Commons Sitting of 21 February 1989

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

    GPs (Practice Budgets)
    Mr. Ashley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether it is proposed that general practitioners who opt for a practice budget will be entitled to keep any savings that there may be for their own personal use.
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): No, Sir. The Government intend that savings generated within practice budgets should be spent on practice improvements and on offering more and better services to patients.
    Mr. Ashley: What would be the criteria for practice improvement expenses? If doctors improve their lifestyles with better suits, cars or holidays, will not patients be tempted to think that that may be taking the place of proper medical treatment? It is not the doctors' fault, but the fault of the Secretary of State for creating a system that replaces trust between patient and doctor with mistrust.
    Mr. Clarke: If doctors acquire better cars and suits it will be only because of the generosity of the pay awards that the Government have been implementing following the review body's recommendations. If savings are made on practice budgets we shall expect them to be ploughed back into improvements to the premises or new facilities so that services to patients can be made better. Financial and medical audits will ensure that that is done.
    Mr. Sims: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the reaction of some general practitioners suggests that they have either misunderstood or misinterpreted the proposals? First, will he confirm that this is a voluntary matter—that it is up to a group practice to choose whether it takes on the budget system? Secondly, would he care to spell out for their benefit the advantages of the scheme?
    Mr. Clarke: We are sending all GPs the working paper on the subject. I agree with my hon. Friend that the proposal is at first sight rather complicated, and I think that the working paper will improve understanding of it considerably.
    Certainly, only practices wishing to participate will have a practice budget, but I find that doctors are being tempted to consider the scheme seriously because they see that large quantities of NHS resources will be placed in
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    their hands for part of the treatment that they provide, and that they will have much more say in where and how their patients are served. That will enhance the role of the GP in a practice that has such a budget, and I believe that the more go-ahead GPs will be very interested indeed.
    Mr. Fearn: Section 16 of the Health and Medicines Act 1988 provides for funds to be given to certain practices through the family practitioner committees, especially in deprived areas. Will that still happen or will the budget knock it on the head? Will GPs still receive the cash to improve their properties?
    Mr. Clarke: The practice budgets will be set to reflect the social nature of the practice being served. The proposals in the Health and Medicines Act still stand, with the undertakings given by my hon. Friend the Minister when it was implemented. We shall soon be putting to the profession our proposals for a package on GP remuneration, and that will show how we intend to reflect the extra work that can be imposed on GPs in deprived urban areas.
    Mr. John Greenway: Is not the implication behind the original question that money spent on the Health Service can be spent more efficiently? Will my right hon. and learned Friend take this opportunity to confirm that any GPs taking practice budgets will not have any difficulty if they overspend, and that chronically sick and geriatric patients will not be turned away?
    Mr. Clarke: I can certainly confirm that. It is another misunderstanding that we should quash straight away. There is no question of a GP not being able to provide proper medicine or care for an elderly or chronically sick patient, or for anyone else. Nothing in our proposals gives rise to any such danger.
    Mr. Galbraith: Does the Secretary of State agree that his proposals for practice budgets and, indeed, for general practice overall, reduce both patient and GP choice? Has he read the Coopers and Lybrand health and management update report No. 22, section 8, which says that the Government's proposals will reduce choice for patients and GPs? Will he come clean and admit that, rather than increasing choice, the proposals will simply increase bureaucracy?
    Mr. Clarke: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman's assertion, or with Coopers and Lybrand, if the report supports what the hon. Gentleman says. General practitioners who do not elect to have practice budgets will still have freedom of choice on referrals although they will have to work more closely with their district health authorities than hitherto in deciding on referral patterns from their areas. As I explained to my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims), a GP practice that elects to have a practice budget will have much greater choice for itself and the patients and much greater control than GPs have had in the past over quite large amounts of NHS resources.

    Abortion
    Miss Widdecombe: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of abortions at 25 weeks, 26 weeks and 27 weeks was performed (luring 1987 because the child was likely to be born handicapped.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Roger Freeman): The figures are eight out of 11, six out of nine and all three at 27 weeks, respectively. For the convenience of the House I shall publish in the Official Report a table which presents this information more fully.
    Miss Widdecombe: In view of the fact that even at the late ages of 25 and 26 weeks' gestation there are still some social abortions is my hon. Friend satisfied that his Department is complying with the spirit and the letter of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929?
    Mr. Freeman: My hon. Friend is certainly right that based upon the figures that I have just given, six of the abortions in 1987 where the gestation period was above 24 weeks were for reasons other than the potential handicap of the child. If the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 were amended to insert "24 weeks" instead of 28 weeks, all 23 abortions would be called into question except where the life of the mother was endangered. My hon. Friend's Bill would call into question only six of the abortions.
    Mr. Frank Field: The pro-abortionists claims that there is no majority in the House to amend the Abortion Act 1967. Will the Minister speculate as to why that self-same group spends so much time adopting procedural devices to prevent us from reaching a conclusion on the matter?
    Mr. Freeman: As the hon. Gentleman knows, that is not a matter for me.
    Mr. Andrew MacKay: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the answer that he has just given to my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe) confirms that, quite rightly, there are very few late abortions—
    Miss Widdecombe: Too many.
    Mr. MacKay:—and secondly, that nearly all of those take place when there is a very clear indication that the baby is likely to be grossly handicapped?
    Mr. Freeman: My hon. Friend is right. I repeat the figure of six late abortions—using my hon. Friend's definition of late as being over 24 weeks' gestation—where the reasons were other than for the potential handicap of the child.
    Mr. Alton: Does the Minister really believe that the possibility of something as trivial as a non-inherited skin disease represents a gross handicap? Does he not agree that amniocentesis and chorionic vilius sampling are increasingly used as the first part of a search and destroy mission, that far too much pressure is put on people to abort away handicap and disability and that that becomes a quality control on life and what is really needed is help for both the mother and the child?
    Mr. Freeman: The hon. Gentleman will realise that the certification of the cause involving the potential handicap of a child is not a matter for me but for clinical judgment.
    The information is as follows:
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    Notification of abortions which took place with a gestation period of 25, 26 and 27 weeks showing the number with a mention of ground 4 which states "there is a substantial risk that if the child is born it would suffer such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped"

    England and Wales 1987

    (a) All grounds

    (b) Ground 4

    (c) (b) as a percentage of (a)

    25 weeks

    11

    8

    72·7

    26 weeks

    9

    6

    66·7

    27 weeks

    3

    3

    100·0

    Total

    23

    17

    73·9

    Hospital Matrons
    Mr. Lord: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he proposes to examine the role of the hospital matron in the National Health Service.
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. David Mellor): Health authorities are already free to use the title of matron for the senior nurse manager in a hospital, and some do so. One of the key aims of the Government's new proposals is to give hospitals much more control over the running of their own affairs, and decisions on the roles and titles of senior nursing staff will continue to be made locally.
    Mr. Lord: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that there is widespread disappointment that the traditional role of matron does not feature more widely in the current review of the Health Service? Is he further aware that the role of matron was unique in that she could deal with consultants and doctors, understood nurses and patients well, yet at the same time as was able to control very carefully items such as bed linen and bandages and had a good overall view of the whole system? Bearing in mind that people rather than structures make organisations run smoothly will he reconsider reinstituting the traditional role of matron in our hospitals?
    Mr. Mellor: I recall that that paragon was usually played by Peggy Mount in the films. However, there is nothing to prevent a hospital that is seduced by my hon. Friend's arguments from calling its senior nurse manager a matron, as some hospitals do.
    Dame Jill Knight: I suggest to my hon. and learned Friend that it does not matter a row of beans who played the part of the matron in a film. Many people think that almost the biggest mistake ever made in the National Health Service was to get rid of the matron. If we had that particular figurehead, there is little doubt that she would be able to cope with the flood of thefts that is endemic in the NHS, that she would make the wards cleaner—many of them badly need to be made cleaner—and that she would manage the hospital with great efficiency, as she always used to do. Does my hon. and learned Friend acknowledge that apart from the fact that hospitals can bring back matrons, they ought to be positively encouraged to bring them back?
    Mr. Mellor: As I understand the argument in 1966, the feeling was that there were so many different sizes of hospital that one needed a more sophisticated profile for senior nurse managers to reflect the different sizes of units

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    that were being managed. It is important that senior nursing offices should be invested with all the powers that are required to do the various jobs to which my hon. Friend refers. If a hospital chooses to call that senior nursing manager a matron, so he it. We have no objection.

