take all the advice given from all those of good will who want the future of football—this country's national game—to continue in a proper and rightful way.
Mr. Hurd: I agree with my hon. Friend that the right sequence of action is thought, consultation, thought, action.
Mr. Terry Fields: Like thousands of Liverpool families on Saturday, my wife and I waited tearfully and anxiously because we had two sons and a nephew in that part of the ground where the disaster happened. My relief on discovering that my family was all right was tinged with the realisation that thousands of other Liverpool families would never see their kids come home as a result of the terrible tragedy. After the Heysel tragedy we were assured that the Prime Minister would leave no stone unturned in discovering who was responsible. I want an assurance today from the Home Secretary that, similarly, no stone will be left unturned when this incident is investigated.
Others have said that they are not looking for scapegoats, but the anger that permeates Liverpool today reflects the tragedy that occurred in Georgia in the USSR, after which the top tier of the country's leadership was forced to resign. We need assurances, because we do not
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want a whitewash. The fans are paramount in this incident, and must be consulted when the in-depth inquiry takes place—no matter how long it takes for their point of view and experiences to be put across. If they were decent, honest and honourable, the responsible Minister, chief of police and FA officials would resign.
How long are we going to carry on treating fans like cattle? Their treatment contrasts with the champagne swilling that goes on in the plush directors' boxes. The views and conditions of the fans must be taken into account. If we lock people up we create a certain mentality, and it is little wonder that they react in these circumstances.
Mr. Hurd: Nothing that we heard yesterday at the ground or in the hospitals bears out the sort of rhetoric that the hon. Gentleman has sought to employ. It is precisely because of the incredible nature of the tragedy that we have moved quickly to set up what even the hon. Gentleman would agree is a fully independent inquiry with what even he would agree are wide and complete terms of reference. The proceedings will be conducted in public, unless there is a special reason for not doing so. It will be open to everyone to make their views and recommendations known. That is the proper way to proceed and then to reach conclusions afterwards—instead of gabbling with malice, as the hon. Gentleman has done today.
Sir Fergus Montgomery: I ask my right hon. Friend to think again about putting the Football Spectators Bill on ice. Is he aware that many of the police are concerned that if the Bill is enacted and crowds build up outside stadiums the same sort of thing could happen again as happened on Saturday? Would it not be better to wait for the results of a full inquiry and then to bring forward a Bill that is acceptable to everyone concerned with football?
Secondly, was my right hon. Friend, like me, nauseated by some of the pictures in some of the tabloids, which must have caused enormous distress to some of the bereaved families? Would it not have been better if they had never been published?
Mr. Hurd: On the first point, perhaps I can add something to what I have already said. I remind the House, which has not yet considered the Bill, that it is an enabling framework and that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has already given a full commitment not to implement the scheme within that framework until the necessary technology has been satisfactorily worked out. My hon. Friend will agree that the point about terraces that I emphasised at the beginning is also relevant.
I note what my hon. Friend said about newspaper photographs, and I also note that the new chairman of the Press Council has said today that the Press Council should inquire into that matter.
Mr. Robert N. Wareing: I was at the other semi-final on Saturday at which the other Merseyside team, Everton, was successful, but there was no real rejoicing. When we came out of the ground and learned of the problems at Hillsborough, we were all united in grief with all football fans on Merseyside.
Will the Home Secretary use his influence to get football clubs to be more flexible about kick-off times? One of the reasons why crowds try to crush through turnstiles

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quickly into the central areas of grounds is that they hear the roar from inside the ground when the teams run on to the pitch and play starts. Matches in Germany are often held up for half an hour to ensure the safety of the spectators, which should come first.
When, oh when, will the Government escape from the "We never make mistakes" syndrome? When will they learn from their Back Benchers, not one of whom has supported them this afternoon, withdraw part I of the Football Spectators Bill and start from scratch?
Will the Home Secretary ensure that the inquiry examines the location of football grounds? I know that there can be improvement—by relocating grounds when necessary—only in the long term, but too many of our grounds are in built-up urban areas. Because of the war, Germany and Holland have been able to build grounds in open space areas in which there are far more facilities for controlling crowds. Will the right hon. Gentleman look into that?
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask for brief questions; long questions are unfair to other hon. Members.
Mr. Hurd: I shall try to be succinct. I have much personal sympathy for the hon. Gentleman's point about flexibility and timing of the start of matches. I am sure that that will be looked into. I have nothing further to say on the other matter.
Mr. Churchill: May I on behalf of my constituents and supporters of Manchester United join in the expressions of sympathy to the families of the bereaved? Will my right hon. Friend have urgent consultations with the football authorities to ensure that in future special coaches and trains for away matches do not leave their points of origin unless everybody on board is already armed with a ticket? That would avoid thousands of fans, many of them without tickets, arriving simultaneously five or 10 minutes before the start of a match.
Mr. Hurd: That is an interesting suggestion and I shall make sure that the inquiry takes it into account.
Mr. Robert Parry: I should like to be associated with the condolences and the messages of sympathy to the bereaved families. I pay tribute to the Liverpool supporters and the Evertonians for their tribute to Liverpool yesterday at Anfield and at Liverpool metropolitan cathedral. I was present at both those ceremonies and they were very moving. My brother's son lost three friends on Saturday, all of whom were in their twenties. That was a tragic loss of life. I welcome the public inquiry and hope that there will be no cover-ups. Such a tragedy must never happen again, although any preventive measures are too late for all those people who are now dead.
Mr. Hurd: I agree with the hon. Gentleman and with the way in which he expressed himself.
Mr. Robert G. Hughes: My constituents are shocked that even the London suburbs should now be associated with this terrible tragedy. Sarah and Victoria Hicks, two teenage girls attending the match with
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their family, now lie dead. Does my right hon. Friend agree that in the shadow of this tragedy it would be easy to jump to conclusions and adopt what might be fashionable solutions? Will he give us an assurance that the widest possible brief will be followed by the inquiry to ensure that we can genuinely call our sports grounds safe? Will he ensure that all recommendations by the inquiry are legislated into action?
Mr. Hurd: Certainly, as my hon. Friend will have seen, the terms of reference are very wide. When we receive the report—whether it is an interim and then a final or a single report—we will need to act quickly.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The whole House knows that we have a heavy day ahead of us. I shall call those Members whose constituents have been most severely affected, the Liverpool Members, and then we must move on.
Mr. Frank Field: May I, too, associate myself with the statements made to the families who lost people on Saturday? I find it impossible to express the despair that I feel and that suggests something of the utter desolation that those families must be experiencing at this time. While none of those families will today be thinking about compensation, does the Home Secretary think that we have a duty to them? Am I right in saying that some families who lost members on Saturday will receive no automatic compensation payments? Is that right or fair? If it is not fair, will the Government change the law?
Mr. Hurd: I think that the hon. Gentleman is right in saying that there is no automatic compensation. Of course I have read about the possibilities of civil action and I have also read and spoken about the fund that has been set up. I should like to look further into the matter.
Mr. Sean Hughes: I represent half the borough that is today mourning the deaths of 12 young people, including the infinitely tragic death of a 10-year-old child from my constituency. As an Everton season ticket holder, I was at the other semi-final. As a football supporter I share the disappointment of many people at the Home Secretary's reply about the ID scheme which demonstrates a woeful ignorance of the nature of the football fan. Increasingly, in the greatest spectator sport in Britain, the least important person is the spectator. We feel very deeply that the Government and the Football Association do not demonstrate an awareness of that fact.
Finally, in addition to the disappointment that has been caused by what we have heard about the ID scheme, there will be disappointment about the Home Secretary's response to questions concerning the allocation of tickets. I remain absolutely convinced that the allocation of tickets for big games, such as semi-finals and finals, is crucial. Going to a football match is not like going to the theatre; it is a way of life for an enormous number of people. Those people will be acutely disappointed by what has been said about the allocation of tickets. The fans who turn up without tickets, and those who pay exorbitant amounts to ticket touts, are not the ones who are intent on hooliganism; they are the ones who have been going, match in, match out, throughout the season, but cannot get tickets for the big games. Therefore, the Football Association too must be thoroughly investigated.
Mr. Hurd: I agree entirely that the allocation of tickets—working out the totals between the two clubs—is extremely important. What I was arguing against was the argument of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), that this is a matter that Ministers should decide.
Mr. George Howarth: I should like to associate myself with the sympathy that has been expressed. At the invitation of the Merseyside fire and civil defence authority, I visited Sheffield yesterday. I was very touched indeed by the response of some Nottingham Forest supporters, who had organised a collection in their pub the previous evening and had come to the ground to present more than £100 towards the appeal fund. It was very helpful of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) to make arrangements so that those of us who came over were able to find our way around and could go to the appropriate places.
Having spoken to several people who came over to Sheffield yesterday to find out what had happened to their relatives, I think it is clear that the emergency telephone system simply did not work satisfactorily on Saturday. I spoke to one woman who had tried for eight hours to find out what had happened to her son, but had been unable to get through. I understand from the fire and civil defence authority that an exercise was conducted recently—using the Bristol exchange—aimed at dealing with precisely such problems, and that that exercise was relatively successful. On this occasion, the provision of far more lines would have enabled the emergency telephone number to work more effectively. I understand that that system was used for the flotation of the British Gas shares. If it was good enough for the flotation of the British Gas shares, it would have been good enough as an emergency system.
Mr. Hurd: As the hon. Member has said, there certainly was a problem of swamped lines, as there often is on these occasions. I understand absolutely the distress, anxiety, and worse, caused by that, but I think that it is rather apart from the terms of reference of the inquiry. Perhaps I may look into the point that the hon. Gentleman has raised and then get in touch with him.
Mr. John Evans: In view of the fact that fans from St. Helens died at Hillsborough on Saturday, I want to associate myself with the condolences that have been expressed.
Can the Home Secretary confirm that the trouble started outside the ground because of the late arrival of fans and the inability of the turnstiles to cope with them? Will he ask Lord Justice Taylor to look into the traffic arrangements for visiting fans, bearing in mind the abysmal signposting and the sometimes rather odd decisions of traffic police when they are directing fans towards the ground?
Secondly, can the Home Secretary inform us that the South Yorkshire police will reply directly to the inquiry, and will not allow the West Midlands police to answer on their behalf?
Mr. Hurd: The question of traffic and signposting is certainly within the terms of reference of the inquiry, and I shall make sure that it is noted.
On the second point, as I explained earlier, the chief constable believes—and I think that he is quite right—that since the actions of some of his officers are obviously a
38
matter for the investigation, it is right, for the credibility of the exercise, that the police preparing the information for Lord Justice Taylor's inquiry, let alone for eventual inquests, should not belong to the same force. Therefore, the chief constable looked for, and found, another force and another chief constable with a high reputation and with experience in these matters to do that job on their behalf. I think that that is the right course.
Mr. Gerald Bermingham: As somebody who has constituents who are now dead, or are relatives of those who are dead as result of this tragedy, and as someone who lived in Sheffield for 25 years, I have a dual interest in this matter. Will the Home Secretary take one urgent step, which I hope is non-controversial? Will he arrange that all the film coverage and the pictures that were taken on Saturday both by ITN and the BBC and by amateurs be made available to the inquiry? Unless we move quickly, that footage may be lost and it contains evidence that may be of great value to the inquiry, because it will enable the inquiry to see the pressures both inside and outside the ground, and allow it to draw some valuable conclusions.
Mr. Hurd: I know that there are sometimes difficulties about this material, but that is a valuable suggestion, and I shall pursue it.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I will now call two Back-Bench Members from each side, and then we must move on.
Sir Anthony Grant: I shall not comment on the Hillsborough ground itself, but my right hon. Friend will be aware that in many grounds, the facilities are deplorable. Will he have discussions with his colleagues in the Treasury to see whether the tax system can be adapted so that there is an incentive to invest in improved stadiums, and a disincentive to spend ludicrous sums on transfer fees? I do not expect my right hon. Friend to make any decision about the Football Spectators Bill this afternoon, but will he say that the Government will reflect on the views that have been expressed in the House this afternoon?
Mr. Hurd: I have noted those views on the Bill. I believe that the Bill, which addresses a different problem from the one that caused the tragedy at Hillsborough, is soundly based. There will be a pause, as I have said, and there is a case for adding to the Bill and strengthening it. However, the improvement that we are seeking for football cannot be total without a provision along the lines of a national membership scheme. On the first matter, my hon. Friend is touching on a point that is sensitive in the football industry, but he is right to say that those in it must examine carefully the priorities for spending their not inconsiderable resources.
Mr. Richard Caborn: I associate myself with all the remarks made by my Sheffield colleagues on the Opposition Benches. I was at the ground, with my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth). I ask the Home Secretary to take action on perimeter fencing. Yesterday, I spoke to some experienced engineers, one of whom said that this was an accident waiting to happen. I call on the Home Secretary to ensure that no major games are played with fans kept behind perimeter fencing.

39
Today, the media have been singled out, and the local radio stations in Sheffield, both Radio Hallam and Radio Sheffield, played a major part in helping to co-ordinate the magnificent efforts made by the Sheffield people in, for example, blood donation and other services, and the arrangements between the Liverpool and Sheffield families. When the Home Secretary looks at the White Paper on broadcasting and particularly at that part dealing with local radio, I ask him to bear that effort in mind. Local radio showed what magnificent assistance it can give in a tragedy.
My main point to the Home Secretary is that he should consider carefully the removal of those fences. I think he will find that all the major engineers were saying that that was an accident waiting to happen.
Mr. Hurd: I agree with the hon. Gentleman about local radio. The perimeter fences are not there by accident. They are there because local authorities, to issue safety certificates, have often required them as a form of protection against violence.
Mr. Hattersley: No, against hooliganism.
Mr. Hurd: The danger of violence has not gone away. What is required is a way to reconcile the need to protect spectators against violence with the need for people to be able to get out on to the pitch, or to get back in the case of emergency. That is tackled in the Home Office guidance, but it did not work successfully at Hillsborough. That is the nature of the problem that the inquiry will have to tackle.
Mr. David Evans: Is not the Football Spectators Bill about separating the hooligans from the football fans? It is an enabling Bill and the FMA and football itself will put forward a scheme for the Secretary of State to approve.
Are there any plans to introduce legislation to remove the control of football from the Football Association and the Football League, which have consistently been incompetent and, some would say, bloody-minded in their attitude to football spectators? Can my right hon. Friend assure us that football families will be able to go to football grounds in safety and be safe within those grounds?
Mr. Hurd: On the second point, there is evidence of thinking ahead, which I welcome. I notice that Mr. Graham Kelly said on television that he supports the move towards all-seated matches in important stadiums, and I notice that the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry), with his experience, agrees. It is partly because of the evidence of fresh thinking among the football authorities that we have given that suggestion the impetus that I have announced today.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: At the end of these questions, I ask the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister to reflect on the view, which has come from both sides of the House, that, in the light of Saturday—we all saw it on our televisions and have read the newspapers and the views of interested parties—the Government should withdraw the Football Supporters Bill? They would not be losing political face, in the light of the feelings that have been expressed. The Taylor report will look at these matters afresh—those are the words of the
40
Home Secretary. The police inquiry, under the chief constable of the West Midlands force, is a statutory inquiry. It will be looking, legalistically but carefully, at the role of the police.
Why not wait until those reports are out and come back with a new Bill? I am sceptical about the identity card scheme, and I say that from experience because I live alongside the Leeds United football ground. However, if the reports are in favour of identity cards, I would be prepared to change my mind. Therefore, the Bill should be abandoned until the reports are in.
Mr. Hurd: I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman and to others who have said this. The comments would be just if this tragedy had occurred under the new regime. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman knows the origins of this proposal. He knows the recommendation in the final Popplewell report and the nature of the scheme. He knows, as I have said and as my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn, Hatfield (Mr. Evans) has just confirmed, that the Bill sets up an enabling framework. He knows that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has already committed himself not to implement the membership scheme, which is the core of part I, within the enabling framework, until satisfactory arrangements have been worked out. He knows what is in the Bill about the making of those arrangements. The right hon. Gentleman is accustomed to seeing things in the round and I do not believe that he would argue that, because there was no violence at Hillsborough, which I concede, we can forget the lessons of earlier disasters where there was violence, and which were examined by Mr. Justice Popplewell.
Mr. Denis Howell: On behalf of all those who were present on Saturday to face first the trauma and then the grief of what happened, I ask the Home Secretary firmly to repudiate the provocative, inaccurate and disgraceful statements made by representatives of UEFA and FIFA. In particular, Mr. Jacques Georges said:
"This region seems to have a particularly aggressive mentality."
He drew comparisons with Heysel, and said that the fans were "savages". Sepp Blatter of FIFA said:
"Will the fans never learn?"
Will the Home Secretary support us—I speak with the authority of the Football Association and the Football League—in totally rejecting that suggestion, that the Liverpool supporters and fans were in any way responsible for this tragedy? The Home Secretary would carry us all with him if he did so.
The right hon. Gentleman is right to realise that there is a difference between crowd behaviour control and crowd safety. As one who was there on Saturday, I know that there was no crisis management there. There was no apparent relationship between the fears of those outside the ground and the danger to those inside the ground. There was no appreciation or understanding expressed about conditions and delays on motorways and of the effect that they would have on late arrival at the ground. There was no proper crowd control and no arrangements were apparent inside the ground for dealing with the disaster and with the mass of injuries and deaths which had to be dealt with. It was not apparent that any member of the police force—I do not say this critically—understood that the first priority was to get the fences

41
down and to get the 10,000 spectators on to the field, that being the only possible place to which they could be evacuated.
I turn to the controversial aspect of the Home Secretary's statement. Lord Justice Taylor's appointment to conduct the inquiry is a commendable choice and I fully support it. Is he to proceed with his inquiry on the assumption that the Football Spectators Bill will be enacted? It will have a profound effect upon his thinking, and that is one of the reasons why the Bill should be withdrawn.
Many of us are distressed by the adversarial philosophy that the Government practise on sport as in other matters. They never trust the supporters associations, and the Minister has not even suggested that the association be appointed a member of the Football Membership Authority. It is my experience, having dealt with the association in recent months, that there is enormous collective wisdom and good will to be harnessed, especially from football supporters and their associations' representatives. Will the Minister please take counsel from them? Will he listen to what they say, as should the police and the football authorities? The good will has to be tapped.
I say to the Home Secretary as gently as I can, but I am afraid harshly, that the decision to continue with the Football Spectators Bill in all these circumstances is a profound mistake. It is appalling arrogance for the Government to think that they know better than anyone else. The Government never consult the Opposition on these matters. They never consult football generally about these matters. As far as I can see—[Interruption.] It is true. The Minister for Sport may get upset, but three times I have offered from the Opposition Dispatch Box to formulate a policy that would, in effect, cross the House. I have never been invited to meet the Minister to discuss these matters. This is disgraceful and it is time that this lack of discussion came to an end.
I hope that the Home Secretary will reflect on what he has said today. He keeps telling us that the Government will proceed with the scheme because of previous violence, but there has been no substantial violence within football grounds for three years.
I am grateful to the Prime Minister for remaining in her place throughout the exchanges to listen to what everyone has to say, but I say to her and to the Home Secretary that anyone who was present on Saturday, as I was, will know that advocates of a membership scheme that requires harassed gatekeepers, in addition to their great traumas and problems, to inspect cards, possibly to look at photographs, and then to put the cards into a machine, are saying, in effect, that they wanted the disaster to be aggravated. That is the essence of the problem.
I ask the Home Secretary to try to achieve a consensus within football generally and within the House so that we can all agree to get through this place a Bill to deal with football troubles, whether they be behavioural or are related to ground safety. If we are all convinced about the merits of such a Bill, we shall be happy to support it and to secure its passage in record time. I ask the Home Secretary to take on board the collective view of everyone in the country, except the members of Her Majesty's Government, that the Football Spectators Bill should be withdrawn in the interest of public safety.
Mr. Hurd: I have not read the generalisations which the right hon. Gentleman quoted at the beginning of his intervention. If they are as he stated, they are certainly wholly unjustified by what occurred at Hillsborough. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for getting in touch with me on Saturday night. He is correct in saying that the problems of control and communications, some of which he listed, are central to the inquiry.
I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell) concluded the exchanges by using what happened at Hillsborough as a stick to beat the Football Spectators Bill—[Interruption.] That is what he did. He is straining and upsetting history to argue that the approach of my right hon. Friends has been arrogant or adversarial. I have been present at several meetings at which my right hon. Friends and my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport have been straining nerves to try to carry football with them. They have done this year after year. What is the date of the Popplewell report? The answer is 1986. The effort which has been made by my right hon. Friends to build support and to carry the football authorities with them has been prolonged and conscientious. It is only because that effort did not yield a voluntary scheme on the lines which Mr. Justice Popplewell recommended that the Bill has been drafted.
I repeat that the Bill is an enabling measure. It has been worked out by my right hon. Friend's working party. The assurances that have been given about implementation are crucial to it. It is in the interests of football supporters—the right hon. Member for Small Heath rightly stressed their importance and their commitment—that there should not remain the gap in protection that the Bill is designed to fill.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, arising from the statement. The terms of reference of Lord Justice Taylor's inquiry are clearly wide and the timing of the report is indeterminate. It surely follows that the conclusions of such an inquiry could be contrary to the views of House that are taken in pursuit of legislation of which we have just heard. Will you confirm, Mr. Speaker, that in this instance the sub judice rule does not apply? Would not that be the view of most persons with legal training?
Mr. Speaker: I can confirm what the hon. Gentleman says. The sub judice rule does not apply to legislation.
Mr. Allen McKay: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Given the importance of the inquiry to our greatest spectator sport and to thousands of our constituents, can you assure us that the report will be debated before any recommendations or observations are acted upon?
Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman's words have been heard by those who are responsible.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
Ordered,
That European Community Document No. 4092/1/89 on pesticide residues be referred to a Standing Committee on European Community Documents.—[Mr. Maclean.]

Orders of the Day

  Dock Work Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mrs. Alice Mahon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Before we debate a highly controversial Bill, may I seek your advice on an issue that raises serious public concern? You will be aware of recent reports about hon. Members having interests outside the House and receiving rather large sums in remuneration for them. Is it acceptable for hon. Members who represent business interests in the docks and who are remunerated for representing those interests to debate the Bill or to vote upon it? Will you give me a clear ruling on that?
  Mr. Speaker: That question was asked of me last week. I do not know whether the hon. Lady was present. I confirm that it has always been in order for hon. Members both to speak and to cast their votes on matters of public policy.
  Given the late start of the Bill, I propose to limit Back-Bench speeches to 10 minutes between 7 o'clock and 9 o'clock. I ask those on the Front Benches and those who may be called before 7 o'clock to bear in mind that constraint.
  5.9 pm
  The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Norman Fowler): I beg to move, That the Bill be read a Second time.
  Before I begin my remarks, on the Bill, I associate myself with the words of sympathy from both sides of the House on the preceding statement.
  There are a number of ways of stating the case for this Bill. It is possible to set out the glaring but inevitable anomalies in a dock labour scheme which dates back to legislation passed just after the end of the second world war and which was designed to meet the needs of the ports industry in the 1930s and 1940s. It is possible to establish the cost of the scheme which has led to a bill of almost £1 billion for the taxpayer and the ports industry put together, plus the extra costs which the customers of the scheme ports have had to bear. It is possible to describe some of the restrictive practices which have grown up and which have made the ports covered by the dock labour scheme less competitive than they should be.
  Those are all strong arguments, and the House should consider them all. They all add to the overwhelming case for the abolition of the scheme, but I believe there is one factor which precedes all that. It is that the abolition of the scheme will ensure a better future for the ports industry in this country and will provide a better future for those working in the industry. What is more, abolition will provide a better future for the areas—often inner-city areas—around the ports themselves.
  The fact is that, for all its restrictions, the scheme has provided no security in the docks. Jobs have gone; companies have gone bankrupt; new recruitment of young men has been limited and sometimes non-existent; and long lines of workers have volunteered to leave the industry altogether.
  Clearly some of that change—some of that contraction—has been inevitable. Modern technology has meant that
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  fewer dockers have been required. Nevertheless, scheme ports have lost both jobs and trade. Twenty years ago, there were 45,000 registered dock workers. Today there are 9,400. Twenty years ago, scheme ports handled over 90 per cent. of our nation's trade. Today they handle something like 70 per cent.
  Mr. Roy Hughes: In view of the information that the Secretary of State has just given to the House, is it not misleading for Government supporters to go round the country talking about "jobs for life"?
  Mr. Fowler: The point about the so-called "jobs for life" is that in no other industry are workers guaranteed a job irrespective of whether there is work to do.
  The scheme has created surpluses, and those surpluses have threatened the viability of the ports. The only way to reduce those surpluses has been through voluntary redundancy, which has been massively financed by the taxpayer because the industry could not afford it. That is the essential case and it is a strong and unanswerable case.
  It is instructive to compare what has happened in the non-scheme ports. In the main, the reason why those ports are not in the scheme at all is that they were of no consequence for cargo handling in 1947 when the scheme was drawn up. Felixstowe, for example, was, just a wharf. Yet the ports outside the scheme now account for 30 per cent. of our trade in volume and half our trade in value. In addition, their employment of dock workers, has risen to nearly 4,000: nearly one in three of all dockers; and Felixstowe is today one of our leading ports.
  Non-scheme ports have gained trade year by year—and with the trade has come investment. In his response to my statement, the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) made much of the investment at four scheme ports—Tilbury, Bristol, Hull and Newport. Put together it is less than the £54 million committed to investment for 1989 at Felixstowe for the expansion of its container facilities.
  Over the past six years, Felixstowe has invested £92 million and Dover has invested almost £85 million. No scheme ports have come near that figure. It is that kind of investment that best ensures competitive ports and preserves jobs.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: Even if one accepts what the Secretary of State has said, will he explain why the Bill came as a bolt out of the blue and without any prior knowledge, making it, under this leaky Government, the only piece of legislation that has been kept totally secret until it was sprung across the House of Commons? Would it not have been much better if the Government had proceeded to try to get discussions and agreement between the port employers and the unions? Why has the Secretary of State precipitately decided to bring the Bill forward in this way, instead of taking the path of conciliation and discussion?
  Mr. Fowler: I do not think that "precipitately" is exactly the right description for what the Government have done. There has been an evolving consensus about the need to abolish the scheme and to bring forward the legislation. There is no question—there has been no secret—about the review of the barriers to employment that the Government have carried out. I shall come to those points later.
  Mr. Graham Allen rose—
  Mr. Dennis Skinner rose—
  Mr. Fowler: No, I shall not give way.
  However, nor has the advance of the ports outside the scheme been achieved either by low pay or by casualism. Dockers are well paid and the enormous changes in the way ships are unloaded—with new technology and with containerization—has transformed the nature of dock work and virtually eliminated the scope of casual work.
  Dock work is now highly skilled specialist work that often requires the use often of sophisticated machinery. It requires a permanent and well trained work force. The days when large numbers of unskilled labourers assembled waiting to see if there was work for them have gone for good—and everyone is glad of that. To underline that point, the employers in the present scheme ports have given an assurance that after abolition there will be no return to casual employment.
  Mr. Robert Parry rose—
  Mr. Fowler: No, I shall not give way.
  That assurance is both in my view, important and unprecedented. The reason we have a dock labour scheme is to prevent casualism. Port companies employing 93 per cent. of registered dock workers have now given an undertaking that there will he no return to the casual system of working and the practice in non-scheme ports already demonstrates that this is a bogus fear.
  Those who seek to argue that the scheme should be preserved to prevent casualism should have no public credibility. They are using the argument to cloak other reasons for resisting change.
  Mr. Parry rose—
  Dr. Norman A. Godman rose—
  Mr. Fowler: I give way first to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mr. Parry).
  Mr. Parry: Will the Secretary of State give us a categorical assurance that there will not be any casualisation—not even of one job?
  Mr. Fowler: I think that I have just repeated the assurance that the employers have given, which is that port companies employing 93 per cent. of registered dock workers have already, in the week after my announcement, given the kind of assurance that the hon. Gentleman is seeking.
  That brings me to a fundamental point. The reason why ports covered by the scheme want to see those restrictions go is because they want to be able to compete better with ports outside the scheme and to compete with continental ports that have taken too much of our trade, and to compete in the new position created by 1992 and the single market, and with the railway competition of the Channel tunnel.
  Dr. Godman: Will the Secretary of State give way on the point about casualisation?
  Mr. Fowler: No, I shall not give way at the moment. Let us be clear. Unless those ports succeed in competing, no conceivable dock labour scheme will prevent the relative decline of scheme ports and of employment prospects. As far as I know, there is unanimity among the wide range of
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  port companies covered by the regulations that the dock labour scheme has long since outlived its usefulness and should be ended.
  The men urging abolition are often those who have spent their lives in the ports industry, who are committed to the future of that industry, and who want to see a future for those who are now registered dock workers as well as for the other two thirds of the workers who are not in the scheme. It is their judgment that the scheme should go, but it is not just their judgment.
  Organisations such as the National Association of Warehouse Keepers have supported the change. It comments:
  "Over the last 30 years or more there has been a steady withdrawal of industry from the dock areas because of the restrictions imposed upon it by the Scheme and for a long time no warehouse keeper would willingly have built a warehouse in or near a dock area. All this will now he changed, and the Association regards this as good news."
  Respected transport organisations such as the Freight Transport Organisation take the same view. It says of the scheme:
  "It has acted as a barrier against investment and progress within the ports industry; undermined the competitiveness of British ports; and added to industry's costs. Rid of this massive millstone, importers and exporters confidently expect the British port industry to provide the efficient and competitive services long enjoyed by their Continental competitors "
  With the exception of the Morning Star, precious few newspapers—national or regional—believe that the scheme should stay. The Scotsman comments:
  "Old cargo no longer needed."
  The Glasgow Herald states: "Decisive action overdue".
  The Grimsby Evening Telegraph comments, "Death of a dinosaur", and the Hull Daily Mail states, "Handicap withdrawn". The Manchester Evening News comments:
  "The time for a change is long overdue."
  A whole range of national and regional newspapers have all come out in favour of the scheme being changed.
  Most significant of all, very few people outside the Transport and General Workers Union's docks section have been prepared to defend the detail of the scheme. All kinds of arguments have been used, but I have heard very few people on radio or television defending the scheme itself. The Leader of the Opposition most certainly has not done so, and nor has the hon. Member for Oldham, West.
  Mr. Allan Roberts: I refer to the Secretary of State's comments concerning lack of investment, of warehouse building and of new industries entering scheme ports. Three weeks ago, the Prime Minister visited Liverpool free port, which is one of the few successful free ports that the Government have announced. The scheme operates there, and there has been massive inward investment. A very successful free port has been established at Liverpool because of the way in which the scheme operates there.
  Mr. Fowler: That success is not because of the scheme. The hon. Gentleman is inaccurate in stating that that is the reason why there has been investment at Liverpool or at other scheme ports. While there has been investment at those ports, the industry says with a totally unanimous voice that if the scheme's restrictions go, investment will increase. One has only to examine the situation at non-scheme ports to see that that has happened.
  Mr. John Townend: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the container terminal in the city of

  47
  Hull, which is represented by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), is closed? There has been massive investment at that terminal, which has three gantry cranes. At Grimsby, those cranes are operated by 12 men, but at Hull the unions want 23 men, even when there are no ships. What is worse, they not only want to be paid ordinary time but overtime for tea breaks, lunch breaks and even until 6.30 pm when they are not working.
  Mr. John Prescott rose—
  Mr. Fowler: Perhaps my hon. Friend and other hon. Members representing Hull constituencies would like to conduct their own debate.
  Mr. Kevin McNamara: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Townsend) does not represent any part of Hull. When he fought me, the electors threw him out.
  Mr. Fowler: I apologise for making that important mistake.
  Mr. Townend: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Unlike the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), I was born in Hull.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): That is not a point of order.
  Mr. Fowler: All that leads to my initial conclusion that the debate about Hull should be left to other hon. Members.
  The attitude of people in not defending details of the scheme is not surprising, because the scheme suffers from fundamental flaws. First, it creates a statutory monopoly for dock work in 40 of our main ports. That monopoly is enforced by criminal penalties, which is a wholly inappropriate use of the law to limit employment opportunities. Only employers and dockers registered with one of the local dock boards can undertake dock work in ports covered by the scheme. It is a criminal offence punishable by up to three months' imprisonment for anyone to employ without permission anyone who is not a registered dock worker to perform work covered by the scheme. No other industry in this country suffers from those penalties.
  Mr. Skinner: There is. Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Fowler: No, I shall not.
  The effect of that statutory monopoly is to deprive employers in scheme ports of the ability to manage their own work force. It also fosters a belief that the scheme, not the performance of the port, protects jobs.
  Secondly, the scheme has bred restrictive practices. If unloading a cargo requires specialist skills that registered dock workers cannot supply, the employer is obliged both to pay specialist staff to undertake the unloading and to pay registered dock workers to stand and watch the work being done. Those practices remain widespread.
  Mr. Skinner: Will the Secretary of State give way now?
  Mr. Fowler: No, I shall not give way again.
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  Those practices are sustained by the scheme's monopoly, which allows unions to insist on such payments on pain of blocking the loading or unloading of cargo.
  Thirdly, as a consequence of attempting to define in statute who should do a particular job, the scheme inevitably suffers from anomalies and bureaucracy. Each scheme port has a complex set of rules about what is, and is not, dock work—which are in effect demarcation lines frozen by statute. The definitions of dock work applied under the scheme date back to the second world war and beyond and take no account of the enormous changes in dock work since then.
  The distinction between ports inside and outside the scheme is now quite arbitrary. Southampton is in the scheme, but Portsmouth is not. Liverpool and London are in the scheme but Dover and Folkstone are not. The inexplicable differences in the treatment of the fishing ports of Aberdeen, Peterhead, Grimsby and Hull and their consequences for business and jobs—reveal the scheme's inadequacies. In Aberdeen, only registered dock workers can handle white fish, while herring and mackerel can be landed by the fishermen themselves.
  Mr. Skinner rose—
  Mr. Fowler: No, I shall not allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene on that point.
  Nearby Peterhead is outside the scheme and has captured a substantial part of Aberdeen's business. At Grimsby, only registered dock workers can unload fish from boats of more than 60 ft, while in nearby Hull all fish landings are excluded from the scheme—so Hull's fishing port has attracted business away from Grimsby.
  The common factor in all those cases is that business and jobs in operations covered by the scheme have been lost to ports free of its restrictions. Those restrictions are at the heart of the stresses and strains that we have seen in recent weeks in Aberdeen and Grimsby.
  Mr. Skinner: The Secretary of State refers to the scheme's division of labour and to its restrictive practices, but the same could be said of the legal profession, as to the division of labour between solicitors and barristers. Why is that, when judges took the decision to go on strike today, because of the proposed reforms to the legal system, the Government decided to call off the dogs? If the Secretary of State is so concerned at people having jobs for life, why do the Government not use that argument to abolish the House of Lords?
  Mr. Fowler: I started this section of my speech by saying that every conceivable argument has been used except any defence of the dock labour scheme, and the hon. Gentleman has just underlined that point.
  The fourth characteristic of the scheme is that it adds to costs. The price of the inefficiencies that it has created has been paid by consumers through the higher costs of goods in the shops; by industry through the price of raw materials and exports; and by the taxpayer through the financial support that successive Governments have given to the port industry, and through Government contributions to voluntary redundancies.
  What has the scheme achieved? It has certainly not achieved a secure career for registered dock workers; nor has it achieved good industrial relations, although I have no doubt that the authors of the scheme thought that by

  49
  creating a statutory monopoly for dock work and ending the abuses of casual working they would bring about a significant improvement in industrial relations.
  There have been major strikes in every decade since the scheme began in 1947. The number of days lost as a result of strikes by registered dock workers in the scheme ports, according to the National Dock Labour Board, is still three times the national average. Between 1985 and 1987, the scheme ports lost 528 man days for every 1,000 employees, compared with a total of 183 in the rest of industry. In the 20 years between 1967 and 1987, there were 3,569 strikes involving registered dock workers, resulting in over 4 million working days being lost in scheme ports. That is a rate of more than three disputes per week.
  In his response to my statement the hon. Member for Oldham, West suggested that this was a relatively small scheme covering "only 9,500 workers". Let us be clear what we are talking about: we are talking about the future of the ports now within the scheme, which at present handle 70 per cent. of our national trade. Those who have argued that the scheme should be left to wither simply do not understand the facts. As long as the scheme continues to operate, our great ports such as Liverpool, London and Southampton will remain subject to all its restrictions. There are only two ways for them to escape from the scheme: either Parliament abolishes it or they close down completely. Abolition will ensure that all dock workers, wherever they are employed, will have the same employment rights and obligations as the rest of the working population.
  Dr. David Owen: Does the Secretary of State accept that employers now have a responsibility to negotiate with their employees? If they come up with agreed and more generous redundancy terms, will they be included in the legislation? If that is so, a substantial number of people will accept the case that the right hon. Gentleman has made for abolition.
  Mr. Fowler: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's support. I do not believe that anyone can negotiate on the scheme itself; that, I think, is a matter for Parliament. Nor do I believe that Ministers wish to prejudice the outcome of any talks taking place tomorrow: that would not be sensible.
  Mr. Jonathan Sayeed: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, since February 1984, the port employers have made six attempts to discuss the scheme with their employees in the TGWU, and that every such offer has been refused by the union, in defence of the indefensible?
  Mr. Fowler: I shall come to that point. If the House will forgive me, I will not give way again; otherwise, my speech will go on far too long for the confines of the debate.
  Ending the scheme will not affect either the pay or the pensions of those who are now registered dock workers. Neither is covered by the scheme or comes within the responsibilities of the National Dock Labour Board. Nor should anyone suppose that dock work, whether inside or outside the scheme, is low-paid.
  Over the past 40 years—I now come to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, East (Mr.
  50
  Sayeed)—there have been countless opportunities for negotiation to reduce the damaging controls imposed by the scheme.
  Mr. Robert Hughes rose—
  Mr. FowlerI am very sorry; I have given way a number of times, and I will not do so again.
  Throughout those 40 years the TGWU has shown no sign of willingness even to consider the changes needed to meet the competitive pressures on scheme ports. In 1986 my right hon. Friend the then Transport Secretary, now Secretary of State for the Environment, invited unions and employers to discuss voluntary arrangements to replace the scheme. The national secretary of the TGWU docks group, Mr. Connolly, replied—and he replied very quickly:
  "having in mind our position that the Dock Labour Scheme is to remain, I see no point in joint discussions to provide for arrangements which might follow its removal."
  In 1987 he was reported by Lloyd's List as saying:
  "The policy of the Docks and Waterways Group has not changed. There will be opposition to the amendment or revision of the Scheme, and that opposition will take the form of a national dock strike."
  The fact is that the TGWU has constantly sought the tightening and extension of the scheme's controls, not their relaxation. It has done so not by negotiation, but by using the power that the scheme's statutory monopoly of dock work gives it to bring scheme ports to a halt with strike action. The Bill aims to bring the scheme to an end quickly but in an orderly fashion, and with continued special provision for dock workers' severance.
  Clause 1 repeals the legislation that underpins the scheme, and preserves the board's powers to make provision for the training and welfare of dock workers until its dissolution. Clause 2 requires the board to wind up its affairs quickly but in an orderly manner. It makes provision for the disposal of its assets at less than market vaule, with my permission. The purpose is to provide an incentive for those in the industry who have already paid for the board's activities through levies on their business to take over any training and medical facilities that the industry needs.
  Clause 3 allows the board to be replaced if it fails to comply with its duties. Clause 4 writes off all the board's outstanding liabilities for loans that it has received from Government, and provides for its running costs. Clause 5 provides for any registered dock worker who becomes redundant within three years of the ending of the scheme to receive redundancy payments on a considerably more generous scale than those which are open to most other employees.
  After only 15 years' service, dock workers will be eligible for redundancy payments of £35,000 if they lose their jobs in the 18 months after the scheme is abolished—that is, until early 1991—and payment of £20,000 if they lose their jobs in the subsequent 18 months. The cost of the payments will be shared equally between the Government and the individual employer concerned. The detailed arrangements will be set out in draft regulations to be tabled shortly, and will be available to the Standing Committee.
  Clause 6 extends provisions of the Employment Protection Act 1978 to those who were registered dock workers immediately before Royal Assent. That means that registered dockers will acquire individual rights not to