    Cervical Cancer
    Mr. Wray: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what are the latest figures for women affected by cervical cancer aged (a) 25 years or less and (b) over 25 years.
    Mr. Freeman: The latest information available is for 1984. In England and Wales there were 41 registered, newly diagnosed cases of malignant neoplasm of the cervix in women aged under 25. There were 4,002 cases in women aged 25 and over.
    Mr. Wray: Does the Minister agree that over 2,000 women a year are dying from cervical cancer? Why do the Government not spend the additional £20 million that would provide a 90 per cent. coverage? The hospitalisation bill is £15,000 per patient. That is equivalent to £30 million. The project to screen women once every five years costs £30 million. All the Minister needs to do is to spend £20 million and he would be £10 million in pocket.
    Mr. Freeman: I confirm that there are 2,000 avoidable deaths each year. If the policy of introducing screening for all women between the ages of 20 and 54 at least once every five years were introduced and if it covered all women between those ages, it would cut deaths by about 85 per cent. Our policy of screening women at least once every five years will enable us to reach more women and therefore to save more lives. To concentrate on a shorter frequency in the long run is, I agree, the ideal, but if we went for a shorter cycle we should inevitably reach fewer women.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will my hon. Friend remember those who die of breast cancer? The numbers are now quite horrendous. Will he therefore expedite the provision of mammography for all women in the particularly vulnerable age group of 50 and older?
    Mr. Freeman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. She is absolutely right that the breast screening programme—which is new, unlike screening for cancer of the cervix, which commenced in 1966—is most valuable and saves the lives of many women. We are keeping that programme under close review, and I shall bear in mind what my hon. Friend has said.
    Dr. Moonie: Does the Minister agree that the latest date for which information is available is 1984 and that that is appalling? When will that be improved?
    Mr. Freeman: I share some of the hon. Gentleman's concern, but he ought to appreciate that the information that is collected by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys depends in part on figures that come from voluntary organisations. It is not, therefore, within my power to ensure that comprehensive figures are available for the most recent years, much though I should like to do so.

    NHS (White Paper)
    Mr. Ian Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations he has received on the recent White Paper on the review of the National Health Service.
    Mr. Dykes: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the response from members of the public and the various interest groups to his White Paper proposals on the future of the National Health Service, published on 31 January.
    Mr. Hunter: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on his assessment of immediate reactions to the proposals contained in the White Paper entitled "Working for Patients".
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Reaction to the White Paper "Working for Patients" has been extremely positive. We have published a series of working papers outlining some of our key proposals in greater detail, and we shall be discussing the implementation of these proposals with interested parties in the coming weeks.
    Mr. Bruce: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his answer. In acknowledging that we have received a warm response from most members of the public and the medical profession, does he believe that the introduction of the White Paper's proposals ought to be fairly flexible? Does he agree that consultations with the medical profession and the consultative committees should take place so that we can provide the absolutely best possible deal for the National Health Service?
    Mr. Clarke: The proposals are complicated and go into details about how the service is managed and financed, which normally, as a patient, the average member of the public would not encounter, so understandably there is some public reserve about the proposals. A great deal of discussion is needed, particularly with those who are intimately involved with the way in which the service is run and financed. That is what we propose to embark on in the next few weeks—having published the working papers yesterday—and we are open to all constructive suggestions about how these proposals can best be implemented for the benefit of patients.
    Mr. Dykes: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that many of his ideas in the White Paper have been received warmly and positively? Does he agree that in principle it is possible for specialist national hospitals to consider opting out while remaining within the NHS system if they are threatened with closure or removal or both, provided that the scheme is viable and the funding properly organised?
    Mr. Clarke: I agree with my hon. Friend about reaction to the proposals, and I am surprised that we have not had the bitter outpouring of opposition that sometimes comes automatically on any health service subject from a whole range of people. Only the Labour party and a few trade unions have responded in that way.
    I confirm that any hospital is potentially a candidate for being self-governing, if it can demonstrate the ability to be so. Some specialist hospitals could certainly be prime candidates. I put in a reservation about whether they are threatened with closure. If there is a place for that part of the service in the NHS—if doctors want to refer to that unit in that hospital—and if there is a continuous need for

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    that service, they are ideal candidates for self-governing status. Obviously, a hospital that is facing closure because its services are redundant or because they have been replaced by something better would find difficulty in establishing such a case.
    Mr. Hunter: With regard to general practitioners managing their own budgets, will my right hon. and learned Friend take this opportunity to clarify the precise mechanism by which practitioners will have spending power once their indicative budgets are used?
    Mr. Clarke: I am not sure whether my hon. Friend is questioning me about the practice budgets, about which we had an exchange a few moments ago, or about the indicative drug budgets which all practices will have.
    As for practice budgets, general practitioners will not be obliged to close down or to refuse medicine if they go over the budget that they have negotiated and had set for them, but if they overspend without good clinical reasons that they can demonstrate, they will be expected to recover the overspend. They can always apply for a budgetary review if it turns out that there are good clinical reasons for enlarging the budget.
    As for the indicative drug budget, that will be an indication of what a practice of that kind should incur by way of prescribing costs. If any practice overspends by a significant amount over that indicative budget, it will be exposed to advice from other doctors and some questioning from the family practitioner committee and will be expected to take some collective measures to make sure that it gets down to a reasonable level of prescribing costs.
    Mrs. Mahon: Will the Minister explain precisely who will be allowed to decide whether a hospital opts out? It is difficult to understand from the discussion documents just what the position will be. Indeed, the discussion papers are bizarre. May we be told in simple terms who will make the decision?
    Mr. Clarke: The hon. Lady refers to opting out. She may have been misled by her hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie) into thinking that we are talking about opting out of the NHS, which we most certainly are not.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Not yet.
    Mr. Clarke: We are talking about NHS hospitals which will be run by their own managers, doctors and nurses and not be so subject to the district, region and Secretary of State in their day-to-day affairs. The decision as to whether a hospital which wants to become self-governing shall become self-governing will in the end be taken by the Secretary of State for Health after he has received a report and advice from the regional health authority.
    Mr. Loyden: The right hon. and learned Gentleman should speak and listen to the consumers of the NHS. Most people see this as the first steps towards privatisation. In that sense, are not the Government abrogating their responsibility for the health of the people of the nation?
    Mr. Clarke: If a significant proportion of the population believe that this is a step towards privatisation, they have been absurdly misled by the Labour party. There is not a word in the White Paper which makes it any
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    easier, or any more difficult, for any Government to privatise the NHS. It is obvious to anyone who reads the White Paper that its proposals have nothing to do with privatising the NHS, on which the Government have turned their back.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: Does the Secretary of State acknowledge that although there are already reservations, greater reservations may arise when the discussion documents are examined? What place will be given to consumers in local committees, especially with the abolition of participation by councillors?
    Mr. Clarke: The various bodies in question—family practitioner committees, district health authorities, regional health authorities, and the boards of NHS hospital trusts—will have a majority of non-executive members; lay people as opposed to professional people. Obviously, we expect to find on all committees people drawn from the local community to represent the consumer interest in its widest sense. They will also be able to make a personal contribution to the management and development of the Health Service.
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that rather than take into account the present situation in attempting to preserve the cumbersome bureaucracy of the Health Service—as the Opposition wish to do—one of the Government's most beneficial proposals is to allow hospitals to opt out of cumbersome district health authorities and into the hands of local management? Will he give an assurance that the determinant of opting out will not be the convenience of consultants but local popular demand?
    Mr. Clarke: I share my hon. Friend's dismay over the Opposition. I have been a Member of the House and in health politics long enough to recall that, over the past 20 years, the Labour party has opposed every proposed change to the Health Service. They vigorously fought the proposal to establish district health authorities in the form that they now have, and now oppose changes to reform them further. The Opposition opposed Griffiths and every advance in the Health Service, as long as anyone can remember. The acid test of a self-governing hospital, as of any of the reforms, must be whether it improves the service to the nation and makes it stronger and more effective in delivering care to the community. That must be the test which, above all, we apply to suggestions for implementing reforms.
    Mr. Robin Cook: Does the Secretary of State include among the positive responses to the White Paper last week's poll showing that of those members of the public who know of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's proposals, only 14 per cent. approve of them and 71 per cent. disapprove? Is that why the working paper published yesterday makes it clear that the Secretary of State will not risk a ballot on any proposal to opt out? If opting out is about local self-government, why is it that only the right hon. and learned Gentleman will make the decision on every single opt-out? If response to the White Paper is positive and favourable, why is the Secretary of State so reluctant to put opting out to the vote?
    Mr. Clarke: As I said a moment ago to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes), the reason for current public reaction is because the public does not yet

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    altogether understand the proposals' details. They are complicated proposals, and the average member of the public does not understand what is done by a family practitioner committee, for example, and how the Health Service is managed and financed. While discussing matters with staff, we must at the same time explain to the public how the proposals will work in strengthening the service. I have no idea who the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) thinks we should ballot. I presume that he asks for a ballot of trade union members in the hospital in question to determine the matter. We expect that when the proposals for self-governing hospitals are publicised and fully discussed locally, the decision will be made on the basis of whether that change will improve the ability of the Health Service to deliver care to its patients.

    Dentists
    Mr. Moss: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the number of dentists in the National Health Service in 1979 and in the latest available year.
    Mr. Mellor: There were 15,293 dentists in the National Health Service in England in 1979 and in 1987, the number was 17,761—an increase of 16 per cent.
    Mr. Moss: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for those figures. Does he agree that they hide substantial local variations, and that it is especially welcome that the Government are introducing, on a trial basis, arrangements to encourage dentists to set up in shortage areas by providing financial incentives?
    Mr. Mellor: My hon. Friend is right. The sharp increase in the number of dentists working in the NHS is welcome news to everybody, but it disguises considerable variations. For instance, there are twice as many dentists per head of population in North East Thames as in the Trent region. Plainly, we must do something to make the spread more even.
    Mr. Key: Will my hon. and learned Friend take another look at his Department's policy of discussing dental issues with only just over half the dentists, who are members of the British Dental Association, and ignoring all the others who are members of the General Dental Practitioners Association, because I, for one, find that confusing?
    Mr. Mellor: Our aim is to work with the grain of the profession and I shall bear in mind what my hon. Friend has said.