  51
  be unfairly dismissed, for example, and to receive written particulars of their terms of employment, which the scheme denied to them.
  This is a statutory scheme. It was brought into existence by Parliament, and Parliament is the proper place for decisions about its future; there should be no attempt to usurp that role. I do not believe that there will be any public support for strike action that is directed towards retaining the provisions of the scheme.
  Furthermore, I believe that the House will want to hear that clearly and unequivocally stated by the hon. Member for Oldham, West. His latest statements suggest that he now has doubts about industrial action, but I have to point out that, when the hon. Gentleman spoke to a meeting of the national ports shop stewards committee in London at the end of January, he had an entirely different message. According to International Freighting Weekly of 7 February 1989 and a similar report in the Morning Star of 30 January 1989, he gave the same message. I shall quote from International Freighting Weekly. The hon. Gentleman said:
  "An all-out strike by Britain's dockers in defence of their dock labour scheme would have the full backing of the Labour Party."
  Mr. Michael Meacher: If the right hon. Gentleman had bothered to check with me as to whether such press reports were accurate, I could have told him—I have here a copy of the speech that I made on that day—that I made no such statement, or anything like it.
  Hon. Members: Withdraw.
  Mr. Fowler: The same statement was reported also in the Morning Star: the hon. Gentleman
  "pledged his party's full support in any fight to defend the scheme."
  I imagine that that statement is also withdrawn. I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman has said. We have now made substantial progress. If I am wrong, I shall gladly withdraw what I have said.
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Fowler: Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow my to continue.
  I hope that the hon. Member for Oldham, West will listen to what I have to say. The House will expect him to make clear his views on industrial action. I take it, from what the hon. Gentleman has just said, that he is opposed to industrial action to seek to preserve the dock labour scheme.
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Allan Roberts: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Fowler: No, I shall not give way—not even to my hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett), and certainly not to the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts).
  The hon. Member for Oldham, West made a statement about what was reported to be his attitude. He now refuses to make any statement about his view on future industrial
  52
  action. If he intends to make that clear in his speech, the House will listen to it with interest. He will also have to say whether it is Labour party policy to restore the national dock labour scheme. Few people would understand industrial action, and even less the hon. Gentleman's backing of strike action for a scheme that the Labour party would not restore, even if it were to form a future Government. Those fundamental questions must be addressed in the debate.
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Before my right hon. Friend leaves the labour party's attitude, the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) has just said that he made no such statement about a strike. I have the transcript of "BBC Lancashire News— of 10 April 1989. After being asked about whether there would be a strike, the hon. Member for Oldham, West said:
  "then frankly we have no alternative but to support, if there were a strike."
  Mr. Fowler: The hon. Member for Oldham, West has a great deal of explaining to do. The hon. Gentleman characteristically says to audiences what they want to hear from him. We shall want to hear tonight what precisely is his attitude, and that of his party, towards a strike.
  The first dock labour scheme was approved by this House in 1947—over 40 years ago. At that time the ports covered by the scheme accounted for virtually all our trade and employed 80,000 dock workers. The work they did was labour-intensive and at best semi-skilled.
  The position today is radically different. Dock work has been transformed. It is now capital-intensive and it requires a permanent labour force with the skills to operate sophisticated equipment. There are now 140 employers providing jobs in dock work in the scheme ports, compared with over 1,500 in the 1950s. Fewer than 14,000 dock workers are now employed in all our ports, of whom 9,000 are in scheme ports. It is only improved output, taking advantage of new technology, which will guarantee continuing good pay and conditions for all port workers. The dock labour scheme can provide no such guarantee. On the contrary, the scheme ports have increasingly lost ground to the ports outside the scheme.
  The Government are now asking Parliament to bring the dock labour scheme to an end in 1989. It has manifestly become irrelevant to the needs of a modern port industry and it is manifestly damaging the efficiency of the scheme ports. In 1947, Parliament created the statutory monopoly in our scheme ports. Only Parliament can end the statutory monopoly of dock work and abolish the dock labour scheme.
  The Bill is vital to the future of our ports industry. More than that, it will remove a major barrier to the expansion of business and employment in this country. I believe that this measure is in the best interests of the ports now covered by the scheme, that it is in the best interests of port areas where development is now being constricted and, above all, that it is in the best interests of all the people working in the ports industry.
  5.46 pm
  Mr. Michael Meacher: Despite the long diatribe to which we have just been treated by the Secretary of State on the dock labour scheme, the Bill has a great deal more to do with political diversion for the Government than with what is happening in the docks. There has been no unrest in the docks for several years.

  53
  Productivity in scheme ports has been bounding ahead, as it has in non-scheme ports. There was no mention of abolition of the scheme in the Tory party's 1987 election manifesto.
  The Government are slipping fast in the polls. All their main policies—for the National Health Service, for the poll tax and for water privatisation—are deeply unpopular and they are in desperate need of a scapegoat to provide an alibi for the continuing series of unprecedented trade deficits and the likely run on the pound that the Chancellor's bungling is expected soon to bring about.
  Mr. Sayeed: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: No, not for the moment.
  That is not just my view. It was confirmed by Tory Members of Parliament on 12 October 1988—more than six months ago. The Channel 4 programme "Dispatches" broadcast a documentary entitled "Trouble on the Waterfront", which discussed the dock labour scheme at length. During the programme the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold)—one of the leaders of the Tory Back-Bench campaign for abolition—said:
  "I think we could well have a sudden announcement rather than a preview in the Queen's Speech."
  The programme presenter then immediately spelt out what was meant.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: I shall give way in a moment. The hon. Gentleman need not be so anxious.
  The programme presenter then made perfectly clear what was meant by those words. He said:
  "Saving it"—
  that is, abolition—
  "for a politically rainy day is the third option. Tory MPs and industry sources have suggested to Dispatches that should the Government get into serious difficulties, e.g. over the balance of payments, then they would use the repeal of the Scheme to rally their supporters and public opinion against the unions."
  Mr. Arnold: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that I was right on both counts? The proposal was previewed in the Queen's Speech in the words, "Other measures will be laid before you". It has now been well presented, and bang on time.
  Mr. Meacher: The hon. Gentleman has let the cat out of the bag. He was exactly right. He is one of those who were in the know about it. He knew about the long-term contingency planning taking place in the past 18 months. A Channel 4 programme six months ago blew the Government's cover on the introduction of this Bill as revealingly as the Ridley plan did for the miners' strike. Both documents exposed the Government's long-term plan to use industrial provocation for political ends.
  Mr. Sayeed: The hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting that the Government have introduced the Bill to improve their electoral chances. That must mean that the proposals are popular with the electorate. If people like the Bill, why does the Labour party act against their wishes?
  Mr. Meacher: If the matter is so politically popular, why did not the Government include it in their manifesto in 1987? I use the words "gratuitous industrial provocation" because it is instructive to compare the ways in which the Government seek to bring about radical
  54
  changes in three different areas. In the case of the legal profession, we had three Green Papers and a gentlemanly debate in the other place. [HON. MEMBERS: "Gentlemanly?"] It may not have been so gentlemanly, but at least it was a debate. The Lord Chancellor has been taking notes and listening attentively to all his critics and we now read in the press that the Government are having second thoughts about such matters as the licensing of advocates and possibly on contingency fees. When 100 High Court judges are so incensed by the Government's proposals that they threaten to take industrial action to disrupt the courts, they are given a ticking-off behind the scenes but publicly they are politely offered a four-month extension to the consultation period.
  What a contrast we have with the dockers. In their case, there is no consultation whatever. They are abruptly handed down a White Paper and—this is without precedent in my experience—a Bill is introduced the very next day. No doubt the proceedings on this Bill will be more telescoped than the proceedings on any major Bill this Session. Under the present Government, there is one law for the professions and another for working people. For the lawyers, we have change by consent—for the dockers, change by compulsion.
  Mr. Edward Leigh: Does the hon. Gentleman think that a dock strike should be called, and if one is called, will the Labour party support it? Would a future Labour Government bring in legislation to reintroduce the scheme? Would they activate the scheme as it would have been activated under the Dock Work Regulation Act 1976?
  Mr. Meacher: The only people who want a dock strike are the Government. I do not believe that the employers want a dock strike and we know that the dock workers do not want a dock strike. If there is a strike, it will have been caused wholly by the Government's gratuitous provocation. I unreservedly condemn that provocation which places responsibility for whatever transpires squarely on the shoulders of the Government.
  Mr. Fowler: Does the hon. Gentleman propose to return to the point about industrial action, or is that all that he has to say about it? That is an important point for the House—[HON. MEMBERS: "Does the Minister want a dock strike?"] The whole House will want to hear the hon. Member for Oldham, West condemn industrial action. I condemn industrial action. Does he?
  Mr. Meacher: For one who made no attempt whatever to discuss the matter with those directly involved, the Secretary of State is suddenly becoming remarkably interested in consultation. He should have consulted the right people at the right time—that is to say, earlier.
  Let us consider the Government's current struggle with the doctors about the National Health Service proposals. A week ago at Question Time we heard the Prime Minister say of the proposals:
  "They are not meant to be a specific blueprint and we will, of course, consider representations."—[Official Report, 11 April 1989; Vol. 150, c. 737.]
  How different that is from her treatment of the dockers.
  I noted that the Secretary of State said that the role of this House should not be disrupted and that this was a matter for Parliament. He said that he did not want to prejudice the talks which are to take place tomorrow. If the dockers and their leaders make representations to the

  55
  Government on enforceable guarantees to prevent a return to casualisation and on other matters, will the Government consider those representations?
  Mr. Fowler: The whole of the dock labour scheme should be debated. The proposition is before the House, and the decision is for both Houses of Parliament. There will be a Committee stage, during which we can go through the Bill in detail. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Oldham, West asked me a question. Precisely the same parliamentary procedure has been adopted as was adopted when the scheme was first implemented. The House still wants to know whether the hon. Gentleman backs industrial action.
  Mr. Meacher: Can the right hon. Gentleman give one other instance in which the Government have brought forward legislation affecting an entire industry and not consulted the people in that industry or their representatives?
  Mr. Fowler: Can the hon. Gentleman give one instance when the Transport and General Workers Union has not made it absolutely clear that it is not prepared to negotiate in any way, shape or form? That has been its attitude.
  Mr. Meacher: If the right hon. Gentleman believes that, he is quite wrong. I am sure that the leaders of the TGWU would be perfectly prepared to enter discussions with him about the future of the industry and the dock labour scheme. Am I to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's previous answer that he is agreeing to that?
  Mr. Fowler: I am most certainly not agreeing to that. The provisions have been on the statute book for 40 years. There has been one opportunity after another for the TGWU to seek reform and change, but on every occasion it has refused.
  Mr. Meacher: The right hon. Gentleman has made crystal clear his unwillingness to enter into discussions because the Government are hell bent on a strike. The right hon. Gentleman has the opportunity to prevent a strike by entering into negotiations with leaders of the dock workers and the TGWU. I am convinced that the strike could then be avoided and we could have a negotiated settlement on the future of the industry. Will the right hon. Gentleman do that?
  Mr. Fowler: The hon. Gentleman keeps accusing me of being hell bent on a strike. That is totally untrue. The hon. Gentleman continues to wriggle and refuses to denounce industrial action. The time has come for him to stand up and denounce industrial action.
  Mr. Meacher: I have said that we certainly do not want a strike. We want a negotiated settlement. The right hon. Gentleman can deliver a negotiated settlement. All that he has to do is to say at the Dispatch Box today that he is prepared to enter into negotiations. The fact that he is not prepared to make that statement will make it absolutely clear to everyone in Britain that if there is a strike, he and his Government will be the cause of it. [Interruption.]
  I am well aware of the Government's claim, which the Secretary of State repeated, that there has been ample negotiations by the employers about the scheme. I realise how the Government reached that conclusion, because the
  56
  Government's view of negotiations is, "I talk to you about an issue, and you agree with the decision that I have already made." That is their view, but the relevant national joint council minutes stretching back over the past seven years do not bear out the claims made by the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister.
  The NJC minutes of March 1982 spell out the agreed proposal to set up a joint seminar on the future of the industry. Crucially, the minutes state:
  "it was noted the the Working Party did not intend that the Dock Labour Scheme should dominate the discussions".
  In other words, the joint discussion between the two sides over the next three years was not, and was not intended to be, primarily about the dock labour scheme.
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: No, I will finish this point and then give way.
  It is also perfectly clear from the minutes that the trade union side repeatedly stressed that it was ready to enter joint discussions on the future of the industry. It made that clear in March 1982, August 1982, December 1983, February 1984 and March 1986. I will give the House just one example. The minutes of December 1983 state:
  "the workpeople indicated that they were prepared to enter into a joint discussion on the future of the industry within the NJC Executive Committee".
  They continue:
  "they also considered that at the same time as any joint industry discussions, there should be contact with Government Departments to establish the Government's view of the ports Industry's future as part of a total transport policy."
  Mr. Prescott: The scheme is part of ports policy.
  Mr. Meacher: It is all part of the same thing.
  In March 1986, after the conclusion of the seminar on the future of the industry, the minutes state that "Mr. Connolly", the joint secretary on the trade union side,
  "recalled that when the Workpeople's Side had wanted to start a dialogue on the future of the industry with a view to a joint approach to the Government, the Employers' Side had declined to do so".
  It is perfectly clear that the trade union side has at no stage been unwilling to enter into discussions, and the employers' side has blocked a joint submission to the Government. As it is a matter of critical importance for the next few days, in view of what I have read out, I repeat my question to the Secretary of State. Will he consider representations made to him by the trade union side which in the past it has been prevented from making jointly? Will he consider those representations?
  Mr. Fowler: I should like to know why Mr. Connolly said on 24 February 1987, as reported in Lloyd's List:
  "The policy of the Docks and Waterways group has not changed. There will be opposition to the amendment or revision of the scheme, and that opposition will take the form of a national dock strike".
  That is what Mr. Connolly said. He has never denied that he said it and he set out the position most clearly.
  Mr. Meacher: There is a very simple way of resolving the dispute. Mr. Connolly and the docks section of the TGWU are ready to discuss the matter with the Government, but the Secretary of State will not do so. The simple way to resolve the matter is to ask Mr. Connolly. Will the Secretary of State ask Mr. Connolly to negotiate?
  Mr. Fowler: I shall not. There is now legislation before the House. I remind the hon. Gentleman that in 1986 the Secretary of State for Transport asked Mr. Connolly to negotiate but he totally refused.
  Mr. Meacher: The right hon. Gentleman is making terribly heavy weather of this. Instead of relying on Lloyd's List for a telegraphic service, why does he not have the guts to invite Mr. Connolly to meet him face to face and to ask him?
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett: The hon. Gentleman just read out the minutes of the NJC of 19 March 1986 and quoted what Mr. Connolly said. He stopped at the words,
  "the Employers' side had declined to do so.".
  Why did the hon. Gentleman not read out the rest of what Mr. Connolly said? The minutes continued:
  "He doubted however whether the employers wanted that kind of discussion, and suggested that they wished instead to talk about abolition of the Dock Labour Scheme. He said that the trade union were not prepared to discuss abolition of the Scheme."
  Mr. Meacher: Absolutely. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett) might like to listen to my answer instead of laughing like a hyena. It has always been the union's position that it would not discuss abolition independently of a discussion about the future of an integral ports policy. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman should understand that there are two genuinely different views between the employers and—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman merely giggles aimlessly because he does not have the slightest interest in the argument.
  The employers simply want to bring about the end of the dock labour scheme. The union's position has always been that it will discuss changes, modifications and improvements in the scheme within the context of a total ports policy. There is nothing remarkable about what Mr. Connolly said. One might have expected that a Secretary of State in a constructive Government not hellbent on confrontation—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Harry Ewing: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend. We are talking about the future of families throughout the country, but the conduct of Conservative Members is worse than anything I have ever seen in the House. If only out of respect for those who will be affected by the legislation, can you make them show some decency towards those families throughout the country?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): I regret that there is an excessive amount of sedentary noise from both sides of the House. I hope that we can continue our business in a more orderly fashion.
  Mr. Meacher: One might have expected that a Government faced with genuinely incompatible views between employers and trade unions with regard to the future of an industry would set up a committee of inquiry or some similar body in order to assess objectively the submissions from both sides and to make recommendations. It is deeply deplorable that the Government have done the exact opposite and sought to establish a fait accompli in the most partisan possible manner.
  I can understand why the Secretary of State is so reluctant to set up an objective committee of inquiry. The last time he did so, it backfired in his face. Spurred on by
  58
  the Prime Minister's denunciation of the film and television industry as the last bastion of restrictive practices, he set up an inquiry which reported last week. The right hon. Gentleman must be desperately embarrassed about this, or he ought to be if he is not completely brass-necked. The Government's committee concluded that the labour practices in the industry were not against the public interest. Indeed, it went further and defended the closed shop on the grounds that it helped to regulate a casual labour market and provided a badge of skills competence.
  The docks industry is not a closed shop, but both those arguments apply strongly to it, so it is no surprise that the Secretary of State and his Cabinet colleagues are unwilling to set up an independent public inquiry into the future regulation of the docks industry. They are afraid of what the conclusions might be.
  I should make it clear that Parliament ought not to pass the Bill unless and until five central issues concerning the operation of the dock labour scheme are satisfactorily resolved. The Secretary of State in his speech today was so busy knocking the scheme that he scarcely bothered to acknowledge these issues, let alone resolve them. I beg him to believe that there is genuine and deep anxiety that the abolition of the scheme will lead to the return of casualisation in the industry. Naturally, the employers have put out a press release to say that that will not be so, but lest anyone is taken in by that press release—clearly the Secretary of State has swallowed it hook, line and sinker—I remind the House that that was exactly what the employers said in 1970 at the time of Devlin II. They stated that they had no intention of returning to casual labour and that every man would be allocated permanent employment, but within 18 months, following the collapse of two companies—Southern Stevedores and Thames 65—they tried to reintroduce the casual system by returning the men to the temporary unattached register. The Secretary of State may screw up his face, but that is what happened.
  The employers' assurances on previous occasions were clearly groundless and there is no reason to doubt that history is about to repeat itself. Anyone who doubts that need only consider the words of one major port employer—Mr. Peter de Savary—who has just announced plans to bring back casual labour on his new terminal on the Isle of Grain.
  On a Channel 4 programme—I quote from the transcript—he said:
  "There will be a combination of permanent dockworkers and casual dockworkers. That's a necessity of the industry."
  There can be no clearer signal that the employers expect and intend, in an industry where traffic constantly fluctuates, to reduce to a core labour force and employ the remainder on a casual basis. In Liverpool and south Wales, there have been recent attempts to do exactly that.
  Dame Peggy Fenner: I had hoped to speak later and to remind the hon. Gentleman that he referred to this matter in a speech after my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced that we intended to abolish the scheme. The managing director of Highland Participants, the company which will run Mr. de Savary's project, said that it would not be possible to run a container port of the type it has in mind using casual labour. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is trying to frighten dockers.
  Mr. Meacher: I can see the problem facing Conservative Members. However, the person in control of the project is the employer, Mr. Peter de Savary. I am afraid that I accept his view of what is likely to happen rather than that of a manager.
  Mr. Fowler: Geoffrey Parker, the managing director to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Medway (Dame P. Fenner) referred, has given a clear assurance that that is not the case. As the hon. Member for Oldham, West understands, Mr. Geoffrey Parker is an experienced ports figure and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept his assurance.
  Mr. Meacher: If that is so, why did Mr. de Savary make those remarks and why has he not withdrawn them on the advice of his manager? If I can be told the reasons for that, I may give a little more credence to the hope and a prayer being offered by the Secretary of State.
  Dr. Godman: Casual dock work has already returned to the lower Clyde. I received a communication from the chairman of the docks branch in Greenock which said, among other things, that a shipping company which has recently moved to Port Glasgow has
  "hired a third party to take on dock labourers on what ranges from a casual to a buckshee basis."
  By the words "buckshee basis" Mr. Cannie, the chairman of the docks committee, means that the so-called shipping company is paying backhanders to men on the dole who are desperate for work of any sort. Therefore, we on the lower Clyde have experienced the return of casual dock work.
  Mr. Meacher: My hon. Friend has made a relevant reference. We know that there is already in the non-scheme ports casualisation at a level of about 5 per cent. or 6 per cent. The key point is that it will gradually seep in because of the fluctuations and oscillations in docks traffic. That is precisely the problem. Because of the forces of competition, on which the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues are always so keen, we shall be told by other employers, "We would like to provide full work but it is not possible because we are being undercut by other employers." That is precisely what we expect to happen. The press releases issued by 93 per cent. of the employers in the National Association of Port Employers are worthless compared with those economic forces.
  I want to say something about the genuine disputes over hiring and firing. The employers complain that it is a "jobs for life" scheme. We have heard that so many times. That can hardly be the case when there has been a cut of 47,000 in the number of registered dock workers in the past 15 years—a reduction of 80 per cent. Dockers can be sacked and are sacked for justifiable reasons such as misconduct. Registered dockers have a right not to be dismissed without cause and when most of them have worked in the industry for 15 years or more, they have a right not to be made redundant without entitlement to severance payment.
  Mr. Conal Gregory: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: No, I have given way enough and I must make progress, because time is moving on.
  Bearing in mind—the Secretary of State referred to this—the oscillations and the peaks and troughs in traffic, there is a small measure of surplus labour which in 1987
  60
  was 9·5 per cent. However, the point to be remembered is that, under the system of casualisation before the scheme there was an average labour surplus per year of 31 per cent. That shows the improvement that has been made under the scheme.
  Employers have made the surplus bigger than it should be. In the past few weeks, Associated British Ports sought to employ 50 casual, non-registered dock workers at the port of Barry, while it reported a surplus of 40 in Cardiff, which is only six miles away and has a facility for daily transfers. If employers behave in such a way, of course there will be a surplus of labour.
  There has been a huge propaganda barrage against the scheme and allegations of restrictive practices. We do not condone cases which have no industrial logic and which are often the result of slack management. That is why we stated in our transport policy document in early 1987, before the last election,
  "We shall review the operation of the Dock Labour Scheme."
  Sir Peter Hordern: The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Labour party's election manifesto. Let us suppose that the Labour party forms the next Government. Would a Labour Government review this legislation?
  Mr. Meacher: We shall do what the Government are so reluctant to do—get port employers and the union around a table and regulate the industry as is necessary in the circumstances.
  The truth is that many of the restrictive practices that were criticised in the White Paper result from the long-term and acute skill shortages that have been caused by employers' reluctance to train registered dock workers. Standby arrangements—so-called "ghosting"—have rightly been widely condemned, but employers preferred those arrangements to training dock workers. Those same employers are using the arrangements to blame the union for costly restrictive practices.
  The Government and employers have cited—the Secretary of State mentioned this when he announced the White Paper—welting or bobbing, which means being paid when one is not at work. The incidence of this is relatively rare, but where it occurs it can and should be dealt with under the dock labour scheme disciplinary procedures. [Laughter.] Conservative Members may laugh, but perhaps the problem is the weak and feeble management of ports. There is no need to get rid of the dock labour scheme to get rid of such practices.
  Objection is made to dockers' guaranteed minimum daily pay, but many people receive such pay. Doctors do not lose their pay if patients do not turn up. Duty solicitors who are on standby over the weekend are paid even if their services are not needed. High Court judges are paid for the 10 or 12 weeks outside term when they are not trying cases. If dockers do not have the same right, we shall return to casualisation, which perhaps is what many objectors want.
  Despite all the talk about restrictive practices, productivity in scheme ports has been exceptionally high.
  Mr. John Townend: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: No, I will not give way.
  There has been a 730 per cent. increase in productivity in terms of added volume per worker in 20 years. Few industries can match that record.

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  A further complaint made by employers against the scheme—the Secretary of State made special reference to this—is that it has driven port investment and jobs elsewhere. Major investments have been announced for scheme ports such as Immingham, Southampton, Bristol and London. I note from the annual report of Associated British Ports that there is major current or planned investment at King's Lynn, Goole, Hull, Ayr and Swansea. Investment is being made at Newport and Tilbury in new berths and terminals to the value of £8 million to £10 million. Of course there has been rapid growth in the non-scheme east coast ports, but that primarily reflects major changes in cargo handling techniques and the shift in trade to Europe. For exactly those reasons, other schemes on the east coast, such as Ipswich, have grown fast.
  Mr. Townend rose—
  Mr. Meacher: I will not give way.
  The White Paper—the most propagandist and partisan that I have read for many a year—claims that 50,000 jobs could he created if the scheme were abolished. That is simply repeating the conclusion of a paper prepared for port employers by an organisation called WEFA. The quality of work in the paper is laughable. The estimate of 4,200 new jobs for dockers is based on nothing more than an assertion by employers. Not surprisingly, the report has been described as
  "an exposition of the prejudices of the port employers with a bit of maths thrown in"
  to give it scientific validity. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who by?"] It is an excellent description, is it not? [HON. MEMBERS: "Who by?"] I describe it like that, and I am happy to do so because that is exactly what it is. It is not my description, but that of another body. [Interruption.] It may be Lloyd's List. It is disreputable for a tendentious and virtually worthless report to have its conclusions reproduced without qualification in a White Paper.
  Another charge made against the scheme is that it increases costs, but employers do not say that its administrative costs are negligible. Of the £7 to £15 per tonne charged in scheme ports for cargo handling, precisely 1·5p can be attributed to the scheme's administration. The levy pays for the medical and welfare amenities that most decent employers should provide. The biggest cost is voluntary severance arrangements, which are recouped later in higher productivity, and the Government meet half the redundancy costs.
  More important, employers do not say—because of their obsession with vilifying the scheme—that a much bigger part of the extra costs that they have to bear compared with their European counterparts arises from charges levied by the Government, including lighthouse dues, pilotage and Customs charges. Employers recently estimated that lighthouse dues alone could amount to £20,000 per call for a large vessel and well over £1 million per year for a single line. The Department of Transport estimated that they accounted for one seventh of the adverse cost differential between British and continental ports. As if that were not bad enough, in 1987 the Government announced a 14 per cent. increase in light dues and sought to raise a further £1 million a year by levying light dues on fishing vessels of a certain size.
  Those Government-imposed charges, which employers have described as a "real and dominant deterrent" to ship-owners, have caused the substantial loss of trade in British
  62
  ports. If the Government are genuinely concerned about freeing our ports for 1992 and the Channel tunnel ILIA, why do they not remove that major cause of excessive handling costs? In European ports such as Rotterdam and Antwerp, such services are provided free.
  The central point is not that other European countries do not have a dock labour scheme and we do, but that they have a national plan for the development of their port industry and we do not. Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium have a dock labour scheme which provides for the direct involvement of a trade union and dock workers in recruitment, training, welfare, medical services and redundancy.
  The difference arises in two vital respects. First, competitor countries value their ports as part of their basic national infrastructure and therefore give them heavy Government support. Every coastal EC state on the continent—with the single exception of Denmark—provides either 100 per cent. or near—100 per cent. subsidies for port investment in and maintenance of maritime access channels, lights, buoys, navigational aids, sea locks, exterior breakwaters, docks, quays and reclaimed land. Britain is the only country which provides none of those aids. A spokesman for Associated British Ports recently confirmed that that, and not the labour scheme, is the reason for the considerable cost disadvantage faced by British ports.
  Secondly, unlike Governments in countries across the North sea and the Channel, the British Government have no national plan for port development. For example, on the Humber there are dozens of small ports. The area can already handle 20 per cent. more trade than it has ever had, yet new ports are being built and there are plans to build many more. A similar story of duplication, confusion and petty proliferation exists in other parts of the country. By comparison, the European ports, which the Government cite in the White Paper as being efficient, are massive because their Governments have a deliberate policy of concentrating on major ports to gain the maximum benefits from economies of scale. For that reason, Rotterdam handles nearly 40 million tones—50 per cent. more than London and three times more than our next three largest ports, including Felixstowe.
  The Government's view was set out by Lord Brabazon, the Minister for shipping, on a Channel 4 programme. His remarks are worth quoting verbatim. He said:
  "We have a free market policy. Market forces prevail. We believe the market is best to decide where new investment should go and which ports should be used by the ship-owners."
  He then added the immortal words:
  "The policy is, as such, there is no policy."
  That just about sums up the Government policy. That is why, in the run-up to 1992, we have been overtaken by so many European ports.
  The Bill involves just one proposal—the abolition of the scheme—but abolition is no panacea. Far more fundamental problems, on which the Government: are completely empty-handed, need to be resolved, including the lack of a national ports policy, planned investment or positive industrial relations. The Bill is the product of confrontation ideology and political opportunism. That is why it offers no answers for the future of the clocks industry.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I remind the House that Mr. Speaker has already said that speeches delivered between 7 and 9 o'clock will be limited by the 10-minute rule. I hope that those who speak between now and 7 o'clock will bear in mind the constraints upon their colleagues.
  6.32 pm
  Mr. Churchill: The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) seeks to defend the indefensible. He has not done a very good job of it today. It is intriguing that he has backtracked on the statement which he made only one week ago, that the Labour party would support a national dock strike, as my hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett) pointed out—and the hon. Member for Oldham, West was unable to deny. On BBC Radio Lancashire news, a week ago this evening, the interviewer, Mike West, said:
  "The Labour party have made it clear it would support dockers if they decided to take strike action over the Government's decision. Shadow Employment spokesman Michael Meacher says the Government were taking a reckless gamble, and the Labour party would have to stand by the dockers."
  The right hon. Member for Oldham, West replied:
  "frankly we have no alternative but to support, if there were a strike."
  Clearly, the right hon. Member for Oldham, West has attempted to backtrack on that statement. So, too, has his leader.
  On the same evening of 10 April, the Leader of the Opposition, interviewed by David Walter on BBC television's "Newsnight" programme, said:
  "If it is necessary…for us to declare our solidarity for dock workers in their efforts to sustain operations and to maintain the continuity of dock working, then the Labour party won't be found wanting."
  Will the Secretary of State tell us whether the Labour party will be found wanting yes or no? Will the Labour party back such a strike, as the right hon. Gentleman said just a week ago? [Interruption.] I give way to him—[Interruption.] My apologies—I meant the shadow Secretary of State. I see that he does not wish to intervene —instead I give way to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway).
  Mr. George Galloway: Does not the hon. Gentleman understand the simple point that, if there is a dock strike, the Opposition will feel it necessary to support the workers? However, we do not want a strike. Given his famous name, would not the hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) accept that it would be better to get round a table and have some jaw-jaw, rather than war-war with the dockers?
  Mr. Churchill: I see no reason why there should be any war-war. I am delighted that the Shadow Secretary of State has thought better of his earlier intemperate and reckless commitment.
  Mr. Alan Roberts rose—
  Mr. Churchill: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman in a minute.
  Significantly, the hon. Member for Oldham, West refused to give a straight reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Sir P. Hordern), who asked whether the right hon. Gentleman would pledge the Labour party—if it were ever again elected to government —to reintroduce the dock labour scheme. The fact that the
  64
  hon. Gentleman has failed to answer that question is significant because it meant that the dock labour scheme —even in the Labour party's eyes—is now a dead duck.
  Mr. Leigh: Does my hon. Friend also recall that the Shadow Secretary of State refused to answer my four questions—including one in particular? I asked whether, if there were a Labour Government, they would activate the dock labour scheme, as Lord Callaghan's Government wanted to do. Such an activation would bring many other industries into the scheme—including those miles from the coast—and result in many industries not wishing to set up in scheme areas. The effect of the scheme on employment is worrying and it is that upon which we should focus our debate.
  Mr. Churchill: My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am conscious of your request for brief speeches, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I wish to confine my remarks principally to the port of Manchester.
  Mr. Allan Roberts: There is not a port of Manchester.
  Mr. Churchill: The hon. Gentleman says that there is no port of Manchester. A significant part of the reason for that is the dock labour scheme. In its heyday, the port of Manchester employed nearly 10,000 people—including 3,500 registered dockers. In 1965, the port of Manchester moved 16 million tonnes, which represented 5 per cent. of the nation's imports and exports. By 1987, that figure had slipped to below 10 million tonnes, less than 2 per cent.
  The demise of the port of Manchester was, above all, due to two factors. The first was technological evolution —specifically, containerisation and the move to larger vessels. But secondly, there is no question but that restrictive practices and endless unofficial strikes and the dock labour scheme—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) thinks it funny to destroy jobs by endless unofficial strikes and restrictive practices. Those factors played a key part in the demise of the port of Manchester.
  Operations at the port of Manchester, which was a scheme port, were plagued by inter-union squabbles between the Transport and General Workers Union, known as the white union, and the stevedores' union, known as the blue union.
  The TGWU would not allow employers to negotiate with the blues and neither union could control its members. The Opposition Chief Whip is well aware of the problem—he has similar difficulty controlling his hon. Friends.
  It took just one militant on a bicycle to go around Manchester docks with a bull horn yelling, "Everybody out," for everyone to down tools. Disputes and unofficial strikes were endless, and ultimately customers and operators went elsewhere—to Felixstowe and the continental ports. This was one of the principal reasons why, in 1982, Manchester Liners, a key part of the operations into the port of Manchester, abandoned its home port and went elsewhere.
  After 80 years of operation between 1898 and 1979, the port of Manchester virtually ceased to handle general cargoes. The dock labour scheme acted as a barrier between employers and employees. Its aim, laudable in its time, was to provide regular employment, but it has long since outlived its necessity. Today it is an anachronism.