    National Health Service (Review)
    Mr. Wareing: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what consultations he has had with representatives of the medical profession in respect of the Government's review of the National Health Service; and what their response has been.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I have had a number of useful discussions with representatives of the medical profession. I look forward to hearing their views on the implementation of the Government's proposals when they have had time to consider the detailed working papers that I published yesterday.
    Mr. Wareing: Is not the medical profession up in arms about those proposals because it realises that patient care
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    is being sacrificed on the altar of a preparatory stage on the road to privatisation? Can the Minister confirm that one hospital that had opted out could concentrate on diabetics, another could concentrate on obstetrics and another on hip operations, creating a Health Service in which care was fragmented? Is it not true that whereas after the war the Labour Government created a comprehensive NHS, this Government are proposing a fragmented one?
    Mr. Clarke: Many doctors have many different opinions. The most common reaction that I have encountered from doctors and their representatives is a requirement for more detail in order to discuss the matter further. They now have the working papers and I await their reaction. No doctor has so far taken up with me the privatisation argument. I do not think that any doctor takes that seriously. They regard it as knockabout political nonsense put about by the Labour party. I have heard of fears about self-governing hospitals suddenly electing to go for some narrow specialty. Apart from those that are specialist hospitals already, such as the royal national orthopaedic, which my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) may have had in mind, I cannot see any sensible reason why any hospital trust and its doctors and managers should decide to start abandoning particular specialties in serving their town, and nothing in the proposals gives them any incentive to do so.
    Mr. Favell: As the medical profession is there to serve patients, if a patient is not satisfied with the treatment that he receives or with the length of wait, will he be able to take his business elsewhere?
    Mr. Clarke: Certainly. We should make sure that the patient is completely free to do so. The rules that inhibit that freedom which are occasionally respected at the moment, will be removed by the Government.
    Mr. Heffer: Is the Minister aware that my constituents are very much opposed to the idea of the Walton or Fazakerly hospitals opting out? Is he also aware that we are very much opposed to the closure of the Walton hospital and the concentration of all services at the Fazakerly hospital? Therefore, will he give us an assurance that the Walton hospital will not be closed and that the ideas and high concepts of the people of the area will be accepted?
    Mr. Clarke: I am interested to hear that the hon. Gentleman wishes both hospitals to be subject to the direct control of the district and regional health authorities, but then expresses his strong opposition to a policy that those authorities might adopt. The closure of Walton hospital and the concentration of services at Fazakerly hospital will have to be decided first by the health authorities that are responsible for both hospitals at the moment; there will then have to be public consultation, and, if the community health councils disagree, my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State will have to make the final ministerial decision. That is the present system and will remain the system after the White Paper has been implemented.
    Mr. Ralph Howell: May I tell my right hon. and learned Friend how pleased I am to hear that all hospitals will be eligible to opt out, not just the large ones? Will he consider the opting out of Wells and district cottage hospital in my constituency, which would be a most excellent step to take?
    Mr. Clarke: Any hospital contemplating becoming an NHS hospital trust will have to draw up its business plan and proposals for serving patients in the area. It will then have to be examined to ensure that the hospital is capable of taking such control over its own affairs and that there is a satisfactory level of demand for its services in the area with an expected level of referrals to justify its existence as an NHS hospital trust. All that is set out in the working paper and I have no doubt that people in Wells and elsewhere will be studying it carefully to see whether it fits the circumstances of their hospital.
    Ms. Harman: Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman consulted GPs about referring patients to hospitals? What will happen under his proposals where the patient and the GP choose a hospital with which the DHA does not have a contract and the DHA refuses to use its contingency reserve? Will the patient get treatment where he or she chooses and who will pick up the bill?
    Mr. Clarke: In the precise situation set out by the hon. Lady the same situation could arise as arises now. A GP is free to refer his or her patients if he wishes, but the hospital is not obliged to accept all referrals. Increasingly, in recent years, referrals have not been accepted because there have been no funds for treatment for an out-of-district patient. All our changes in the White Paper will make it easier for money to cross administrative boundaries, and it will be up to the GP to consult his own district health authority about referral patterns. If he wants to be free of the DHA he will have to contemplate having his own practice budget.

    Abortion
    Mrs. Ann Winterton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many abortions at 18 weeks and over were carried out in 1987 in clinics run by charities; and if he will distinguish between United Kingdom residents and non-residents.
    Mr. Freeman: Two thousand seven hundred and twenty eight in charitable, as opposed to non-charitable private clinics. Of these, 2,214 were performed on women resident in the United Kingdom and 514 on non-resident women.
    Mrs. Winterton: When will my hon. Friend implement the recommendations of the 1973 Select Committee on abortion, which proposed that links between doctors and agencies referring women for abortions and the clinics in which they were carried out should be broken and that there should be after-care and follow-up facilities for women who come to this country from abroad for abortions?
    Mr. Freeman: We have these matters under consideration, but I can tell my hon. Friend that the majority of abortions performed in 1987 on women after a gestation period greater than 18 weeks were in private clinics. The proportion of non-resident women was just under one half and that proportion has fallen by about one half since 1983.
    Mr. Fearn: Is the Minister aware that the 60 per cent. of abortions carried out in private clinics bring in £2 million to the private doctors concerned? Does he not think that those doctors should be defenders of life not destroyers?
    Mr. Freeman: The private clinics and the doctors who work in them have an important role to play in the health care of the nation. Whether the abortions performed in those clinics or in NHS clinics are ethically correct is a matter for the hon. Gentleman's conscience and for mine.

    NHS (Staff Statistics)
    Mr. David Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the present ratio of administrators and ancillary staff to doctors and nurses in the National Health Service; and what was the ratio in 1979.
    Mr. Mellor: In 1979, for every 100 administrators and ancillary staff there were 140 doctors and nurses. In 1987, for every 100 administrators and ancillary staff there were 190 doctors and nurses.
    Mr. Evans: Does not my hon. and learned Friend's answer reiterate the Government's commitment to the Health Service and in particular to those at the sharp end? Does it not also illustrate that the Government are moving away from bureaucracy to patient care?
    Mr. Mellor: It absolutely does, because that figure—which I am glad that the House has welcomed—shows not only the increase in medical staff but a very major change in administrative, clerical and ancillary staff: a sharp reduction in ancillary staff but an increase of over 63 per cent. in administrative and clerical staff working in clinically related posts. That is a major change and a fundamental reason why the NHS is serving patients better today than it ever did when the Labour party was in power.
    Mr. Bell: Will the Minister note that there was nothing wrong with the ratio of administrators to doctors in Middlesbrough general hospital during the time of the child abuse crisis, when 121 children were taken into care and 98 were returned by the courts? Given that state of affairs, what does the Minister make of the doctors' statement at the weekend that 90 per cent. of the children were abused then and are abused now?
    Mr. Mellor: I have every confidence in the Northern regional health authority and I support the decision it has taken to bring disciplinary action against Dr. Higgs. I cannot say more now, because the matter is sub judice. However, I can say that I read with considerable surprise the letter, signed by the 11 clinicians, that appeared in The Guardian. Neither I nor my Department can see any basis for the assertion that more than 90 per cent. of those children had been abused.
    Sir Anthony Grant: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that the Government are to be congratulated on their policy of encouraging ancillary services to be put out to tender, which has enabled millions of pounds throughout the Health Service to be applied to patient care and has put an end to the nasty NUPE and COHSE cartel?
    Mr. Mellor: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Competitive tendering has been a significant factor in enabling the National Health Service to treat a greatly expanded number of patients more efficiently. Once again, it is a sign of the double-talk of the Opposition that, although claiming to represent the interests of patients,

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    they actually uphold the stranglehold of the cartel that NUPE and COHSE used to exercise over the NHS, but do no longer.