  65
  The Secretary of State has today assured the House that there will be no return to casual labour in the docks—an important assurance.
  The dock labour board proved utterly incapable of resolving the many disputes that arose in the port of Manchester and other scheme ports throughout the country. This inability was inherent in the board's make-up: The chairman might be a Socialist and his deputy a Conservative. Unions and employers took turn and turn about to occupy different positions on the board. Its constitution almost guaranteed that there was no means of resolving any impasse that might crop up.
  Today, the only cargoes going into Manchester by sea and ship canal are oil and chemicals, apart from grain to Cerestar in Trafford Park and a little scrap metal and lumber. There are no general cargoes any more, and there is no question but that the dock labour scheme played a significant part in the demise of the port.
  The port of Manchester is now coming alive, but not as a port. It is coming alive with the transformation of the Salford docks into upmarket housing and of Trafford wharf into a series of significant high-tech industrial developments. As long as the scheme existed, the port had no future.
  It is no coincidence that the non-scheme ports have thrived, while the scheme ports have declined in relative or even absolute terms. The Opposition have accused the Government of bringing forward this measure precipitately. This is nonsense. If anything, the Government have been too dilatory about scrapping the outdated dock labour scheme. Its abolition is long overdue. I warmly welcome this measure and the generous severance terms for any dockers who will lose their jobs within 18 months. This is a fair and necessary measure, and I wish it well.
  6.44 pm
  Mr. Eddie Loyden: One does not have to search far to discover the real reason why the Government have introduced this Bill, callously and cynically, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) said. They have made no effort to debate the subject in the House and given the unions no opportunity to discuss it with the employers. They are rushing through the Bill as quickly as possible.
  Everyone who knows the industry is aware of the Government's reasons for abolishing the scheme. When discussing why the scheme existed, Minsiters have in the past accused me of being out of date and living in the 18th or 19th centuries. When the national dock labour scheme was introduced in 1947 it had to be forced on the employers, who were unwilling to change the industry from what it then was—an industry of hyper-exploitation and low pay which imposed misery on those who worked in it and ignored the conditions in which they worked. The Government tell us, by implication, that employers do not act like that today, but I am afraid that I do not trust them. I do not trust any employer who wants to remove the rights—not the privileges—that have been achieved by dock workers over generations to enable them to stand against and remove the excesses of ruthless employers.
  It is not only the dock workers who are affected. Many books have been written about the poverty of the dock areas, which affected the women and children in dock workers' families, too. Anyone who has read these books will understand why intervention of the sort enacted in
  66
  1947 was needed. It was possible, right up to the 1950s and beyond, for employers to come into the port industry by putting a wooden hut on the quay and bringing with them three or four wire strops—and they had a business. They were responsible and accountable to no one. If the Secretary of State would listen to me he might learn something. He has clearly shown today that he knows nothing about the docks industry, except what he has heard in the Goebbels-like propaganda that keeps being repeated about bobbing and ghosting and restrictive practices. In many cases these practices are to do with rights that have been negotiated with employers, who are being allowed to hide behind the Government's skirts.
  The employers and those who represent the Conservative party never wanted the scheme in the first place. It gave workers rights that they wanted to deny them. One of the aspects of the scheme that really hurt the Conservative party and the employers was that for the first time in the history of industrial relations in this country a degree—only a degree—of democracy was introduced to the business of hiring and firing. The Conservative party and its backers outside will not tolerate giving workers a say in determining whether their employers have been justified in sacking them. This has nothing to do with casualisation or decasualisation. It is part of the Government's continued and relentless attack since 1979 upon the trade union movement. That attack was designed to weaken the movement so that it could not respond to the ruthless nature of some employers.
  All the signs are that the employers are taking great advantage of the Government's policies on industrial relations. That is the central issue. It has been argued that the dockers have been resistant to change. I am long enough in the tooth to have gone to the docks in 1946 after spending eight years at sea, including the war. At that time the docker's only equipment was a hook in his belt and he picked up a hand bogey when he went into the dock. The dockers did not decide on that method of work.
  At that time labour was cheap and there was plenty of it. Sometimes men went to the docks for work and were sent home for three days or a week. No wonder that was an attractive proposition to employers and it made them resist change in the docks industry. Labour was a cheap commodity available at any time and often without pay, and employers exploited that to the full. That is why there was no capital investment in the ports which would have changed methods of work and the lives of dock workers.
  What have we seen since that time? Instead of the hook and the hand bogey there is now capital equipment each piece of which is worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, perhaps £250,000, and that equipment is operated by dock workers who were trained in the industry. There are side loaders, tug masters and other high-tech equipment. The industry is being transformed and the number of dockers is down from 80,000 to just over 9,000. In the pre-war era and in the immediate post-war era Liverpool employed up to 20,000 dockers and had a shipbuilding industry employing the same number. That has all gone and there has been no compensation and no replacement with new industry.
  In the general election campaign the Prime Minister paraded around the country talking about her fears and saying that she wanted to do much for the inner cities. Liverpool is still a port-dependent city and by what they are doing the Government will make the situation there

  67
  and in other ports in the north a damn sight worse than it is at present. We should lay bare the deception of the Government in putting forward this pernicious legislation.
  There is no doubt that the campaign against the scheme has been carried out with the support of the employers to the accompaniment of howling and baying by Conservative Back Benchers. The scheme is seen as the last bastion of trade union power and has to be removed because, ideologically, the Conservative party and the employers do not like the phrase "workers' rights". Those rights were forced upon employers. Now the Government say that they want to remove that and give the employers a free hand. To do what? It will enable employers to return to casualisation and to sack the shop steward who is a bit of a lad, a bit of a nuisance who may cause problems for employers. The joint boards can decide who shall be sacked and the Government see that as ending his complete control over hiring and firing.
  The Secretary of State appears to be chosen for the most outrageous tasks in the House, and that was illustrated by his performance on the review of social security that has left families all over Britain impoverished. People such as old-age pensioners are pleading for something to be done about what the Secretary of State did when he held another office. He has brought that philosophy and attitude to this industry.
  It is clear that the Conservative party and the employers have waged a carefully orchestrated campaign and they see this as the most convenient and appropriate time to bring it to fruition in a most cynical and ruthless way. I am surethat in the long term the Government and employers will have to pay a price that they would not be prepared to pay if they knew the outcome of their policies. I do not have a crystal ball and do not know what sort of case will be presented by the employers and the trade unions.
  The Government argue that they are a Government of non-intervention. However, their intervention is always in areas that affect workers and their rights and where they affect the benefits conferred on workers by the first post-war Labour Government, such as the Health Service and the welfare state. They do not like local authorities. They intervene everywhere except where it affects capital, the power of capital and the City. They have seen a shift of power and they want power handed back to the port employers. The dockers are quite right to use every method that they can to stop the Government's reckless actions. I shall give my support to dock workers for whatever action they take. They deserve it and they are right. For generations they have assisted other workers in dispute and in struggle. At the end of the day victory will be theirs.
  6.56 pm
  Mr. David Davis: I shall start by declaring an interest as a director of Tate and Lyle.
  Mr. Prescott: The hon. Gentleman is a part-timer.
  Mr. Davis: The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East calls me a part-timer. After he made that allegation last year, I looked at our relative voting records. I was in the top 100 because I voted 338 times. The hon. Gentleman voted in just over half the Divisions, on 248 occasions—90 times fewer than me.
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  I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) on one matter. It is that, when the legislation that created the dock labour scheme came into being, it dealt with a real evil, the evil of the casual system as it stood then. The hon. Gentleman also explained why it is no longer a real evil. Time and technology have transformed the ports. He talked about expensive equipment, and that there may be cranes costing £500,000 or £1 million. People are not called off the street for half a day to operate a £1 million crane. A manager with a high capital investment in a port is interested in maintaining a continuous, maximum throughput. He has the same interest as the well-trained man who wants a permanent, highly skilled job. That is what has done away with the casual system.
  Dr. Godman: It is possible to bring highly skilled, professional men from the streets to work for a short time —if they are unemployed. That is precisely what happens in my constituency with shipyard workers.
  Mr. Davis: There are not too many unemployed heavy train drivers or container operators.
  The second point is that, in a company with a very high capital investment, there is pressure on the management to keep the throughput up, to keep sales up—precisely the same interest as that of men who want to have permanent jobs. There is no interest in having an "up and down" shipping pattern.
  I want to pursue some of the issues that were raised by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher). He referred briefly to a number of malpractices that we have heard talked about. He said that ghosting was a result of unwillingness to train. In my port of Goole, there is a cement operation which unloads from self-discharging cement ships. When the ships come into port they are linked in one movement by sailors. There is no other work to be done, yet the customer has to pay for two dockers to ghost. I do not know how that would be dealt with by training; it is a simple additional useless cost.
  Let us go on to bobbing and welting. In my port of Goole there are Swedish liner services. When the lines come in, 27 men are allocated to them. They need 18, so nine men go home—they "bob off" or welt. That does not arise from weak management; it arises because the manning levels are set by the joint board for the whole port. There is nothing that the management can do about it. There is no way in which it can negotiate its way out of that option.
  Let us consider discipline. In Hull and Goole, which for this purpose are one area, 12 people were dismissed between 1980 and 1986. All 12 were reinstated. Among them was one man who had been convicted of smuggling and had gone to gaol for seven months. Despite the fact that he had committed a criminal offence, and the fact that that offence related directly to his work, he was reinstated when he came out of gaol. That sort of thing, plus similar gaolings for theft and other offences related directly to the work of the ports, is what drives customers away from those ports.
  On the Humber, there are a number of scheme ports. They are all on deep water, are all served by motorways and railways, and all have good facilities, yet customers go to little ports at the end of country roads—ports with no

  69
  railways, or shallow water in fast-running rivers—precisely because they cannot bear the costs, the malpractice and the unpredictability of the scheme ports.
  Mr. Prescott: The National Ports Council called for a report on the small wharves in 1972. It found that the capital costs in schemes were three times higher.
  Mr. Davis: Precisely—17 years ago.[Interruption.] I will correct the hon. Member if he will pay attention. I was talking about the period 1980–86, when the proportion of the Humber throughput that was dealt with by private wharves increased from 15 per cent. to 21 per cent., entirely because of the terrible practices in these ports. The hon. Gentleman has attempted on many occasions to rubbish my arguments. He says that I do not know what I am talking about. Before coming to this House, I started work at the bottom of a transport company. I worked my way up to the position of managing director, and had to deal with problems of this sort. Hon. Members can decide for themselves which they consider to be the more useful experience: that, or serving gin and tonic on a Cunard liner. [Laughter.]
  Mr. Prescott: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; it would have been easy not to do so, and the laugh would have been sustained.
  People can make their judgments about the character and ability of hon. Members. I gave the hon. Gentleman the evidence of the National Ports Council, which is still relevant. That is the point that the hon. Gentleman must address.
  Mr. Davis: The hon. Gentleman should learn to use the evidence of his own eyes. He should go and look at some of these ports. What is the advantage in going down a tiny country road to a port on a fast-flowing river that can be used only at marginal times by small ships? The hon. Gentleman's argument is ridiculous, and there is no point in pursuing it.
  Mr. Prescott: The Government accepted it.
  Mr. Davis: Seventeen years ago the Government accepted some other things, including this scheme.
  This practice drives trade to other ports, and, as we have seen in the White Paper, it drives trade abroad. In 10 years, the share of intercontinental trade going through European ports has increased from 4 per cent. to 11 per cent. In other words, it has more than doubled in that period.
  The hon. Member for Oldham, West referred to the WEFA report. He said that he did not like it. I, too, read the WEFA report very carefully, and was rather sceptical about it because, after all, it was sponsored by the port employers. But I was surprised by something different. The report completely ignored the concentration of trade going through the ports after 1992. We must expect, particularly on the H umber and in the north-east, a massive expansion of trade through ports—if the ports are viable. I am thinking of firms like Toyota, Nissan and Fujitsu. I understand that when Toyota went to Derby, the first thing it asked was, "Which is the way to Felixstowe?"—from Derby, for heaven's sake. My judgment is that the WEFA report under-estimated the employment that would be created by the abolition of the scheme. It will not be 50,000 but 100,000 jobs by 1993.
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  This Bill gives registered dock workers the same rights as are enjoyed by the dock workers in Felixstowe, where there was a 21 per cent. increase in cargoes last year and therefore, an increase in recruitment, and where up to £700 a week was paid to dockers. In conjunction with Dover, that part has had more investment than the rest of the scheme ports put together. [AN HON. MEMBER: "And not a penny from the public purse."] Exactly—not one penny from the public purse, but no casualisation, yet massive investment and growth.
  I must draw to a close quickly, as the 10-minutes rule is in operation. I tried to look charitably at the perspective of the Labour party and the trade unions. I looked very carefully, and, like the Secretary of State, I found it very difficult to tie them together.
  Mr. Prescott: Did the hon. Gentleman talk to them?
  Mr. Davis: Yes, I talked to them as well. In a minute I shall come to the question of talking to the unions. It is an interesting point.
  Let me summarise Labour's position. It seems to be to support a strike that cannot be won, to sustain a scheme that it knows is wrong, against a reform that it will not reverse. That is not particularly logical. Opposition Members cannot fault our laws, but they fear their own paymasters. They accuse us of provocation.
  Mrs. Mahon: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Earlier, I raised with Mr. Speaker a point of order about declaring interests. Mr. Speaker told me that he had replied in full to it last week. When the hon. Member for Boothferry (Mr. Davis) started his speech, somebody said, "part-timer". The register of interests says that he is a director of Tate and Lyle plc. May I have your advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker? In view of the concern outside this Chamber about the amounts of money that Members of this House are earning on a part-time basis, would it be in order for the hon. Gentleman to declare how much he gets from Tate and Lyle, exactly what he has to do to earn it, and whether what he is now promoting constitutes an interest?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a matter for me. At the start of his remarks the hon. Gentleman did declare that he was a director of Tate and Lyle. Whether the rules for the Register of Members' Interests require him to go beyond that is a matter of doubt.
  Mr. Davis: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Let us get back to the subject. Opposition Members did not like my reference to their paymasters, which is where their real interest lies. What do they really believe? In the past five years, there have been five attempts by the employers to negotiate with the unions—five attempts, five rebuttals, and any number of strike threats. However, I too was sceptical, so in January of this year, at a conference on the dock labour scheme, at which John Connolly was present, I raised the issue of negotiation. Mr. Connolly said no. He said that he was not interested in it.
  The Labour party is not the same as the trade unions, so last year I introduced a ten-minute Bill proposing, a negotiated settlement to the scheme.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he is also now working within a 10-minute rule.
  Mr. Davis: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am coming ton my last point. When I introduced my Bill, I said:
  "Finally and most important, the Bill aims to create a timetable for both sides of the port industry to negotiate an end to the current practices which cripple the industry, and to give us a new industry by the crucial date of 1992."—[Official Report, 11 May 1988; Vol. 133, c. 321.]
  That offered four years of negotiation, but the hon. Members for Kingston upon Hull, East and for Oldham, West voted against it. Where is their interest in negotiation now? Where is their interest in representing anybody except the 9,000 dockers? This Government and this party represent the 100,000; that is why we should not negotiate.
  7.10 pm
  Mr. James Wallace: As the hon. Member for Boothferry (Mr. Davis) said, the historical reasons for introducing the dock labour scheme in 1946 were valid then. As the Minister of Labour at that time said, the labour market was such that only the fittest survived. However, in the first part of his speech, the hon. Member for Boothferry also gave us examples of how that system has become anachronistic and outlived its usefulness.
  If there is any merit in consistency, I can point out that, in an amendment to the Loyal Address on 25 November 1975, the Liberal party tabled an amendment in which we said that we
  "regret that the Gracious Speech contains proposals for the docks which, if carried out by an extension of the areas covered by the National Dock Labour Scheme, will lead to further unemployment in those areas, further strangulation of Great Britain's successful ports and higher costs and inefficiency."—[Official Report, 25 November 1975; Vol. 901, c. 681.]
  History has shown those remarks to be relevant.
  In a sedentary intervention earlier a member of the Front Bench referred to my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), who has made his position clear. I remind the Minister that, as recently as 10 March 1988, the Under-Secretary of State for Employment said:
  "I cannot believe that the mere abolition of the scheme would have all the desirable effects that they seem to believe." —[Official Report, 10 March 1988; Vol. 129, c. 600.]
  If he has changed his mind in a year, I have some time to persuade my hon. Friend to change his.
  The 1975 amendment referred to "higher costs and inefficiency." We have heard already today of practices such as ghosting and bobbing. Inevitably, the costs of these practices have been passed on to the consumer. In competition with both non-scheme ports and continental ports, many of the registered scheme ports have undoubtedly lost out. The "jobs for life" provision is not part of the statutory scheme. Rather, it is a result of the Jones-Aldington agreement. It has meant that dockers have been retained on at least basic pay. This has led to overmanning and levels of employment have been reduced only through voluntary redundancy which, since 1972, has cost the taxpayer some £420 million. As a consequence, the labour force has aged. For example, in the port of Tees and Hartlepool, there is a shortage of labour but there is also a reluctance to recruit new labour, and no one working at that port is under 35.
  The amendment warned also of the
  "strangulation of Great Britain's successful ports".
  Some have suggested that the scheme should be allowed to wither on the vine. I disagree with that suggestion because,
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  as the White Paper says, the scheme operates in ports that have been in existence since 1945, and are our best ports, because of strategic and geographical positions and water depths. Earlier this year, the great historic port of Aberdeen, with a history of 800 years as a fishing port, came within an ace of losing that fishing trade as a result of the scheme. As Aberdeen's fishing interests have declined, there has been an increase in the use of Peterhead as a fishing port.
  The amendment also warned that the scheme would lead to "further unemployment". Much of the unemployment has resulted not from the scheme but from the changes in technology and the move from the west to the east. The hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) referred to the difficulties at the port of Manchester, many of which are due to the fact that the Manchester ship canal is not capable of taking the larger ships on which so much trade is now carried.
  The dock labour scheme can hardly be said to be a guarantee of employment. Since 1972, only the ports of Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Poole have shown any increase in employment. I suspect that this increase, certainly in the cases of the first two and possibly in the case of the last, is related to oil and gas developments in the southern basin of the North sea and the English channel. The figures speak for themselves. Let us compare the figures in 1972 and 1988. In London they are 11,702 and 1,703; in Hull 2,064 and 665; in Liverpool and Birkenhead, 8,401 and 1,395. Clearly the scheme is not a guarantee of employment.
  Replying to an intervention from the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts), the Secretary of State dismissed lightly some of the achievements made by the dock labour force in places such as Liverpool. In spite of the decrease in employment, there has been a considerable increase in productivity, and other advances. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) would want it to be recorded that, since 1982, Liverpool has been a profitable port. Last year, it made a pre-tax profit of £5,885,000, some 56 per cent. up on 1987. The port's industrial record has been transformed and tonnage has steadily gone up, with a 10·2 per cent. increase in 1987, to 19·5 million tonnes.
  Although Liverpool has shown great adaptation to circumstances and the capacity to develop as a port, we cannot overlook the fact that, according to figures that I have seen today, there is no registered docker in Liverpool under the age of 35, and the average age is 47·8. That is a matter for concern.
  Mr. Loyden: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Wallace: I should like to give way, but I have only 10 minutes. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will understand. If these ports are to develop and take the opportunities, new blood must be introduced and the present scheme does not encourage the port employers to do that.
  So far, much of the debate has concentrated on consultation. Introducing a White Paper one day and publishing a Bill the next is provocative, to put it mildly. I hope that Ministers will agree to consultation and that the unions will have a meaningful dialogue with the port employers. If the unions insist on changing a statutory scheme to a voluntary one, discussions will never get off the ground.

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  I can understand, from my examination of the history, the anxieties about the wide-scale reintroduction of casual labour. Why should there not be discussions between unions and port employers to try to get some contractual, negotiated guarantees that there will not be the reintroduction of casual labour, as the port employers have suggested? The general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union said that he found that as convincing as the statement that the National Health Service is safe in the hands of the Prime Minister. Perhaps with some negotiation he can get some firmer guarantees.
  There must also be negotiations about training after the interim period changes. My understanding is that, on 1 January, regulations that would give non-scheme ports a requirement to do with training functions came into being. What will happen after the transitional period to the provision on training in the scheme ports? The training of new recruits for those ports is needed above all else. If we are passing legislation to end that scheme, we cannot leave training hanging in the air without any sign from the Government about what they see as the provision of training for new recruits once the scheme is abolished and all ports become non-registered.
  I and many others believe that the abolition of the scheme will lead to an increase in jobs and employment opportunities in many ports, but it is expected that initially there will be a fall-off in employment. A reduction of 10 per cent. has been mentioned by some. That will be a matter of concern for those who are most directly affected. However, the redundancy terms are generous and many, especially those aged 50—about 40 per cent. of those who work in registered dock scheme ports are of that age—may be tempted to get out and to take the terms that are on offer. If they do, it is important that provision should be made to assist them in retraining for other forms of employment in addition to giving them money. I believe that getting out and taking the terms will be an initial response to the Bill.
  There will be opportunities in the long term, not least as a result of the competition that will come as we march towards 1992. We can look towards more jobs being created in many of our ports. As the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) fairly said, there is a need for a strategy for the ports, and that will not be introduced automatically through the operation of the free market. Many of the ports on the west coast, not least on Merseyside and the Clyde, can be entrances to the European Community for trade coming from north America. The Government have been silent on how they would like to see the ports develop the opportunities that are available to them, especially those on the west coast, in 1992. My parliamentary colleagues will support the Bill but we want to hear more ideas from the Government on a general port strategy.
  7.22 pm
  Mr. James Hill: I am glad to have been called to contribute to the debate. The Southampton docks, which constitute one of the largest scheme ports, have been one of my most prominent political problems since I entered the House. We have heard this evening about the rights of workers but we have not heard much about workers who were made unemployed as a result of numerous strikes. We have not heard much of the ancillary
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  workers who suddenly find that the port is not working, which means that their employers give them the sack and perhaps re-engage them later.
  I suppose that the Southampton docks have suffered more than most docks. The port was derelict for over 12 months from 1981 onwards. We had a succession of strikes and as a result the entire city began to suffer. No passenger ships came in and the channel ports operation ceased. The roll-on/roll-off activity moved to Portsmouth. That trade was lost. The atmosphere of the city was blighted by the atmosphere of the port. During this period there was a more militant approach to employment than one could even hazard a guess at merely by being in a place such as the House of Commons.
  There was an extremely fierce chief shop steward. Fortunately, that man took his redundancy pay about four or five years ago. I believe that he is now managing a public house in Southampton. He led a militant bunch of shop stewards who were only too anxious at any time to impose new obligations on employers.
  The Conservative party cannot be exonerated completely from blame for the legislation that was built up to form protectionism. It was during the time that my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) was Prime Minister that we agreed to the Jones-Aldington arrangements. That was perhaps the greatest and most powerful lever that we gave to registered dock workers. There were two significant features of the arrangements. The first was that port employers would have to pay a basic rate—I believe that today it is near £150 a week—to any registered dock worker, even if there was no work to do. Secondly, and most serious of all, he survivors of the then strike had to take up their percentage of the dock workers who no longer had an employer. The costs of port employers escalated and at the end of the day there were very few employers. Townsend Thoresen became so fed up with the system that it decided to move to Portsmouth. That was one of its main reasons for the move.
  The passengers of the Cunard shipping company had to manhandle their baggage when the dockers claimed that that was part of their dock work. The QE2 had to go to Cherbourg on one of its trips to off load and load passengers. They were flown out from the United Kingdom and flown back. The baggage had to be handled by French dock workers. The problem was that registered dock workers were beginning to get a jugular-vein grip on the scheme ports.
  I do not blame the dockers. The Labour Government presented a scheme and a Conservative Government added to it the two conditions to which I have referred. If I were presented with Christmas every day, I would not refuse it. I would say, "No, I do not really want all these guarantees. I do not want to have a job when all those around me are losing theirs." My response would be, "This is obviously a good trade union agreement and we must stick to it as a matter of life and death." Unfortunately, it was the life of the registered dock workers and the death of many port employers. I imagine that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) was a dock worker for many years. He said that the rights of the workers were such that they had to be protected. He appeared to have a wrong-end-of-the-telescope view of the problem. Not all dock workers are registered dockers. Indeed, in almost every port the registered dockers comprise only about one third of the labour force.

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  It has emerged clearly this evening that those on the Opposition Front Bench are running pretty scared. They know that there has been disagreement. I have a cutting from my local newspaper in which it is stated that the dock union chief in Southampton "slates leader Todd". The article reads:
  "TGWU docks officer Dennis Harryman said the union's executive should have plumped for an immediate ballot for strike action rather than Mr. Todd's policy of deferring the ballot".
  The article continues:
  "'Ron Todd has fragmented things by giving those ports who don't want to come out a legitimate way out of strike action'"
  When there is such discontent near the top of a large trade union, we must suspect that there will be trouble for the Trades Union Congress and for the Labour party. The Labour party has realised this and the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) has obviously been given instructions to play down what he has been saying and what has been read out on so many occasions today.
  As a constituency man, I can go only from what I read in my local newspaper. It has printed a good but short letter by someone who obviously knows a great deal about the ports. He writes:
  "'The furore caused by the Opposition and the trades unions over the abolition of the docks labour scheme strikes me as being hypocritical.
  Here we have organisations who are supposedly opposed to privilege and class distinction upholding working practices which, if applied to the workforce of the whole country, would be unworkable, resulting in bankruptcy and mass unemployment."'
  I do not know whether I go along with that fully, but there is certainly a reason for abolishing the scheme. I am surprised it has lasted so long—and I am surprised that the Labour Government did not kill it—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because it destroys jobs. It is as plain as that.
  In the future, when the scheme has been abolished, there will be further work in the port of Southampton. The Bill does not mean the end of those 700 dockers' jobs—it is a beginning. We have heard that the more aged dockers can now receive a redundancy payment of £35,000, practically unheard of in any other industry—and, in any case, we need to bring fresh people into the dock work force.
  The main thing that I like about the provisions is that in future workers in the port will be able to identify with an employer rather than be moved about at the whim of the dock labour board. There is a lot to be said for the Bill. I hope that it will have an easy passage through Committee and that it will be on the statute book by July.
  7.30 pm
  Mr. Ernie Ross: Two versions of events have been given in the debate. One version has been given by Conservative Members, who generated the baying, howling and screeching that accompanied the initial announcement of the Bill. They have made deliberate attempts to attack the arguments of my hon. Friends, who are those most likely to have had experience of working in, rather than managing, the docks. Therein lies the difference in attitude.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) has considerable hands-on experience not only as a member of the Transport and General Workers
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  Union, but of working in the docks. When we read the report of the debate in Hansard tomorrow, that difference in attitude will come across clearly. I shall not go over the ground so adequately covered by my hon. Friend the Member for Garston, save to associate myself with all his comments. Instead, I wish to knock some of the suggestions that have been put forward about why the Bill is required at this time.
  The city of Dundee lies on the River Tay. For many years it has required the port to bring in the main sustenance for Dundee's manufacturing base—jute. Although Dundee has a long history as a port—dealing not only, but mainly, in jute—its history has not been recognised in the comments of the Secretary of State or his hon. Friends. In Dundee, which is a scheme port, approximately £1 million will have been invested by the Dundee port authority in the period 1986 to 1992. That investment has been made because the authority is confident of a return on it. Not only will that investment be made until 1992, but even now it is predicted that it will rise to £2 million after 1992. Dundee port authority can make that commitment because of its confidence in the adaptability and flexibility of its partner, the Dundee Stevedore Company, and in its dock-worker employees, all of whom are committed to the long-term prosperity not only of the port but of all the people who live in Dundee.
  The Dundee dock workers created the stability which led to the ending of the scandal of 250,000 tonnes of Scottish grain going south in lorries to lie in stores before being exported from ports in the south. In 1979, the port of Dundee handled 800 tonnes of grain. With a change of management in the 1980s and a new determination to work with the Dundee Stevedore Company and the dockers, four new sheds were built, and a new grain elevator and mechanised handling equipment were installed. As a result, the figure rose in 1988 to 128,000 tonnes of Scottish grain being exported from a Scottish port.
  That investment by the Dundee port authority has been possible because of the good working relationship in the scheme port of Dundee where there are no shareholders to pay off. There have been record profits because prices have been held steady for two years due to the flexibility and adaptability of the work force and, indeed, are likely to rise this year and next year by no more than the rate of inflation. As I have said, there are no shareholders to pay off, and because of the money that the port has managed to gain from the EEC there has been massive investment and development in Dundee itself. The authority's investment in Dundee's future started long before the Secretary of State's announcement in the House. Dundee is a scheme port and working together has meant that it has been able to provide for its long-term future since long before the announcement.
  The Secretary of State is no longer in his place, but in his absence perhaps I can address this point to the Minister who is present—the Minister for Public Transport, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo)—and ask him whether, having started the precedent of using selected quotations from selected newspapers in support of the abolition of the scheme, the Secretary of State will accept quotations from the same Scottish newspapers about the abolition or otherwise of the poll tax in Scotland? I suspect that, if we asked the Secretary of State

  77
  whether he accepted the views of those newspapers on the poll tax as it applies to Scotland, we should get a quite different response.
  As the Secretary of State has referred to the efforts made by the port employers to discuss the scheme, may we have on record the dates when the port employers officially wrote, offered or asked for negotiations or when such requests were made formally, across the table, during negotiations? Let us have on record the dates of the five occasions when that occurred.
  The Dundee port authority is convinced that it does not need these provisions to ensure a profitable port in Dundee. Speaking the day after the Secretary of State's announcement in the House, the chief executive of the port authority, Captain John Watson, said that he had been taken by surprise, as he was sure had a number of people in the industry, by the speed with which the Government intended to proceed. He added:
  "The battle cry of late seems to have been get rid of the scheme with little done by anyone to assure registered dock workers that there is life after the scheme."
  Like other employers, the Dundee Stevedore Company has now responded to that statement. I remind the House that prior to the scheme, there were 68 companies in Dundee which hired men, mainly on a day-to-day basis, in much the same conditions as those outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Garston, which were not only archaic but an insult to the workers and to any form of employer-worker relationship.
  The Dundee Stevedore Company has made it quite clear that, because of the amount of work and because of its duty to those who use the port for jute, paper and BP oil, there should not be any reduction in the number of dockers employed in the port. The chairman, Mr. Ronnie Caldwell, has confirmed that to me today. More importantly, he confirmed it to the dockers in a letter last Friday in which he gave a guarantee that there would be no return to the system of casual labour and said that he looked forward to working with a skilled, competitive and motivated labour force. He emphasised the need for management and employees to work together to take advantage of the competitive opportunities which exist. I emphasise that that was said against the backdrop of a good working relationship.
  When I have asked dockers how they respond to those comments, naturally they have said that they are happy to hear that initial statement from their employer, but they have made the point that there is a thing called agency labour and that it is already used by several ports. It is also used in other industries in which there is a core work force, but where there is no continuity of employment. Continuity of employment should be a vital component of any new agreement. The dockers would not be asking or expecting too much to expect that the negotiations should start now so that conditions similar to those that they now have can be discussed and perhaps agreed with their present employers.
  The port employers say that they want to talk to the workers and the workers say that they want to talk to their employers, but they want to ensure that those discussions are not held in an atmosphere in which pressure is being put solely on the workers to give up something for which they have fought and struggled for many years. The Government could help that process by making clear in
  78
  Committee exactly what they would like to see replace the dock labour scheme, and what guarantees they intend to provide to the industry's workers.
  A characteristic of those who work in the ports is fear and uncertainty about an industry whose history is one of regulation being required to ensure decent, hurnane working conditions for those working in it. I do not want a return to the days when dock workers had to go round the various pubs in Dundee—whether it was Black Jock's, the Market Bar or Brady's—and bribe the gaffer with drink, and the next morning have to remind him or scrabble about on the ground for the few pegs that were left because the gaffer had forgotten that he had been paid the price of work the night before.
  We want the industry to be regulated. That regulation can only come through discussion, and the workers want that discussion. We shall not support the Bill because of the deliberate attempts by the Government to take away rights hard fought for by workers in an industry which requires regulation.
  7.41 pm
  Sir David Mitchell: I intervene briefly, because there are no docks in my constituency. However, the towns of Andover and of nearby Basingstoke are major customers of ports, and in this debate I speak for the customer. Much of industry's competitive ability is affected by the cost of transport and of handling commodities through our docks. Cargo handling is more expensive in United Kingdom ports than it is in continental ports, to the disadvantage of our country's manufacturers, jobs and prosperity.
  The first question that arises from the debate is whether there is now a case for treating the 9,400 scheme port dockers differently from the remaining 3,600 port workers. Listening to the debate, it is clear why dock workers used to need different employment arrangements. I may be an unlikely ally for the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer)—who has not yet caught your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker—but on many occasions during the 20 or more years since I entered the House, I have heard the hon. Gentleman speak out against the evils of the old system of casual labour.
  I agree with the hon. Members for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) and for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross), that the system of hiring casual labour was abhorrent and that employers behaved unacceptably. I join Opposition Members in looking back with anger at what used to happen. However, that was many years ago. Today, we must consider instead the current situation, by examining the non-scheme ports.
  Today's dockers in non-scheme ports are well paid. Many of them are better paid than those working in scheme ports. They are represented by the same trade union, and casual labour accounts for only 6 per cent. of their work force. That figure is comparable with the percentage of casual workers in catering and in many other industries, including no doubt many of the services with which right hon. and hon. Members are provided through the facilities of the House.
  The dock labour scheme may have been the right answer in its day, but times have changed. The House should look at the downside of that scheme. First, there is the downward spiral to consider. A port or firm may suffer contraction, perhaps because it deals in a certain

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  commodity, or because, as in Liverpool, of our trade with the European Community and the expansion of cargo handling through east coast ports. The contraction may be due to a commodity such as leather being replaced by plastic, or to some other change of pattern in trade.
  Whatever the reason, some firms within a particular port will suffer a decline and go out of business. When that happens, their dock workers are allocated to other employers who neither need nor want them. The consequence is a serious additional cost for those other firms, making their operations uneconomical and forcing them out of business. The downward spiral is exacerbated as their unwanted labour is in turn dumped on to other firms, who find themselves severely overmanned and bearing all the higher operating costs and disadvantages that follow from that situation.
  That downward spiral has two further effects. First, the profits of the remaining firms will fall, so that they are unable to finance the costs of modernisation and of installing new equipment on the scale that they should. Secondly, as modern equipment usually requires fewer people to operate it, the overmanned firms have no case for investing in it. One of the major downside effects of the dock labour scheme is the extent to which it inhibits and damages investment in the scheme ports on the scale that would allow them to compete effectively.
  The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) referred to investment in certain scheme ports, but it is way below the level required to achieve competitive, cost-effective handling of cargo through those ports.
  Mr. Prescott: The hon. Gentleman is right, and he should give examples.
  Sir David Mitchell: One can clearly illustrate the downward spiral by examining the way in which scheme ports have lost trade to non-scheme ports. Earlier, one of my hon. Friends spoke of the way in which manufacturers avoid sending their goods through scheme ports because of all the damage that comes from doing that. Felixstowe's trade has increased 14 times over the past 20 years, but at the same time we have seen a decline in the volume of trade at scheme ports.
  Investment is the key to cost-effective movement of goods through our docks and ports. The abolition of the dock labour scheme will help to make more investment possible. I hope that the House will support the Bill, which will result in better-paid dockers and—speaking as the voice of the dock's customers—a better, more cost-effective service to manufacturers.
  7.47 pm
  Mr. Robert Parry: I am glad that I have caught your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and that I am able to pledge my full support for dock workers in Liverpool and throughout the United Kingdom. I speak on their behalf because I probably have more relatives employed on the docks than any other right hon. and hon. Member. More than 80 years ago my great-grandfather worked on the Liverpool docks, as did my two grandfathers and my father's brothers. Recently, my own brothers worked under the inhuman and disgraceful casual labour system.
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  My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross) spoke of the way that workers were hired in Dundee. The same was true of Liverpool dockers. They were treated like cattle, and were employed only if they bought the foreman or the ganger a pint of beer, or even because they were of the same religion. We never want to see such things happen again in the docks.
  The Secretary of State says that abolition of the scheme will not mean a return to casual labour. However, I believe that employers will jump at the opportunity to make bigger profits at the expense of dock workers. In business questions last week, I suggested to the Leader of the House that right hon. and hon. Members who serve as consultants to port employers should not be allowed to participate in debates on the Bill or to vote on it. I was not satisfied with the reply from the Leader of the House, and when my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) raised the same point with Mr. Speaker, he received a similar answer.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) said earlier, some employers are inclined to bring back casual labour. This is nothing but a deliberate ploy by the Government to provoke a dock strike. Thatcher dogmatism is showing its hand. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) put his finger neatly on the button last week when he said that the Government would find a strike very convenient in cutting imports. He also referred to the Government's failure to refer the scheme to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
  There has been no consultation between the port employers and the TGWU. The Government have been influenced by Conservative backwoodsmen—many of whom have never seen a dock in their lives—especially those in paid posts who will gain if the scheme is abolished. There is also an unholy rush to get the Bill on to the statute book, when more important Bills such as the Children Bill are awaiting consideration. The port of Liverpool employed 25,000 workers 30 or 40 years ago. Now it employs fewer than 2,000. That does not say much for the argument that jobs are for life, which the House should recognise as a myth.
  This Bill has been born out of party political considerations and expediency: action is being taken against dock workers in support of Tory dogma. I understand that Ron Todd, general secretary of the TGWU, is trying to open discussions with the port employers, but I shall support the Liverpool dockers whether or not they receive official backing for a strike. They believe and trust in us, and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) has already spelt out what they have gone through over the years. Like him I pledge my support to the dockers, not only in Liverpool, but throughout the United Kingdom. We will not agree to any system that would bring back casualisation and use dock workers as chattels in the hands of unscrupulous employers.
  I shall conclude my speech, Mr. Deputy Speaker—as I know that more than 40 hon. Members are trying to catch your eye—by saying that Opposition Members will give full support to the dock workers, and will oppose the Tory Government's deliberate attempt to provoke a strike that no one else wants and to put the clock back many years.
  7.53 pm
  Mr. Mike Woodcock: It was the economist Milton Friedman who said that there is no such thing as a free lunch. He meant that in any industry, whatever the cost, someone somewhere must pay for waste, inefficiency, restrictive practices and a failure to come to terms with economic reality. Until a few years ago there were quite a few free-lunchers in my constituency: managements that refused to come to terms with market forces and trade unions that clung to restrictive practices.
  The history of my constituency is intertwined with ports. Neston, on the Dee, was originally Nelson's dockyard; it later became the main port for Irish trade. Ellesmere Port, on the Manchester ship canal, was a great transit port between the canal boats of the Shropshire union canal and the ocean-going vessels on the ship canal. Now, however, the largest employers in my constituency are not the ports but Vauxhall Motors and Shell, which have important lessons for the docks industry and which also rely on that industry.
  The Vauxhall site in my constituency was purchased by General Motors as a future expansion site for Europe. It could have been one of the largest vehicle manufacturing plants in Europe; instead restrictive practices, militant trade unions and repeated strikes ensured that almost all the investment went to Germany. As late as 1983 the Vauxhall plant in my constituency lost 60 man days per employee through industrial action; in 1987 it lost only two. Those figures illustrate graphically the change in attitudes over the past few years. Vauxhall has come back from the brink; there is new investment and a sense of reality, although the empty acres remain as a lasting monument to the missed opportunities of the 1970s.
  Similarly, the Shell plant in my constituency was once the largest refinery in Europe. In the early 1980s, however, an independent survey showed that it was one of the most inefficient in terms of labour utilisation and working practices. It was overstaffed and full of restrictive practices; it was an unpleasant place to work; attitudes were counter-productive, and employees were not involved in decision-making. Many thought that the company owed them a living. Profit was a dirty word, and people felt that they had a right to a job without any commitment. It was yesterday's operation with yesterday's ideas and practices. Without a fundamental change in attitudes and values, the plant would have closed.
  I am pleased to say that that plant now has a secure future. The company has invested massively; jobs are secure, and pay has increased. Why has that happened? It has happened simply because people recognised that there was only one forward and that a massive change in attitudes was required. As a result, the refinery at Stanlow is now a monument to the success of the second industrial revolution.
  Stories like those of Vauxhall and Shell are commonplace, not only in my constituency but throughout the United Kingdom. But what about the docks industry? Today it is nowhere near as important to the local economy in my constituency. The silting of the River Dee has meant the closure of the port of Neston. The major part of the Ellesmere Port docks is now the national waterways museum: although a major tourist attraction, it is not a working port. Some docks remain: in particular, we have an efficient, modern container terminal and a
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  regular roll-on/roll-off ferry service to the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that the port would be much more efficient without the dock labour scheme.
  Many registered ports in this country are overstaffed and full of restrictive practices. They abound in counter-productive attitudes. They are unpleasant places to work, where some people think that they have a right to a job without commitment or that others owe them a living. Those are fundamentally the same problems and attitudes that characterised Shell and Vauxhall, and the national dock labour scheme has perpetuated them. It has stifled initiative, development and enterprise.
  Is it not ironic that the once great port of Liverpool, when it was registered in 1947, had a work force of 22,000? It now has a workforce of only 1,200, and no dock worker has been hired there for 16 years. There are dockers surplus to requirements and a shortage of work, and industrial disputes continue. By contrast, Felixstowe has seen prosperity. Wages are high: some workers are earning as much as £700 a week. Overtime is plentiful, and 2,000 people are employed. In the past two years the labour force has increased by 200. Last year the port handled 21 per cent. more cargo, and not a single day has been 'lost through industrial relations disputes since 1974. They are the sharp contrasts that highlight the capacity of the national dock labour scheme to stop progress and drive jobs away from registered scheme ports. Those attitudes and practices have not helped the nation, local economies or registered dock workers.
  When trade unions abuse the privileges that the law has granted to them, ultimately it is rank and file union members who suffer. To mix metaphors, all those free lunches eventually come home to roost. As John Harvey-Jones, the ex-chairman of ICI remarked:
  "the reality of the future is that the interests of trade unions, union members and management lie together."
  It is sad that entrenched attitudes have made the Bill necessary, but necessary it is. It is time for trade unions to realise the wisdom of John Harvey-Jones's words and it is time for Opposition Members to stop defending the indefensible. They do themselves no good whatsoever. They only show, yet again, that they are yesterday'smen with yesterday's ideas, yesterday's policies and yesterday's attitudes. The interests of dock managers and dock workers lie together. They lie in the abolition of this dreadful scheme.
  8 pm
  Mr. Harry Ewing: As one of yesterday's men, I am not delighted to follow one of tomorrow's casualties at the next general election.
  Mr. Woodcock: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Ewing: No.
  I am sure that John Harvey-Jones will not be pleased about having been quoted by a Conservative Member of Parliament in a debate of this nature. I know of no other industrialist in this country who has such a progressive outlook towards the trade union movement as John Harvey-Jones, whose reputation has not been enhanced by what was said about him by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Woodcock). I am sure that he would want me to defend him.
  Earlier I raised a point of order and expressed my anger about the way in which Conservative Members were