    "Working for Patients"
    Mr. Beith: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much has been spent on publicising the proposals in the recent health White Paper, 'Working for Patients'.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The sum of £1,250,000 has been allocated and spent on the launch of the White Paper.
    Mr. Beith: Is that not an outrageous sum to have been diverted from patient care to give the Secretary of State greater publicity opportunities? Will that diversion of funds from patient care not be a characteristic of the reforms that he is setting out, not least if they involve a massive amount of invoicing, charging and recharging, all of which will add to the bureaucratic costs of the Health Service without helping patients?
    Mr. Clarke: I regard it as a bargain at the price when one considers that we were explaining complicated proposals to a service that employs more than 1 million people and consumes £26 billion of taxpayers' money each year. In the past, the Health Service has not communicated well with its staff and, at times, has been reminiscent of the worst features of the car industry in the 1960s and 1970s, by its complete failure to communicate with its own staff. We embarked on a modest attempt to explain to people the implications of our proposals for their careers and their patients. The costs, incidentally, include things such as the popular leaflet and short communications pack, which I know that many in the House are using, let alone people outside.
    Mr. Hayes: In welcoming the way in which my right hon. and learned Friend has taken time and effort to sell his policies and the way in which he has used money to do so, may I ask him to encourage some of his Cabinet colleagues to do the same?
    Mr. Clarke: I know that at least one of my Cabinet colleagues has been interested in my experience of teleconferencing, and the same method will be used again. Given that the Government explain their policies in White Papers and other ways, it is absurd that we are not allowed to explain them to those mostly directly affected, using the most modern methods of communication. The cost is modest. The literature, videos and everything else contain no hint of party political material and we adhere extremely strictly to the conventions that surround these matters.
    Mr. Andrew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimates he has made of the additional administrative costs of National Health Service hospital trusts, general practitioner budgets and other proposals in the White Paper, "Working for Patients".
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: No overall assessment of costs can be made in advance of decisions about the details and pace of implementation. I have no doubt that the NHS needs to invest in modern management methods.
    Mr. Smith: It is not irresponsible of the Secretary of State to bring forward these proposals without having
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    estimated the administrative costs? Does he not accept that his proposals will absorb, in the administration of wasteful competition, resources that should go into patient care? Will he give the House a straight answer to a straight question? Will administrative costs fall or rise? If the latter, who will pay?
    Mr. Clarke: We made some provision for administrative costs in last year's autumn settlement when we allocated £2 billion. Money will certainly need to be put up front for investment in modern management techniques to achieve savings thereafter and to make better use of that money for patients.
    As I said in my main reply, the Health Service needs to invest in that sort of modern management information. En any event, it is absurd that a huge service that spends £26,000 million each year cannot say with certainty where any individual sums of money go or what any facility costs or requires to be spent on it. All our investment in modern management techniques is essential to produce a stronger and better run National Health Service.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Civil Service
    Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Prime Minister what arrangements exist to ensure that the Civil Service is not politicised in circumstances where a single party has been in power for a decade or more.
    The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Wakeham): I have been asked to reply.
    The Civil Service is a non-political and professional career service, subject to a code of rules and disciplines. It is an express condition of that code that civil servants should discharge loyally the duties assigned to them by the Government of the day, whatever the political persuasion of that Government.
    Mr. Dalyell: Pursuant to the Prime Minister's oral answer of 2 February, column 425, on the circumstances of Sir Leon Brittan's appointment, what is the House of Commons to think other than that Mr. Ingham and Mr. Powell have become so highly politicised that they connived at the Prime Minister's corrupt and—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must withdraw the word "corrupt".
    Mr. Skinner: Ted Heath said it.
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    Mr. Dalyell: I borrow the word of the former Conservative Prime Minister.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should resume his seat when I am on my feet. I do not care who else may have said that, but I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw that word.
    Mr. Dalyell: Is there one rule for Back Benchers and another for former Prime Ministers?—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I have studied the Hansard of that exchange and it is my understanding that the former Prime

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    Minister referred to the machinery at No. 10, not to the Prime Minister personally. I am asking the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the word "corrupt". I advise him that he will be taking time out of questions if he refuses to do so.
    Mr. Dalyell: The last thing that I want to do is to get thrown out of the House of Commons. However, in view of column 657 on 27 January 1986, could we say specifically the Prime Minister's "misbehaviour"? Did they connive at that?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the hon. Gentleman please withdraw the word "corrupt"?
    Mr. Dalyell: Is is an important day for the House and the last thing—[HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] Mr. Speaker asked me to withdraw; I will.
    Mr. Wakeham: That was a long time acoming.
    Whatever the hon. Gentleman's views, today's Civil Service is as impartial and professional as ever. If the hon. Gentleman wants any evidence of that, the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service concluded in 1986 that it had received
    "No convincing evidence that the British Civil Service is being politicised."
    A working party of the Royal Institute of Public Administration has also recently concluded:
    "There has not been an overt or systematic politicisation of the top ranks of the civil service."
    I prefer their evidence to that of the hon. Gentleman.

    Engagements
    Mr. French: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 21 February.
    Mr. Wakeham: I have been asked to reply.
    This morning my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was in Germany for an Anglo-German summit. This afternoon she is attending the memorial service in Belfast for those who died in the air crash at Kegworth.
    Mr. French: Will my right hon. Friend find time to consider the greater degree of choice that the Government's housing policies afford to council tenants? Does he agree that allowing tenants to choose their landlord is the best way of raising standards? Is he aware that Gloucester city council is providing such a choice by offering its tenants the opportunity to opt for one of the best housing associations?
    Mr. Wakeham: I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend that the best way of raising council tenants' standards is to give them a choice of landlord. The Housing Act 1988 achieves that through the tenants' choice provisions and I am sure that council tenants will welcome those new rights. I am also aware of Gloucester city council's proposals for transferring its housing, but I must resist the temptation to comment on them, because the council may wish to apply to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment for a consent to dispose of that housing and I would not want to prejudice his consideration of the application.
    Mr. Kinnock: May I inform the right hon. Gentleman—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question."] Mr. Speaker, may I inform—[Interruption]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Come on, please.
    Mr. Kinnock: May I inform the right hon. Gentleman that the Opposition fully support the firmest international action against the threats that have been made on Salman Rushdie's life? The great majority of Moslems, although devout in their faith and offended by what they have been told that Mr. Rushdie has written, are nevertheless law-abiding citizens who are opposed to any illegal act. I also repeat my conviction that Mr. Rushdie is free, under the law of this free country, to publish, and no power has the right to menace or oppress his liberty to do so.
    Mr. Wakeham: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and I am sure that his sentiments are shared by all hon. Members. I am sure that he will also be grateful that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs will make a statement at the end of Question Time.
    Mr. Boswell: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 21 February.
    Mr. Wakeham: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Boswell: Will my right hon. Friend find time to look into the compensation arrangements that follow compulsory purchase? Does he accept that they are often felt to be unfair and resentment of them contributes to further delays in infrastructure projects?
    Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend knows that we keep these matters under review and he will be pleased that we have substantially increased home loss payments to a minimum of £1,200.
    Mr. Blunkett: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 21 February.
    Mr. Wakeham: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Blunkett: In view of yesterday's events at Shrewsbury, does the Leader of the House first accept that Opposition Members do not wish yesterday's events to be seen as a way of resolving the problems of a unified Ireland?
    Secondly, does the right hon. Gentleman accept that very grave concern is felt by those who use service camps about the way in which privatisation has resulted in a plethora of contractors not using proper screening methods? When I recently visited accommodation outside Catterick camp I was informed that, although service and Civil Service personnel were vetted and supplied with proper passes, contractors' employees who provide catering and other services were not. Will he investigate that matter?
    Mr. Wakeham: I know of no evidence to support what the hon. Gentleman has said, but I shall take note of it and see that it is examined by the appropriate authorities. The attack on Clive barracks was another callous attempt to kill and maim soliders as they lay asleep. It was thwarted by the vigilance of the guards, and their courage and presence of mind prevented a serious loss of life. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not expect me to comment on security arrangements or any details of them.
    Mr. Conway: Notwithstanding the supplementary question, which was a far from accurate reflection on the state of security on British forces bases, will my right hon. Friend take time during his busy day to ensure that the Secretary of State for Defence communicates to the commanding officer of the 2nd Parachute battalion the congratulations of the House on the vigilance of that battalion in having secured a large base? Will he also commend the courage of Private Norris, who fought off the attackers?
    Will my right hon. Friend ensure that a review is carried out into whether sentries guarding military bases should have their weapons loaded? The fact that they were not on this occasion is not the fault of the individual private or of his commanding officer—it is current MOD policy.
    Mr. Wakeham: I shall certainly pass on what my hon. Friend says. I am sure the whole House would want to pay a warm tribute to the young men who, asleep or on duty, are at grave risk for our safety.
    With regard to the safety arrangements at the camp. the appropriate measures are taken in the light of the changing threats. Measures are constantly reviewed. At Clive barracks the soliders were armed with weapons and had immediate access to ammunition. I would not want to comment on any other speculation.
    Mr. George Howarth: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 21 February.
    Mr. Wakeham: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Howarth: Is the Leader of the House aware of recent reports that have suggested that contact with certain bleached paper products, particularly women's sanitary wear and children's nappies, could lead to the users being infected with dioxin? Does he agree that the manufacturers' response to that has been inadequate and in some respects patronising, and what will he do about that?
    Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman is correct to say that there has been some trouble in this area, but it is of small proportions. It is being examined to check what can be done to relieve the problem.
    Mr. Raffan: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the valleys initiative, together with the 67 per cent. increase in this year's urban programme allocation, shows the Government's determination that all areas should benefit from the economic transformation that is taking place? Does he also agree that the Opposition's clear embarrassment by the initiative is simply because this Government are doing for their traditional heartland what they lamentably failed to do when in office?
    Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend is right. I was present in the Chamber yesterday when the Opposition gave a great deal of publicity to the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales this morning, in which he pointed out that in 1988 there was new inward investment in the valleys every two weeks, and more than half those projects were for more than £1 million. In total those investments will provide
    836
    several thousand new jobs, and unemployment in the Welsh valleys has fallen by 38 per cent. over the past three years.
    Mr. Steel: Will the Lord President make it clear to the Prime Minister that not even the best efforts of her publicity machine will persuade us that the German Government are out of step in NATO on the issue of premature modernisation of short-range nucler weapons? A fortnight ago she told the House that Norway was a loyal NATO ally. The Lord President may know that Norway and Denmark have joined the Germans in resisting this move. Does he accept that we believe that this country should spend the next two years seeking further reductions in nuclear and conventional weaponry on the Warsaw pact side, and that it is the British Government who are out of step?
    Mr. Wakeham: My right hon. Friend had a successful meeting in Germany with the Chancellor. I believe that they had good discussions, and I hope that our positions are coming closer together.
    Mr. John Marshall: During his busy day will my right hon. Friend consider the results of the ballots held under the Education Reform Act 1988? Does he agree that they show that the parents of this country prefer Conservative choice to a Socialist straitjacket?
    Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend makes his point well; I certainly shall.
    Mr. Rooker: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 21 February.
    Mr. Wakeham: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Rooker: When the Leader of the House considers with the Prime Minister, as he must do from time to time, the legislative programme of the House, will they take on board the supreme difficulty, indeed the impossibility, of a British jury deciding on blasphemy in respect of' Christianity, let alone other religions, and accept the reality of life in this country, that in effect our national religion is one of freedom, and take the considered report of the Law Commission and bring forward legislation to abolish the law on blasphemy and replace it with public order offences?
    Mr. Wakeham: I will certainly take the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question and discuss it with my right hon. Friend, but the hon. Gentleman would not expect me to answer him here now.
    Mr. Key: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 21 February.
    Mr. Wakeham: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Key: Many hon. Members and all Conservative Members will welcome the downward trend in long-term unemployment. Will my right hon. Friend accept the congratulations of the House on that and also express the thanks of the House to all those, often lowly paid, civil servants in jobcentres who made this trend come about?
    Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw the attention of the House to the excellent figures