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  behaving. We were talking about people's jobs and the future of their families. In the few minutes that are available to me, I want to emphasise that point of order.
  I do not apologise for my personal characteristics. I do not find it possible to mourn for the dead of Liverpool from 3·30 to 5 o'clock and then from 5 o'clock to 10 o'clock to bay at the dockers of Liverpool. What happened this afternoon was absolutely disgusting. I have never witnessed such reprehensible behaviour as that of Conservative Back Benchers when the Opposition Front Bench spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) was speaking. They knew that he was dealing with the future of working people.
  I put that on record for a deliberate reason. Like most other hon. Members, I make available to local newspapers the comments that I make in the House. I want everybody —Conservative, Labour, nationalists, Democrats and those of no politics—in the Falkirk, East constituency to understand the contempt with which my dockers were treated by Conservative Members during the early part of the debate.
  The Secretary of State gave the game away. Part of the speech that he read and that he did not have time to change was written for him in the belief that today we should be at the start of a strike in the scheme ports.
  Mr. Fowler indicated dissent.
  Mr. Ewing: The Secretary of State can make faces, but the fact is that the Secretary of State wanted, and still wants, a strike by the dockers.
  Mr. Fowler: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Ewing: No.
  The Secretary of State wants a strike. When he spoke at a dinner last Friday evening, the Chancellor of the Exchequer challenged the dockers to go on strike. That is why I am absolutely delighted that Ron Todd and John Connolly have managed, by their wise counsel, to persuade the dockers not to strike. If working people go on strike, they must do so on the grounds they choose, not on grounds chosen for them by the Prime Minister or the Secretary of State for Employment. They must go on strike at a time that they choose, not at a time chosen for them by the Prime Minister or the Secretary of State for Employment. Furthermore, they must go on strike when they have a reasonable chance of success, not when working people and their families will be trampled on, as they were effectively trampled on by the conduct of Conservative Back Benchers during the early part of the debate.
  There are three elements to be considered in the ports industry, one of which has not yet been mentioned. The three elements are the port employers, the dockers and the shipowners. The shipowner plays an important part.
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Ewing: The hon. Gentleman has made a number of interventions. He should show some respect for dockers, if not for me, and be quiet for a minute.
  The shipowner plays an important part in the development of the docks industry. Reference has already been made to the Scottish ports. Scottish shipowners are
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  deliberately choosing not to bring their vessels to any Scottish port, be it a scheme port or a non-scheme port. They are paying the road haulage costs for goods to go from wherever they are manufactured in Scotland to Felixstowe, usually, because, from a shipowner's point of view, it is cheaper to steam his vessel into Felixstowe—it has nothing to do with the dockers who work at Felixstowe or at Grangemouth but everything to do with steaming costs—than to steam his vessel into Grangemouth. It is cheaper for him to pay the road haulage costs to take the goods to the vessel rather than to bring the vessel to the goods.
  The effect that that has had on the Scottish economy ought not to be under-estimated. Until about eight years ago, 75 per cent. of all the goods manufactured in Scotland for export went out through Scottish ports. Nothing has changed, except that only 23 per cent. of the goods manufactured in Scotland for export now go through Scottish ports. The rest go down to Felixstowe because of the grid system, or the cross-subsidisation that is employed by shipowners. The Government will do nothing about it. The shipowners will eventually close the Scottish ports. The national dock labour scheme will not close them. That is why the Bill is such nonsense. It does not even begin to tackle the root of the problem.
  After the shipowners have closed the Scottish ports, the cross-subsidisation will be withdrawn and the cost of taking goods from Scotland for export will be enormously increased. That is why one of our main industries, the Scotch whisky industry, is already taking steps to ensure that it does not fall into the trap that is being set for it by the shipowners. The industry is making arrangements—all credit to it—to construct a terminal so that it can export Scotch whisky from Scottish ports. As soon as Scottish shipowners succeed in closing the Scottish ports, the grid system will come to an end and cross-subsidisation will be withdrawn. There will then be an enormous increase in the cost of our exports.
  The Minister tells us that the Bill is crucial. It is so crucial that it did not form part of the Gracious Speech or of the Conservative party's 1987 election manifesto, only two years ago. It did not need to be introduced at this time without discussion. The Minister does not want discussions. He does not want the port employers and the union to get together, let alone to speak to the unions. The Bill is about confrontation. That is what the Government have wanted since the middle of last week when the announcement was made.
  The Bill has nothing to do with 1992 and the free market. If that is what it is supposed to be, it shows a complete failure to understand the nature of that free market. The Minister talks about the need to make our ports competitive for 1992. Why, then, did the Minister for Roads and Traffic come to the Dispatch Box some months ago and boast that this country has not taken a penny piece from the EEC regional development fund for transport to prepare our transport system for 1992? The French Government have taken 48 per cent. of all their rail network investment from the EEC regional fund to construct a brand new rail network to get their goods to their ports in 1992.
  The Bill has nothing to do with 1992 and everything to do with destroying the rights of the workers. I shall not go into the Lobby this evening happily, but with great regret

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  that it is necessary to oppose a measure designed to take dockers and the industry in which they work back to the Victorian age.
  8.10 pm
  Mr. Roger Moate: I am glad to have the opportunity to correct the record so eloquently distorted by the hon. Member for Falkirk, East (Mr. Ewing). I remind the House that the Labour party, which is supposed to care so passionately about the Bill, is represented in the Chamber by only about a dozen supporters. A few more were present earlier, but only a handful. That exposes the myth that the Labour party is doing its utmost to support the dockers outside. The hon. Member for Falkirk, East is distorting history and doing himself a disservice by suggesting that the bad behaviour has been on the Conservative Benches given that earlier there was a tremendous amount of raucous noise from the Opposition, who sought to howl down my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Mr. Speaker himself suggested that the noise was coming from both sides of the House.
  I certainly have no interest—I am not trying to be pious —in embarrassing the Labour party; it is sufficiently embarrassed already on this issue. We have no interest in trying to make Labour Front Bench spokesmen look even more uncertain about their position. We have no interest, either, in embarrassing the leadership of the TGWU. We certainly have no interest in a strike. That is the first and significant point that I shall make.
  We have heard a great deal of nonsense from the Opposition. Let us be sensible for a moment. A strike will do a lot of damage to the docks. It will do a great deal of damage to the industry that we seek to support, to the customers, and the companies and to employees throughout the dock industry. It would certainly damage the union. It will do much damage to the Opposition, who will be in a difficult position, and to the Government. Strikes damage the country, Governments and everyone else. We have no interest in a strike and there is no need or justification for a strike.
  I share the views expressed by many Opposition Members and endorsed by Conservative Members that nobody in his right mind wants a return to the sort of casual labour system that, as we all recognise even if we did not personally experience it, was an utterly intolerable feature of the immediate post-war period. The scheme was introduced as a means of disposing of casual labour. Opposition and Conservative Members alike understand that the world has changed dramatically. It is a totally different world—highly capital-intensive with totally new techniques—and employers need a highly skilled professional labour force. There is no way that one could run the business on a casual basis. A representative of the National Association of Port Employers said:
  "Over the coming weeks and months, I have no doubt that employers in each of the ports will he sitting down with their employees to discuss working arrangements which will enable them to realise the full potential of their port following removal of the Scheme and the extra competitiveness it will give the industry."
  The same press release says:
  "We will not be returning to systems of casual employment, nor any variant of it."
  When the scheme goes, and before any legislation is passed, there should be negotiations between different employers and their work forces on new contracts of
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  employment. That is the constructive way forward. The House has to make a decision about the abolition of the dock labour scheme. That is our decision. It has been made absolutely clear that the new contracts of employment will mean a guarantee that there will be no return to casual employment, and it is up to the employers and employees to negotiate that position.
  Opposition Members ask why we are abolishing the scheme in this way. One might say that it has been done rapidly but, equally, many Conservative Members would say that it is 10 years too late. From the debate so far, it has been painfully clear that we are faced with a simple proposition. The unions have made it clear that they are not prepared to negotiate about the abolition of the scheme. The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) has made it clear that the unions are not prepared to negotiate about the abolition of the scheme independently of discussions about the future of the port industry. Let us not be naive about it: Opposition Members know, and we know, that the simple issue is the abolition of the scheme itself. There is little room to negotiate on that. There may be plenty of room for negotiations between employers and employees about different contracts of employment; so be it. We have a very simple proposition with very little scope for negotiating about the scheme itself, given the attitude of the trade unions.
  Is it better to make an announcement and take six months of negotiation about something that is clearly understood by hon. Members and have six months of dispute, with threats hanging over the industry? Is it not better to deal with the matter quickly and cleanly and thus get both sides facing the key issue? The position that the Government have adoped is helpful to the industry, to the unions and to everybody. It means that a clear-cut decision will be taken rapidly. Is it not easier for Opposition Members to make up their minds about their position on a short time scale, rather than in a long drawn-out process of torture over many months ahead?
  The hon. Member for Falkirk, East referred to the dock workers of Liverpool. Those of us in the south of England watched the port of London being destroyed by the dock labour scheme. The same was also largely true of Liverpool. The dock labour scheme has done more to destroy jobs in Liverpool, London and other ports than almost any other single factor. Those of us who are concerned about having a thriving port industry, preserving jobs, encouraging new investment and recapturing some of the trade lost to Europe say that we should end the scheme. We are the ones who are concerned about protecting jobs.
  The Government's method of handling the Bill rapidly is for the good of the industry and is not provocative. We have no interest whatever in a dock strike, and I hope passionately that it will be avoided. The abolition of the scheme will generate a great deal more in investment and will be good for dockers' jobs in the futúre.
  Finally, I have a story that might please the Opposition and might seem to make the Government's position more difficult. I represent a constituency which contains an immensely successful scheme port that has grown from virtually nothing 25 years ago to become Britain's sixth largest port in non-oil tonnage. It is a success story and I pay tribute to the management and to the registered dock workers who have helped achieve it. It was virtually a green field site and it is now the Medway port authority,

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  operating from the port of Sheerness. But its growth could have been greater and will be dramatically greater when the restrictions are removed. The port is in the south-east of England, it has superb deep water, it is strategically located for the continent and has many investment attractions.
  When the restrictions are removed, there will be increased incentives for new employers to take on much of the work that has not yet moved to the dockside, including much value-added work that could be done there instead of further inland. That has been deterred by the scheme and I have no hesitation whatsoever in forecasting that, in two or three years' time, the Labour party will have forgotten all about the scheme. The dockers concerned will be more confident, more highly paid and more optimistic about the future. The ending of the dock labour scheme is long overdue and its removal will add greatly to the prospect of extra industrial investment on the waterfront.
  The Labour party proclaims that it is fighting for 9,400 registered dock workers, although it is not fighting very strongly. It is trying to retain privileges that are not enjoyed by other people working in the docks. There must be about 100,000 people directly and indirectly empoloyed in the docks in this country. Why is the Labour party fighting for the privileges of the few and neglecting the injustices that are thereby done to the many?
  8.21 pm
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: I am not a natural friend of monopolies of any kind, but I believe that the Government are absolutely wrong to abolish in such a fashion a scheme that has served the industry well. First, it has allowed a managed rundown of the labour force in the docks and an essential transition to change in which the workers have co-operated because they have had confidence given by the scheme. Secondly, the scheme has provided good industrial relations in the docks. The days lost in strike per employee in the docks in 1987 were half the average for workers in transport generally. The third and most important effect of the scheme has been to put working people on a more equal basis with capital. That is why the Government do not like it. It has given the workers a say in their jobs and in the way in which the industry is run, and has placed emphasis on training, which is vital in the docks and which the management wish to cut back because they do not want to spend money. For all those reasons, it has been a good scheme and it is particularly wrong to abolish it in such a fashion, without consultation and at great speed.
  The arguments adduced against the scheme are largely irrelevant. The scheme is not the major problem in the docks. There are two major problems affecting docks in Britain. First, the Government do not have a policy for docks but have allowed and encouraged a proliferation of small cowboy ports around the country, many of them on the Humber. That is in total contrast to what has happened on the continent, where there has been a concentration on big, well-invested and highly capitalised ports, with a skilled and secure labour force often in shemes like this, which has led to a concentration of industry in ports such as Rotterdam, Le Havre, and
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  Hamburg. We cannot equal that because we are developing a small, cut-price, cowboy industry, scattered in smaller ports around the country.
  Secondly, the Government have not provided the support and backing to finance the ports and allow them to compete effectively. It is all very well to talk about abolishing the dock labour scheme and to make it the bogeyman, but the Government do not support the ports by financing the light dues, the pilotage, the Customs and the subsidies which are provided on the continent and which are particularly important to the fishing industry. I have visited continental ports and observed their fishing industry. Our fishing industry, particularly in Grimsby, has to pay quite heavy charges to ABP. On the continent, the ports are provided, almost in the way the roads are provided, as a form of municipal service or Government finance for the industry. Continental ports receive hidden financial support, so our fishing industry cannot compete with them, whatever the costs of landing the fish.
  The arguments for abolishing the scheme do not add up. They have been totally distorted to focus everything on one hate object—the dock labour scheme. That is sanctioning an entirely unacceptable approach. The arguments in the White Paper are intellectually shoddy. It is monstrous that the White Paper uses arguments from a piece of research financed by the employers in the docks, claiming that abolition would create 50,000 jobs. That paper was specifically prepared for the employers and suits their interests, but it was presented almost as scientific evidence in the White Paper. That is a measure of the intellectual shoddiness of the Government's argument.
  More important is the Government's total failure to consult. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) to argue that the TGWU said that it would not consult on the abolition of the scheme, but in negotiations one cannot expect one side to give away its case before entering the negotiations. The union will negotiate only on the ports and docks in general, and the Government themselves have refused to have any consultation on the wider issues. It is ridiculous for the Government then to say that Parliament must take precedence over negotiations. The Government are using Parliament as a legislative rubber stamp and the baying Conservative Back Benchers will troop through the Lobby in favour of an argument that they do not understand and vote for the Bill and then claim that it is not a matter for consultation. That is elective dictatorship in action—an elective dictatorship based on 42 per cent. of the vote.
  There is a total contrast between the way, in which the Government are operating with regard to the dock labour scheme and what they are doing about the national barrister labour scheme, which will provide riches for life for a small bunch of financially motivated men and woman —5,000 all told. As soon as a posse of geriatric militants in a fit of senile dementia threaten to throw themselves under the wheels of the stagecoach as it drives to the jubilee next month, the Government immediately announce that they will extend the consultation period and trail the fact that there will be a softening of Government proposals.
  The only logical explanation for that contrast is that the Government want a dock strike to conceal the disastrous mess that has already been made in the trade figures and the further rise in interest rates that is yet to come. It is like a repeat of "Beyond the Fringe"—"At this stage in the

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  class war, we need a futile gesture—let us provoke a strike and make the dockers the bogeyman." The Government want a hate object.
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Mitchell: No, I shall not give way.
  The Government are in such a mess that they would like the trade figures obscured by a dock strike, but I hope that there will not be one. The dockers' leaders have acted very wisely in taking a proper legal approach on consultation and negotiation with the employers. I hope that the employers will negotiate seriously. They have a responsibility to negotiate on terms and conditions, the nature of the employment, the numbers and the manning levels when the scheme has ended. That is why the Government should delay the Bill until those consultations are concluded.
  Finally, I wish to deal briefly with fish landings. There has been a particular problem in Grimsby, where there has been a decline in the fishing industry, not due to the lumpers being obliged to be dock workers, but to the shift of the fishing industry to Scotland and the decline in catches. There are 44 Jumpers who are registered dock workers landing fish in Grimsby. There are not sufficient workers for the peaks of landings. There are too few for continuity and for the troughs of landings. That has been made worse by the Grimsby Fishing Vessel Owners, who have detoured landings elsewhere to other ports and taken legal action against the dock labour scheme to give themselves more latitude.
  Those factors are understandable in some respects, but they have hardened the resistance of the Jumpers in maintaining their conditions and not moving to productivity pay. They want a regular guaranteed income because the owners are detouring landings elsewhere and cutting the amount of fish that is handled by the lumpers. It is an inevitable human reaction. The Jumpers have now voted, as the Government have cited, to get out of the scheme because they want to earn more by being outside the scheme. What the Government do not tell us—this presupposes the bankruptcy of the landing company—is that they want severance pay. It is thus possible as a tactical manoeuvre for the landing company, which is trading at a loss, to go bankrupt after the scheme has been abolished and the lumpers will not be reallocated to the register but will qualify for redundancy pay under the legislation.
  That raises the question how they will be replaced. This is where the employers' argument that there will be no casual labour falls down. The Grimsby Fishing Vessel Owners have long wanted casual labour on a daily basis, and the dockers have allowed supplementary labour on a weekly basis. In Grimsby we really need a hard core of professional landers, who are highly paid and hard working, with some casual supplement. The owners seem to want an entirely casual landing force. I should like a guarantee that there will be no casual labour—the Government have echoed this today—to be extended to fish landing. Does it or does it not cover fish landing? That is what we want to know in Grimsby.
  This situation could arise only in a class-divided country such as this where each side sees the other as its main problem. The employers want to cut expenditure on training and wages and cut down the labour force in the
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  docks. That is no triumph for the industry—because the employers are seeking to triumph over their own workers. As a result—and the same will now happen in the docks —the 1980s have been the decade when management, employers and owners have triumphed over their own workers and lost out to the Germans and the Japanese.
  8.31 pm
  Mr. Michael Irvine: The hon. Member for Falkirk, East (Mr. Ewing) spent much of his speech bemoaning the fact that goods are being taken to the south of England and shipped out to the continent through Felixstowe. I can tell the hon. Gentleman quite a bit about Felixstowe. It is a massive port just down the river from my constituency. Indeed a quarter of its work force lives in Ipswich. Its growth has been spectacular by any standards. A mere 30 years ago it was a totally insignificant port. By 1970, it was handling 2·25 million tonnes of cargo a year, by 1985 it was handling more than 10 million tonnes, and last year it handled 15,420,000 tonnes.
  Geography and its proximity to Europe has played a part in its success, but it is not just that. I should like the hon. Member for Falkirk, East to consider why, when goods are taken south from Scotland, they go not to Tilbury, Southampton or other ports which have equal geographical advantages, but to Felixstowe. The key to the port's success has been that it has not been encumbered by the burden of restrictions, higher costs and poor industrial relations of the ports operating the national dock labour scheme.
  I have a particular constituency interest in the Bill because not merely does a quarter of the work force of Felixstowe—the major non-scheme port—live in my constituency, but at the heart of my constituency is the port of Ipswich, which is a major container port in its own right and a scheme port. Ipswich provides a very interesting comparison. It too has expanded and prospered, although not to the same extent as Felixstowe.
  It is not just geography that has helped Ipswich but the proximity of Felixstowe itself. The Ipswich dockers know that if the speed with which they turn round their ships compares too unfavourably with the dockers at Felixstowe, they will lose trade to Felixstowe. That has spurred Ipswich, under the able leadership of its chief executive John Evelyn, to become one of the most efficient and successful of the scheme ports.
  The point—it is similar to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate)—is that, although Ipswich has been relatively successful, it has prospered despite the dock labour scheme. Absurdities such as ghosting and bobbing, referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Boothferry (Mr. Davis), have held it back and prevented it from being more successful still. Other scheme ports with less favourable geographical positions and industrial relations, and without the competitive stimulus of the proximity of a highly successful non-scheme port, have suffered disastrous declines.
  The damage done by the dock labour scheme has been not merely to the scheme ports and their work forces but to the areas around them. It has held back the growth of ancillary services and industries which would have been drawn to a successful and expanding port. All too often

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  the scheme has produced an industrial wasteland around ports and compounded the economic difficulties of the towns and cities in which scheme ports are situated.
  The damage goes deeper still because, through its inefficiencies and extra costs, the scheme imposes a levy on the consumer. It forces up the price of everything that comes through scheme ports, from food to cars.
  Perhaps still more important is the damaging effect the scheme has upon our export trade. British exporters are hit twice. When they import raw materials, components or other intermediate goods through the scheme ports, they have to pay extra. When they import capital equipment through the scheme ports to improve their productivity, that pushes up costs too. They are hit yet again when they export through scheme ports. The scheme acts as a levy upon our consumers and a double levy upon our exporting firms.
  The termination of the dock labour scheme will bring benefits all round. It will reduce costs, help our exporters and regenerate decayed and depressed areas around many of our scheme ports. Above all, it will enable managers to manage effectively.
  The non-scheme ports have, in many respects, the best record of security of employment for their employees. For example, I give the employment record of the port of Felixstowe. In 1959 it employed just over 200 workers; by 1970 it employed 686; by 1980 it employed 1,340 and this year it is employing 2,030. That does not take full account of the extra employment and prosperity which the success of that port has generated around it.
  The abolition of the dock labour scheme will bring benefits to consumers, exporters and the country as a whole and, in the long run, to the people who work in the ports.
  8.38 pm
  Mr. Jim Sillars: I listened with fascination to the Secretary of State. He told us the scheme was an abominable practice and something that everyone concerned with efficiency and the good of the country abhorred. If that is what he thinks—it is not what I think—why have the Government waited 10 years to act and why are they acting now? Why are we getting precipitate action now?
  Two or three weeks ago, it was evident that, if the Government took precipitate action, there would be a fairly strong reaction from the dockers, given their history and their anxiety about casualisation. There was bound to be a risk of someone in the Transport and General Workers Union saying, "We shall have to strike against this measure." In those circumstances, it would have been sensible to include these propositions in a Green Paper to forewarn people of the Government's thinking and to engage in negotiations.
  The argument advanced by the Secretary of State that he cannot negotiate with the union because it has taken a hard line until now is nonsense. Anyone who has been a Minister in the Department of Employment, given its knowledge and history, knows that it is perfectly reasonable to take a hard line before negotiating. The Government could have said that they intended to abolish the scheme and then entered into negotiations.
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  Dock workers in my constituency are extremely bitter about what is happening to them and their colleagues throughout the United Kingdom. They feel that they are being set up by the Government. They are extremely bitter about the accusations of inefficiency and of being a Luddite group who must be removed to advance the greater good of the community. Ministers and Tory Back Benchers run around the country preaching the success of the British economy. According to the White Paper, 60 per cent. of national income is accounted for by trade and 40 of the 75 ports that deal with that trade are scheme ports. It does not appear that the scheme has been a major impediment to the Government's successful economic policy.
  Dockers in my constituency believe that the problem is that the flow of trade has been much too effficient. In their view, which I share, the true reason for precipitate action is that the Government are running into deep economic trouble. The fundamentals of the economy in 1989 are not terribly different from 1979. The inflation problem cannot be tackled adequately; the balance of payments deficit is running at historically high levels; the level of the pound and its management remain beyond the ability of the Chancellor and the Treasury; and unemployment remains a serious factor. Employers and economists from brokers in the City of London are saying that unemployment must rise to maintain balanced management of the economy.
  It was noticeable this afternoon, when the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) suggested negotiations, that the Secretary of State took refuge in the fiction that the Bill is before Parliament. The hard fact of life is that the House is controlled by the Tory Government. There would be no problem if they wanted to withdraw or suspend the Bill and negotiate with the Transport and General Workers Union.
  Like other hon. Members, I believe that the reason for the precipitate action is that the Government want a strike. The hon. Member for Falkirk, East (Mr. Ewing) said that the Secretary of State does not want a strike. That may be true, but the lady in Downing street wants a strike. Last Tuesday, I listened carefully when the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) asked her about negotiations. In a dull Question Time, that was the moment when she came to light and became agitated and excited. She made it plain that negotiations were not on. She was for abolition and provocative action. It was evident from her body language and vibes that she wants a strike.
  On 14 March 1989, the Government were saying, in a reply given by an Under-Secretary of State, that there was no intention of abolishing the scheme. On 20 March, a Green Paper was produced, "Removing barriers to Employment" concerned with "Barriers to Economic Efficiency", which dealt with 2·6 million people who are in the closed shop. If 2·6 million people in the closed shop are a substantial barrier to efficiency and industry, and the Government thought it sensible to act, but also to have a Green Paper and consultation, why are they jumping in with this Bill, which affects 9,000 dockers? There is no comparison between 9,000 and 2·6 million people, given that the Government argue that they are concerned mainly with economic efficiency. The Government are engineering what they hoped would be a strike and are playing political football with the lives of ordinary working men and their families for the sake of trying to wrong-foot the trade union movement and the Labour party.

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  The tragedy of the Government may seem manifest to many people today. There is substantial poverty and deprivation and a widening gap between rich and poor. Their final legacy will bring a much more sorrowful harvest, especially for business interests that have supported the Government in their advocacy and promotion of the ideology that market forces are all that matter. Currently, there is no doubt that casualisation is widespread. Part-time work is widespread, and scandalously low wages are being paid to young people, who are being abused. If there is a plentiful supply of labour and human beings are treated like any other commodity, under the market forces philosophy they can be exploited and abused.
  That is no way to approach the problems of the 21st century. Western Europe is moving away from the metal-bashing era and entering one in which we shall have to use our minds and intellects to produce the services and products that will earn our living in the world. How we treat human beings—as living flesh and blood with ideas and concepts of fairness and justice—and whether we are prepared to enter a period of co-operation between people who employ and those who work will be determining factors in whether any part of the United Kingdom succeeds in the 21st century.
  The Government are laying down the economic law of Milton Friedman and Professor Hayek; market forces alone matter. The Government must beware of the demographic factors of the next 20 or 30 years. If the Government's lesson to the working people is that they shall live by market forces, I am sorry, but so be it. As demographic factors change, the boot will move from the employers' foot to the workers' foot. There will be a shortage of young and skilled workers and the Government will beg middle-aged workers whom they have thrown on the scrap heap to return to work. If the Government treat us the way that they have for the past 10 years, and the way in which they want to for the next 10 years, and today they get their Bill, and they will insist on having their way in the market place at our expense. This is their day, but our day is coming.
  8.48 pm
  Mr. Tim Janman: This is a sad occasion. Conservative Members have had to listen to much pious claptrap and humbug from Labour Members and "Socialist national" party Members.
  My constituency has the largest port in the United Kingdom—Tilbury—which has 1,054 registered dockers, probably the largest number of registered dockers in a single constituency. At the moment, those thousand men and their families are reflecting on the watershed which their industry is about to reach. They are reflecting on whether they may be asked to strike and, I hope, on whether they will take strike action which will undermine their long-term job security, or whether they will ignore the rantings of their Marxist shop stewards and the nonsensical advice given by Opposition Members, and go to work.
  Those men may be confused. Certainly those who vote to strike will he confused about whether the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) and his party will support them. If a substantial number of dockers in Tilbury vote against strike action, wish to carry on working, and come to me as their local Member of
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  Parliament, they will have my support. If need be, I shall lead them across the picket line at Tilbury to ensure their right to work and to protect their jobs and the viability of Tilbury in the long term.
  It has been mentioned in the debate that there has been investment in the docks, irrespective of the scheme. Yes, £8 million has been invested in the port of London but that is nowhere near enough and nowhere near as much as would have been invested if so much money had not been wasted on the overmanning in the ports, causing them to become uncompetitive. Tilbury suffers greatly from that—and it has totally undermined its position and its ability to compete against ports such as Rotterdam. That is why many customers have left and gone to Rotterdam.
  The dock labour scheme hangs like a black cloud over Tilbury, where unemployment is double that of the rest of my constituency. The scheme completely prevents the port from becoming a viable job creation area.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) mentioned earlier, process work has been driven away. Instead of timber, which comes through the port of Tilbury, being turned into window frames and chairs at the dock, it is transported across the country to be turned into those products elsewhere because manufacturers do not want registered dock workers doing the work.
  There was a recent specific example of a company that wished to locate a fresh fruit cold store at the port of Tilbury. The company wanted its own vessels to come in, the product to be unloaded and put in a cold store in Tilbury docks. However, the unions said there was no way that this would be allowed, unless the registered dock workers could then load the fresh fruit on to lorries to transport it to the company's customers in the United Kingdom. That job creation opportunity in Tilbury was lost and there are scores of other examples of that happening in the past.
  Tonight we have also heard about jobs being lost in locations adjacent to the port. That is happening in the development area of Thurrock park, immediately adjacent to the docks. In a letter to me of 16 February, Graham Hall, property director of Port of London Properties, said under a sub-heading "Industrial Development":
  "One of the major difficulties that we have encountered is a resistance from many industrialists due to the continued presecence of the Dock Labour Scheme. There is an undoubted reluctance to establish premises close to the Port of Tilbury due to fears that work might be claimed by `registered' dock workers. This factor can inhibit the range of uses that can be accommodated at Thurrock Park and also affect resale value of premises once built."
  At Tilbury, ghosting and bobbing has been formalised. The management have to send home as many as 100 men a day because there is no work for them in the port. It is absolutely ridiculous for Opposition Members to suppose that any business can function or be efficient and profitable in such an environment. Not only are as many as 100 men sent home every day by the management, but many others spend the day carrying out activities, merely because they are present at the premises. Instead of the many sheds in the traditional cargo areas being swept once a week, they are swept endlessly every day. One can imagine how debilitating and demoralising that must be for the workers in that port.
  Why do supporters of the trade union movement and the Socialist party, and members of the Socialist party support a mechanism and scheme which is completely elitist? No other working man or woman in the country

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  has a job for life. Nor would they want such a scheme if they understood the ramifications of it and the effect that it has had on employment levels in the dock industry.
  The Labour party will support strike action against the employers if there is a strike in the docks, but there is no professional party hack labour scheme being run at Labour party headquarters. Redundancy notices are not unknown at Walworth road. There are no jobs for life in the Labour party's headquarters, yet the party expects employers in the dock industry to run a jobs-for-life scheme. It is typical for the Labour party to be hypocritical and expect employers to employ under a scheme which they would never wish to prevail over themselves at Walworth road.
  Labour party Members are hypocritical in presenting one face to the general public—saying that they would not restore the scheme if they formed another Government —while, to their paymasters in the trade union movement, they say that they will support strike action to retain the very scheme that they will not restore. The Labour party wants strike action, and wants to undermine the competitiveness of British ports and, therefore, the performance of the British economy. If a strike becomes a likely possibility, the Labour party and not the Conservative party will have fuelled the dispute.
  The slogan of the new revisionist Labour party is "Meet the Challenge, Make the Change". The challenge here is whether, after repeated attempts to negotiate it away, the Government should end this absurd, outdated scheme and create positive change in the ports. The obvious answer is yes. However, as ever, the Opposition, in their normal cretinous and spineless way, shy away from supporting what is right.
  The scheme is bad for Tilbury and, therefore, for Thurrock. It is bad for British ports and, therefore, for the British economy. It is bad for Great Britain and its abolition cannot come soon enough. Therefore, I shall vote with the Government tonight on behalf of my 1,000-plus registered dock workers.
  8.58 pm
  Mr. Ron Leighton: I cannot think of a worse way to conduct industrial relations than this Bill, which is a textbook example of how not to act if the Government want harmony and industrial peace. However, do they? My only explanation for their action is that they are thirsting for, and intent on provoking, a strike, in order that the union's funds will be sequestrated by the courts.
  On any other matter there would have been extensive consultations and a Green Paper. However, we were faced with a brutal announcement and a simultaneous White Paper, with the First Reading of the Bill the next day and an immediate Second Reading. Why has there been such indecent haste and why such a stampede? What is the emergency? After all, we are dealing with men's livelihoods and a vital industry. The men are not enemy aliens but our own people, and citizens who have given a lifetime of service to their industry. What a difference between the way they have been treated and the way in which the lawyers and judges have been treated.
  Do the Government really want to celebrate the centenery of the great dock strike of 1889 by provoking
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  another? I should have thought that Conservatives would have a sense of history. In that year, the dockers, without a union, worked and lived in pitiable conditions which almost defy description. They struck for 6d an hour—what John Burns called the
  "full round orb of the docker's tanner"
  and for 8d an hour overtime, and for a minimum of four hours a call, to give them 2s with which to feed, clothe and house their families. The strike lasted from 14 August to 18 September, and, with great public support, the dockers won their demands and formed their union.
  This was four generations ago. Before Conservative Members snigger, they should remember that these memories remain strong in the docks communities. Until modern times, dock workers still had to endure and suffer the casual system under which men were hired and fired by the day by corrupt gangmasters who picked and chose the men. The men were treated without dignity in degrading circumstances, and fought each other like animals for work. All this is vividly remembered in the dock communities.
  With the second world war came some enlightenment. The men were needed and their leader was Ernest Bevin, then known as the dockers' KC. He was brought into the war Cabinet by Winston Churchill as Minister of Labour and National Service. After the war, in the new Britain that our people had fought for, things were to be different. In 1946 and 1966, by Acts of statesmanship, progress and civilisation, the dock labour scheme was brought in to deal with the evil of casualisation and to introduce basic human rights at work. Since then, it has served us well.
  Forty years after the introduction of the legislation, there is no reason why it should not be examined again, but it should be reviewed by negotiation, not diktat. Negotiations were offered tonight, but the offer was durned down.
  I want to discuss some of the myths and stories that are being put about—first, the story that the dock labour scheme is bringing the ports to their knees. The largest employer is Associated British Ports. It made profits of £38 million in 1987, an increase of 46 per cent. on the previous year. In the first half of 1988 its profits increased by a further 59 per cent. The Mersey Docks and Harbour Company's profits increased by 80 per cent. in 1987 over those of 1986. I see no great disaster there.
  We have already heard about the cost burdens borne by British, compared with continental, ports. Other European countries have similar schemes, not a free-for-all. They also have job security arrangements, so this cannot be the reason for the disparity. Continental ports enjoy advantages because they are directly linked to the continent's transport infrastructure and they receive large subsidies from national and regional Governments. As we have heard, British shippers have to pay for lighthouse dues, pilotage and customer services, which are all onerous burdens. On the continent, these services are entirely free. We also have to pay for the costs of dredging and so on, unlike on the continent.
  Another story put around is that there is a great surplus of labour. In 1987, of the 10,274 registered dock workers, an average of 8,717 were available for work on any day, and 8,009 were required on average. So the surplus runs in hundreds for the entire country, and the number has been reduced with every passing year.
  The facts show that this is a pretended problem. There is no such thing as lifetime employment—40,000 jobs have

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  been lost. When the Select Committee visited Japan, we wanted to discover why the workers there were so co-operative when the employers introduced new technology. I was told that the secret was that Japanese companies offered lifetime employment. I said that I did not think that that idea would go down very well in the United Kingdom, but the diplomat who was with me told me that many people at home had lifetime employment—he had it, the civil service had it, the military had it and the judges had it. But the dock labour scheme does not give lifetime employment.
  Industrial relations are important in this debate. In 1987, 0·64 days per person were lost through industrial disputes—just over half a day per person per year, which is better than many other industries. That means that the scheme has proved its worth; it is a price worth paying for good industrial relations.
  The scheme has also facilitated a huge increase in productivity. The tonnage handled per person trebled between 1973 and 1987, and increased by 50 per cent. between 1983 and 1987 alone. Job security enlists the co-operation of the work force and leads to a huge increase in productivity.
  We hear stories of excessive wages. In 1987, the average rate of pay for registered dock workers was £6·88 an hour, including overtime, bonuses and shift pay. The average hourly rate of pay for full-time males in Britain is £5·33, which is not an awful lot different. The scheme has brought job stability which, in turn, has brought industrial peace and huge increases in productivity. How much better all this is than what preceded it in the awful days when men were hired and fired by the day.
  The Government should take this squalid Bill away and end their paranoid hatred of the trade unions. It is distasteful to see the juvenile ideologues on the Conservative Benches with their hatred of British trade unions. Like every other western European country, we should work in partnership with the trade unions and stop provoking industrial strife and confrontation. We should sit down now and negotiate a review of the dock labour scheme. A strike would be a deliberately engineered self-inflicted wound. If it happens, the fault will lie entirely with the Government.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Mr. Arnold.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: We very much support—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Sorry, I call the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott).
  9.8 pm
  Mr. John Prescott: The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) has done enough damage.
  This debate has reflected the serious division of opinion between the two sides of the House. I declare an interest as a seaman of 10 years experience—albeit serving gin and tonic as one or two hon. Members have pointed out. In the course of that experience, I visited almost all the major scheme and non-scheme ports, which gave me some understanding of the difficulties in the 1960s and 1970s and of the seeds of the problems in the industry, which go back a very long way. Suspicion lies at the heart of the difficulties—the problem of whether employers or the Government can be believed.
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  There are some areas of agreement. We agree that this is an important industry—the White Paper spells that out. Scheme and non-scheme ports make a major contribution to our balance of trade, balance of payments, exports and imports. All that is highlighted in the White Paper. It also highlights the trade switch that has taken place in the economy. Hon. Members who talked about Manchester and other ports did not take into account the major change away from the west coast in favour of the east coast. Technology has played its part and has contributed to the loss of trade in Manchester. The canal was not wide enough to take the new ships, and there was a move away from trade with Canada and America to trade with Europe.
  We also recognise that our private and public ports are major public utilities. One of the first debates that I heard in the House was in 1971 on the Mersey docks and harbour board about which some of my hon. Friends spoke today and which was allowed to go bankrupt. The Government reconsidered their position and realised that the country needs major ports, scheme and non-scheme. I will deal with the subject of the Mersey docks and harbour board later because it set the scene for the whole approach and shows the difference in attitudes.
  There has been a major problem in equating the capacity of our ports to the decline in trade. We have twice the capacity that is needed. How do we adjust the capacity to fit the trade? We all agree that it is out of balance and the argument is about cost differences. We have to go back some time to find the more contentious issues. It is said that everyone is against decasualisation, and that may be the case—if anything has died in the debate, it is the argument that somehow the scheme offered jobs for life. There have been many reductions in the labour force, which is now down to about 9,000.
  Decasualisation came about because of inquiries and regulations and a desire for more efficient utilisation of labour. The Secretary of State for Transport should look at all the inquiries. Dozens of them were set up by Tory Governments to look at the nature and operation of the port industry and of the scheme. There were six inquiries in the 1950s. There was the major Rochdale report and the Devlin report in the 1960s. There was the Jones-Aldington report and the report by the National Ports Council which reported in the 1970s. They all agreed that decasualisation should be ended within the maintenance of a national dock labour scheme. They said that everything should be within the framework of a ports strategy and that we should have a national ports authority.
  The analysis has been clear from the 1950s and it has been said that the scheme should be retained. There has been a great deal of criticism of the scheme in the House. I looked at the record of the Secretary of State because we joined in debate about earlier transport legislation. I looked at the pamphlet which gave him the job. It was called "The Right Track" and described as
  "A paper on Conservative Transport Policy by Norman Fowler."
  It is dated 1977, and in it he said:
  "We agree with those in the ports industry who say that the immediate priority is one of stability."
  That is correct. It goes on to say:
  "As Philip Chappell, the retiring Chairman of the National Ports Council, has said: 'The real problem for the United Kingdom ports today is not what more to build, but to get real value and throughput out of what we have'."