    837
    released today, showing that long-term unemployment is down by about 280,000. It has fallen in all regions, which is excellent news, and total employment is at its highest ever.
    Mr. Dalyell: On a point of order right now, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: No. Statement by the Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe.

Iran
3.30 pm
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Sir Geoffrey Howe): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement about Britain's relations with Iran. As the House knows, it has been our purpose to try to restore a normal relationship with the Government of Iran. I have no doubt that that was right. Iran is an important country in the region. Britain has significant interests there; and Britain is a permanent member of the Security Council which has responsibility for international peace and security.
Even so, the decision to reopen our embassy in Tehran last December was taken in full knowledge of the difficulties involved, including the continued imprisonment of British citizens, Nicholas Nicola and Roger Cooper, and the detention of British hostages in the Lebanon. On our side, we conducted matters prudently and carefully. There were signs, not least in the two meetings I have had with the Iranian Foreign Minister, that the Iranian Government also wished to re-establish a stable relationship. On 26 December, one British subject detained in Iran, Nicholas Nicola, was set free. More recently, however, matters have taken a serious turn for the worse.
On 14 February, Ayatollah Khomeini made a statement inciting Moslems to violence against Mr. Salman Rushdie, the author, and the publishers of "The Satanic Verses". That was totally incompatible with Iran's obligations under the United Nations charter, and with respect for our sovereignty and the rule of law. We protested in the strongest terms and put an immediate freeze on the intended gradual build-up of our staff in Tehran.
Following Ayatollah Khomeini's original statement, there were clear signs that some in the Iranian Government wished to distance themselves from the threat of violence. On 17 February President Khamenei said that if Mr. Rushdie apologised the threat to his life might he withdrawn. As the House knows, Mr. Rushdie issued a statement at the weekend apologising for any distress caused to Moslems by his book.
However, on Sunday last, Ayatollah Khomeini made a further statement, renewing most explicitly the threat to Mr. Rushdie's life. The whole House will realise that that statement put paid to the prospect of maintaining normal dealings with Iran. It was an attack, not only on the author and publishers of the book, but on the fundamental freedoms for which our society stands: the freedom of expression, religious tolerance and the rule of law.
In Brussels yesterday, I discussed these death threats with Foreign Ministers of the European Community. All the Governments of the Twelve fully shared our sense of outrage at the incitement to murder. The Twelve Foreign Ministers issued a statement, whose text has been placed in the Library of the House, in which they rejected Khomeini's threats as an affront to international standards of behaviour which could not be tolerated. We all reaffirmed our commitment to ensure the protection of the life and property of our citizens. We agreed and announced two immediate steps: suspension of any exchanges of high-level official visits between Iran and our countries and the recall of heads of mission from Tehran. At the same time, the Interior Ministers of the Twelve have
840
been asked to consider urgently the practical steps necessary to restrict the freedom of movement of Iranian diplomats in Community countries.
In those circumstances, the Government have concluded that, in our own particular case, it is neither possible nor sensible to conduct a normal relationship with Iran. We have therefore decided to withdraw all the United Kingdom-based staff from our embassy in Tehran. The Iranian Government have been asked to withdraw their charge d'affaires and the one other Iranian-based member of his staff from London. I realise of course, that this decision inevitably reduces our ability to intervene directly on behalf of Roger Cooper and the hostages in Lebanon. The whole House will share my sympathy with their families at this moment. We have asked the Swedish Government once again to undertake the protection of British interests, and are grateful for their prompt agreement to do so.
Britain is able to have normal relations with many countries that do not share our ideals or democratic way of life. We were ready to do the same with Iran. But we can do so only if Iran respects accepted standards of international behaviour—in particular, respect for the sovereignty and law of other states as laid down in the charter of the United Nations. Iran has disregarded those standards in the most flagrant and menacing way. The response of the Government and of the other member countries of the European Community is firm and clear. Before normal relations can be restored, Iran must meet her international obligations—in particular, by renouncing the use or threat of violence against citizens of other countries.
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: Her Majesty's Opposition fully support the action taken by the Government in freezing relations with Iran. We welcome the prompt and positive supporting action taken by our partners in the European Community, and now by Sweden, as a demonstration that the utterances of the ayatollah are rightly regarded not simply as an unacceptable threat to the life of one man but as a menace to all civilised nations.
In this free democracy, authors must have the right, within the law, to write and publish freely. In this free democracy, Moslems offended and affronted by what has been published have the right, within the law, to give full expression to their concern, their distress and their sense of serious affront to their religious convictions. I welcome the statements made by the leaders of the Moslem community in Britain urging adherents of their faith to voice their feelings in a responsible and law-abiding fashion. Dr. Zaki Badawi, the chairman of the Imams amd Moslems Council, has stated:
"Any incitement to violence would be contrary to our faith."
It would be slander to imply that Ayatollah Khomeini is an accepted and recognised voice of Moslem opinion. Throughout wide areas of the Islamic world he and his regime are regarded with fear and loathing. It is essential that the world community stands up against threats and terror from that regime. We recognise the apprehension that must be felt about these latest developments by the family of Roger Cooper, held on trumped-up charges in Iran, and by the families of the British hostages held in Lebanon. We urge the Government to continue to do all they can in these exceptionally difficult circumstances to

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secure their release, but at the same time we recognise that the Government had no alternative to taking the action that they have taken.
Iran should know that she cannot hold the freeing of these prisoners as some kind of bait to obtain improved relations with Britain. Rather, her readiness to secure their release must be regarded as a test of her fitness for such improved relations. The House of Commons must make it clear that Iran's violation of the fabric of world order is utterly unacceptable. She will have to earn the right to be received back into the comity of civilised nations.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: The whole House will be extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his unqualified support for the position of the Government. It is important for those in Iran to recognise the unity with which this House speaks on this matter and, beyond that, to recognise the prompt unity with which the European Community has spoken on it. It is our intention to seek as widely as we can support for that position from other groups of nations around the world. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for explaining that there are many Moslem countries that regard the statements of Khomeini with as much distaste as we do. We shall be seeking support from them as well.
It was entirely correct for the right hon. Gentleman to reaffirm the right, within the law—he emphasised twice the phrase "within the law"—to publish, and the right, within the law, to express affront and dismay, in whatever way one may please, at publications that one dislikes. But he was right also to underline the necessity for all people in this country, of the Moslem faith and of others, to respect the rule of law—to respect its value to them, as to others—and we welcome the statements made by Moslem leaders in this country to that effect.
Mr. Peter Temple-Morris: Will my right hon. Friend accept again that he had no alternative but to take the measures that he has against Iran in the present intolerable situation? Will he further agree that the most important thing about the measures is that they are concerted? Finally, will he agree that if they are to succeed—and they can succeed here—continued international unity and combined strength of action are absolutely essential?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support. I underline absolutely what he said. One topic which we discussed further with our German colleagues in Frankfurt today was the need to secure the widest possible support from the international community for the action that we have taken.
Mr. David Steel: Will the Foreign Secretary accept that we join in complete support of the action that he has felt it necessary to take in respect of the statements from Iran? Will he also accept that we welcome the swift united action by the 12 members of the European Community? This is the swiftest action that we have seen on an international matter for some time. We hope that it is a trend for the future. Will the Foreign Secretary also accept that the public will be greatly relieved that the Moslem leaders in this country
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have been so explicit in their statements, which deserve wider coverage, and their disassociation from the views of Ayatollah Khomeini?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support. As he says, the swift united response of the European Community—swifter and more united than on earlier occasions—demonstrates the growing ability of the Community to take effective united action on political matters. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I also welcome the statements made by Moslem leaders in this country. All protests and activities in this country must be conducted within the framework of the law.
Sir Eldon Griffiths: While joining absolutely in the united condemnation of the ayatollah's threats to British lives, may I remind my right hon. and learned Friend that many of us continue to admire the Persian people, as distinct from their leader, and believe that Iran has a role to play in the stability and peace of the middle east? Will my right hon. and learned Friend therefore send Mr. Basti out of the country with a message that we are ready to assist Iran in recovering from the damage of war, but only when its leader returns to civilised standards and abandons his threats to British people?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making plain both parts of the argument. His last sentence underlines the view of the whole House about the need for a return to compliance with accepted international standards. He is also right to remind the House that there are within Iran and within the Iranian Government people who have been striving hard to bring Iran back to the path of normal behaviour. That is the evidence of my conversations with Mr. Velayati over the past few months. It is for that reason that we have all been hoping that there would be a settlement on that more stable course. It has not proved to be the case. I am grateful for my hon. Friend's support for the action that we have had to take.
Mr. Chris Smith: The Foreign Secretary will know that his statement and the actions taken yesterday are most welcome to all of us who have been deeply concerned about the life and safety of my constituent, Salman Rushdie. However, will he take the opportunity to confirm that the decision was made not simply on grounds of international law and independent sovereignty but because we uphold in this country the fundamental principle that there is a freedom to write and to speak peacefully, and that that freedom is not only one of the elements of a democratic society but is the best guarantee that we have of the free and full development of individual cultures and religions, including the Moslem community in this country?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: The hon. Gentleman is right to make both points. The offence against which the action is being taken was incitement to murder, which is contrary to every law, national and international. The action is also taken in plain defence, in the words of the right hon. Member for Gorton, of the right within the law of freedom of speech and the right within the law of freedom of protest.
Mr. Jonathan Aitken: Has my right hon. and learned Friend noted the sharp contrast between the venomous and inflammatory outpourings of the ayatollah and the responsible caution of most other

843
Islamic leaders, some of whom may well find parts of the Rushdie book objectionable? Will he conclude from this distinction that Iran is isolated in the Islamic as well as the international community and that it will remain a pariah among nations until it stops its evil habit of issuing incitements to violence?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: Again, my hon. Friend makes the right point. He is correct to draw attention to the fact that there are many leaders in the Islamic world who would not dream of associating themselves with the violence and language used by the ayatollah and who share our sense of distress at that while nevertheless feeling some dismay about the book itself. We very much value the support of that moderation among Moslem leaders.
Mr. Bob Cryer: Does the Secretary of State accept that religious groups are entitled to argue against publications but are not entitled to impose censorship on the rest of the nation? Will he also make clear that the Government will not renew relations with Iran until an apology is forthcoming from the Iranian Government and it is made absolutely clear that they accept that they cannot intimidate and interfere in the affairs of another sovereign state?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: The hon. Gentleman is right on both points, and I do not often have the opportunity of saying that. In particular, he is right in believing that, before normal relations can be restored, Iran must meet her international obligations by renouncing the use or threat of violence against citizens of other countries.
Mr. Robert Hicks: I understand the reasons for this decision, but is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that there will be some sadness about the decision of the United Kingdom Government not to leave a nominal presence in Tehran if only to give encouragement to the pragmatists and moderates within the Iranian Government and also, of course, to help the case of Roger Cooper and the three British hostages held in Beirut?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: One had to take into account the points raised by my hon. Friend in balancing the right position throughout one's management of this affair, but I have no doubt in concluding—and I think the whole House will agree with me—that at this stage, in the face of this latest, wholly unjustified threat, we had to take the steps that we have taken.
Mr. Keith Vaz: Will the Foreign Secretary join me in acknowledging the positive and important contribution that the Moslem community has made to the development of good community relations in Britain? Will he take great care in the statements that he makes, in this House and outside, to ensure that none of the hostility and aggression that is directed against a foreign power can be seen to be directed against British citizens who happen to be Moslems, and who have lived here peacefully and happily for many centuries, mindful of the fact that good community relations is a fragile flower that needs to be protected?
Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman therefore join me in condemning an article which appeared in the News of the World this Sunday, written by a Mr. Woodrow Wyatt, who I understand is a close confidant of the Prime Minister, which in my view is an incitement to racial
844
hatred? Will he undertake to refer the matter to his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General with a view to prosecuting Mr. Wyatt? I do not ask for him to be burnt or sentenced to death—just prosecuted within the law in the interests of good community relations.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: No doubt those responsible for enforcing the law will take such action as they think appropriate in the light of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, but I think he will agree with me that this is hardly the day on which I should start condemning publications without having read them. He is right to emphasise the legitimate worries of the Moslem community in this country. The whole House will join me in emphasising their right to enjoy the freedoms of this country with tolerance from the rest of the community. It is also right, as he will understand, for those who lead Britain's Moslems to respond, as they have, with tolerance and authority to prevent the risk of violence from either side.
Mr. Nicholas Baker: Although this House regards terrorist threats issued by the ayatollah as totally unacceptable, many of us will regret that they should have been occasioned by publication of a work which is clearly and understandably offensive to our Moslem friends. Will my right hon. and learned Friend continue, by every means available to him, to seek the early release of Roger Cooper, a British citizen who has been detained for more than three years without charge and without trial, and will lie indicate to the Iranian Government that, if they wish to resume normal relations with other countries, the early release of Roger Cooper will be an essential and good demonstration of that wish?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I entirely understand my hon. Friend's concern with that case. He has represented the interests of his constituent and his family very clearly, and he is right to remind us of the need to continue to do all that we can to secure Mr. Cooper's release and to emphasise to the Iranian Government the points that he has emphasised. The fact that we no longer have direct relations with Iran will not prevent us from pressing that case as vigorously as ever.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must have regard to the fact that today is an Opposition day. I will allow questions to go on for a further five minutes. We then have a ten-minute Bill motion, followed by the main debate.
Mr. Tom Clarke: Does the Foreign Secretary accept that the fair and honourable statement that he has just made increases concern about wider issues involving relations with Iran, including the proliferation of chemical weapons? Will he assure the House that that remains a major priority for Britain—for instance, at the Security Council?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: Yes. The hon. Gentleman's interest in that important topic is well known. We shall continue to press the case for a worldwide ban on chemical weapons. The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that the other decision made by the European Community Foreign Affairs Council yesterday was to agree on the proscription of export of eight chemical precursors, and on the need for further action by the Community along those lines.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: Did the Council consider the implications for trade relations of the closures of embassies and diplomatic outposts? In particular, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the closure of embassies will mean that no Iranian business man or Government representative can visit any Community country without obtaining a visa from a third country? Did my right hon. and learned Friend obtain the agreement of the Council to operate in that way, and in particular did he obtain the agreement of the German representatives?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I think that my hon. Friend has misunderstood the precise position. The other Community countries are not closing their embassies, but are recalling their heads of mission. The German ambassador is already in his country. The Germans are recalling their charge as well, but it will still be possible for visas to be granted to countries with representative missions in Iran.
Mr. Max Madden: We all condemn the odious threat issued by the ayatollah, and appreciate that the vast majority of British Moslems do not recognise that call. Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that decisions likely to be made by Islamic Foreign Ministers meeting in Riyadh in early March could escalate a difficult and dangerous situation? Will he, with the Home Secretary, urgently seek a basis for agreement whereby protests and demonstrations by British Moslems can be brought to an end? That would influence Moslems overseas and, hopefully, isolate the ayatollah and those around him, leading him to withdraw his odious call for Mr. Rushdie's execution.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point when he says that the Moslem community in this country, while free to exercise their right to protest, should do so with the utmost restraint, coupling that action—as their leaders have done—with a repudiation of threats of violence in cases of this kind. I hope that they will make representations to that effect to the countries that will be represented at the Riyadh conference. We shall certainly urge Moslem leaders, at that conference and elsewhere, to repudiate the ayatollah's threats and to support the cause of moderation.
Mr. Ian Taylor: Will my right hon. and learned Friend note that, in my view, he is quite right to make a complete break in diplomatic relations with Tehran, as it is impossible for us to have dealings with an abhorrent regime as long as the Ayatollah Khomeini's view seems to hold sway there? Will he also note that during the Iran-Iraq war Moslems in countries other than Iran did not rise up, as the ayatollah urged them to do, and that that gives some indication of how little weight his word appears to carry among sensible Moslems throughout the world?
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Finally, will my right hon. and learned Friend try to take advantage of the feeling among Moslem countries in the United Nations, where our permanent representative did so much to bring about the ending of the Iran-Iraq war?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for paying tribute to the work done by our representative in the United Nations which made it sensible for us to try to establish normal relations with Iran. He is also right to emphasise the fact that many Moslem leaders and followers in Iran and elsewhere do not subscribe to the odious threats that have been uttered, and for that reason we look to the encouragement of all such moderate leaders.
Mr. David Winnick: Should not we be grateful to other Governments and people in the Community who understand that the appeasement of evil and tyranny is not the answer and who yesterday gave their backing to what has now been done? Is it not the case that diplomatic relations have not yet been broken formally, and that if there are repeated calls for a British citizen to be murdered there are other reserve weapons which Britain, in concert with other countries in the EEC and possibly other western powers, including the United States of America and Japan, can use? Will the Home Secretary at some stage make a statement to the House so that we can be perfectly satisfied that everything possible is being done within the rule of law to give full protection to the person in question and make sure his life is safe from those who would be willing to carry out the criminal orders of the rulers of Iran?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: The House will be glad to welcome the hon. Gentleman's tribute to the important work done by the police. He can be sure that the author in question is receiving protection from the Metropolitan police and that the publishers have received full advice about their own security. It is very important for it to be known that the law will be upheld in Britain. The hon. Gentleman can ask my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary any further questions when he has the opportunity to do so.
Diplomatic relations have not been broken off formally, but the effect of the decisions I have announced is to deprive them of any substance, which is the right conclusion. The hon. Gentleman is also right to underline the fact that if any further action were to be taken, the international community would want to consider whether more severe action was appropriate.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry not to have been able to call all the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who wished to ask questions, but I shall certainly bear them in mind on future occasions when we return to the matter.