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  For a number of reasons, a later expansion took part in our ports. First, the Minister's predecessor—the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley)—did away with capital controls in the name of greater competition. That led to a massive expansion, but also to problems because we had excessive capacity in some of our major traditional ports. At the same time, it increased the problems in the scheme ports. There was also expansion in the non-scheme ports. I shall return to that as it is a major economic issue.
  When the Secretary of State first took office he wrote an article in The Port in which he said:
  "Fowler's message—Do it Yourself".
  At the annual luncheon of the National Association of Port Employers he is reported to have said:
  "What the Government does not want to do is interfere in the way you are running your businesses."
  The Bill certainly does not mean that the Government will stay out of the affairs of the industry. The Bill means active intervention.
  Shortly after that, the Minister said that there would be no assistance and that matters would be left to the market. He then brought in the Port of London (Financial Assistance) Bill about which he said:
  "Consequently, there has been a dramatic reduction in demand for labour in the ports. In London, for example, the number of registered dock workers has declined by over 70 per cent. since 1966—a fall from 25,000 to 6,500 in that period. I acknowledge the social and human impact that such a reduction involves, and I pay tribute to the co-operation that was necessary to secure it."—[Official Report, 16 April 1980; Vol. 982, c. 1305.]
  At that time the Secretary of State was spending a great deal of money to maintain the Port of London authority, which was on the verge of bankruptcy because it did not have enough resources. He wanted to assist the national dock labour scheme in the process of reducing labour and brought the Bill to the House. That was intervention. It may have been a financial port policy—it meant running around spending money.
  As the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) said in that debate, the Government were simply throwing money at the problem. One of the consequences for our ports authorities is that they have had to secure major amounts of money by means of levies that have been a burden on the industry. We must bear that in mind when we take account of costs in the industry. Industry has its labour costs and the costs of capital.
  We told the Secretary of State when he presented the Port of London (Financial Assistance) Bill that he could not simply throw money at the problem. The Secretary of State said that it was a one-off job and would apply only to London. We said that soon enough it would have to apply to Merseyside, and within 12 months he was along with another bag of money to deal with the problems on Merseyside. We told him in the House and in Committee that he would have to give money to the other ports. What he was doing was bidding up the amounts of redundancy. That was his programme. The employers told him that if he continued his policy he would place on them a financial burden that would cause grave problems in future, and that is precisely what began to happen.
  The Secretary of State's successor, the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury, presented a Bill to cover every port. That Bill allowed for £450 million-plus
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  grants of £750 million. That burden was placed on the industry and the taxpayer because the Government had no ports policy and preferred to throw money at the problem —they did nothing to solve the problem, but they put people out of work. A ports policy could have been formulated for far less than the £750 million that the Government threw at the problem.
  There is a feeling that the Government do not have a policy for the ports and that there is some sort of conspiracy between the employers and Government. The Minister said that national shippers support the Government's policy. Like most hon. Members, I received a statement today from the British Shippers Council. The statement made it clear that the shippers were against the dock labour board because they felt that the scheme was costly. I telegraphed the shippers this afternoon and asked, "Are you not concerned about the conference system that fixes the price for ships going from British ports? You face a penalty if you do not observe the conference line system." The spokesman for the shippers said, "We are against that." I asked "Are the costs not even greater?" and I was told, "Yes, they are." I asked, "Why are you not telling the Government to do something about the monopoly business of the shipping conference line system? The Secretary of State could do something about that if he was really interested in costs in the ports industry." But there was not a word from the shippers on that question. That, again, shows the identity of the employers with the owners.
  The dockers do not believe the Government; they do not trust them. All sorts of inquiries have recommended the retention of the national dock labour scheme, but the Government are not even prepared to set up an inquiry or to enter any kind of discussion. They just want to exercise their own prejudice because they think that the scheme is wrong. As one of my hon. Friends said about the television technicians, the Government feel it must be wrong because we can all see it, but when there is an analysis of the matter by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission the Government find their views rejected. That is why they did not dare to go to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission as they did with the television technicians. If it was a good idea to have an investigation into the television technicians, why is it not a good idea to have one for the dockers?
  The evidence shows that the Secretary of State spends much time reading Lloyd's List. Perhaps it is his civil servants who do it and then give him quotes to read. The Morning Star also seems to be on his reading list. Why does he not pick up the telephone and talk to people, even if he does not like their views? He does not do that because the "Yes Ma'am" syndrome is at work. She told him to go out and do the job. She has told him that it does not matter what he said before. He should go out and do the job because she wants the dockers taken on because she is getting into an embarrassing economic situation. The economy is turning sour and the Prime Minister has said, "Is there a trade union body that we can begin to blame?" What other explanation can there be for the absence of discussions? The Government are taking away the rights of workers without any kind of discussion. They have never done that before—their intention has always either been placed in the manifesto or discussed with the workers concerned.
  Let the Minister give one other example of where this has occurred. He was asked earlier for one, but no other

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  example has been given. All Governments of all political persuasions—until the present one—intended to do something about discussion and consultation, but that never occurred to the present Government. When Conservative Members worry about this being a conspiracy, perhaps they remember reading the pamphlet by the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury in 1978, when he said that what we have to do is use the power of the state to take on the miners, the dockers, and so on.
  That is precisely what the right hon. Gentleman spelled out in 1978—the same Secretary of State who at a ports lunch in 1984 made it absolutely clear that he agreed with the employers' claim made at that lunch. Actually, I attended the lunch—free or not. The employers said then they wanted to get rid of the scheme, and subsequently he confirmed that view. That is what made the dockers extremely suspicious about what was going on. Shortly after that, the national dock strike took place. Why was that? In my area of Immingham there was a breach of the law—[Interruption.] I remember the hon. Member for Immingham when he was the Member for Scunthorpe—he ran away from the constituency to find safer ground rather than fight the election. [Interruption.] Let me deal with this point.
  I remember what the hon. Gentleman did when it was declared that there was to be a national strike because in Immingham there was a breach of the scheme—he said very clearly that there had been no breach of the scheme, and so did the Secretary of State, but the inquiry and the court found within a week that there had been a breach of the scheme. It was a deliberate breach, as we have seen around the country in this conspiracy.
  Mr. Michael Brown: As the hon. Member for Immingham, I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to a comment by Peter Broomhead, the union representative for Immingham:
  "Dockers will be unlikely to join a national strike to save the scheme and expect to find themselves on picket lines. We are union men, but I am sure that most men here will carry on working."
  Mr. Prescott: That gentleman was giving his views, and no doubt he believed what he was saying, but I am sure that he agrees that the agreement was discussed with the employers first. He will also see what the employers' promises that there will be no difference and no decasualisation actually mean. If they mean nothing and he is to he replaced by part-time labour, he may well change his view. Part-time labour is an issue even on Humberside. The Secretary of State talks about Hull and Grimsby, and says that in fishing Hull has been more efficient than in Grimsby—Hull being non-scheme for its bobbers—but the reason for its being less costly is that it has part-time, casual labour. That is the point that we are trying to make. Part-time workers have no employment rights and there are no national insurance or tax payments. That means that a system can be run more cheaply, but it is a casual labour system, putting people on and off the dole. There is no justification for that.
  What we have seen in this campaign is what I call the dirty dozen—the dozen or so Members on the Government side who have been running this campaign in parliamentary questions, debates, pamphlets and private Bills—all of them seeking to get the Government to bring in the very legislation that they have introduced today.
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  This is a Government who deny any kind of review and provide no consultation—unlike their attitude to the judges, as has been pointed out today—a Government who provide no inquiry to justify restrictive practices. Legislation is being rushed through as a matter of national urgency, and it affects 9,000 employees. This is a coincidence of mounting economic problems. It is the good old Thatcherite tactic—when in trouble pick a fight with a trade union. That is what we are beginning to see. The Government narrow the debate to expressions of extreme prejudice—"jobs for life", it is said, but the number has fallen from 80,000 to 9,000. Certainly no jobs are guaranteed for life. The facts show that that is not the case.
  It is argued that the dockers support the scheme because it guarantees jobs for their sons. I had a considerable disagreement with my dockers in Hull because I thought it quite wrong that jobs should be guaranteed to sons in those circumstances. I think that jobs should be open. [Interruption.] Well, we had a public debate, and I told people in my area that I thought that the principle was wrong. It is a privilege that we see all too often among Conservative Members, and I am against it in those circumstances, too. The Secretary of State for Transport, who is to wind up for the Government, has the "Guinness" seat—I do not know what the official title is—and actually left university halfway through to take over the seat from his father, so I will take no lectures from the Secretary of State for Transport about sons taking fathers' jobs.
  In this debate there has been a lot of talk about bobbing, welting and ghosting. In the House of Commons it is called "pairing". If hon Members look at the record, they will see that I do not pair with any Tory. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman) has just come in. The Government have a common pool system. Members record their votes but when the Government do not need so many workers—in this case, Members of Parliament—they are given the day off. It is called a bisque here. On the docks they call it ghosting and there is very little of it. Here, Members get their full pay—they can even go out and earn money from a second job. A docker cannot do that. When people in this House talk about bobbing, welting and ghosting, dockers regard that as having double standards.
  It has been said in this debate that the system is an anachronism. Is it anachronistic to have a system which gives training far better than any other industry, welfare and an occupational medical health scheme far better than in any other industry, safety conditions and safety training far better than in any other industry, medical welfare, with doctors and nurses? Surely those and the conditions that we want all industries to have. Do not Conservative Members believe in levelling up rather than levelling down? I have heard those arguments from them for so many years, so why do we not level up to the safe standards, good medical provision and training that I have described? We cannot get that from the private sector, and one does not get it from the non-scheme sector either. Yet those are the conditions that the Government repaid as anachronistic.
  What is the real difficulty? What is the dispute between us? What hon. Members opposite do not like is having working people participate in decision-making about their jobs, about redundancies, about the future of the industry.

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  That is what sticks in the craw. These rights are embodied in law. That sticks in the throat, too. When an employer want to exercise his right to get rid of people, he can be accused of not obeying the law. The Government do not like that either, so, as in the case of trade union legislation, they change the law and get the judges to carry out their philosophy.
  Will dismissal be the same under the employment protection legislation that has been talked about? We know that of the many thousands of workers—the number is growing all the time—found to have been dismissed unfairly, only 4 per cent. are ever returned to their jobs. Will the right be the same in this case? In this case workers cannot be sacked easily. They cannot be dismissed without justification being given. Apparently, that is a point of complaint. There will be no rights under the unfair dismissal legislation.
  I wish to deal with another matter at the heart of this scheme. In the past few years many employers have been getting rid of trade union activists. They are quite prepared to be accused of unfair dismissal and to pay the pittance of compensation that is offered under the unfair dismissal legislation. That does not happen under the dock labour scheme. Is not the scheme about justice and the right to be treated fairly?
  The real issue is cost. The Government say that the scheme costs £770 million. Most of those costs resulted from the Government's policy. They lent the money to pay for the redundancies and the necessary loans. In 1971, the Government intervened in the policy of the bankrupt Mersey docks and harbour board. The Secretary of State at the time said that the inefficiencies of that board were a result of the fact that the ship owners and the users of the port dominated the board, with two thirds control, and refused to increase prices. That led to a major problem and the collapse of the board.
  A private Member's Bill was introduced to help to return the savings of widows who had invested in what they thought was a good bet on a trusted port, but two hon. Members intervened to prevent such help—those two are now Secretaries of State for Employment and for Transport. They intervened to help the shareholders, but they would not intervene to help the interests of the employees. That is a matter of record and contrast.
  The port of Hull has been mentioned today. I looked at the problems there in the 1970s when there were major strikes, and millions of tonnes of traffic were diverted from the Hull port down the river. That was because Hull used to deal with cargo from Rotterdam which was then transhipped in barges down the river. When the new container system came about, with major changes in technology and trade, the trade concentrated in Rotterdam and small ships picked up the cargo in Rotterdam and took it down the wharves. The Government now say that it is cheaper to go down the wharves. That is true, but the reasons should be examined. Hon. Members need not accept my word for it—they can look at the reports of the inquiry set up by the Government into the National Ports Council, which show that the capital costs of a major port having to provide for containerisation and major cargoes on big ships, and the whole range of facilities that are required in a modern port that a small wharf does not need, requires the big port to
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  spend three times as much capital as the small wharf against the earning assets. Therefore, they have a financial penalty and cannot charge the same prices.
  In Hull, the British Transport docks board at that time adopted inflation accounting, which meant that it charged extra in a way that no private sector or non-scheme port could. It then decided to cut down the size of some of the ports and close some of the wharves in Hull. That is the reason for the heavy financial burden. Those are the reasons. Anybody making a choice between a traditional port and a wharf faced such problems.
  The Touche Ross report looking into European ports, to which the Secretary of State referred, had an analysis showing that in European ports,. the police, the rates and the infrastructure are carried. A later study by the National Westminster bank showed exactly the same. If we had the same way of financing, our charges would be 40 to 50 per cent. lower. That makes the labour cost pale into insignificance. The levy imposed on the industry to pay for medical assistance, training and running the system is approximately £4 million or 2·5 per cent. of the wage bill. The charge for maintaining and servicing the redundancy and financial package that the Government forced on the industry was £12 million or 7 per cent. of the wage bill—a burden three times as heavy as that of the labour scheme and not imposed on non-scheme ports.
  Once again, in this Bill, the Government are to give more money—the same Government who constantly accuse us of wishing to throw money at problems. Here they are putting a financial straitjacket on the scheme ports and then asking us to compare their charges with those of the non-scheme ports and see how one is increasing at the expense of the other.
  All these problems show that the dock labour scheme cannot be dealt with unless we look at the ports policy. Throwing money at the problem, as the Government have done, is not the way to deal with it. They have done nobody any favours—dockers or taxpayers. The Government have not looked at the problems of the ports or understood the differentials between small and large ports, whether they be capital or labour costs. They have not looked at the problem of how much port capacity we need. Those matters were spelled out five, 10 or 20 years ago in various reports on the industry. That is why we believe that the labour scheme has to be seen within a ports policy. The Government have been creating major financial problems for the industry, and have rejected a national ports authority.
  When he came to his job, the Secretary of State proudly introduced a Bill to get rid of the National Ports Council, which had no teeth. He had already received a report from it saying that a national ports authority—one body to deal with capital development in the industry—was necessary, but he rejected that advice. That is why our election manifesto made it clear—it was spelt out further in the "Fresh Directions" written by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes)—that we believe that a port and labour policy should be developed in an overall strategy for our ports to deal with excess capacity, greater safety and the differential in cost between Europe and ourselves. We also promised to
  "review the operation of the Dock Labour Scheme."
  We fought the general election on that policy because we believe that it is right.
  The Government are using the power of the state to get rid of workers' rights. They are not just attacking the

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  dockers. They introduced a Bill to abolish the wages councils, which affected millions of people in low-paid work. They reduced, and then got rid of, trade union rights at GCHQ. They vetoed the participation in decision-making that every other European country has under the Vredeling proposal. They want no rights for workers, and they have embarked upon a programme to reduce and then to eliminate those rights. They are using trade union legislation to achieve that.
  The Bill has nothing to do with a ports policy or the national interest, and nothing to do with employment rights or justice for workers, but everything to do with the Government's economic record, which is not being exposed. It has everything to do with the political spite and prejudice of a Government determined to secure a strike. There has been no consultation. The Labour party will do all that it can to resist such an injustice. We believe that the Bill will be damaging to the ports industry and will bring a return to casual working. We shall resist the Bill, and we shall begin that resistance by voting against its Second Reading today.
  9.35 pm
  The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Paul Channon): The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) began his speech by outlining the areas of agreement that exist between us, few though they may have turned out to be. I shall do the same before turning to the areas of disagreement that lie between us. I wish to say at the beginning of my remarks, however, that it is a pity that more hon. Members have not been able to contribute to the debate. The Front Bench replies could have started a little later. I am sorry that my hon. Friends the Members for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) and for Medway (Dame P. Fenner) tried to participate in the debate and did not have the chance to do so.— [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says, "Keep them out." That is perfectly clear. That is what he said—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Dick Douglas: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I recognise that you have just assumed the Chair and that you are rightly calling for order during the Secretary of State's speech. Those of us who entered the Chamber shortly after 9 o'clock heard the mass of interruptions that were created from a sedentary position by Conservative Members. We are waiting for fair play and nice manners.
  Mr. Speaker: Let us have order now.
  Mr. Channon: I shall turn to the areas of agreement in the futile attempt, perhaps, to try to lower the temperature in the House at least for a few moments.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East that the ports constitute a crucial and important industry. I welcome his support for the excellent pamphlet which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment produced in 1977, which was entitled, "The Right Track". I do not think that my right hon. Friend expected it to be commended so strongly by the hon. Gentleman. One of the most extraordinary assertions that I have heard from an Opposition spokesman for some time was when the hon. Gentleman accused my right hon.
  106
  Friend of committing the cardinal sin of throwing money at the ports industry. That is a curious charge for a Labour spokesman to make against one of my right hon. Friends.
  The other curious accusation to be made against the Government is that the Bill has been rushed through. It is said that it has been rushed through after 10 years of Conservative Government. Many of my hon. Friends wish that it had been introduced far sooner. To say, after 10 years of Conservative government, that the Bill has been rushed through is to indulge in fantasy.
  Mr. Leighton: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Channon: I shall press on for a while and then I shall give way. I have not reached any of the main issues yet. I shall, of course, give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  We have had a lively debate and I suspect that it will continue being lively. It has brought out many of the misconceptions of Opposition Members about the future of the ports industry once the scheme has been abolished. If, as has been argued, the retention of the scheme is vital for the future of the scheme ports and the dockers working in them, why is it that the non-scheme ports have all been doing so well? Why is it that the non-scheme ports have all enjoyed a significant expansion of trade while the scheme ports have seen their share of United Kingdom trade steadily declining?
  If the scheme is so important to the employment conditions of dockers, why is it that non-scheme ports have had no difficulty in recruiting an increasing number of dock workers, while the number of dockers in scheme ports continues to fall? I hope that I can make it clear during my speech, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment did in his speech, in company with many of my hon. Friends during the course of the debate, that if we are to consider seriously the future prosperity of our ports industry and of all the employees involved in it, it is essential that the scheme be abolished.
  We have heard repeated claims from Opposition Members that abolition of the scheme will lead to a return to casualism. No hon. Member want to see a return to the 1930s or to the early post-war years when dockers were treated in the way that has been described. No hon. Member has argued for that, either tonight or earlier. We understand what the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) and other hon. Members have said this evening, but they have failed to explain why the abolition of the scheme would mean a return to those days. The truth is that it will not. On 6 April Sir Keith Stuart, the chairman of Associated British Ports, said:
  "ABP does not intend to introduce a casual labour system".
  On 11 May Mr. Furlong, the managing director of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company—another big employer of registered dock workers—stated:
  "Whatever challenges and tests may face the Port of Liverpool after abolition, there will be no return to the casual employment from which the scheme originally sprang".
  Mr. Leighton: Will the Secretary of State please tell the House why, after 10 years, there is the present stampede? Why was there a ministerial statement and a White Paper on the same day, with the First Reading on the following day and this immediate Second Reading? Can the Secretary of State see a difference between the treatment of the dockers and that given to that other closed shop of lawyers, for the reform of which there was a Green Paper,

  107
  a long period of consultation in which they may take industrial action and another four months of consultation? Why has there been no consultation on this Bill?
  Mr. Channon: Now that the Government have come to this conclusion, which I hope will be supported by the House, it is in everybody's interests, whatever their job in the ports, be they registered dock workers or anything else, that the period of uncertainty should be ended as quickly as possible. It is only right that this Bill should have been brought forward and that it should proceed in the normal way following the appropriate interval and the announcement some time ago by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment. It is only right that the Bill should proceed in an orderly way through the House. I am sure that that is in the interests of all concerned.
  To continue the point on casualism, on 13 April employers in ports representing over 90 per cent. of registered dock workers said that there would be no return to casual employment.
  Mr. Sillars rose—
  Mr. Channon: If I have time I shall give way a little later, but I have a lot to say.
  My hon. Friends the Members for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) and for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Woodcock) have shown how, over the past 20 years, scheme ports have seen a dramatic fall in their share of traffic. Non-oil traffic fell from 90 per cent. to 70 per cent. London used to handle 21 per cent. of non-oil traffic in 1970, but by 1987 that proportion had fallen to 13 per cent. Liverpool's share has been sliced from 11 per cent. to 3 per cent. whereas in contrast Felixstowe now handles seven times as much traffic as it did 20 years ago. It now handles—
  Mr. Loyden: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Channon: I shall give way later on, but I must get on.
  Felixstowe now handles 6 per cent. of the United Kingdom's traffic, compared with 1 per cent. in 1970. Felixstowe is by no means the only success story among the non-scheme ports. The private wharves of the Hull, Humber, Trent and Ouse have doubled their traffic in the past 10 years, despite the close proximity of the better situated, deep-sea ports of Hull, Grimsby and Immingham.
  The small port of Neath which, unlike the rest of the ports in south Wales is outside the scheme, has seen a threefold increase in its non-oil traffic since 1975, whereas the other ports in the area, Cardiff, Newport, Swansea and Port Talbot all lost traffic in that period.
  The whole House knows about the dramatic changes that have taken place at Dover, our No. 1 ferry port and a non-scheme port. It now handles 5 per cent. of the United Kingdom's non-oil traffic, by tonnage—a fivefold increase on 197–0. Of course, that is related to the success of the ro-ro ferries, but that level of growth in traffic would never have happened if Dover had been in the scheme.
  Further up the Kent coast, non-scheme Ramsgate has also benefited. It handled 1£6 million tonnes in 1987 whereas 20 years ago it handled only 50,000 tonnes. Again, that is evidence of the growth that can be achieved outside the dock labour scheme.
  Mr. Loyden: Does the Secretary of State accept that the reason why non-scheme, deep-water ports are doing so well is that they are better located to serve the existing pattern of trade than are scheme ports? Does he not agree that ports such as Liverpool that were dependent on the American trade are now disadvantaged because of changing trade patterns that have nothing to do with scheme or non-scheme ports?
  Mr. Channon: I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman. He is right to draw attention to the shift of trade from the west coast to the east coast. However, there are non-scheme ports both on the west and the east coasts. If one takes them as a whole—and I cited a south Wales port a moment ago—the growth of trade at the non-scheme ports as against scheme ports can clearly be seen. That is not a coincidence. I am sure that the House and people outside recognise that the dock labour scheme has been a major force in holding back the development of the scheme ports.
  Mr. Harry Ewing: I am sorry to interrupt the flow of the right hon. Gentleman's speech but I must ask him a simple question. Both he and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment placed great emphasis on the word of the port employers that they will not return to using casual labour. Will the Secretary of State give a guarantee at the Dispatch Box that, if their word is broken, the Government will introduce legislation to take care of the situation?
  Mr. Channon: I will not give that guarantee at the Dispatch Box, and nor would any right hon. or hon. Member expect me to do so. The House will have to form a judgment on the value of that particular assurance, which I personally believe to be extremely valid. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. After all, we can see how little casual work there is in the ports at present. The idea that this is some wicked plot to get rid of the dock labour scheme and to reintroduce casualisation by the back door is not borne out by the fact that there is so little casual work in dock labour scheme ports at present.
  Mr. Prescott: That is because the scheme stops it.
  Mr. Channon: I was describing what is happening in non-scheme ports, as the hon. Gentleman would know if he did me the courtesy of listening.
  Mr. Prescott: No, the right hon. Gentleman was talking about scheme ports.
  Mr. Channon: I want to address the crucial issue of what will happen to our ports—a point that was raised by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East in his speech. It is essential to carry on the policy in the ports industry, as in other fields of transport, of deregulation and of liberalisation, so that the ports may be in a position to operate as fully commercial enterprises in a competitive world. The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) spoke about marine pilotage and about light dues. We have undertaken a major reform of marine pilotage, sweeping away the old statutory regime and replacing it with a streamlined, cost-effective one. We pressed for greater cost-effectiveness in lights and navigational aids.
  This year, I announced the first major reform this century in the structure of light dues, including the ending of dues on deck cargoes and the reduction of light dues. They

  109
  were implemented from the beginning of this month as the latest step in a cumulative reduction in light dues over the past eight years amounting to over 40 per cent. in real terms.
  Mr. Austin Mitchell: But now they have been imposed on fishing vessels.
  Mr. Prescott: A number of my hon. Friends made the point that those charges, together with many others such as those for rates, police and infrastructure, are not carried by European ports, and that makes a difference of 50 per cent. between the costs of United Kingdom ports and those of Europe. All the Secretary of State has done is to impose those costs instead on shipowners or on the ports themselves.
  Mr. Channon: If I have time, I shall deal with the whole question of costs.
  The Bill is in accord with our approach to transport in general.
  Mr. Prescott: Yes, it is a disaster.
  Mr. Channon: It is a vital piece of reform. The dock labour scheme has inhibited the release of the potential of far too many of our great ports. The scheme applies in the most part to the country's traditional main ports, many of which have a long history. It was no accident that they were sited where they are. They were built and developed to serve our main centres of industry and population, where the deepest or most sheltered waters were to be found, and major industries grew up alongside them. Many of them enjoy, through rail or road links, first-class communications with other parts of the country.
  Hull, Immingham, Liverpool, Bristol, Ipswich are among many scheme ports whose prospects have been enhanced by improvements to the road network. If we cannot release the energy of those scheme ports so that they can expand and develop their full potential we are misusing, indeed wasting, a great national resource. We must give our scheme ports the same unrestricted freedom to compete, develop and expand as is enjoyed by those outside the scheme.
  My hon. Friends the Members for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill) and for Hampshire, North-West (Sir D. Mitchell) described the handicaps that existed in the past, and are still in existence in the scheme ports. Last week the Leader of the Opposition claimed that scheme ports had had exactly the same increase in traffic as non-scheme ports, and a faster rate of growth. If the position is viewed over a short time span that may be possible, but what matters is the pattern over a longish period.
  Since 1970 the tonnage of non-oil cargo handled in scheme ports has increased by 10 per cent., while the growth in non-scheme ports has been 334 per cent. Of course it is a much lower base line in non-scheme ports, but over the same period, if the actual rather than the percentage increase in tonnage handled is taken into consideration, scheme ports have increased their non-oil cargo by about 10 million tonnes, while in non-scheme ports the figure is no less than 40 million tonnes. However, we look at it, the plain fact is that for the past 20 years or more scheme ports have been losing market share—yet among them are some of the best-sited and best-linked ports in the country.
  It is not only the non-scheme ports with which our scheme ports must compete; we must look forwards as well as backwards. My hon. Friend the Member for
  110
  Boothferry (Mr. Davis) talked about the challenge of 1992. Key competition will come from two quarters. The creation of a single European market will stimulate trade between the Community and other countries as well as between countries within the Community, and we can expect trade with distant continents to be handled in big ships that call at one port, or at most two, in north-west Europe. Their cargoes will be brought to or taken from the port on feeder services, whether by ship, rail or road.
  If our ports are to compete for that deep-sea trade with Rotterdam, Antwerp, Zeebrugge and the other big continental ports, they must improve their efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Felixstowe is already competing, but we must put Southampton, Tilbury, Hull and Liverpool into the market as well. They must be freed from the cost restrictions—and, indeed, the reputation—with which they have been burdened through being in the dock labour scheme.
  It is a sobering thought that 20 per cent. of our exports to, and imports from, continents other than Europe is shipped through Antwerp and Rotterdam, and we must try to change that. I want a large slice of that 9·5 million tonnes or so of cargo to come from British ports, but there will be no chance of it—indeed, I believe that matters will get worse—if the scheme stays in place. The big continental ports are among the most efficient in the world: they are doing well, and we must give our ports every chance to compete.
  I believe that the Channel tunnel, a completely novel kind of competitor, will generate more trade between Britain and continental Europe, but it will also compete for some of the traffic that at present goes by sea through our ports. It is crucial for the future prosperity of those ports that they do not have to compete with one hand chained behind their back to the dock labour scheme.
  What is crucial for the ports is also important for the country as a whole. The more efficient and cost-effective are our transport links with our continental partners—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask hon. Members to listen to the Secretary of State and to stop these private conversations.
  Mr. Channon: It is clear from today's debate that the case for the removal of the dock labour scheme is unchallengeable. It has scarcely been challenged, either inside or outside the House. I note that neither the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East nor the hon. Member for Oldham, West said whether they would restore the scheme; it is very curious that we have not been told that.
  The Government believe that in the circumstances in which we find ourselves it is appropriate to provide fair and generous compensation arrangements for former registered dock workers. Without it, if made redundant, they would be entitled to no more than the normal statutory redundancy pay. Hitherto, dockers who volunteered for redundancy received much larger sums. Under the new compensation scheme, up to £35,000 will be available to any registered dock workers who are made redundant within the first 18 months after Royal Assent, subject to age and length of service, and up to £20,000 for the second 18 months. No hon. Member can fairly argue that those are not reasonable terms for us to offer to registered dock workers.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: Is the Secretary of State able to say why it is necessary to introduce the Bill now with such speed? If he says that there is to be a tremendous expansion of jobs in the docks industry, why is he laying aside £13 million to pay for redundancies?
  Mr. Channon: I have already explained to the House, and I think that the majority of hon. Members agree with me, that, if anything, reform is long overdue rather than being too soon.
  The inefficiencies that have been so amply displayed and that are set out in the Government's White Paper show only too clearly the handicap that so many of our ports suffer because of the dock labour scheme. I ask the House again to note an extraordinary feature of the debate. Neither the hon. Member for Oldham, West nor the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East has answered the simple question that has been put to them time and again: will the Labour party reintroduce the scheme, should it regain office? Will it, or will it not? I ask the House and the country to note that—
  Mr. Prescott: We have made it absolutely clear, as we did in our election manifesto, that we want the right to participate in action against unfair dismissal to be given to the workers. We believe in levelling up. Therefore, when we next come to power, the dock labour scheme will be considered within the context of a transport policy and a ports policy that gives employment rights to workers.
  Mr. Channon: The House will draw its own conclusions from that elaborate reply. I think that what the hon. Gentleman means is no, but I do not think he will say that. Why did the hon. Member for Oldham, West say on radio that Labour would support the dockers if they came out on strike? Is that still the Labour party's position? It is extremely unclear. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will now get up and say whether he intends to support the dockers if they come out on strike. I shall give way to him, too. Will he answer that question? No, he does not intend to answer it. The Opposition are frightened to tell the country the truth.
  Finally, do the Opposition still stand by their 1976 attempt not only to strengthen the dock labour scheme but to extend it still further? Some hon. Members would vote that down. They look very unhappy; they know that the Labour party supports an unacceptable scheme. The Opposition spokesman will not answer my questions.
  What does the Labour party have to hide? Why will it not tell the electorate? I thought that the Labour party was in favour of open opposition as well as open government. It is clear that we are not to be given an answer.
  At the time when the Labour party is telling the electorate that it has been born again, it is ironic that it should choose to back yet another loser. What we object to is when it tries to take the country with it. The hon. Member for Oldham, West condemned the abolition of the scheme because it could lead to industrial action that would damage the economy, yet he supports just such a strike. Nothing could show more clearly what the Labour leadership thinks about the economy of the country and its priorities.
  There has been a catalogue of disasters in the constituency of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East. A company proposed a new steel terminal in Hull. Thanks to the dock labour scheme, it pulled out and 250,000 tonnes of cargo a year disappeared from Hull. The
  112
  Hull container terminal was closed after Geest pulled out after eight years, because of continual industrial action. As the United Kingdom director of Geest said,
  "The people of Hull will have a right to ask, why are we again allowing stupidity to rule?"
  That is what the hon. Member for Oldham, West supports.
  The Labour party continues to support this ridiculous dock scheme. Everyone knows that it should be abolished and I ask my hon. Friends to join me in voting for the Bill.
  Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time: —
  The House divided: Ayes 298, Noes 195.

  Division No. 158]

  [10 pm

  AYES

  Adley, Robert

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Alexander, Richard

  Durant, Tony

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Eggar, Tim

  Allason, Rupert

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Amess, David

  Evennett, David

  Amos, Alan

  Fallon, Michael

  Arbuthnot, James

  Favell, Tony

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Fearn, Ronald

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Ashby, David

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Atkins, Robert

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Atkinson, David

  Forman, Nigel

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Forth, Eric

  Baldry, Tony

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Batiste, Spencer

  Franks, Cecil

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Freeman, Roger

  Bellingham, Henry

  French, Douglas

  Bendall, Vivian

  Fry, Peter

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Gale, Roger

  Benyon, W.

  Gardiner, George

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Bitten, Rt Hon John

  Gill, Christopher

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Body, Sir Richard

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Boswell, Tim

  Gow, Ian

  Bottomley, Peter

  Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Gregory, Conal

  Bowis, John

  Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Grist, Ian

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Ground, Patrick

  Brazier, Julian

  Grylls, Michael

  Bright, Graham

  Hague, William

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

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Burns, Simon

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Burt, Alistair

  Hannam, John

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

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

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Harris, David

  Cash, William

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Hayward, Robert

  Chapman, Sydney

  Heddle, John

  Churchill, Mr

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

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

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Colvin, Michael

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Hill, James

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Hind, Kenneth

  Cormack, Patrick

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'tn)

  Couchman, James

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Critchley, Julian

  Howard, Michael

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

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

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  113

  Howells, Geraint

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Page, Richard

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Paice, James

  Hunter, Andrew

  Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Patnick, Irvine

  Irvine, Michael

  Patten, Chris (Bath)

  Irving, Charles

  Patten, John (Oxford W)

  Jack, Michael

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Jackson, Robert

  Pawsey, James

  Janman, Tim

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Jessel, Toby

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Portillo, Michael

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Price, Sir David

  Key, Robert

  Raffan, Keith

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Redwood, John

  Knapman, Roger

  Riddick, Graham

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Knowles, Michael

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Knox, David

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Latham, Michael

  Rost, Peter

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Rowe, Andrew

  Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Sainsbury, Hon Tim

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Lightbown, David

  Shelton, Sir William

  Lilley, Peter

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Shersby, Michael

  Lord, Michael

  Sims, Roger

  Luce, Rt Hon Richard

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Lyell, Sir Nicholas

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  McCrindle, Robert

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Speller, Tony

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Maclean, David

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Squire, Robin

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Malins, Humfrey

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Mans, Keith

  Steen, Anthony

  Maples, John

  Stern, Michael

  Marland, Paul

  Stevens, Lewis

  Marlow, Tony

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Sumberg, David

  Mates, Michael

  Summerson, Hugo

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Mellor, David

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Mills, Iain

  Thorne, Neil

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Thurnham, Peter

  Mitchell, Sir David

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Moate, Roger

  Tracey, Richard

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Tredinnick, David

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Trippier, David

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Moss, Malcolm

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Mudd, David

  Walden, George

  Neale, Gerrard

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Needham, Richard

  Wallace, James

  Neubert, Michael

  Waller, Gary

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Ward, John

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Warren, Kenneth

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Watts, John

  Norris, Steve

  Wheeler, John

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Whitney, Ray

  114

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Yeo, Tim

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Wilkinson, John

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Wilshire, David

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory

  Wood, Timothy

  and

  Woodcock, Mike

  Mr. Tom Sackville.

  NOES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Galloway, George

  Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  Allen, Graham

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Anderson, Donald

  George, Bruce

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Gordon, Mildred

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Graham, Thomas

  Barron, Kevin

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Battle, John

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Beckett, Margaret

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Bell, Stuart

  Grocott, Bruce

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Hardy, Peter

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

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Haynes, Frank

  Blunkett, David

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Boateng, Paul

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Boyes, Roland

  Henderson, Doug

  Bradley, Keith

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Holland, Stuart

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Home Robertson, John

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Hood, Jimmy

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Buckley, George J.

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Caborn, Richard

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Callaghan, Jim

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Illsley, Eric

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Ingram, Adam

  Clay, Bob

  Janner, Greville

  Clelland, David

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Lamond, James

  Cohen, Harry

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Leighton, Ron

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Cousins, Jim

  Lewis, Terry

  Cox, Tom

  Litherland, Robert

  Crowther, Stan

  Livingstone, Ken

  Cryer, Bob

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Cummings, John

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Loyden, Eddie

  Cunningham, Dr John

  McAllion. John

  Dalyell, Tam

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Darling, Alistair

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  McFall, John

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

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Dixon, Don

  McKelvey, William

  Dobson, Frank

  McLeish, Henry

  Doran, Frank

  McNamara, Kevin

  Douglas, Dick

  McWilliam, John

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Madden, Max

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Eadie, Alexander

  Marek, Dr John

  Eastham, Ken

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Martlew, Eric

  Fatchett, Derek

  Meacher, Michael

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Meale, Alan

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

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Fisher, Mark

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

  Flannery, Martin

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Flynn, Paul

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Morley, Elliott

  Foster, Derek

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wshawe)

  Foulkes, George

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Fraser, John

  Mullin, Chris

  Fyfe, Maria

  Murphy, Paul

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  Nellist, Dave

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

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

  O'Brien, William

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

  O'Neill, Martin

  Snape, Peter

  Parry, Robert

  Soley, Clive

  Patchett, Terry

  Spearing, Nigel

  Pendry, Tom

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Pike, Peter L.

  Stott, Roger

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Strang, Gavin

  Prescott, John

  Straw, Jack

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Radice, Giles

  Turner, Dennis

  Randall, Stuart

  Vaz, Keith

  Redmond, Martin

  Wall, Pat

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Walley, Joan

  Reid, Dr John

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Richardson, Jo

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Robinson, Geoffrey

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan

  Rogers, Allan

  Wilson, Brian

  Rooker, Jeff

  Winnick, David

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Ruddock, Joan

  Worthington, Tony

  Salmond, Alex

  Wray, Jimmy

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Sheerman, Barry

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Short, Clare

  Mr. Martyn Jones and

  Sillars, Jim

  Mrs. Llin Golding.