Points of Order
3.57 pm
Mr. Edward Leigh: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Earlier this afternoon the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) made yet another attack on Mr. Charles Powell. We value our right to fearless, free speech in the Chamber, but does not free speech depend also on responsibility? What kind of political skunk attacks a man who cannot answer back—
Mr. Speaker: Order. As the hon. Gentleman well knows, we do not refer to each other in this Chamber by epithets of that kind. Will the hon. Gentleman withdraw that phrase about the hon. Member for Linlithgow?
Mr. Leigh: I am happy to withdraw that statement and to say that the hon. Member for Linlithgow is deluded by his own fantasies.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I do not think that it will help, but I shall take it.
Mr. Heffer: You, Mr. Speaker, must be aware that since the commencement of the matter, many Opposition Members have been very clear as to our position, while both Front Benches have not. Therefore, is it not clear that the comments of those of us who have raised the matter consistently should have been heard on a statement for which we have been asking from the day on which the matter began?
Mr. Speaker: I take it that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the statement on Iran. The hon. Gentleman may say that, but it is always tempting to ask for longer on the statement on which one has not been called, to the detriment of one's colleagues who wish to participate in the important Opposition day debate. I am sorry, but the Chair has to be absolutely fair about these matters.
Mr. Tim Devlin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for
848
Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt), as reported in column 716 in Hansard, raised a point of order about recent developments in Cleveland. It arose out of the action of 11 paediatricians who wrote to The Guardian claiming that as many as 90 per cent. of children diagnosed by Dr. Marietta Higgs as having been sexually abused were correctly diagnosed. However, 98 of the 121 children were returned home, following the judicial inquiry and the various wardship cases.
In this morning's press some of the doctors are quoted as having said that they never signed the substantial letter, only one calling for Dr. Higgs to return to Cleveland to work in neo-natology—
Mr. Speaker: Order. What is the point of order for me?
Mr. Devlin: The point of order is that if the figure of 90 per cent. is to be bandied about and not withdrawn by these doctors, the matter should be discussed by the House. Therefore, would you be prepared to ask the Leader of the House to find time next week for a debate on this urgent and important matter?
Mr. Speaker: This is not the appropriate occasion to ask the Chair to find time for the matter. I am not responsible for what members of the public outside the House may say. There are other ways for the hon. Gentleman to raise the subject.

CIVIL AVIATION (AIR NAVIGATION CHARGES) BILL [LORDS]
Ordered,
That the Civil Aviation (Air Navigation Charges) Bill [Lords] be referred to a Second Reading Committee.—[Mr. Sackville.]

Ordered,
That the National Maritime Museum Bill [Lords] be referred to a Second Reading Committee.—[Mr. Sackville.]

Net Book Agreement (Abolition)
4 pm
Mr. David Shaw: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to increase competition in the sale of books.
The market for books in this country has been described as a bilateral oligopoly, with about 20 major publishers and only about 20 major retailers who control most of it. They are cemented in an anti-competitive relationship by the net book agreement, which my Bill seeks to abolish. The net book agreement, or NBA as it is commonly referred to, prevents booksellers from discounting the price of about 90 per cent. of the books sold in Britain. At present, every time that a bookseller discounts or expresses a wish to discount books, he is threatened with legal action by the Publishers Association. That legal action prevents the consumer from paying a lower price for books by shopping around.
I am sure that the whole House will be concerned that not just the housewife, the pensioner and the nation's children have to pay more than they need for many books. The public sector cannot negotiate its own discounts. They are fixed by the publishers' net book agreement. Local authorities—their libraries and schools—the Ministry of Defence, with its military libraries, and doctors, dentists and nurses have to pay more than they need because of the net book agreement. One supplier of medical books is trying to sell books at a discount at the moment, but it is under threat of prosecution by the Publishers Association.
However, the principle of the agreement is broken by the publishers in such a way as to cause disadvantage to the small stockholding bookseller. That is done by direct supplies to local authorities that bypass the local booksellers; large retail chains are given special extra discounts by publishers which the small local bookseller cannot get; and poor service means that it often takes three weeks for the small bookseller to be supplied with books. Discounts are also given to book clubs. Last weekend one book club was offering in the newspapers the best selling non-fiction book, as part of a special offer, at £1. However, if my local bookshop in my constituency had attempted to make the same offer, it would have contravened the publishers' net book agreement. That agreement results in one rule for the large book club and another for the small local bookseller.
All hon. Members will be aware of the privileged position of the booksellers. First, they have the price maintenance agreement that my Bill would abolish. Secondly, there is no value added tax on books.
The ability of book publishers to control the price of books dates back to the 1800s when one Alexander Macmillan, a relation of someone who is well known to this House, helped to put together an agreement to control book prices. Over the years, that agreement was changed many times until the present one came into being in 1957. The net book agreement of 1957 was approved in a most curious and strange judgment by the restrictive practices court in 1962. The court's judgment stood economics on its head. It was carried away in a romantic world where "books are different". The judgment supported the publishers' case and argued that if the net book agreement was abolished and competition resulted, prices would rise
850
and that the small stockholding bookseller would go out of business. That is exactly what has happened under the net book agreement.[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Shaw: Prices have risen by more than inflation. The small bookseller has lost business to the large retail chains and to the book clubs. Last year the Monopolies and Mergers Commission said that the market conditions on which that judgment was made no longer apply. In other words, the judgment is out of date.
Hon. Members may wonder why the restrictive practices court came to such a strange judgment. It is clear that the judges were very influenced, among other evidence, by the statements of a wonderful spinster lady who is mentioned twice in the judgment. Her name was Miss Babbidge. Miss Babbidge owned her own bookshop in Havant. Sadly, Miss Babbidge died some six years ago and I am informed that her bookshop has closed and that the shop has now become a kitchen shop. The net book agreement did not, as the judges thought it would, prevent Miss Babbidge's bookshop from succumbing to market pressures. As another lady, for whom I have immense respect, once said, "You can't buck the market." The judges attempted to buck the market in 1962. I, and many others, believe that their judgment did not consider the economic facts of life.
Hon. Members may ask why a Bill is necessary and why the Office of Fair Trading cannot take action. [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Shaw: The answer is that the 1962 court decision is very nearly unchallengeable. The Office of Fair Trading has an almost impossible legal task. Unfortunately, when Parliament passed legislation on restrictive practices, no provision was made to empower the Office of Fair Trading to review such agreements without returning to the restrictive practices court. The fact that the NBA has not been reviewed by any authority acting on behalf of the consumer in nearly 30 years is, I believe, against the public interest. [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must ask the hon. Members to listen to what the hon. Gentleman is saying and not to engage in private conversations.
Mr. Shaw: The fact that there is also a private and exclusive drinking club called the Possum club, which discusses the net book agreement and other publishing agreements, suggests that the publishing industry is operating a price-fixing cartel that takes advantage of the consumer and the taxpayer.
The book publishers do not and have not been able to argue that competition would reduce the number of books sold. Retail consultants have estimated that abolition of the net book agreement would increase sales by 11 per cent. In the United Kingdom, people buy fewer books than in the United States and Australia where there is no price maintenance. In both of those countries there is a healthy, unrestricted market in the sale of books, with good volume sales and exciting and interesting bookshops that stock about the same number of titles as are published in the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, however, book sales volume has been relatively static, and retail consultants have estimated that price increases have been

851
up to 50 per cent. more than inflation, as measured by the retail prices index. I should mention that the publishers deny that, but I have checked prices for certain books over a 10-year period and have found it to be true.
The conclusion is that the United Kingdom book market needs more competition in it. By passing my Bill, the consumer—the housewife, the pensioner, the child and the taxpayer—will be better served at better prices. I hope that the House will give me permission to introduce my Bill today.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. David Shaw, Miss Ann Widdecombe, Mr. Keith Mans, Mr. Phillip Oppenheim, Mr. Nicholas Bennett and Mr. David Martin.