  Skinner, Dennis

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Bill read a Second time and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

  DOCK WORK BILL [MONEY]
  Queen's recommendation having been signified—
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Dock Work Bill, it is expedient to authorise—

  (a) the extinguishment of liabilities of the National Dock Labour Board to the Secretary of State in respect of loans made under section 3(3) of the Dock Work Regulation Act 1976 or section 4 of the Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act 1946;

  (b) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Secretary of State in consequence of the provisions of the Act.—[Mr. Lightbawn.]

Housing (Change of Landlord)
10.14 pm
Mr. Clive Soley: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Housing (Change of Landlord) Regulations 1989 (S.I., 1989, No. 367), dated 6th March 1989, a copy of which was laid before this House on 15th March, be annulled.
This statutory instrument, which is unusually large, is the sort of legislation to which we are becoming accustomed under a Government who legislate by statutory instrument or order of the Secretary of State, as we pointed out to the Minister a number of times in Committee during consideration of the Housing Act 1988.
I concede that the regulations make one or two changes for the better. The Government have clearly responded to some of the requests that we made in the Committee that considered the Housing Act. I welcome those small improvements. We still have a system, which the Government introduced, of "pick a landlord", which should more appropriately be named "pick a tenant". The regulations refer to the way in which, having made a bid for a group of properties, the applicant—as the new landlord will be called—can begin to acquire those properties and the information that must be given by the local authority about the tenants who live in the area, voting and consultation periods.
It would be nice if I were able to say that this is a genuine "pick a landlord" scheme that would enable the tenant of a latter-day Mr. Rachman or Mr. Hoogstraten to go to his town hall, housing association or local housing co-operative and say, "I am fed up with being harrassed by this landlord and want to change to a better or different one." That will not occur. The regulations apply only to local authority tenants.
The Government allege that local authority housing is unpopular. That is a strange argument when one bears in mind the fact that local authority waiting lists of people desperate to obtain council houses have increased dramatically under the Government and currently stand at 1·25 million people. The Government's view was soundly put down by the Glasgow university study carried out at the request of the Department of the Environment. It showed that, by and large, councils are good landlords and compare favourably with housing associations.
The regulations are a one-way ticket because there is no possibility of changing one's mind if one gets a bad landlord. Again, it is not "pick a landlord" but "pick a tenant". An outside landlord makes a bid, and once it is accepted tenants are stuck with him until the landlord chooses to dispose of them. Tenants are unable to vote to change their landlord.
The object of the measure is to squeeze the public housing system further, to push people out of it and into the public sector. Perhaps predictably, that policy is not working as well as the Government would like. The harsh reality for the Government is that the majority of tenants who are voting under the rigged system, whereby abstentions are counted as yes votes—a system that would be satisfactory to a third-rate dictator—are voting it down and saying no. Some of the alternative landlords have been quite good housing associations with good reputations. Tenants are doing so because the Government have terrified many of them, especially older ones, with their drive to push them into the private sector.

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Many tenants, especially older ones, remember that they tried to get out of the private sector. Government reports clearly show that private rented housing is the most unpopular form of rented housing. Some council landlords and some housing association landlords are bad, but the worst of them cannot compare with the worst private sector landlords, which include the Mr. Rachmans and Mr. Hoogstratens of this world. When the Government say that such things cannot happen and—as they tried to tell us during the passage of the Bill—that landlords will not exploit the new assured tenancy that makes it easier to evict, I demonstrated how wrong they are.
The new business expansion scheme pushes people who have never been landlords into providing accommodation. Brochures from companies—some quite respectable—are circulated which say that the companies will convert the properties into three and four-bedroom residential flats, let them on an assured tenancy, and shortly before the end of the business expansion scheme takes effect—the five-year period when tax is paid—they will convert them into one-bedroom flats, prior to selling them. The brochure continues:
"Carrying out major renovation work on such accommodation is grounds for compulsory repossession"—
the nasty word "eviction" is not used—
"under the 1988 Housing Act."
That was how I was able to predict—sadly, with accuracy—that such legislation and the assured tenancy would be abused. The evidence is there to see for all who have eyes.
Another reason why the Government's system is failing is that housing associations object to being used as the stalking horse for the Government. They do not like being pushed into taking over council properties because they are aware that, if they do so, they will take on large management problems which, in many cases, they are not equipped to meet. The Government, in their desperation to increase the supply of housing, are asking them to start building more of their own properties, and their management problems become even more complicated. The associations have to increase the supply of built properties and take on other existing properties from local authorities. The majority of housing associations do not want to get into that game. Only the bigger, richer and longer-established councils can do so, which is what is happening.
Part V of the regulations relates to section 101 of the Housing Act and prevents local authorities from making secure a tenancy on a property which becomes vacant during the application. From time to time the Government have accused councils of keeping properties empty unnecess-arily. I have pointed out time and again that local authorities have a better record in this matter than housing associations or the private sector, and an infinitely better record than the worst of all landlords, the Government, of whose properties almost 6 per cent. are empty.
Under the regulations, local authorities will have to keep additional numbers of houses and flats empty because they cannot let them during the period of the takeover—which can last for six months—unless they do so on a temporary basis. The properties cannot be let on a secure tenancy.
How can the Minister justify this in terms of good housing management? How can a local authority manage its stock well if, during the period of a takeover, it cannot
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let properties which become vacant—even to people who are homeless? The local authority may still have to put such people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation even though empty property exists in the takeover area. I challenge the Government to say that they will allow local authorities to put people into vacant properties and give them a secure tenure and a vote.
Regulation 13 does not allow a tenancy to become secure automatically when section 101 of the 1988 Act ceases to apply. Will the Minister address this topic when he winds up? Why cannot the property automatically become a secure tenancy? The right and logical thing to do would be to allow it to revert to being a secured tenancy. Under section 13, that would not happen—but if I am wrong, I will be glad to be corrected.
Schedule 3 says that the information
"shall be written in clear and straightforward language".
I welcome that; it is a good change, but I hope that it will not be the so-called straight language of the Government's propaganda leaflets, such as the so-called "Tenants' Choice" leaflet put out by the Department of the Environment, which did not state in clear and unambiguous language that people who do not vote are counted as having voted in favour of a new landlord. That was rightly described as inertia selling by the National Consumers Council. The Minister continually ducked giving the council the leaflet so that it could give its informed view on the matter.
I welcome the fact that the new landlord will have to specify the difference between a new tenancy on offer and a secured tenancy. That is one of the most interesting and welcome moves in this otherwise squalid little regulation. For some time now, tenants have been offered a pig in a poke, often by organisations that have been well-intentioned. I have seen leaflets put out by people seeking to take over—I am thinking in one case of a management buy-out which implied that the tenancies that tenants would get if they voted for new landlords would be as good as secured tenancies. They might have been, but nobody knows, because no agreement of any sort was in existence when the propaganda was being put out. Tenants were being asked to make decisions without knowing the facts. So it is an important and welcome step forward that tenants should be told the specific difference between the new tenancy they are being offered and their present secured tenancy. If they are offered an assured tenancy, it will be much weaker than their present secured tenancy, because, as I have already said, people can be evicted on the grounds of the necessity for major repairs or of being more than three months in arrears with their rent.
I hope that the Government, who abuse the English language regularly, will tell tenants in straight language that they cannot change their minds. I hope they will tell them that, if they vote for a new landlord who turns out to be bad, all that the Government will do will be to tell the landlord that he cannot be an assured landlord any more—but his tenants will have to stay with him. They will not be able to vote on the matter—no "pick your landlord" this time. This is a one-way ticket, often into an unknown future. That is why so many elderly people are frightened about the change. The Government are bullying them into the private sector, and that is unacceptable and unnecessary.
Section 16(6) suggests that it is the tenants' duty to tell applicants that they may be absent from their address for some time—an interesting innovation. It means that, if a

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tenant goes off to serve in the armed forces—perhaps to the Falklands—for a long time, unless he remembers to tell the applicant that he will be away for a long time, he will return to find that ownership of his home has been transferred over his head. People who go to prison or to hospital or who become seriously ill at home and who cannot care for their affairs in the usual way will also be vulnerable in this respect.
This is not a proper democratic system: it is a disgrace. I have yet to meet a Conservative Member of Parliament who has been able to justify this appalling system on a public platform. I have to hand it to the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope) who, speaking at a meeting with me, put the Government's case perfectly. He said that they choose the electoral system that suits the occasion, and by God he was right. He said, "As long as we can win it, we shall fix it in whatever way we can." What a definition of democracy. What a definition of what we think is necessary in a modern democratic society.
Mr. Timothy Kirkhope: The hon. Gentleman has taken totally out of context what I said at that meeting. It is typical of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues that they always take such remarks out of context when it suits the occasion. He may remember that the meetings that he and I addressed together were largely sympathetic to the general view that tenants should have some choice in the matter, however it is determined.
Mr. Soley: The Conservative councillors who were present were more in favour of what I said than what the hon. Gentleman said. That is why the Association of District Councils and the London Boroughs Association were so opposed to this rigged voting system. It would be hard to take what the hon. Gentleman said out of context, because he was asked a specific question. He may remember that the whole of the proceedings were tape-recorded, and the tapes are still in existence. If he wants to listen to the tapes and say how his remarks were taken out of context, I should be delighted to see his response in print.
The system is pretty grim. Part VII makes no mention of arrangements for outstanding loan debts. Perhaps the Minister will address that in his winding-up speech. That might well leave the local authority carrying debt for properties that have been transferred. When I hear the Government talking about how concerned they are about the ratepayer, I think of Thamesmead. I think of an estate valued at about £200 million that was knocked down for £25 million because the company taking it over said it could not afford it. That was £400 a house. What happened to the outstanding debt charges of £120 million? They were dumped on London ratepayers, who will go on paying them for many years.
Mr. Roger Gale: Could the hon. Gentleman tell us what has happened to the rates in the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham since his party took over?
Mr. Soley: The hon. Gentleman would not ask that question if he knew the latest news. The rate increase of 3 per cent. in Hammersmith and Fulham is one of the lowest in the country. It is far lower than rate increases in Conservative areas and far lower than that in the area of
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the Minister for Local Government. The rate increase in Suffolk, Coastal was one of the highest in the country. What a shambles. The Government try to fix local authorities so that rates have to go up, and they get it so wrong that Conservative councils have to put up the rates. Labour councils still manage to provide decent services while keeping rates within bounds, which is just about possible under this system.
I look forward to hearing interventions by the hon. Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) when he complains on behalf of his constituents about the poll tax. He will say to the Minister, "I am worried about the poll tax. It is hitting families in my constituency very badly. Each child over the age of 18 in a family has to pay the poll tax." We shall see a different look on the hon. Gentleman's face when he talks about local government finance then.
As I have said, part VII does not mention what is to happen to debt. Can the Minister tell us whether outstanding debts will be dumped on the ratepayers? We want to know, and so do ratepayers. Under part VII, applicants can proceed even if initially they are unable to come up with the full price. I am deeply worried about that, because some housing associations and other associations, many of which had good intentions, are getting into difficulties after taking over properties because they have not assessed as they should have assessed the financial consequences. That is why we have seen rents going up so much in areas that have been transferred.
There may be debates about the causes of rent increases in ex-GLC seaside homes. When rents go up to 40 per cent. of the net income of two pensioners who are above housing benefit level because they have two occupational pensions, they will not survive for long without suffering acute economic hardship. It is unnecessary and cruel for the Government to put them in that position.
These regulations should not have been laid. They are based on a premise that makes them unnecessary. For some tenants this is a one-way ticket out of the public sector; it is not "pick a landlord" legislation. I should love it if tenants of a bad landlord could change their landlord, but they cannot. This is all about trying to get local authorities to give up their housing without providing anything in its place. That is why the housing crisis in this country is no longer just an inner-city crisis or a crisis in the rented sector, but one that goes to urban and rural areas and hits people who are buying as well as people who are renting. This Government's housing policy is a failed policy, and these regulations are a small part of that failure.
10.36 pm
Mr. Matthew Taylor: I do not wish to detain the House for long, but I must say that it is a great shame that debates of this kind take place at this time of night. This is really just an extension of the drip of legislation by the back door—through statutory instruments provided for in the primary legislation, the detail of which Ministers were unable to fill in when the legislation was going through its various stages.
As the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) said, these regulations contain some improvements. The changes that will ensure that tenants get better information are welcome. Nevertheless, there is still not enough information about the reality of the Act, about the effect that privatisation will have on tenants over the years. I am

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thinking in particular—this has been mentioned already—of circumstances in which people find that they have been tricked, conned or bought into making a bad decision. The landlord—supposedly squeaky clean—is taken off the Government's list of acceptable landlords, but the tenants have to put up with him indefinitely.
Individual tenants can do nothing about the malpractices that they are suffering. Many of them will not have voted for the system, but the abstention vote will ensure that, so far as the Government are concerned, those people's hands were raised to show that they were in favour of the system. Thank goodness we do not, as yet, have voting by show of hands in this House.
Part IV provides that, if a tenant in a block votes against a new landlord, that tenant has the right to stay with the council. The landlord is enabled to let that particular flat back to the council, which can sublet it to the tenant. That is an improvement.
The thing that will lead me to vote against these regulations—I understand that there will be a vote—is the procedure under part V which prevents the council, during the bidding process, from letting a council property on the estate in question.
Almost every other provision in this instrument is concerned with detail. In most cases the detailed provisions are unlikely to affect what is happening, but this provision relates directly to people's ability to have their housing needs met—to be certain of a roof over their heads, to be certain of a home for their husbands, or wives, and children. It is about the most basic of things. In my view, this procedure will deprive people of the security of a roof over their heads, simply because of the bureaucracy of a voting system. It is a system which should not be taking place in any case, but which, in this case, will ensure that at least some individuals suffer.
As has already been said, the Government repeatedly criticise councils for not housing people when there are properties in which they can be housed. Without any question, some councils are better at it than any others. The Government are worst of all. These regulations put into the rules a system that ensures that the accommodation cannot be properly used. That is not only an error but fundamentally and morally wrong. They should be opposed tonight if for no other reason than that they will keep out on the streets yet more people without the permanent security of housing for them and their children.
10.40 pm
Mr. Tony Banks: Like many hon. Members, I have a surgery in my constituency, in my case every Friday. Every week, the greatest number of problems concern housing. People come to me asking me what can be done. Some live in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. Some are single-parent families. Some have lived in Newham for many years. Some are in unsuitable private rented accommodation, and others want transfers. Last Friday, about 70 per cent. of all the cases that I saw concerned housing. What can we offer such people? On many occasions, I have said that I only wish that Ministers, and in particular the Prime Minister, would come to my surgery to see how enormous is the housing problem in my area, and how that is mirrored throughout London and in no doubt in other cities.
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If the Housing Act 1988 from which these regulations flow had done anything to address the housing crisis, I would have been most encouraged. I would also have been amazed, given the Government's record. The Act has nothing to do with building one single unit of the accommodation that is so desperately needed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) said, it is all to do with ideology, and the drive to force local authorities out of providing housing. It is about petty, party political, ideological objectives rather than housing.
It does not take a great statistician to work out that there must be something wrong when homelessness in London has doubled since 1979 when the Government came to power. The number of people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation has reached astronomic proportions. In 1983, Newham was spending £50,000 a year on bed and breakfast. This year, it will spend £5 million. That cannot be right.
While the queue of people wanting accommodation keeps growing, the Government cut the resources that local authorities need to build new houses. The Minister will correct me if I have got it wrong, but if I remember rightly, since the Government came into power, the housing investment programme has been cut by 80 per cent. in real terms. That is why homelessness has doubled. It is not because there are no good landlords waiting in the wings to come along and give people decent accommodation in which to live: it is all because the Government have cut, cut and cut again against the resources that local authorities need to spend on housing.
I hope that, if the Minister's bag carrier has just got the figure for the number of voids in Newham—I am sure that that is what I lipread—he will bear in mind the fact that we have about 1,100 voids because they are in unsafe tower blocks. They are those Taylor Woodrow Anglia tower blocks. No doubt the Minister remembers the name of Ronan Point. There are 110 of those unsuited tower blocks. In the drive to sell off units of accommodation, there are not many takers for tower blocks in Newham. Boroughs have been forced to sell off the best properties. Tenants have been left in the worst, and they have little chance now of ever moving out of them.
The problems of homelessness in London and elsewhere stem from the constant denial of resources to local authorities to build houses that people so desperately need. In the 1970s, we were building, about 25,000 units of accommodation a year in London. We are down now to fewer than 2,500. Building in the public sector is at a lower level now than it was in the 1920s. It is a scandal. The Minister and the Government generally are presiding over an obscene disgrace. In 1989, there are still tens of thousands living in conditions that no Member of this place would be prepared to tolerate for five minutes. At 10.45 pm we are discussing measures that have nothing to do with the problems of homelessness and nothing to do with building new homes. Instead, they are all about party political spite and ideology as the Government try to drive local authorities out of the provision of homes.
The regulations against which we are praying make t he already fundamentally flawed policy even more problematic. They display disregard for the interests of tenants. They work against genuine efforts to find satisfactory tenant-based solutions to housing problems. They introduce the imposition of intolerable administrative and financial burdens on councils. The time scale for consultation is woefully inadequate. If the objective is to

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allow genuine discussion among tenants and their advisers to enable satisfactory solutions to housing problems, the time scale is nonsense.
I understand that 14 weeks is the maximum period for consultation, and it could be much less. The applicant landlord could effectively stifle debate by issuing the final offer only at the end of the first seven-week period. The belated concession of seven to 10 days for the council to respond is completely inadequate. There is then four weeks in which to vote, but that could be done on the first day, with only two weeks to follow up. Real debate could be restricted to only two weeks in the middle of the process. It is the opinion of the Association of London Authorities that 28 weeks is the minimum period for real debate and discussion.
Perhaps the Minister will argue that there will be debate during the preliminary phase, but few details are available about that. I hope that the Minister will tell us in greater detail what the consultation period will involve. As the procedure is non-statutory, an applicant landlord will not have to make a final offer. That means that details of rents, for example, will be missing. Genuine consideration of all the facts can take place only within the statutory consultation process, and under the regulations that could be limited to a mere couple of weeks.
Housing is far too important for these procedures to be acceptable even to the Minister. The provisions of only one vote for joint tenants will cause major problems. At the very least, we maintain that two signatures should be required to prove that the vote is acknowledged by both parties. The regulations are inadequate for meeting the needs of tenants whose first language is not English. That is a matter of major concern in a borough such as Newham. Regulation 16, schedule 3, states that,
"Where there is significant foreseeable demand"
material, should be translated. That provides too many loopholes for applicant landlords.
Ms. Diane Abbott: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is all well and good for Ministers to sit and laugh and chatter through his excellent and carefully judged speech? If they had the week-in and week-out experience of London Members in dealing at their surgeries with people who have been in bed-and-breakfast hostels for years and who have had to bring up small children in that accommodation—in other words, if they had to deal with the victims of their housing policies—they would not be quite so glib and quite so happy. The regulations will do nothing to help the homeless and the poor and everything to aid and provide profits for property speculators.
Mr. Banks: There are times when I find it difficult to work out whether the Government are vicious or ignorant. I have come to the conclusion that they are both. There can be no doubt that they are certainly vicious, but I also
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believe that many Conservative Members are also ignorant of the problems. Although some Conservative Members know what the problems are, because of the party whipping system they are prepared to turn their minds away from the realities. Many of those who know the realities absent themselves from these debates and come in only to vote, because if they have not heard the arguments their consciences will perhaps not trouble them in quite the way that they should and they can stagger home to bed, if not with easy consciences, at least with consciences that have not been troubled with having to confront the reality of life for so many of our citizens in London and elsewhere.
I return to the issue of translated material. As I have said, there are too many loopholes for the applicant landlord when dealing with tenants, many of whom do not have English as their first language. Surely, if tenants are to exercise choice, which is the Government's stated aim, those tenants must have understandable information before them. There is nothing in the regulations to say how demand is to be assessed or what constitutes "significant". We maintain that if a single tenant does not understand, it is significant to him or her. I hope that the Minister will say a little more about translated material.
It appears that spoilt ballot papers will count as abstentions. Under this voting system, that means they will be votes in favour of transfer. That is nonsense, but under this Government, we are getting used to nonsense in voting procedures in these regulations. There is no question of democracy. The Government do not worry about concepts such as democracy, because it means whatever they want it to mean—
Mr. John Battle: Or whatever they can get away with.
Mr. Banks: Indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) says, democracy means whatever the Government can get away with. However, that may not work. The tenants may vote against those landlords because they are not coming in to do a good job: they are trying to strip out the assets. It is no good the Minister saying, "Oh well, only approved landlords will come from the Housing Corporation," because it will be quite possible to pull the wool over the eyes of the Housing Corporation. If the corporation gets it wrong, there is no question of it saying, "We'll take those properties away from that stinking lousy landlord"; all that it will say is, "Sorry, you can't have any more people to exploit, but you can carry on exploiting the ones you've got."
Let us face it—this is a developers' charter, an asset-strippers' charter. It has nothing to do with finding housing for the people who desperately need it. Until we get rid of this stinking, rotten Government who could not care a monkey's toss, the housing crisis will just get worse and worse. No doubt the only thing that we shall get from the Minister are his laughs and sneers. That is all that the homeless can expect from him.
10.52 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. David Trippier): I assume that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) was trying—as he so often does—to draw a laugh from Conservative Members. He is often genuinely funny. However, he was not all that funny today. Indeed, the comments made by Opposition Members generally did not show anything new or innovative over the arguments that they have tried to advance in the past on this part of the Housing Act 1988 which refers to tenants' choice. There were simply the regurgitated arguments that I have heard so many times because, for some reason or another, the Opposition seem to be worried about the legislation. I genuinely cannot guess why they are so worried, unless it is for purely party political purposes and they are concerned that we are moving into the heartland of the Labour party—
Mr. Battle: That is what this is all about—very interesting.
Mr. Trippier: We are not only offering, as we have done since 1979, an opportunity to tenants to exercise their right-to-buy; we are now offering them an extension to that—the opportunity to choose an alternative landlord—
Mr. David Winnick rose—
Mr. Trippier: I shall gladly give way in a moment.
How on earth can the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) suggest to the House that instead of choosing a new landlord, the legislation means choosing a tenant or, to use his precise phrase, it means "pick a tenant"? The hon. Gentleman knows—although his right hon. and hon. Friends may not—that the council house tenant has the right to veto his council house being sold over his head. The council house tenant can, by registering that veto, remain with the registering landlord, which will be the local authority. The hon. Gentleman knows that, and he probably suspects that the vast majority of his right hon. and hon. Friends—because they have not taken the time and trouble to read the regulations—do not. The hon. Gentleman said that the Government were putting fear into the minds of tenants. If anyone is doing that, it is the hon. Member for Hammersmith and his right hon. and hon. Friends.
Mr. Winnick: It is not difficult to expose the Government's hypocrisy. Why is the right to decide that is given to council tenants not extended to private tenants? The Minister says that the regulations are all about giving choice. Does not the Minister know that many private tenants under pressure and suffering intimidation would gladly choose the local authority as their landlord?
Mr. Trippier: I have not heard such bunkum for a long time. As a result of the policies of previous Labour Governments, and of former Conservative Governments with which I personally would not have agreed, there has been such a substantial increase in the public sector housing stock that we have, I am ashamed to say, the highest percentage public housing stock in the whole of western Europe, and the lowest percentage—8 per cent. —of private rented accommodation in western Europe. The situation is so out of balance that there is no fair alternative.
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The 1988 Act is designed to encourage the development and growth of the private rented sector—not by reincarnating Rachman, as the hon. Member for Hammersmith suggests, but by expanding the housing association movement. I remind the hon. Member for Newham, North-West, that a housing association is highly likely to be the alternative landlord putting forward proposals to the tenants, rather than the kind of private landlord that he suggests. The hon. Gentleman should make it clear to his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott) that housing associations are non-profit-making bodies.
Mr. Mark Fisher: The Minister visited my constituency and knows that it has a very large private rented sector. What does he have to say to those of my constituents in the private rented sector who want the choice he intends giving public sector tenants?
Mr. Trippier: I have never been on an official visit to the hon. Gentleman's constituency during my time as a Minister with responsibility for housing. However, I shall be only too pleased to visit it and to see whatever the hon. Gentleman wishes to show me.
The matter in question has arisen on several previous occasions. Our responsibility is clearly to give public sector tenants an alternative. The private rented sector is tiny. Tenants who are dissatisfied with their private sector landlords can go to law. The changes we introduced in the 1988 Act ensure that the kind of rent previously charged in the public sector—which had a considerable effect on rents generally—can move up to being more of a market rent. The alternative available to the tenant should be fairer than in the past.
Mr. Winnick: Why does the Minister not answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) and by me? It is a very simple question: if, as he claims, there is a choice for public sector tenants, why is there no choice for private tenants? However misguided they may be, why not allow them to choose whether to become local authority tenants?
Mr. Trippier: If they wish to become local authority tenants, they can exercise that right by applying to the local authority. [Interruption.] Of course they can. As a result of changes in the 1988 Act, however, a number of tenants will choose to move into the private sector. Rat her than choosing to exercise the right to buy—they may not be in a position, financially, to do that—they will move into accommodation owned by housing associations. There is clear evidence of that in recent surveys by the Department of the Environment. Some 40 per cent of tenants consulted during the Professor MacLennan study said that they were prepared to pay a higher rent for a better service from the landlord. If we are to debate these matters seriously, let us examine the facts.
Mrs. Llin Golding: May I take up the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher)? What about the former National Coal Board tenants in both our constituencies who have to put up with disgusting conditions now that their houses have been sold off to landlords whom they can never find, and who do not care about repairs? Can they go to the local authority and ask to be taken on?
Mr. Trippier: Earlier today, on a regional visit to the east midlands, I met representatives of the East Midlands housing association, which, I understand, has made bids for former Coal Board properties. [Interruption] I do not think that this is a new case, and I do not think that the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) knows a great deal about the east midlands.
Mr. Battle: That is a slur.
Mr. Trippier: The hon. Gentleman usually casts slurs from a sedentary position. If he wishes to intervene, I shall be happy to give way.
Mr. Battle: Would the Minister kindly answer the question put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle under Lyme (Mrs. Golding) about the circumstances of people whose homes have already been sold over their heads, rather than talking about new circumstances in which negotiations are in progress with the housing association? Will he also not assume that Opposition Members know nothing about such matters?
Mr. Trippier: If the hon. Gentleman would open his ears instead of his mouth, a whole new world would be opened up to him. I was answering the question put to me by the hon. Lady. If housing associations are to bid for properties formerly owned by British Coal, it is up to them to produce an alternative better than what has been experienced by the tenants of those properties. That is what I learnt today.
Certainly tenancies that were the responsibility of British Coal may not have been handled properly; I have no way of knowing unless I am told. What concerns me is that such properties are improved by their alternative landlords. In this case and, I understand, in many other parts of the country, the landlord will be a housing association. But I do not want to be diverted on to a specific point about British Coal properties, or the hon. Member for Newham, North-West will be the first to accuse me of ducking the pertinent questions that he asked.
Mr. Soley: The reason the Minister is falling into a trap is that he is trying to answer a separate question. The question was: what will happen to the Coal Board tenants whose houses have already been sold to bad landlords? Does he not realise that many of those landlords cannot even be traced? Does he not know that the tenants drove down in a coach, only to find that the "registered office" was an empty house? Following the "World in Action" programme about a lady who was driven out of her home by Mr. Hoogstraten, I have written to the Lord Chancellor, the Home Secretary and the Minister for Housing, Environment and the Countryside. That lady is still out of her home, and all those Ministers say that nothing can be done. Where is the law to protect such people? Where is the choice of a different landlord?
Mr. Trippier: Even if what the hon. Gentleman says were true, it has absolutely nothing to do with tenants' choice, for which provision is made in section 4 of the 1988 Act. He knows that perfectly well. I am prepared to discuss that or any other matter with him or any other hon. Member, but it has nothing to do with the regulations. It is vital that I should respond to some of the questions that have been asked.
Mr. Abbott: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Allen McKay: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Trippier: I shall give way on one more occasion. The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington has already intervened, so I shall give way to the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. McKay).
Mr. McKay: The Minister is not putting his mind to the question. By one means or another, the Government intend to do away with local authority housing. We have known that for a considerable period. Should not the tenants of British Coal have, as of right, the choice to become local authority tenants because local authorities are the best landlords?
Mr Trippier: I am talking about the new regulations. We have taken as many steps as we think are necessary to provide for tenants a better alternative than the one that they have now. I maintained that the right of tenants to exercise a veto over their homes being sold to other landlords is a sufficient safeguard to ensure that our proposals are fair. In the vast majority of cases where there is a choice for tenants, I believe that they will choose a housing association rather than a private landlord. Opposition Members have been scaremongering. The Opposition are frightened of the proposals, so they have chosen to attack the publicity that the Government—more particularly, the Department of the Environment—have provided on the proposals.
The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) concentrated on a leaflet that we have debated at great length. We tried to debate the matter in the media, but it was overtaken by events and it was never broadcast. As a result, however, of the publication of this—a copy of which he has had because I sent it to him, although he did not mention that fact—we have made the position clear. It is more suitable for him; it contains more pictures so he will probably be able to understand it a little better. We have coloured the pictures so that no mistake can possibly be made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith about what we are saying.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. The Minister ought to identify, for the benefit of Hansard, what it is that he referred to as "this."
Mr. Trippier: I am grateful for the chance of a commercial, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is entitled "Tenants' Choice." It is a recent Department of the Environment and Welsh Office publication. We have gone to extreme lengths to make the alternatives abundantly clear. The hon. Member for Hammersmith claimed that the effect of not voting is not made clear in our leaflet. We say:
"If the transfer happens … Special arrangements apply to commercial tenants and flat-owners … but otherwise if you voted yes—or did not vote at all—you will transfer to become a tenant of the alternative landlord; if you voted no, you will stay"
a tenant of the council.
I have no doubt that from time to time the hon. Member for Hammersmith will raise this matter in future debates on housing and that he will attack the leaflet line by line and word by word and say that it is not abundantly clear. This evening he asked, "Will the Government be honest about the one-way ticket?" We have been very honest about that, too. Page 17 of the booklet deals with the question

129
"Can I change my mind after the vote?"
The answer is:
"No. If the transfer goes ahead and you have either voted `yes' or not cast your vote, you will not be able … to stay with the existing landlord or opt to go back to it later."
I fail to see how we could make that any clearer.
Mr. Soley rose—
Mr. Trippier: Is the hon. Gentleman going to change his tack? He either wants the position made clear or he does not, surely.
Mr. Soley: If the Minister listened to what I said about the previous leaflet and put it right in the present leaflet, I am pleased. Does the present leaflet make it clear that people who chose to stay with the council will, in certain circumstances, have to pay rents set by the new landlord, or that they will have to pay all the service charges and so on? Does it make that clear?
Mr. Trippier: If the hon. Member reads his intervention in Hansard, he will realise that he has made an absolute "Horlicks" of it. He asked whether I would make it clear what would happen to tenants who stayed with the local authority—that there might be substantial increases in rents and service charges. I think that he was referring to the fact that the alternative landlord—the private sector or housing association landlord—would then be in a position to increase rents and service charges. It would be the responsibility of the housing association, before the vote was taken, to make it clear to the tenants what the alternative actually meant to them. The alternative landlord would have to spell that out and make it abundantly clear—as anyone would have to—that it was prepared to offer a better service than the service being provided by the local authority. If the housing association could not persuade tenants that it could offer a better alternative, tenants plainly would not vote for it as an alternative landlord, so the situation simply does not arise.
Mr. Tony Banks: Suppose that a potential new landlord says, "We can offer you a better service," but does not mention rents, then gets hold of the properties and sticks the rents up 12 months later. Is the Minister saying that the new landlord will not be able to do that? Does he really believe that that situation will not arise, and will he assure us that, if it does, he will do something about it?
Mr. Trippier: On the latter point, of course we will, but the situation would not arise. Having suggested, rather stupidly, that the purpose of the legislation was to "strip out" local authorities' assets, which is palpable nonsense, the hon. Member for Newham, North-West went on to dismiss what he thought would be the Government's response to his speech, which is pretty clear: we have to approve the landlords through the Housing Corporation. [Interruption.] To be fair, the hon. Gentleman touched on that.
I would not in any way undermine the power that the Housing Corporation has in that regard and its responsibility for policing the 1988 Act. The landlords have to be approved and the housing associations will certainly be regularly monitored; they are at the moment, and that will continue. It is rather silly to suggest that tenants would vote for an alternative landlord if they did not know what the alternative rent regime would be. That would be stupid, and the hon. Gentleman's suggestion stretches credulity to breaking point.
Mr. Banks rose—
Mr. Trippier: I want to be fair to the hon. Gentleman's colleagues by trying to answer their questions.
The hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) suggested that there was not sufficient information about the Government's proposals. I have dealt to some degree with the recent publication that we have made available. I accept entirely that much more needs to be done to increase tenants' awareness of precisely what the 1988 legislation means for them. We have made it clear time and again that we are not attacking local government in the round. But in many cases the housing stock that local authorities have to manage is so enormous that they could not possibly manage it effectively or efficiently. We believe that their tenants should have the opportunity to exercise the right to choose an alternative landlord.
As a result of the legislation, there has been a considerable degree of deathbed repentance on the part of a number of local authorities that I would consider inefficient. If I were to select examples, I might be able to carry the hon. Member for Truro with me and we would agree that a particular local authority was inefficient. Many local authorities are trying to win back the favours and affections of their tenants. As I have suggested, it is a little late. If they improve their service as a result of our introducing the legislation, it should be welcomed on all sides of the House.
Mr. Matthew Taylor: Will the Minister explain why so many local authorities in rural areas have rather little housing stock and are probably not on the Minister's list of local authorities that cannot run their affairs properly? Torbay is such an example where the Minister has turned down a request for transfer. By deathbed repentances, is he referring to the fact that in Torbay dead people were counted as having voted in favour of a transfer?
Mr. Trippier: I have yet to see any evidence that such people were counted. Although I have heard it from the hon. Member for Truro and the hon. Member for Hammersmith, I have seen absolutely no evidence that that ever occurred. In regard to the legislation, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that those who have the opportunity to vote will be not only very much alive, but even if they are at sea, or even under the sea in submarines, to quote the hon. Gentleman's favourite example, it will be the responsibility of the electoral officer to ensure that they are reached. It is perfectly possible for someone serving with Her Majesty's forces abroad to be contacted in the preliminary period, through the normal British forces post office system, and that will be the responsibility of the electoral officer.
With regard to the point raised by the hon. Member for Newham, North-West about homelessness, there is an unmistakeable connection between the number of empty properties under local authority management in London and the number of homeless families. It shows the degree of inefficiency of housing management in local authorities such as his own, and particularly in Brent, that they have not turned round those empty properties and brought them back on to the market.
Mr. Banks: This one always comes up. I received an answer from the Under-Secretary of State for the

131
Environment, the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Chope), who is not altogether dead; indeed, I understand that he is still alive. I asked him:
"what average percentage of the total housing stock of (a) councils, (b) housing associations and (c) private landlords was vacant at the last recorded date."—[Official Report, 13 April 1989; Vol. 150, c. 664.]
The Minister's reply was that the average vacant dwellings as a percentage of stock of local authorities was 2·4 per cent., the figure for housing associations was 2·5 per cent., and the figure for private rented dwellings was 4·1 per cent. The fact is that in the local authority areas the percentage of vacancies is lower than in any other housing sector and considerably lower than in the Government's own housing sector.
Mr. Trippier: What else does the hon. Gentleman expect? There are literally thousands of private sector landlords who have varying sizes of stock. How would the hon. Gentleman, as a constituency Member of Parliament—forgetting his party affiliation—expect to chase within his constituency individual private landlords to ensure that the private rented sector is turned round and brought on to the market? I am sure that he and I agree that it would be pretty difficult. I know that the hon. Gentleman is fair in this respect.
The further difficulty the hon. Gentleman would have is persuading Newham—this is a darn sight easier problem—to improve the efficiency of the local authority and ensure that the empties are brought back on to the market and used to provide accommodation for those who are genuinely homeless.
Conservative Members are sick to death of the Opposition trying to claim that they have a monopoly of concern for the homeless—[HON. MEMBERS: "We do."].They do not. It is clear that bringing the empty properties back on to the market would relieve the pressure that the homeless are putting on the local authorities. If only one Opposition Member would admit that it is a sign of inefficiency that local authorities are not bringing those empty properties back on to the market, their claim would at least be credible. They do not turn round to their local authorities and say that they are inefficient.
There is one exception. He is a well-known Socialist but he is not a Member of the House. The leader of Liverpool city council, Councillor Keva Coombes, has been extremely fair recently in admitting publicly and with me in a debate on a radio programme, that Liverpool city council is inefficient in two regards. The first is in bringing empty properties back into use and the other is in not chasing effectively its rent arrears. Because someone such as that is prepared to admit that improvements can and should be made, it is beholden on Opposition Members also to admit that the performance of many Socialist-controlled local authorities is not up to scratch. Professor Maclennan did not do what the hon. Member for Hammersmith said. He confirmed that the efficiency within housing associations was eminently superior to local authorities.
Tenants' choice is a new opportunity for tenants of which the Government are proud. The Opposition did not like the Government giving tenants the right to choose to buy their own homes. They do not like us giving them the right to choose an alternative landlord. We have also built in the provision enabling tenants to stay with the local
132
authority. Therefore, the Opposition find it extremely difficult to attack our proposals. I urge the House to support our measures and I commend them to the House.
11.23 pm
Mr. David Winnick: The Minister said that he was ashamed of the total number of local authority dwellings in Britain and that he considered that there were too many. The Minister should instead be concerned about and ashamed of the acute housing crisis in Britain, about the number of families living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation and about the fact that only five minutes away from here many poeople, not all of whom are beggars—many are young people who have come from the north—will have to sleep in the open air by the embankment tonight. The Minister has expressed no shame or concern about that, so what kind of Housing Minister do we have?
My hon. Friends have, in the main, referred to the housing crisis in London—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have taken a relaxed view of the scope of the debate, but it is now turning into a general debate on homelessness, which cannot be permitted.
Mr. Winnick: I was referring to the Minister's replies to questions, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
If local authority tenants are to be given a choice of landlord, it is only proper that private tenants should be given the same choice. My hon. Friends referred to former tenants of British Coal, who are unaware who their present landlord is—[Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) will try to control herself—
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I wish that Labour-controlled authorities would fill the empty dwellings under their control.
Mr. Winnick: The hon. Lady should perhaps have asked my permission before intervening.
My hon. Friend referred to tenants being unaware who their landlords are. Why should they not be able to choose to remain with private landlords or become tenants of a local authority or housing association? The regulations will certainly give no rights to those tenants.
We are discussing only the public sector, and the Minister gave the game away when he described it as the Labour heartland. He is concerned not with housing or tenants but with party politics. He wants to undermine the public rented sector because of the long Tory vendetta against council housing.
The voting system is crooked. Anyone who abstains is regarded as voting in favour. The Minister proved tonight what we have said all along—that he is concerned not about housing, or the acute distress being caused to so many families, or the fact that people who cannot afford a mortgage and cannot obtain local authority dwellings are living in abysmal conditions, but about undermining councils and harming and penalising public sector tenants.
Mr. Soley: Given the way in which the Minister dealt with the subject, he ought to be known as the hon. Member for used car sales. He refused to answer the question about the regulations keeping properties empty during the takeover because councils will not be able to let

133
them. He keeps answering questions that were not asked because he cannot answer the difficult questions. That is why he should be selling cars.
Mr. Winnick: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. The Minister constantly tells local authorities that they are in the wrong, and he constantly informs the House of the number of local authority dwellings that are vacant. Yet, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) said, there are twice as many empty private dwellings. If the regulations make it more difficult for local authorities to let dwellings, how can he criticise them when he is the Minister responsible for making the position worse?
Everything that the Minister said showed that he should not be in charge of housing. Far from looking on him as a Minister responsible for housing, I see him as the anti-housing Minister. He is the worst junior Minister—[Interruption.] I know that there is a great deal of competition for that title, but the Minister has shown that he is the worst junior Minister in this present wretched Administration. Far from being concerned about housing, the Government want to cause the maximum damage to the public rented sector. When we vote against the regulations tonight, we shall do so with every possible justification.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 136, Noes 206.

Division NO. 159]

[11.29 pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

Anderson, Donald

Fatchett, Derek

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Fearn, Ronald

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

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

Barron, Kevin

Fisher, Mark

Battle, John

Foster, Derek.

Beckett, Margaret

Fraser, John

Bell, Stuart

George, Bruce

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

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Bermingham, Gerald

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Blunkett, David

Gordon, Mildred

Boyes, Roland

Graham, Thomas

Bradley, Keith

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Hardy, Peter

Buckley, George J.

Henderson, Doug

Caborn, Richard

Holland, Stuart

Callaghan, Jim

Home Robertson, John

Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Howells, Geraint

Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Clay, Bob

Illsley, Eric

Clelland, David

Ingram, Adam

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Cohen, Harry

Lamond, James

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Leadbitter, Ted

Corbyn, Jeremy

Leighton, Ron

Cousins, Jim

Lewis, Terry

Crowther, Stan

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Cryer, Bob

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Cummings, John

Loyden, Eddie

Cunliffe, Lawrence

McAllion, John

Cunningham, Dr John

McAvoy, Thomas

Dalyell, Tam

McFall, John

Darling, Alistair

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

McKelvey, William

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

McLeish, Henry

Dixon, Don

McWilliam, John

Doran, Frank

Madden, Max

Eastham, Ken

Mahon, Mrs Alice

134

Marek, Dr John

Skinner, Dennis

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

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

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

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

Martlew, Eric

Soley, Clive

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Spearing, Nigel

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Steel, Rt Hon David

Morgan, Rhodri

Steinberg, Gerry

Morley, Elliott

Stott, Roger

Mullin, Chris

Straw, Jack

Murphy, Paul

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Nellist, Dave

Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Turner, Dennis

O'Brien, William

Vaz, Keith

O'Neill, Martin

Wall, Pat

Patchett, Terry

Wallace, James

Pike, Peter L.

Walley, Joan

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Prescott, John

Wareing, Robert N.

Quin, Ms Joyce

Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

Redmond, Martin

Winnick, David

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Rogers, Allan

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Rooker, Jeff

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Ruddock, Joan

Mr. Frank Haynes and

Salmond, Alex

Mrs. Llin Golding.

NOES

Alexander, Richard

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Allason, Rupert

Fishburn, John Dudley

Amess, David

Forman, Nigel

Amos, Alan

Forth, Eric

Arbuthnot, James

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Fox, Sir Marcus

Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

Franks, Cecil

Ashby, David

Freeman, Roger

Aspinwall, Jack

French, Douglas

Atkins, Robert

Gale, Roger

Atkinson, David

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

Gill, Christopher

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Baldry, Tony

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Batiste, Spencer

Gow, Ian

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Gregory, Conal

Benyon, W.

Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

Bevan, David Gilroy

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Grist, Ian

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Hague, William

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

Boswell, Tim

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Bottomley, Peter

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

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Harris, David

Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Hayward, Robert

Bowis, John

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Brazier, Julian

Heddle, John

Bright, Graham

Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

Burns, Simon

Hind, Kenneth

Burt, Alistair

Howard, Michael

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

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

Cash, William

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Chapman, Sydney

Hunter, Andrew

Churchill, Mr

Irvine, Michael

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

Jack, Michael

Cope, Rt Hon John

Janman, Tim

Couchman, James

Jessel, Toby

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

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Durant, Tony

Key, Robert

Eggar, Tim

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Emery, Sir Peter

Kirkhope, Timothy

Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

Knapman, Roger

Evennett, David

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Fallon, Michael

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Favell, Tony

Knowles, Michael

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Knox, David

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Latham, Michael

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Lawrence, Ivan

Roe, Mrs Marion

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Rowe, Andrew

Lightbown, David

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

Lilley, Peter

Sackville, Hon Tom

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Shaw, David (Dover)

Lord, Michael

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Luce, Rt Hon Richard

Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

Macfarlane, Sir Neil

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Maclean, David

Speller, Tony

McLoughlin, Patrick

Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

Stern, Michael

Malins, Humfrey

Stevens, Lewis

Mans, Keith

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Maples, John

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Marland, Paul

Summerson, Hugo

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Thorne, Neil

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Thornton, Malcolm

Miller, Sir Hal

Thurnham, Peter

Mills, Iain

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Tracey, Richard

Moate, Roger

Tredinnick, David

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Trippier, David

Morrison, Sir Charles

Twinn, Dr Ian

Moss, Malcolm

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Neale, Gerrard

Waddington, Rt Hon David

Needham, Richard

Waldegrave, Hon William

Neubert, Michael

Walden, George

Nicholls, Patrick

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Waller, Gary

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Ward, John

Norris, Steve

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Oppenheim, Phillip

Warren, Kenneth

Paice, James

Watts, John

Patnick, Irvine

Whitney, Ray

Patten, Chris (Bath)

Widdecombe, Ann

Patten, John (Oxford W)

Wilkinson, John

Pawsey, James

Wilshire, David

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Porter, David (Waveney)

Winterton, Nicholas

Portillo, Michael

Wood, Timothy

Powell, William (Corby)

Woodcock, Mike

Raff an, Keith

Yeo, Tim

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Redwood, John

Tellers for the Noes:

Riddick, Graham

Mr. Stephen Dorrell and

Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

Mr. John M. Taylor.

Question accordingly negatived.

National Curriculum
11.42 pm
Mr. Jack Straw: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Education (National Curriculum) (Attainment Targets and Programmes of Study in Science) Order 1989 (S.I., 1989, No. 309), dated 3rd March 1989, a copy of which was laid before this House on 14th March, be annulled.
It may also be convenient for the House to consider the following prayer,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Education (National Curriculum) (Attainment Targets and Programmes of Study in Mathematics) Order 1989 (S.I., 1989, No. 308), dated 3rd March 1989, a copy of which was laid before this House on 14th March, be annulled.
Understandably and rightly, the House has today been preoccupied with the appalling events at the weekend at Hillsborough. The debate on these motions is something of a landmark in post-war education history. As far as I am aware, it is the first occasion on which the curriculum for science and mathematics has been debated in detail in the House since the Education Act 1944. I am glad that the Opposition have helped to secure the debate.
In its manifesto for the last general election, the Labour party called for a clear but flexible core curriculum agreed at national level. If we had won the election, the implementation of that pledge would have involved a process not dissimilar to that of which the orders are a part. There will always be much room for debate over the content and flexibility of any national curriculum, the means of assessment and the resources needed to deliver it. I think that there is now a common appreciation that, through the method of a national curriculum the final broad decisions on the core of what should be taught in schools should be the subject of the political process and the deliberations of the House. I do not resile from that conclusion.
But with the power over the curriculum that has been taken by this House go very important responsibilities—to ensure that we do not act in a destructive or partisan way; to ensure that we do not treat the curriculum as some party political football; to ensure that we allow the professionals whose advice is sought a climate of freedom in which to come to their own recommendations; and to ensure that any differences between that advice and the final decisions by Ministers and this House should be transparent and clear. It is crucial that we do that, for the success of any national curriculum depends upon the confidence of teachers.
Thanks not least to the painstaking work of members of the subject working parties of the National Curriculum Council and of inspectors and trainers, I have been struck, in the very many visits that I have made to schools, by the good will that exists among teachers towards the national curriculum—much the same as the great good will there was, and remains, for GCSE. I visited five schools in the past week and spoke in detail to the teachers. They all said that they were willing to make a go of the national curriculum, whatever their doubts. There are considerable doubts, some of which I shall raise. There are doubts about the timetable, about the resources, about the methods of assessment and, in the case of the order concerning science, about part of the order itself.

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This debate takes place on two orders—the one relating to maths, and the one relating to science. To secure debates on both, we had to pray against both, but it is our intention to vote only against the one dealing with science —for specific reasons that I will spell out. There have been no substantial representations against the mathematics order in its final form. There was, of course, a vigorous debate from the time of the first working party report in December 1987.
The popular press has alighted on this interesting issue of whether long division and long multiplication without the use of calculators should be taught in schools. In my view—I think that, on this issue, I speak for my colleagues —it is a good idea that children should be able to divide three-digit numbers by two-digit numbers without the use of a calculator, and that they should be able to carry out similar multiplication operations.
Mr. James Pawsey: Give us an example.
Mr. Straw: As the hon. Member will know from his own study of the attainment levels under the mathematics national curriculum, that operation does not have to be done in the head. Mentally, one has to be able only to divide two-digit numbers by single digits, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate.
The reason I think that this is a good idea is that long division and long multiplication do give an instinctive idea of mathematical relationships and orders of magnitude. It is important that children should have that facility. But we should not be Luddites about the use of calculators and computers. I have observed the way in which calculators help mathematics and mathematical relationships to come alive for children. They certainly ensure that children can make faster, better and more interesting progress than I observed 30 years or more ago when I was a child.
In mathematics there are considerable challenges ahead. I was struck by the remarks of Professor Howson, reported in The Times Educational Supplement recently:
"no other major developed country appeared to have so few of its 17-year-olds studying mathematics".
The challenge to raise interest and attainment in mathematics is very substantial. When visiting a school last week, in two adjoining classrooms I found that, among children of the same age level—these were 15 and 16—there was a difference of probably 10 years in the level of attainment.
Let me turn now to the proposals for the science national curriculum, which, appropriately, are in the red document, rather than the blue one. We propose to vote against this order, for two reasons: first, because we believe that it places too little emphasis on curiosity and inquiry; secondly—and more important—because it proposes that there should be established for 14 to 16-year-olds a two-tier science curriculum in which some children will devote between 16·6 per cent. and 20 per cent. of their time to a dual subject in science, whilst others will devote only 12·5 per cent. of their time to a single subject. In making this case, we are seeking not to substitute our views for those of the National Curriculum Council, but to substitute the original views of the science working party for those of the National Curriculum Council and the Secretary of State.
The science working party proposed that there should be four profile components—knowledge and understanding, exploration and investigation, communication, and
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science in action. It was concerned to ensure that the science curriculum should develop not only a knowledge of scientific processes and an understanding of those—as it must—but the context in which they have been developed and take place, the historic and social position of science, and of the need properly to communicate the scientific results. Communication in science is not incidental to the process but lies at the very heart of the scientific method.
I am sorry to say that that recommendation was rejected by the Secretary of State, in the advice that he gave to the National Curriculum Council in August, and the four profile components were compressed into two. With that compression, much greater weight was given to the acquisition of knowledge, and correspondingly much less weight was given to these other important components. I can give an illustration of that. When knowledge and understanding was part of four-part components, at key stage 4, it would receive 40 per cent. of the weighting, but it is now to receive 70 per cent.
That criticism would not have been enough by itself —although we regret the change—to have caused our opposition to this order. The establishment of a two-tier science curriculum is serious and is the principal reason why we intend to vote against the order. The science working party said that there should be a one-tier, two-subject, dual award at GCSE level for all pupils. It said that for secondary school children, these subjects should receive not less than 16·6 per cent. of curriculum time, and in the fourth and fifth years, the time should not exceed 20 per cent. The National Curriculum Council proposed what is described in the document as model A to implement that.
At the behest of the Secretary of State, the National Curriculum Council proposed a model B for some pupils, which is one subject involving just 12·5 per cent. of the time, and some key attainment targets are omitted from that. They include attainment target No. 2 on the variety of life, attainment target No. 5 on human influences on the earth, attainment target No. 7 on making new materials, and attainment target No. 12—this gave me considerable surprise, given the Secretary of State's interest—on the scientific aspect of information technology, including microelectronics.
The decision to establish this two-tier science was taken against the wishes of the science working party, and those of the overwhelming number of respondents to the National Curriculum Council consulted. This decision led to suspicions that the problem of resources, of shortages of cash and of teachers, may have motivated the Department of Education and Science to go down this road.
In December, I wrote to the Secretary of State arguing against the NCC and in favour of the science working party. I conceded:
"It may be that there are some children for whom a double science at GCSE would not he appropriate".
The Secretary of State picked that up in his reply. The whole of my letter was devoted to establishing the case for a single-tier, dual-subject science, and I meant only that there may be a tiny handful of children—for example, children who had been statemented, or who were near-statemented, and for whom such a science course was not appropriate. I do not accept that it is appropriate for schools that the House should establish this two-tier

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system of science teaching at secondary level, which can become an escape route out of the difficulties of teacher shortages that many schools now face.
It is either a way round teacher shortages, to which we object, or we object to it for the reasons which the Secretary of State outlined in his reply to me on 6 December 1988. In justifying the two tiers, he said that the provision was there to allow some flexibility for a minority of pupils whose time would be better spent in developing a special talent in, say, modern languages or music. It may be appropriate to provide time for modern languages and music for some pupils, but the way to do that is by introducing far greater flexibility into the foundation subjects rather than in diluting the core.
If we opt for two-tier science, there will be two serious effects. Opportunity and achievement will be restricted beyond 16 years for many pupils, and there will be pressure, especially on girls, not to follow two science subjects at GCSE level, with all the implications for reducing their opportunities later. That is an issue that is developed by Lynda Carr, the principal education officer of the Equal Opportunities Commission, who said:
"We shall find the kind of sex differentiation which the EOC has encountered in complaints from parents: environment studies courses where boys do science and girls do nature or craft courses."
All of us know only too well the pressures within schools that act against girls following science courses, especially those which are based on mathematics and physics. Given the propensity of schools and our culture to downgrade science for girls, we should be extremely careful in providing an escape route by which schools can allow that to happen.
I find the view of the Secretary of State and of the Department odd, given that both the predecessor of the Minister of State, Department of Education and Science, the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Patten), who is now the Minister for Overseas Development, and the Secretary of State have separately in the past week said that there should be two-subject science for 14 to 16-year-olds and that it should be available to all pupils. The Royal Society of Chemistry recommended 20 per cent. of curriculum time for science. It
"supported the Engineering Council on Double Award Balanced Science, which contained the following: 'Balanced science courses … occupy about 20 per cent. of curriculum time … and are appropriate for all students'".
The Secretary of State, in the Department of Education and Science document 174/87, welcomed the report and the proposition of 20 per cent. of curriculum time for science for all students. In that circumstance, I find it odd that the Secretary of State should have changed his view.
The way in which two-tier science may block opportunities beyond 16 years is spelt out by the NCC. It has said that it is unlikely that the breadth of concepts covered in a single-award science would ever include the foundation knowledge and understanding that is required for all three science disciplines at 0-level. In other words, if children are permitted to follow the single subject at 16 years, they will not have an opportunity later to go on to do A-levels. That is because the sort of course that they will have followed up to 16 will not have been of sufficient breadth or depth to enable them to do that.
I have referred to a helpful brief from the Royal Society of Chemistry, which has raised two other issues on which
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I should be grateful for a response from the Secretary of State. One is that the orders do not of themselves ensure balance within the science curriculum. It observes that no guidance is given on the relative weightings to be applied to the 16 attainment targets that contribute to the knowledge and understanding of a profile component. I hope that the Secretary of State will deal with that. It recommended—I should be glad of an observation on this—that the three main sciences of biology, chemistry and physics should be given weightings of at least 30 per cent. each.
This is not the occasion for a major debate on teacher shortages in general, but it must be well known to the House that there are serious shortages that are affecting schools in science and mathematics. Figures published last week by the Clearing House and Graduate Teacher Training Registry show that applications for physics and maths are down by 25 per cent. and 16 per cent. respectively this year, and that last year applications were down 14 per cent. in maths and 17 per cent. in physics. As the appendix to the report of the interim advisory committee makes clear, there has been a massive drop in the number of students taking chemistry courses, when compared with the target set by the Department.
Professor Alan Smithers and Dr. Pamela Robinson of Manchester university have suggested that on an optimistic forecast we could be 4,141 mathematics teachers short by 1995 and on a pessimistic forecast about 12,000 teachers short. The situation is therefore serious, but I have yet to hear any serious strategy for dealing with these shortages from the Secretary of State. If they continue, it will not be possible properly to deliver the national curriculum, as spelt out in the regulations, in any of our schools. It is as serious as that.
I turn now to assessment. Going round schools and talking to teachers, I have found that their greatest anxiety relates to the methods and the scope of the assessment systems that will be put in place to assess and test aspects of the national curriculum. One headmaster told me last week that there is anxiety about the level of bureaucracy that will be required. How much paperwork will be imposed on teachers? There is also anxiety about the technical problems of making assessments that are in any sense meaningful, especially in primary schools, and there is anxiety about the publication of results. I am aware that the contracts for tests have been let and that they are now being validated, but I should be grateful if the Secretary of State could provide us with as much information as he has available about the nature and forms of assessment, especially at seven and 11, and about its relationship with GCSE testing at 16
It is also important that the Secretary of State spells out a little more clearly his view about the publication of test results, especially at seven. The Education Reform Act 1988 laid down that schools should not be forced to publish test results at seven. Our view was that they would provide such a distorted view of schools and individual pupils that they should not be published at all. Opposition Members have never said that crude data on test results at 11, 14 and 16 should not be published. Since we believe in openness in government, both locally and nationally, it follows that we believe that crude data should be available.
However, by itself, the publication of such crude data could lead to false impressions about the progress that schools are making with individual children. While all of us are concerned for our own children—every parent is

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concerned about the absolute level of attainment of the individual child—one does not judge the effectiveness of schools on the aggregate absolute level of attainment reached by those schools, but on the degree of progress that the school is able to make with individual pupils, taking into account the level of attainment of the intake of the school and comparing it with the level of attainment when the children leave the school.
To use a piece of market jargon, we should judge schools by their creation of education value added. A school in a less prosperous area, dealing with children whose absolute attainment may be far less than that of children in a more prosperous area, may be doing far better than the school in a prosperous area, which, even if the teachers were not very competent, could still turn out well.
There is also the problem that has been brought to my attention today, whereby, because of changes in the population, perhaps due to an increase in the birth rate, the intake of a school may change over the years. If all that one is considering is crude test results, the judgment will be that the school has gone down, whereas, because the children have a lower level of attainment at entry, the crude results suggest lower levels of attainment, although the teachers may be working harder.
These are critical issues if the test results are to be used fairly to help schools to raise their attainment, rather than to damn schools in areas of less prosperity and to act as an alibi and a mask for the performance of schools in more prosperous areas.
My final point concerns a suggestion in the Financial Times for 13 April that primary school streaming may be reintroduced as a consequence of the national curriculum. The provenance of that report is fairly obscure, and I shall be grateful if the Secretary of State will say whether that report was fairly based on a reading of the circular. My concern about streaming and mixed ability classes is only that we should go for the system that offers the best teaching, and that we should not hold hard and fast opinions on the matter. The evidence I have received from primary school teachers is that children of all abilities learn best in mixed ability classes. Also, because most primary schools have one or two-form entry, the problems of organising streaming are virtually impossible for them to overcome—unless they are to be provided with many more staff than they currently have.
Even in the days of the 11-plus, there was remarkably little streaming in many primary schools, simply because of the physical problems of organising streaming, let alone the educational disadvantages.
When the Education Reform Bill 1988 passed through this House, the Opposition argued strongly that the national curriculum should apply to all schools, whether private or state, and that it should be a framework and not a straitjacket. We argued that it should be flexible, and that its tests should aim at diagnosing children's strengths and weaknesses and at informing parents of their children's progress. We emphasised that sufficient resources should be available to make all that a reality. We said that, above all, the national curriculum should be a means of providing a better education for all children. It is on that basis that we must judge the two orders. In those terms, one of the orders passes that test and the other fails it.
12.6 am
The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Baker): I thank the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) for the tone of his speech. As he said, the debate is something of a landmark, in that the House has not debated the curriculum in our schools—other than in last year's Education Reform Bill—since 1945. Tonight, the House is asked to approve the mathematics and science curriculum for all state-maintained schools with children aged between five and 15.
It is very important that the national curriculum— I did everything that I could in arranging it to ensure this—does not become a party political matter. That is why I welcome the tone of the hon. Gentleman's speech.
The two strands of the Government's education reform programme are to improve standards and to increase choice. Tonight we are dealing with the main thrust of the policy to improve standards. I am glad that it is widely welcomed throughout the education system. The keystone of our programme is improved standards for all children in all our schools. That keystone has been widely debated. I announced a commitment to introduce the national curriculum about two and a half years ago, and before the last general election I established the two working groups to which the hon. Gentleman referred—one on maths and one on science. We are debating the result of their work tonight.
I thank all those people who served on the working groups. I shall reflect for a moment on the time that it takes to produce such documents. Some people thought it an easy matter to write the national curriculum. It has taken much longer than people imagine—two years in respect of two subjects that were thought to be easier to deal with. Difficult matters lie ahead of us in respect of English—even more difficult in respect of the content of the history curriculum. We thought that we were on secure, firm ground in defining maths and science, but it has still taken all that time.
I shall spell out the process. The working groups published interim reports after six months' work as a guide for general discussion. They were used as the basis on which to consult a large number of organisations and individuals. The working groups produced final reports on 30 June last year. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I then commented on the reports and sent them, with our proposals, to the National Curriculum Council. The NCC sent out those proposals for even wider consultation, and after due consideration submitted its proposals to me. That was in November last year. I then published draft orders, which were also sent out for consultation. These are the final orders.
Let me briefly spell out what the documents involve. What we are seeing tonight is the result of a long consultative process. If they flick through the documents, hon. Members will note their precision in setting out 10 levels of attainment for children from the age of five to the age of 16. For the first time, the blueprint contains considerable detail about the attainments that should be expected of children at the ages of seven, 11, 14 and 16.
The documents come to life in the examples that they give. Rather than merely saying that children should be able to read, write, count and order numbers, the blueprint says, for example, that they should know that if a set of eight pencils is counted the answer is always the same, regardless of how they are arranged. That may seem a

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simple example, but children have to start at that level. Other examples, relating to ages up to 16, deal with very complicated matters. The same applies to science. [HON. MEMBERS: "Give us some examples."] I am tempted to: there are plenty. I am suitably modest when it comes to maths and science.
The specifications for what a child should be able to do at those different ages is revolutionary, and I was glad to note that the hon. Member for Blackburn had no real quarrel with the maths proposals. However, he made a series of important points about the science proposals, and I should like to deal with those.
The important thing about the national curriculum is that children will not be able to drop subjects at the age of 14, as they can now. The three core subjects are English, maths and science; the seven foundation subjects are history, geography, technology and foreign languages—the four "academic" subjects—and music, art and physical education. I am not saying that music and art are not academic: they are all equally good and equally demanding, as they should be.
The general pattern today is that at 14 boys tend to drop foreign languages and girls tend to drop science and technology. All children will now be expected to take science up to the age of 16. That, too, constitutes a revolution in our education system. The latest figures suggest that in year five in a secondary school only about 40 per cent. of pupils are studying biology, fewer than 35 per cent. studying physics, fewer than 30 per cent. studying chemistry and about 30 per cent. studying general science, while 5 per cent. do not take science at all. The national curriculum will not only ensure that those figures rise, but will ensure the study of a balanced science curriculum for all pupils. That is important, because a good many children take biology at 14, 15 and 16 as their one science. Important though that study is, it does not cover the full range of science, taking in chemistry and physics.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Does the Secretary of State accept the criticism voiced by the Royal Society of Chemistry that offering model B encourages premature specialisation?
Mr. Baker: That point was raised in some detail by the hon. Member for Blackburn. It concerns what is known as the 12·5 per cent. option. Schools can now decide whether children should study science for a double award—that is, model A—or for a single award. Model A involves roughly 20 per cent. of curriculum time; taking one science involves roughly 12·5 per cent., or one period a day.
The hon. Members for Blackburn and for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) argue that all children should take a double science to GCSE level at 16. The argument, and that of the Royal Society of Chemistry, is that that would still allow a range of options. That would take up 20 per cent. of school time for all pupils and would cover 17 attainment targets. I acknowledge that that is also proposed by the science working group. However, I took further advice on it, as did the National Curriculum Council. After considering the matter, the NCC recommended that there should be an option at the age of 14 to take a single GCSE in science. That covers 10 attainment targets—more than half the 17 attainment targets for the double option. I
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emphasise that the NCC's decision to make that recommendation was its own independent decision. I agreed with its recommendation.
It would be difficult to identify any school in the country where all the pupils study science for 20 per cent. of their time. That is not surprising. Even those head teachers who are most enthusiastic about the 20 per cent. option—the double science—want some flexibility. There is no question of the 12·5 per cent. option being related to problems of teacher supply, which are being effectively tackled. It is a response to the widespread and genuine concern for some flexibility. The 12·5 per cent. option is a balanced course, including the physical sciences. It will involve teaching physics, biology and chemistry.
I should make it clear that I expect that most pupils will study science for 20 per cent. of their time. There will be a strong recommendation to all schools that they should offer a double science to all pupils. I want to make it clear, however, that the 12·5 per cent. single science option is a tremendous improvement on what is available at the moment. It is a massive step forward. A very large number of our children do not study a balanced science curriculum at the ages of 15 and 16. They will now have to take balanced science studies for at least 12·5 per cent. of their time—for a period a day. It is not just one of the sciences, such as biology or chemistry. It is rounded science. It is not a soft option. We must remember also that all pupils will also be dealing with science-related topics in maths and technology.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Many people would agree with the Secretary of State if his proposals were really directed towards pupils' needs. In timetabling, there are the needs of the pupils and school resources. It would be nice if the timetable reflected pupils' needs, but the danger is that it reflects what is available in schools. Will the Secretary of State give an absolute guarantee that the resources, particularly teachers, will be provided to ensure that the timetable meets the needs of pupils?
Mr. Baker: I shall come to resources and teachers in a moment. Could I complete my remarks on the 12·5 per cent. option?
I emphasise that this is not an option that I have thought up and tried to push through. Her Majesty's inspectorate gives strong support to the view that the 12·5 per cent. option represents a worthwhile study of science. The hon. Member for Blackburn often quotes the words of the senior chief inspector, but on this matter the senior chief inspector was quite clearly of the view that the 12·5 per cent. option should be available. The option allows for an average pupil to be able to explain changes of state and the energy changes associated with them; to be able to explain evaporation, diffusion and dissolving, in terms of simple kinetic theory and to be able to understand the magnetic effect of an electric current and electromagnetic induction. I do not believe that that is a soft option.
As for teacher resources, recruitment to initial teacher training in 1988 was a record 20,180—up by 5 per cent. over 1987. Primary recruitment, at 11,370, was up by 12·5 per cent. Applications for primary training for students who will start their training in September of this year is even better. It is up by 14 per cent. It was because of the

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worrying position on applications for training in the secondary shortage subjects in 1984 and 1985 that I launched my programme.
I recognise that there is a problem with the supply of teachers in the shortage subjects. I identified that when I launched my action programme three years ago and set out six main points of attack. The House will know that there are tax-free, non-means-tested bursaries of £1,300 a year for teacher trainees in maths, physics and CDT. This year I have extended the scheme to chemistry trainees and there has been a most welcome increase in the number of applications. The scheme has helped to reverse the decline in the number of applications for those subjects and there is now about 2,400 bursaries.
In-service training is another important element. Part of the problem is the mismatch of skills in the profession itself. It is very important to have an extensive in-service training programme to retrain teachers in other skills. I have devoted £35·5 million over two years to support in-service training in shortage subjects by schools and LEAs. The aim is to tackle the hidden shortage, as it is sometimes called, and to provide support to upgrade the skills of teachers who were inadequately qualified in the shortage subjects.
My third point of attack was advertising and publicity. The hon. Member for Blackburn chided me from time to time, and says that my advertising and publicity budget has increased by a modest factor of several hundred per cent. [HON. MEMBERS: "3,000."] That shows the importance of the maths curriculum; hon. Members can distinguish between hundreds and thousands.
I launched the teaching as a career unit in April 1987 and, for the first time, teaching has a voice in the career market place, aimed at promoting the profession. In the past three years we have had a series of positive and imaginative advertising and publicity campaigns, backed by new booklets—also part of my publicity budget—aimed at the intending teacher. The campaign has been a success. Our recent advertising campaign, which ended just a few weeks ago, has attracted 10,000 responses so far. Responses continue to be received every day and are being processed.
The fourth item of the programme to encourage more people to enter the teaching programme is support for local initiatives. For example, we are helping to fund a course aimed at recruiting people from the ethnic minorities into primary teaching in Newham. By recruiting people who live locally—many of whom will have had teaching experience overseas—we can make a solid contribution to solving the problem of primary teacher supply in that authority.
Mature entrants are another important element. About 4,000 mature entrants a year enter the teaching profession. They are people in their late 20s, 30s and 40s. The fact that many of them have had experience in other walks of life or in bringing up families means that they can greatly enrich the teaching profession. I have supported the development of new courses in the shortage subjects to help attract mature entrants. We have shortened the two-year BEd and part-time PGCE courses. I have also funded a pilot programme of 11 short courses, aimed at mature entrants and with the object of giving them an opportunity to find out in the classroom what teaching is like.
I now come to my proposal for licensed teachers—
Mr. Nigel Spearing: Bearing in mind the emergency scheme at the end of the last war and what the Secretary of State has just said about mature entrants, will he now explain why he did not extend and intensify that, rather than proposing that there should be so-called licensed teachers?
Mr. Baker: I have only a small memory of the scheme during the war.
Mr. Spearing: After the war.
Mr. Baker: After the war. I believe that there was a scheme rather similar to the Bevin boys in the war— [Interruption.] Several of my predecessors have taken initiatives to encourage people to enter teaching. I am not talking just about the proposals under the Attlee Government of the 1940s but about initiatives under successive Conservative and Labour Governments. We are continuing a series of initiatives, all of which must be taken in hand and tried.
Mr. Harry Cohen: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Baker: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me. This is a short debate and others will wish to speak.
I shall be publishing the details shortly. Some of the criticisms made of the proposals, particularly at the teacher union conferences, were off beam. It is not a way of getting teachers into the classroom on the cheap. It is a way of encouraging people in their 20s, 30s and 40s who have had other careers in electronics or other sectors of the business world or the public sector, who want a career change. They will be qualified people who have spent at least two years in higher education. Many such people already enter the teaching profession, but they have to end their professional work and do a year's study in a college. The licensed teacher scheme will mean that, instead of doing a year's study in a college, on a grant, those people will be taken on by an LEA as a salaried teacher and trained on the job. It is important that there should be agreed training programmes extending over two years and then the LEA will decide whether they reach qualified teacher status.
I am surprised that there has been some opposition to that idea, as I have been pressed by many local education authorities, including Labour-controlled authorities, to bring forward the proposal as quickly as possible. Those Labour-controlled authorities planning to take over responsibility for education in London specifically stressed at a collective meeting with me, that they would like the scheme to be introduced as quickly as possible.
Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not giving way, as I know that he will be speaking in a few moments.
I have also proposed another flexible route leading to qualified teacher status—the proposal for articled teachers. Starting in September 1990, that route into teaching will be open to young graduates and to mature entrants. Those are people who have taken a degree at a university or a polytechnic. At the moment they have to take a PGCE at a college. The proposal is that they will be taken on by a local education authority, paid as a teacher and trained for two years to qualify for a PGCE. I am

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inviting LEAs and higher education institutions to work up schemes to meet conditions that I shall lay down to ensure that trainees receive adequate support and an appropriate lighter teaching load during the period of training.
In the next week or so the inspectors will be publishing a report about teacher training in France. The House will find it interesting, because a great deal of teacher training in France takes place on the job. There is no watering down, as the proposals apply to people with qualifications.
Mr. Straw: The debate is specifically about science and maths and I shall try to stick to that topic and not extend it into a general debate about teacher shortages. Despite what the Secretary of State spelt out, applications for physics and maths fell this year and last year. When does he expect that the shortages in those key subjects will be over?
Mr. Baker: I hope and believe that the combined effects of all the proposals will lead to an adequate staffing in those subjects in the 1990s. A great deal of the problem arises from a mismatch.
The proposals for licensed teachers apply to people who could have qualifications and degrees in science subjects, physics, chemistry, technology and computer sciences, and who want to enter the teaching profession. We should welcome those people, as they have a great deal to offer.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: How many?
Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman asks, "How many?", but one of the chief unions, which I hope the Opposition Front Bench will not support, did not want anyone at all from those sources. That is reactionary and wrong.
I rebut the charge that the Government are being complacent about teacher shortages, as that is simply not the case.
Mr. Straw: The Secretary of State mentioned the Opposition Front Bench. Our criticism of the two proposals is not that they provide different entry points into teacher training. We have said publicly that we want different entry points into teacher training. We are concerned about the standard of qualification of those teachers at the end of training. We have spent 30 years getting teaching in Britain up to a graduate level of qualification and in our view that is of great importance to the quality of education that is delivered. Can the Secretary of State guarantee that the end result of the two alternative routes will be a graduate qualification?
Mr. Baker: Absolutely, there is no doubt about that. There is no question of watering down. I found it a little strange that at one of the large conferences, at which most of the representatives could not have been graduates because they came into the profession some time ago, it was said that this was not the right way to enter the profession. They know the problems, and we are addressing the solutions.
As I said at the outset, I am glad to say that this is not a matter of party political controversy. This is an important day for education because we will be implementing the beginning of the national curriculum. I am glad that an issue which underwent a great deal of controversial debate because it extended over a general
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election has now reached a great measure of consensus and I know that there are other more controversial issues in our education reforms. I commend the orders to the House.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. Both Front Bench spokesmen broadened the debate and I understand the reasons for that. However, I remind the House that we should be debating mathematics and science in the national curriculum.
12.31 am
Mr. Simon Hughes: The debate is significant, for the reasons given by the Secretary of State. No doubt in due course we shall discuss English and other subjects. Therefore, it is appropriate to reflect on the two subjects before us and on some of the general difficulties that have occurred in reaching this stage in the replanning of the education syllabus.
As the Secretary of State will be aware, one of the concerns passed on to us by those in the teaching profession is that they are in the middle of substantial changes. They have just adapted, usually successfully, to the GCSE and they are now concerned that, to make a good showing in introducing the national curriculum in the autumn they should have the necessary resources. Therefore, it is appropriate that the debate is as much about resources as about content. Without the resources, the ability to deliver the new curriculum will not be achieved.
One of the immediate problems faced by teachers is the difficulty of finding time to prepare for September. From all the evidence and publicity, it seems that the problem of finding free time to prepare for the national curriculum is not insubstantial. Teachers need to allocate some of their non-contact time to prepare for the substantial differences to be introduced into their working lives in the autumn. They are still waiting—the Secretary of State did not mention this, but I hope that the Minister will—for the advice promised to them on 3 March by the National Curriculum Council in relation to the implementation of the national curriculum. That is especially important in primary schools. As I understand it, that advice has not yet been forthcoming. Although they have the curriculum—the hard core material—they do not yet have advice about its implementation. That is the second important component. If teachers are to prepare their work schedules for September, they need to be given advice fairly early, as many pressures are imposed on them by examinations, and so on.
As the Secretary of State and the Minister are aware, the resource problems in the subjects that we are discussing today are among the most acute in our school system. It would be inappropriate to deal at length with the general problem of teacher shortages. The constituency of the Minister of State, Department of Education and Science is, like my own, in the London region, and she will be aware that the shortage of maths and science teachers is two and a half times worse in London than in the rest of the country. A quarter of shortages in secondary school teachers are in maths and science. That is scarcely a persuasive backdrop to a system that will come into force in less than six months.

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The problem is made worse by a shortage of trainee teachers to fill the gaps. It is no good the Government pretending that there is no problem, because there is, and it will affect a substantial number of schools throughout the land. What will be the effect of such shortages on the curriculum? How will it be possible for the curriculum to be properly taught? The answer is that it will not, and the problem is made worse by the dichotomy in the science curriculum.
A further problem, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), is the lack of Government commitment to do what they said they wanted to do. The Government began by saying that 20 per cent. of the curriculum must be devoted to science, but realised that they could not deliver and resiled from that and considered the model B option of 12·5 per cent. because of a shortage not only of people but of equipment, and a lack of finance.
I have asked one or two questions, which revealed that there is a shortage not only of staff but of laboratories and equipment too. On average, there are six laboratories for a school of 1,000 pupils. If the reality is that between 10 and 20 per cent. of secondary school children do more than one science subject for GCSE, if the average in the fourth and fifth year is that each pupil studies just over one science subject, and if we were to obtain the objective of 20 per cent. of the curriculum being science—that is, two subjects per pupil—an increase in resources of 80 per cent. will immediately be needed to teach it. That would involve not only extra laboratories but extra equipment for them, which works out at about £50,000 per school.
I listened carefully to the Secretary of State, but I did not hear one word of encouragement to the effect that there will be substantial investment in laboratories, equipment or building for our secondary schools this autumn. A teacher recently suggested to me that it was hypocritical for the Government to introduce the national curriculum and to say that schools had to comply with its requirements without giving them the tools to get on with the job.
In addition, many primary school teachers are insufficiently qualified to teach maths and science. Figures reveal that only 4 per cent. of primary school teachers have a post-A-level qualification in maths, and only 7 per cent. have a post-A-level qualification in science, compared with 16 per cent. for English, so we do not have the personnel with the specific qualities that are needed to make the new curriculum work effectively.
The Secretary of State's examples of the new schemes with which to bring in new teachers, although good in theory, do not seem to be working in practice. Opposition Members have criticised the bursary scheme and the Minister has admitted—albeit only in the last week or two —that the bursary scheme in sciences and maths was not succeeding.
I am surprised to hear the Secretary of State say that representatives from London boroughs have pleaded with him for the licensed teachers scheme to come into operation. I cannot believe that anybody thinks that people will leave highly paid City jobs to teach permanently in schools. I could understand a scheme of secondment, as practised in other areas, but to imagine that people will change careers for a lower salary seems substantially self-deluding.
There are specific reasons for believing that, although it is not inappropriate to move towards the national
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curriculum, this autumn we shall be unable to do so effectively or with confidence. We do not have the resources to do so, because the Government have failed to supply them. I shall therefore advise my colleagues to vote against the orders.
12.41 am
Mr. Timothy Raison: This is a welcome debate and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science on having made so much progress in bringing forward the national curriculum. That is a major achievement.
I shall first raise the baffling issue of why the Labour party has decided to vote against the Government. At the end of the debate we may see a change of heart on its part because the grounds for a vote are remarkably insubstantial. As I understand it, the Labour party intends to vote against the orders because the Government propose a two-tier system to cover science. Underlying that motive I suspect that there is an ideological hang-up—an objection to two tiers in anything—rather than a careful and precise analysis of the matter.
It certainly seems reasonable that, in the early stages of bringing forward the national curriculum, we should be prepared to have some flexibility. It does not worry me that some children will spend 20 per cent. of their time on science, and others only 12·5 per cent. I accept that there may be a problem of teacher shortages. As the House knows, the Select Committee on Education is considering the supply of teachers for the 1990s. As Chairman of that Committee, I do not intend to try to anticipate our findings at this stage. We must pay some regard to the realities of the resources. However, I have no profound objection to the basic principle of some children doing more science than others.
Will my hon. Friend the Minister comment on the extent to which teachers have been involved in the preparation and implementation of the national curriculum? One complaint about educational policy over the past few years has been that teachers have not been sufficiently involved. Whatever the merits of that argument, it is of great importance and interest to the House to know whether teachers have been involved in working parties. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can guide the House on that.
In opening the debate, the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), said—I sympathise with this—that the crucial aspect in testing in education is not so much absolute attainment as the value added. That remark has much to be said for it. Anybody who is interested in education will share that view. However, one of the merits of the introduction of a system of testing attainment over the years is that it gives us a chance to measure the value added as education takes place. The people who are concerned that testing will merely be some kind of crude rat race should ponder the fact that we now have a mechanism to determine not only what is achieved but the way in which achievement relates to those who may have started from a low level or from a background of difficult social circumstances but who, because they attend good schools, can gain something positive. Testing will give us a clearer idea of when that occurs.
To some extent, the primary education side of all this has been rather underrated. As I have thought about the problems of possible shortages of teachers, it has seemed

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to me that, particularly at the upper end of the primary scale, there may be more serious problems than have been recognised.
The hon. Member for Blackburn referred to the possibility of streaming in primary schools. That does not especially concern me; it is something that the schools must work out for themselves. If they have only one entry form, they are unlikely to go in for much streaming. But if they have two, and feel that the best way of using their teaching staff is the introduction of some sort of streaming, we should not get involved in laying down the law on what they should be doing. We should rely on the heads of these schools to work out what is best in the circumstances.
Another point about primary education that has been borne in on me only comparatively recently is that these new stages of education may make life rather difficult for authorities in whose schools the ages of transfer are different from the ages at which the testing will take place. In the county of Buckinghamshire, which I represent, it so happens that the ages of transfer are eight and then 12. The county is having to think rather hard about whether, in order to fit in naturally with the national curriculum, it will have to switch the ages of transfer from eight to seven and from 12 to 11. Apart from anything else, that raises considerable issues of resources. The objective is right, but I should be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister would comment on how she sees the problem developing. Will education authorities in many parts of the country have to rethink their ages of transfer, and if so, what are the resource implications?
I repeat that I believe that we are now witnessing a real step forward, and it would be churlish and foolish to vote against what the Government are doing.
12.47 am
Mr. Tam Dalyell: The Royal Society of Chemistry has given considerable thought to the orders, about which I want to ask three questions.
First, the Royal Society says that the orders do not, of themselves, ensure balance within the science curriculum, as no guidance is given on the relative weightings to be applied to the 16 attainment targets that contribute to the knowledge and understanding profile component. The science working group suggested weightings, and the society recommends that these weightings become part of the orders. It says that failure to make them so opens up the possibility of imbalance between the major scientific disciplines. For example, in model A, the programmes of study leading to the statements of attainment in AT8 should be much more extensive than those in AT16, yet the draft orders give no guidance to teachers and examining authorities in this matter. Do the Government accept what the society says about this?
Secondly, the society rejects model B at key stage 4. The course a pupil follows would be neither broad nor balanced. Do the Government agree with that?
Finally, the society has serious reservations about the intention to implement key stage 1 of the national curriculum in September 1989. These three issues are important, and I would welcome the Government's comments on them.
12.49 am
Mr. James Pawsey: I welcome the two statutory instruments setting out the place of mathematics and science in the national curriculum. I recall that, during the many meetings of the Standing Committee that considered the Education Reform Bill, we discussed the national curriculum at some length. In fairness to Opposition Members, they did not vote against it in principle, although they had some reservations about its detail. Like my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, I am somewhat surprised that the Opposition now propose to vote against it. I welcome the Education Reform Act 1988 because it proves that there is life and imagination after Butler.
Mr. Derek Fatchett: The hon. Gentleman is reading from a script. Who wrote it?
Mr. Pawsey: I can assure Opposition Members that we prepare our own scripts. We do not employ the army of researchers that the Opposition have.
It is unfortunate that, while some Opposition Members can see some benefit in the national curriculum and in the mathematics and science reports, they cannot see some of the other benefits that will spring from the Education Reform Act. Mathematics and science are important subjects. It is right that they should play an important part in school life and that ample time should be provided for their teaching and development. Increasingly, mathematics and science will play a larger part in the life of an individual when he or she leaves school and starts to earn a living.
I do not share the concern of Opposition Members who spoke about option B in the report of the National Curriculum Council. That option gives more flexibility to the school curriculum. It allows more time for other subjects, reduces specialisation at too early an age, and reduces the risk of forcing children into some form of science straitjacket that may permanently alienate them and push them from science for ever. Option B gives a balanced programme, with physics, chemistry and biology. It recognises that attainment targets as a whole represent a link, a balance, between practical work and knowledge.
The national curriculum operates only on children from the age of 16 so that young people can then start to specialise with A levels. Option B keeps doors open and education best takes place in a disciplined environment and in some schools that discipline is lacking for the teaching of the national curriculum. I hope that the Minister will give some thought to how the subject of teaching itself is taught in some of our colleges. I hope that he will persuade those who produce the syllabus in those colleges to build in more classroom practice.
The national curriculum and science and mathematics need teachers. Opposition Members, such as the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), have said that there is a shortage of teachers. However, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, overall there are sufficient teachers. I acknowledge that in some areas and in some subjects there may be difficulties. However, they should not be overstated because the number of vacancies fell by about 20 per cent. between 1987 and 1988.
The Secretary of State spoke about recruitment for initial teacher training, which in 1988 was a record. That underlines an earlier point that training must be right.

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Social theory is okay, but it is a poor substitute for classroom practice. I welcome the action taken by my right hon. Friend on combating the perceived teacher shortage. I welcome the more flexible use of starting salaries and incentive allowances, the more active recruitment, more part-time working and, above all, the encouragement of former teachers to return to the profession. My right hon. Friend's policies are indeed proving successful. The success of the national curriculum will hinge on an adequate supply of well motivated teachers who are able to teach maths and science and other subjects. My right hon. Friend is ensuring that the existing difficulties are resolved —and in good time.
12.55 am
Mr. Harry Cohen: I appreciate that this debate has to be brief. It is about national curriculum attainment targets, with specific reference to maths and science. The national curriculum will be plagued by teacher shortages. Indeed, the education inspectors themselves have warned, in written evidence to the Education and Science Select Committee, that unless the country gets the supply of teachers right, delivery of the Government's reforms will be jeopardised. The inspectors said that, without that, the rest would fail.
Both maths and science have been shown to be areas in which there are particular problems of teacher shortages. Research at Manchester university produced an optimistic forecast—that by 1995 the shortage of maths teachers would be 4,141. The Times Educational Supplement of 31 March, on the other hand, in a pessimistic forecast, said that the shortfall would be 12,232—55·7 per cent.
In Waltham Forest, which is in my area, people are already suffering those teacher shortages. I have received many letters. Because of the need for brevity, I cannot quote all of them, but I shall refer to one or two. Mr. Loseby, of Scotts road, Leyton, said:
"Children are being denied the right to a basic education. Young lives and futures are at risk through no fault of their own."
He said that children were being denied access to learning. A Mrs. Turner, whose child attends Beaumont primary school, said of her child:
"Since Christmas she has had only four days' tuition a week, and last week was refused admittance to the school on three separate days."
I have received many letters like that.
In February the chief education officer wrote to me saying that there were approximately 90 full-time vacancies, that 12 teachers were on maternity leave, and that three were on long-term sickness leave. Only 40 of those could be covered by patchwork methods of employing casual supply teachers, who do not really want to be employed on that basis. The borough's response—it gives a long list, which again I cannot read out tonight —has been acknowledged and welcomed by Ken Young of the teacher supply division of the Department of Education and Science itself.
What is needed, as the borough has made clear to the Government, is a five-point action plan; a national recruitment drive for primary teachers; an increase in the number of college training places; an increase in the number of college training places; an increase in the London weighting; a redrawing of the boundaries to include outer boroughs like mine, with inner-London problems, so that they can pay the higher allowance; an increase in the number of incentive allowances; and
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positive action to train nore black and ethnic minority teachers. But something must be done about pay. In particular, there must be higher pay for those teaching in areas where there is high-cost housing.
As early-day motion 548 says, the Government need to face up to their responsibility by providing substantial extra funds for teachers' salaries and for the provision of creche and nursery places so that teachers may be enabled to return to the profession. These and all other finances must be provided so that our education system may enjoy provision similar to that which is enjoyed by the systems of our major industrial competitors. If the Government do not put up the cash, these serious teacher shortages will really take hold, and the national curriculum will be sabotaged.
12.58 am
Mr. Derek Fatchett: I shall concentrate on the order relating to science. I should like to make four points and to put four suggestions to the Minister.
First, there has been comment from both sides of the House about the need to develop a national curriculum that achieves the widest possible consensus. The divisions that have been demonstrated in this debate are important, but they are not the real meat of party political politics. It seems to me that we are likely to run into deeper divisions when we turn to some of the other subjects in relation to the national curriculum. I think of English and history, and one or two other subjects may fall into the same category.
I want to offer the Minister a constructive suggestion, which may enable us to move forward with consensus. Would it not be sensible to have a debate in this House when draft orders are published? A debate without a vote would enable the views of the House of Commons to be heard before publication of the final order. We all know what the outcome of tonight's vote will be, and we all realise that that restricts debate. If we could have had this debate at an earlier stage, perhaps Members of Parliament could have helped to shape the order, and could have influenced the development of consensus in relation to the national curriculum. I offer that to the Minister as a constructive suggestion.
I have three other points to raise. First, there has been widespread concern on this side of the House about resources for delivering science and the national curriculum. Those resources questions come in two forms. The first is about teachers, and whether there will be enough, and of the right quality. We need to ensure that we have sufficient teachers into the 1990s, and that those teachers are properly qualified, and teach in the subjects for which they are qualified.
The second aspect of resources was mentioned by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). It is that, if we extend the scientific provision within the curriculum, there will be implications for resources in terms of books, laboratories, and scientific equipment. Is the Minister satisfied that we shall have the teachers to deliver science in the curriculum? What provision will the Minister make for resources so that youngsters will have real opportunities in scientific experience and learning?
The next question is one on which we should have spent more time in the Committee that considered the Education Reform Bill. That is the process of delivering not only

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science teaching but other subjects. Hon. Members often comment on the fact that youngsters drop out of certain subjects at a certain age. I still do not think that we have paid sufficient attention to the reasons why that happens, or to what steps will be taken to make sure that interest is maintained among those youngsters until the age of 16. It is not just automatic, and we must consider those processes.
At the heart of the debate is two-tier science. I always listen with interest when the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) speaks on education. However, I think that he got it wrong tonight, for two reasons. First, he let the cat slightly out of the bag when he said that the development of two-tier science must take place with some regard to the reality of resources. The fear in our schools is that two-tier science will enable the Government to conceal the inadequacy of the resources that they will make available.
Secondly, what the right hon. Gentleman called a bit of flexibility may turn out to be an agenda of low ambition on science. Too many of our youngsters will take second-tier, and what may be deemed second-rate, science. As has been said, too many of the girls will do that. If the agenda is set too low, instead of the scientific revolution in our schools to which the Secretary of State referred, there will be an agenda of low ambition, and an impoverishment of the teaching and learning of science.
I hope that the Minister will answer my questions about resourcing, about the process and, above all else, about the fear that there will be two-tier science, two-tier teaching of science, and two-tier youngsters as a result. That is why we shall be voting against the science order.
1.3 am
The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mrs. Angela Rumbold): I am glad to be able to take part in tonight's debate. It has been serious, and hon. Members have made some important points. As we know, it is the first of many debates in which we shall discuss the national curriculum and what happens in schools. As the daughter of a scientist, I shall be addressing some of the questions that have been raised about science, and also some of the questions raised by the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett), both about the level of resources and about having the right number of teachers.
I shall start by answering various important questions taking up some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw). He claimed that model B, the 12·5 per cent. provision, would not provide a sufficient basis for future study up to A-level for some pupils. He told us that the NCC said that the 12·5 per cent. course would provide quite a good basis for further study. It added, however, that there may need to be a short bridging course if a student wished to go beyond the model and study for A-level. The hon. Gentleman's argument was not quite so devastating as he suggested.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), along with the hon. Member for Blackburn, wanted to know what would not be covered in model B. They referred to attainment target 2, which deals with the variety of life, target 5, the human influences on earth, target 7, the making of new materials, target 12, information technology, target 15, light and electromagnetic radiation,
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target 16, earth and space, and target 17, the nature of science. Targets 5 and 16 will in part be covered by geography. We must remember that the science curriculum is set out substantially to cover the whole of science, but there are other subjects that will be studied. I refer to the core subjects and the foundation subjects, such as geography, history and, most importantly, design technology.
I remind hon. Members that targets 5 and 16 will in part be covered by the geography curriculum. Targets 12 and 7 will certainly be covered in part by the design technology curriculum. Target 2 will in part be covered by target 3 and target 17 will in part be covered by history. Contrary to what has been alleged, nothing will be left out in model B, which is the shorter course. It is essential to reiterate the words of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, that model B does not represent a soft alternative. It does not represent anything remotely like the sort of science that many girls now study, which means simply taking biology. If girls take model B in the belief that it will prove to be a soft alternative, they will find themselves in for quite a surprise. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, we want the majority of students to study the 20 per cent. model, and we want schools to allow that to happen.
Mr. Patrick Thompson: There is much talk about the 12·5 per cent. and 20 per cent. models, but will my hon. Friend confirm that the Education Reform Act 1988 makes no specific mention of percentages? Therefore, there is an inbuilt flexibility for headmasters and schools to teach as much or as little science as they wish, given the guidelines.
Mrs. Rumbold: To a certain extent, my hon. Friend is correct. It is essential that all children should study the core and foundation subjects. As the NCC has made recommendations, and as the House will make recommendations, it is to be hoped that we shall see the majority of children, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, studying the 20 per cent. model. For some children, however, there will be the opportunity, for particular reasons, to take the 12·5 per cent. model if that is what they wish.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow told us that the Royal Society of Chemistry is in a tizz about weightings. The amount of time that is spent on each attainment target is a matter for a teacher's judgment. Weightings of science attainment subjects are not appropriate to be considered along with the terms of the order because they relate very much to assessment. The views of the working group have been put to the School Examinations and Assessment Council, which is responsible for developing assessment arrangements. I advise the hon. Member for Blackburn that saying 30:30:30 for physics, chemistry and biology does not show a recognition of how the three subjects are blended into the attainment targets for science.
I turn now to primary school streaming which has also been referred to. The circular states that it is possible for some very bright children to study with older pupils, but there is no reason why they should be moved up or down because nothing is said in the circular about streaming. The NCC bulletin states that grouping by ages is primarily for the schools to undertake. In primary schools that may not be the most effective way to proceed but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison)

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sensibly said, it is a matter for the heads to consider. I agree with him in that I am not absolutely convinced that it is reasonable or sensible for us to vote on the matter of the two-tier system. I thank him for his sensible words and agree with his proposition that it seems nonsense to say that it would be unreasonable to have some form of flexibility.
My right hon. Friend also referred to the age of transfer and said that it is for the local education authority and the school governors to decide whether to make statutory proposals to change the age range of their schools. The national curriculum key stages take account of the common ages of transfer between infant, junior and secondary schools but they do not necessarily require areas with a middle school system with transfer ages of, say, 12 or 13, to change to a transfer age of 11. The reporting of the assessment of pupils' achievements at the key ages of seven, 11, 14 and 16 can take place, regardless of the age of transfer between the schools. The programmes of study are designed to underpin the work that pupils do as they progress from one level of attainment to the next, regardless of the age group and range of the school that they attend.
The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) mentioned the allocation of resources. He asked about teachers and about general resources in buildings. The capital allocations have been increased to £352 million, with substantial education support grant funds now being made available to back up the introduction of our national curriculum. In the current year—1989–90—£130 million is available and can be used on laboratories and on books, just as the local education authority thinks fit.
It is also important to note that the National Curriculum Council has given preliminary advice to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which was published in its recent circular No. 3. More work is now being done and there has been substantial training—
It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [14th April].
The House divided: Ayes 81, Noes 142.

Division No. 160]

[1.12 am

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

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

Armstrong, Hilary

Dixon, Don

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Eastham, Ken

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Battle, John

Fatchett, Derek

Beckett, Margaret

Fearn, Ronald

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

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

Bermingham, Gerald

Fisher, Mark

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Foster, Derek

Buckley, George J.

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Caborn, Richard

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Callaghan, Jim

Hardy, Peter

Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

Henderson, Doug

Clay, Bob

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Clelland, David

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Cohen, Harry

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Illsley, Eric

Corbyn, Jeremy

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Cousins, Jim

Lamond, James

Cryer, Bob

Leadbitter, Ted

Cummings, John

Lewis, Terry

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Dalyell, Tam

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Darling, Alistair

McAllion, John

158

McAvoy, Thomas

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

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

McWilliam, John

Soley, Clive

Madden, Max

Spearing, Nigel

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Straw, Jack

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

Meale, Alan

Turner, Dennis

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Wall, Pat

Morgan, Rhodri

Wallace, James

Morley, Elliott

Warden, Gareth (Gower)

Mullin, Chris

Wareing, Robert N.

Nellist, Dave

Winnick, David

O'Brien, William

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Patchett, Terry

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Pike, Peter L.

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Quin, Ms Joyce

Mr. Frank Haynes and

Redmond, Martin

Mrs. Llin Golding.

Skinner, Dennis

NOES

Alexander, Richard

Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

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

Allason, Rupert

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Amess, David

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Amos, Alan

Hunter, Andrew

Arbuthnot, James

Irvine, Michael

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Jack, Michael

Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

Janman, Tim

Ashby, David

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Aspinwall, Jack

Key, Robert

Atkinson, David

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

Kirkhope, Timothy

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Knapman, Roger

Baldry, Tony

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Batiste, Spencer

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Knowles, Michael

Bevan, David Gilroy

Knox, David

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Latham, Michael

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Lawrence, Ivan

Boswell, Tim

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Bottomley, Peter

Lightbown, David

Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

Lilley, Peter

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Bowis, John

Lord, Michael

Bright, Graham

Luce, Rt Hon Richard

Burns, Simon

Maclean, David

Burt, Alistair

McLoughlin, Patrick

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

Cash, William

Mans, Keith

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Maples, John

Chapman, Sydney

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

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

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Couchman, James

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

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

Miller, Sir Hal

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Mills, Iain

Dorrell, Stephen

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Durant, Tony

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Evennett, David

Morrison, Sir Charles

Favell, Tony

Moss, Malcolm

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Nicholls, Patrick

Fishburn, John Dudley

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Forman, Nigel

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Forth, Eric

Norris, Steve

Freeman, Roger

Paice, James

French, Douglas

Patten, John (Oxford W)

Gale, Roger

Pawsey, James

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Porter, David (Waveney)

Gill, Christopher

Portillo, Michael

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Powell, William (Corby)

Gow, Ian

Raffan, Keith

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Gregory, Conal

Redwood, John

Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Rowe, Andrew

Hague, William

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

Harris, David

Sackville, Hon Tom

Hayward, Robert

Shaw, David (Dover)

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Heddle, John

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

159

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Twinn, Dr Ian

Speller, Tony

Waddington, Rt Hon David

Stern, Michael

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Stevens, Lewis

Waller, Gary

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Ward, John

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Watts, John

Summerson, Hugo

Wheeler, John

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Whitney, Ray

Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

Widdecombe, Ann

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Wood, Timothy

Thorne, Neil

Thornton, Malcolm

Tellers for the Noes:

Thurnham, Peter

Mr. Michael Fallon and

Trippier, David

Mr. John M. Taylor.

Question accordingly negatived.

WELSH AFFAIRS
Ordered,
That Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas be discharged from the Welsh Affairs Committee and Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Wallace, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

Mersey Tunnels (Finances)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Heathcoat-Amory.]
1.23 am
Mr. George Howarth: The financial position of the Mersey tunnels is not merely a Wirral or Liverpool issue. It affects the ratepayers of Merseyside and, indeed, will affect poll tax payers from next year. It is, in basic terms, a desperate position. The estimated income from the tolls for the two tunnels amounts to £12·1 million for 1989–90, and the estimated expenditure for the same period—taking into account operating costs of £6·5 million, asset financing of £4·8 million and debt charges on capitalised deficits of £9·6 million—amount to £20·9 million. That leaves a deficit of £8·8 million to be picked up by Merseyside ratepayers.
The problem has implications for future years as well. In Knowsley, the estimated total cost to ratepayers from 1988 to 2002, if no action is taken to resolve the problems, is £7·7 million.
Mr. Terry Fields: The Euro-MP for Humberside is seeking, through the Commission, to introduce legislation that would ensure that the tolls on all roads, bridges and tunnels are removed by 1991. The figure for Liverpool as a whole is £23·8 million for the same four-year period. Liverpool ratepayers will have to shoulder that burden. In addition, the tolls amount to £35 million. Liverpool ratepayers, and those in Knowsley and other boroughs in the area, will have to shoulder a total burden of £58·8 million. Does that not reinforce my hon. Friend's argument that tolls should be scrapped and that the Government ought to pay the debts that have been incurred?
Mr. Howarth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Urgent action needs to be taken. The Humber bridge is an example to which we ought to return. The Liverpool problem is mirrored by that in Knowsley. Only 1 per cent. of Knowsley residents regularly use the tunnel.
Mr. Ronnie Fearn: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Sefton ratepayers will have to foot a £14 million bill between 1988 and 2002, as well as a bill of £11·25 million for tolls? Does he think that now is the time to get rid of tolls altogether? The Mersey tunnel has become part of the national road network. That would relieve ratepayers of the debt that has been incurred and of the tolls that they have to pay when they use the tunnel. Ratepayers would then get a square deal. At the moment a precept is being levied that ought not to be forced on them.
Mr. Howarth: The hon. Gentleman makes a point on behalf of all the borough of Sefton that applies with equal force to all Merseyside districts.
The origin of the problem goes back to the 1960s when the volume of cross-river traffic in 1982 was estimated to be 130,000 vehicles a day. In reality, however, the actual flow in 1982 turned out to be only 60,000 vehicles. The implications in terms of tolls are clear. No doubt some people will advance the superficial argument that those who use the tunnels should bear the cost. That is very much the argument that the Prime Minister seems to be advancing for the Channel tunnel. However, Merseytravel, which is responsible for the operation of the

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tunnels, was waiting until today for permission from the Secretary of State for its current proposals, which would increase tolls from 50p to 60p for cars, from 50p to £1·20 for medium-sized goods vehicles and from £1·20 to £1·80 for heavy goods vehicles. Those tolls would be indexed to meet future rises in inflation.
Merseytravel has received a letter today that gives permission for the toll increases. Paragraph 7 of the letter, however, seems to argue against the permission granted by the Secretary of State. It suggests that the toll increases are insufficient and that there has been no substantial settlement of the problem.
Free toll crossings are not just a political issue. The Merseyside chamber of commerce argues that
"Tolls inflate the overheads of road transport operators in areas where there is a toll crossing and constitutes an expenditure which similar companies in other parts of the country do not have to bear."
Mr. Robert N. Wareing: Does my hon. Friend not agree that it is inequitable that Humberside ratepayers are not required to pay the full cost of the Humber crossing, despite the fact that, unlike the Mersey tunnel crossings, two inner-city areas are not linked? The Mersey tunnels are vital because they form part of the national network. They are also part of the regeneration of Merseyside. That can be achieved only if the Government provide for the cost of the tunnels. If they mean what they say about aid for the inner cities, they should be helping with the tunnels.
Mr. Howarth: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which supports my argument.
The chamber of commerce said:
"The money spent by citizens on this part of their rate bills, coupled with toll expenditure itself, effectively removes some funds from the local economy to the disbenefit of all".
There is also the argument about fairness as between major conurbations to which my hon. Friends have referred. The comparison can be made between Merseyside and Glasgow, another conurbation divided by a river. In Glasgow all the crossings are free with the exception of the Erskine bridge, which is operated by the Scottish Office, and the Scottish Office is currently seeking to effect a reduction in tolls for the purpose of economic regeneration. Similarly, Greater London—also divided by a river—has many free crossings and only one toll crossing, the Dartford tunnel.
There has been a great deal of talk about this problem for many years but to date the Government have shown little or no interest in any action. The Government are currently urging Merseytravel to provide a reasoned case for a solution, yet all the evidence necessary already exists. As recently as October 1987 the then Mersey passenger transport authority published the document "Merseyside Tunnels—the case for Government assistance", which sets out the situation clearly and comprehensively. In December 1988, in evidence provided to a public local inquiry, William Austin Varney presented a very detailed account of the situation. It is disingenuous of the Government to pretend that they need more information.
I understand that the Department of Transport recently suggested five options. First, it suggested that tolls could be increased. That suggestion has been agreed today. Merseytravel has made the application and the decision has been made, but it smacks of evasion. There was a long delay in reaching the decision, and many of us do not agree that it was the right solution.
162
The Department then suggested that the deficit could be capitalised, but the Government know full well that there is no legislative framework which would enable Merseytravel to do that without specific Government permission.
The Department's third suggestion was an interest holiday, but as all the debt on the Mersey tunnels is outstanding—to the Department of Transport or the public works loan board—that, too, would require specific Government decisions.
Fourthly, the Department suggested writing off some or all of the debt. That avenue should be pursued. There is a precedent in the form of the Humber bridge which has had two thirds of its debt written off.
Finally, the Department has suggested precepting which would take us no further, as the Merseyside ratepayers would be picking up the tab again.
There is no doubt in my mind that Merseysiders are being unfairly treated on this issue. The current state of affairs puts Merseyside at a distinct disadvantage in comparison with Humberside, Glasgow and Greater London. It is high time that the Government stopped evading the issue and agreed a solution that would not place an unfair disadvantage on the ratepayers of Merseyside or on the local economy. Sadly, the latest decision, received today, does not achieve that. The time for talk, reports, studies and inquiries is over and the Government should act to solve the problem now.
1.33 am
The Minister for Roads and Traffic (Mr. Peter Bottomley): I note that a number of hon. Members have participated in the Adjournment debate of the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth). The House will wish to acknowledge the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, West (Mr. Hunt) who has been assiduous in putting the case to me. It was not my hon. Friend, however, who was asking for a contribution of £4,000 a year from the disabled people who, I note, Merseytravel will now require to pay. We are talking about debts of £114 million, and it does not seem obvious that suddenly to require the 200 disabled people who use the tunnels regularly to contribute is the way forward. The hon. Gentleman did not mention that in his remarks, and I refer him to the press notice from Merseytravel of 7 April this month.
Saturday's edition of the Liverpool Echo, the last piece of journalism before the ghastly tragedy at Hillsborough —I extend my personal sympathy to people in Liverpool and Merseyside as, having been present at the Heysel stadium in 1985, I am aware of the effects that the disaster will have on local people—contains an article entitled, "Tunnel Vision" which describes something
"despicable, deplorable—and downright shameful".
The hon. Member for Knowsley, North has talked about the size of the overall debt. It might be useful to the House if I go through some of the history in the hope that it will be possible to find a way forward which depends on proper discussion.
The Mersey tunnels have been built and operated as tolled crossings under legislation promoted by the local authorities that dates back to 1925. In this respect they are not unique: other major tolled crossings such as the Tyne tunnels, the Dartford tunnels and the Humber bridge were promoted in the same way.

163
In the Government's response in July 1986 to the report of the transport committee on tolled crossings, we emphasised that tolled crossings should be the responsibility of the local authorities which promoted them. Those local authorities accepted tolls as the best means of getting the required crossings without placing an intolerable burden on ratepayers. They financed construction by borrowing, with the intention of servicing, and ultimately repaying, those loans from toll revenue. We pointed out that these obligations were freely incurred by those local authorities.
Mr. Terry Fields: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Bottomley: Briefly, but I hope that it will not be catching.
Mr. Fields: Does the Minister accept that at least part of the responsibility for the Mersey tunnels lies with the Department of Transport? The decision to build a second toll tunnel was based on projections of traffic volume which proved to be highly inaccurate. Therefore, the Department is responsible for encouraging the building of the second tunnel and backing it at the time.
Mr. Bottomley: If we were to debate responsibilities for everything that has happened in and around Merseyside and in Liverpool itself, we should be having a debate which lasted rather longer than the allocated time for an Adjournment debate.
We do not accept that local authorities should now be relieved of those obligations because toll revenue has not been as high as expected, or because they may be reluctant to increase charges, except for the 200 disabled people.
Mr. Howarth: That is a cheap point.
Mr. Bottomley: The hon. Gentleman says, "That is a cheap point," but £4,000 a year compared with £114 millions a year seems to justify some of the comments in the Liverpool Echo.
Mr. Terry Fields: Do not believe the Liverpool Echo.
Mr. Bottomley: The hon. Gentleman, from the back row says, "Do not believe the Liverpool Echo." Perhaps I should believe the press notice from Merseytravel on 7 April, but perhaps that was not in the hon. Gentleman's briefing.
We went on to make it clear that the Government could not accept that they should simply write off the debts of tolled crossings. We have said that we accept that there may need to be exceptions to that policy and we are willing to consider reasoned argument for special treatment in particular cases. The Humber bridge is one. We are even now considering the report by the inspector who held a public inquiry into proposals by the Humber bridge board for a toll increase. When that has been decided by the Secretary of State, we shall consider the carefully reasoned case by the Humber bridge board for writing off a proportion of that bridge's debts which cannot be met from tolls, or from other sources available to them under the Humber Bridge Act.
We stand by our statement in the response to the Transport Committee, that if other crossing authorities consider they face similar problems to Humber, albeit on a lesser scale, we would be willing to consider with them
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their financial projections and proposals for alleviating their problems. We would expect those authorities to have exhausted the possibilities of their enabling legislation.
Those statements of Government policy set the background against which the financial position of the Mersey tunnels has to be judged. What has the Mersey tunnels authority done since the summer of 1986—nearly three years ago—in response to that statement?
There have been a series of meetings between officials of my Department and the Merseyside passenger transport authority about the tunnels' finances. Early in 1987 the authority appeared to accept that, with the approaching end of the power to capitalise deficits, there was a need for urgent action to deal with the tunnels' debts and that a substantial toll increase was likely to be required, as well as some measure of precepting of local ratepayers. It was explained to the PTA that any further use by the Secretary of State of his power to approve capitalisation before the power ends in December 1989 would depend on it preparing a package of measures which would place the tunnel on a sound financial footing.
At a further meeting in June 1987, it was agreed that the PTA would produce a range of options for improving the finances of the tunnels comprising tolls increases and some precepting. At another meeting, in July 1987, the Department's officials stressed the need for detailed proposals so that the need for assistance to meet any residual problem could be assessed. Later that month, officials wrote to the PTA asking for a package of options for the long-term financing of the tunnels, including financial projections to, say, the year 2000. They also asked the authority to make it clear whether it would propose any extension of capitalisation powers, or any other special treatment of the debt. They stressed that the measures should be realistic.
The next we heard from the PTA was in September 1987. It planned to canvass various options of toll increases for various amounts, including toll increases to 60p, 70p, 80p or £1 for cars and equivalent amounts for other vehicles. It envisaged a consultation period up to the end of that year. The PTA said it intended to prepare a case for Government assistance. To assess the effects of higher tolls and higher precepting on the transport system of Merseyside, a cross-river survey would be set in hand.
In October 1987 we received a copy of the PTA's consultation paper and a request for Government assistance. That request did not contain a package of options or long-term financial projections. In December 1987, officials of the Department had another meeting with the PTA, and offered assistance in constructing long-term financial projections.
At the same time, the PTA was informed by letter of the decision of the Secretary of State that the power to capitalise interest charges should be extended for only six months until 30 September 1988. This was intended to give a breathing space for the PTA to come forward with suitable solutions. It was also felt that capitalisation, which is akin to paying a mortgage with a credit card, would not help in providing an answer to the mounting debts.
From early 1988 onwards, the Department was closely involved with the PTA in producing long-term toll projections to help it prepare a case for Government assistance. In February 1988, we learned that the PTA proposed to increase tolls only to the extent that the car

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toll would be raised from 50p to 60p, with increases also for other classes of traffic. That was hardly a major step towards resolving the debt problem.
The order was published in April 1988 and on 15 June the Department was told that objections had been received. Arrangements were made in early August for a public inquiry, which took place in December. The inspector's report was received on 30 March this year. On 14 April the Department issued the letter setting out the Secretary of State's decision approving the toll increases proposed. I would add that a year is not an exceptional time for processing a toll increase. A decision on the 7 December 1984 tolls order could not be reached until 25 July 1986.
The PTA was meanwhile making little progress in preparing a package of options, although the Department continued to help in the production of long-term projections. We were surprised when the PTA presented its 1989–92 expenditure plan to the Secretary of State in July 1988 to find that it contained a proposal that we should write off £80 million of the tunnels' debts. There was no indication as to how that amount had been derived. It did not arise out of any assessment of the sort of tolls tunnel users could he asked to bear or the charges that local taxpayers could be expected to meet for the sake of the benefit the tunnels provide. It did not arise out of any of the projections which the Department had spent time helping to produce. We found in fact that it was no more than the PTA's pro-rata calculation of the amount it thought the Government would write off on the Humber bridge. The fact that the Government had not, and still have not, reached a decision on the amount of the Humber bridge debts to be written off was deliberately overlooked. That is not what anyone can regard as responsible financial management.
The Department nevertheless persisted in its attempts to find the basis for some agreed options. A further meeting on 23 August 1988 considered the projections that had jointly been produced. The PTA was again asked to consider a range of options for putting the tunnels on to a sound financial footing. It was suggested that these could comprise various elements. The first was further tolls increases, by, say, 1 October 1990, at about the present real value of the 1971 Kingsway first bore operating toll. The second alternative was the financing of deficiencies through the PTA's precept on its constituent authorities. A third option was the extension of powers to capitalise interest not serviced by the operating account as a short-term measure up to December 1989, or in the longer-term, which would require fresh legislation. A fourth option was a possible debt charge holiday on the Department's loan, thus reducing the demands on the tunnels' finances by up to £2·662 million per annum for a specified period, or, fifthly, the write-off of debt, which would be the last resort.
The Department asked to have the PTA's proposals by the end of September 1988, but nothing arrived. We are still waiting. On 26 October, we received a letter from the clerk to the authority reiterating that the authority's package of proposals was the tolls increase that had been proposed, the writing-off of £80 million of debt—which, as I have said, had no reasonable basis and was quite
166
unacceptable—and future tolls increases, perhaps every third year, to keep the proposed 60p toll in line with inflation. The clerk said:
"any other option does not constitute Authority policy."
So that was that, with no suggestion of willingness to proffer other options, and there the matter has had to rest. Because of the Secretary of State's role in determining the recent tolls increase application, we were unable to hold further discussions with the PTA between the closing of the public inquiry in December and the Secretry of State's decision.
The Secretary of State has now reached his decision on the tolls increase, which can be implemented. As the authority well knows, this increase will not put it on the road to reasonably early financial recovery. We have seen the projections put to the inquiry. They include calculations based on options other than the toll increase to 60p, which was put to the inquiry. They are of little use if the authority is unwilling to offer to implement them.
This is a sorry story. A cynical man might divine some procrastination on the authority's part. Why is it that fruitful discussions were possible with the Humber bridge board, which produced a range of options which it was willing to discuss, but not with Mersey authority? Why have nearly three years of talks produced no long-term solution? A parody of the song comes to mind
"several years older, and deeper in debt".
This is no laughing matter. The policies of those responsible for the tunnels over the years have been found wanting. If, since the opening of the first of the new Mersey tunnels in 1971, tolls had kept pace with inflation, the car toll would now be 80p, not 60p; the tunnels' debts would now be £80 million not almost £120 million, and the local ratepayer would not be facing the risk of larger precepts to cover the Mersey tunnels' debts. I suspect that we would not have received a press notice from Merseytravel saying that the £4,000 saving is a necessary response to Government inflexibility and comparing it with the £40 million forgone by not keeping tolls in line with inflation since 1971.
There is common agreement among hon. Members for a speedy resolution of this matter. Officials have again arranged to meet the PTA on 28 April to discuss possible financial packages. If it is prepared to put forward a reasoned case based on a sensible assessment of the various options and is prepared to give an undertaking to do so in advance of that meeting, it can proceed. If all that it is prepared to do is to hark back to empty and unsubstantiated claims for the United Kingdom taxpayer to meet debts which it has failed to meet out of tolls or local taxation, there is little point in further discussion.
The distinction between the Humber bridge board and the Mersey authority is that the Humber bridge board has been willing to hold serious and detailed discussions. The Government are willing to assist the PTA with its problems if the need is proven, and if it can show that it has done all that could be reasonably expected to help itself. That condition has not been met so far. It must now be for the PTA to decide whether it wants to put forward proposals and enter serious discussions or to continue to wish upon the people of Merseyside continuing self-imposed financial burdens.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twelve minutes to Two o'clock.