Net Book Agreement (Abolition)
  NET BOOK AGREEMENT (ABOLITION)
  Mr. David Shaw accordingly presented a Bill to increase competition in the sale of books: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 3 March and to be printed. [Bill 80.].
Opposition Day
[5TH ALLOTTED DAY]
Opposition Day

  Food and Water (Safety)
  4.9 pm
  Mr. Neil Kinnock: I beg to move,
  That this House condemns Her Majesty's Government for its failure to fulfil its duty of care and safeguard the safety and quality of food and water in Britain, for its failure adequately to protect the health of the consumer and particularly the health and welfare of the children of this country, and for the failure to ensure the clear, consistent and co-ordinated action of Ministers needed in the public interest; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to accept its proper responsibility far the protection of the consumer, commencing with the introduction of effective and up-to-date regulation, the restoration and development of research in food and agricultural science, and the provision of clear information and advice to the consumer.
  Mr. Speaker: I must announce to the House that I have selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister. In view of the number of hon. Members who wish to participate in the debate, I propose to put a limit on speeches of 10 minutes between 7 pm and 9 pm.
  Mr. Kinnock: I begin this debate with what I believe to be feelings that are common to both sides of the House. First, there is no hon. Member on either side who does not consider that the rise in the numbers of people affected by food poisoning is serious and, in some cases, tragic. Secondly, there can be few, if any, in the House who do not believe that a modern Government in a complex society have a duty of care for the health and welfare of the citizenry. Thirdly, there is no hon. Member who does not believe that consumers have a responsibility to themselves and to others to be fastidious in their personal habits, especially in the handling and preparation of food. Fourthly, there cannot be any hon. Member who believes that the British people are over-reacting to the problems that have come to their attention, and indeed been experienced by several hundred thousand or even millions of them.
  Whatever the headlines say, the British people have not been hysterical. But they have been quizzical. They have watched the comings and goings in the Government, they have heard the inconsistent statements; they have seen complacency become confusion and contradiction and, in the words of Mr. Simon Gourlay, cock-up. The British people ask, just what do the Government think they are playing at?
  It is not that the British people believe that Government could or should do everything to make life perfect in every sphere of human interest and activity. But they do believe that there are areas of human affairs in which the Government must set and maintain standards of protection, and one of those most important areas is obviously food hygiene. They believe that the Government have been negligent and, in the most confused way, are trying to cover up.
  Mr. Jerry Hayes rose—
  Mr. Kinnock: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman shortly.

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  They believe that the Government have been trying to protect producers more than they have been fulfilling their duty to protect consumers. The British people believe that the Government should be anticipating, planning and providing for change, instead of standing aside and intervening only when great alarm is sounded.
  Mr. Hayes: The right hon. Gentleman accuses the Government of being negligent. He must be aware that the Opposition spokesman on agriculture, the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark), wrote an article three months ago in Tribune in which he described the issue as
  "a huge field we have neglected."
  Considering that this is the second debate on the subject that the Labour party has initiated in 10 years, who is being negligent?
  Mr. Kinnock: If the hon. Gentleman will show the same eagerness for effective action as that which unifies completely Opposition hon. Members, I will welcome the comments that he makes. I recall him professing great confidence the week before last that all would now be all right. I saw him interviewed and reported in the newspapers saying, "It is all right now. The Prime Minister is coming in."
  The British people want a consistent and cogent food policy from the Government. That must be right. That is why we say that the Government should now discharge that duty of care by seeing that research is not restrained by lack of funds, up to and past the point where the product of research is applied in the market place.
  The Government should ensure that resources are adequate to provide the 430 environmental health officers who are now needed to fill the gaps of much-needed qualified people. The Government should commit themselves to providing the education, the information and the health services necessary for the promotion of good health, including food hygiene, dietary advice and the prevention of ill health. They should now establish an independent food standards agency with tough regulatory powers to restore public confidence, to provide better standards of production and to give information and advice to consumers on all aspects of food policy and food hygiene.
  To discharge their duty of care in this modern society, the Government should introduce modern comprehensive food hygiene legislation to protect the interests of the consumers, to raise the standards of producers and sellers and to assist in universalising the best standards that are achieved by producers and sellers.
  Mr. Peter Thurnham: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that British firms lead the world in cook-chill foods [Interruption.]—and is he further aware that they have dismissed his proposals as naive, imprecise, inadequate and unenforceable? Does that not just about sum up the leadership of the Labour party?
  Mr. Kinnock: I take that intervention in the spirit in which I am sure it was intended. It must be said, however, that if we lead the world in cook-chill food, and we are watching an enormous increase—a doubling over six years—in listeriosis, and if our regulations are so inadequate as to enable any observer to go to stores large and small and
  854
  pick up from the shelves inadequately and improperly stored goods, then obviously we do not have much of a lead in handling cook-chill foods.
  In asking the Government to set their hand to a programme of comprehensive and up-to-date legislation, I am conscious of the fact that the Government can plead that they do not have the legislative time. I give them the undertaking that if they go ahead with introducing effective legislation, we will assist them. More than that, they could provide themselves with oodles of time in this Session by scrapping the Water Bill that nobody wants.
  Everyone outside the Government can see the need for action on food hygiene. For 10 years the Government have presided over a large and accelerating increase in food poisoning. The number of cases of listeriosis has more than doubled, from 115 in 1983 to 259 in 1987. Officials forecast that the figure for 1988 will be more than 300. In the six years from 1982 to 1987 inclusive, the central public health laboratory registered a six-fold increase in the number of identified cases of salmonella enteritidis. In 1988, the number had doubled again, to 13,000 people, to make it 12 times the 1982 figure.
  That trend must be reversed, and reversed quickly. But the Government will not do it by allowing a national shortage of environmental health officers. They will not reverse the rise in food poisoning cases by continuing to cut research into agriculture and food. They will not improve food hygiene by demoting the subject, as they have done, with their centrally-imposed core curriculum in the schools that virtually wipes out food hygiene as a subject for teaching.
  Each of those actions in respect of all of those matters has been a product of Government policy to cut and to centralise. None of those actions is accidental. None of those actions is the product of carelessness. They are the result of the Government's conviction that there should be less funding for local government, less funding for higher education and research, less discretion and less breadth in education in the schools.
  Nobody can call that non-intervention. It is Government interference of the most destructive and deliberate kind, and it contrasts starkly with their refusal to intervene properly to protect consumers. In that they have been at their most zealous in non-intervention, obeying to the letter the creed of today's Conservatism that business is not to be regulated, even when it is clear that, left to themselves, there are interests in the market who will exploit the consumer and cut corners on safety.
  Mr. Michael Shersby: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that during the 10-year period to which he refers the Opposition did not allocate a single day to a debate on food? Is that because they were content with the Government's policies, or because they had no interest in the subject?
  Mr. Kinnock: This is the second such debate in three weeks. If the hon. Gentleman, with his power on the Back Benches, will give me an undertaking that the Government will respond to the public demand that is articulated by this side of the House, we shall debate the subject every week. Perhaps the Prime Minister will even turn up for one of them.
  The Government observe their creed of noninterference in respect of consumer protection, and convincing evidence of that is provided by no less an

  855
  authority than the head of MAFF's standards (food, fertilisers and feeding stuffs) division. In a candid address, to the Institution of Environmental Health Officers last September, Mr. Charles Cockbill, explaining the Government's view, said:
  "The concept of consumer protection … has to be balanced against business considerations."
  Mr. Cockbill was doing no more than his duty as a civil servant, and made clear to his audience of environmental health officers why they, and the public, cannot look to the Government for tighter regulations. Mr. Cockbill reported, for example, that the Government vetoed a proposal to refuse to license food premises where standards of food hygiene or design are not met, because
  "Such a concept of prior licensing approval runs contrary to the policies of the Government on deregulation and lifting the burdens on business, and it is therefore not possible to pursue the original idea."
  Mr. Cockbill added that, for the same reason, there was difficulty in imposing a duty of due diligence on food retailers, because
  "retailers and especially the multiple retailers can claim with some justification that the change will increase their costs substantially. And with such a claim comes a conflict with the Government's policy on lifting burdens on business."
  Mr. Cockbill cannot be blamed for those policies and was merely explaining the Government's view. The content and tone of his full speech shows that to be so—it completely exposes the Government, who are reviewing food legislation with the objective of introducing more relaxed regulations, not tighter standards to protect the consumers. His speech exposed the Government as not being positively against consumer protection, provided that it can be achieved at nil cost to the producer or seller.
  The Secretary of State for Health knows that it is Government policy to lift the burdens on producers, no matter what burdens are placed on the shoulders of the consumers—for the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in his former post as Paymaster General, was responsible for that policy. It was he who, in May 1986, presented to the House his White Paper "Building Businesses, Not Barriers", which presented a glowing report of the progress that the right hon. and learned Gentleman said had been achieved in lifting the burdens from business. As the Secretary of State must be proud of that magnum opus, I am sure that he will recall the entries that appeared under the heading "Ministry of Agriculture". The first measure was the abolition of the eggs authority, so that
  "costs to egg producers will be reduced."
  The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): Would a Labour Government reintroduce it?
  Mr. Kinnock: I shall give the right hon. and learned Gentleman an answer to his question shortly.
  Three years after that White Paper—just a couple of weeks ago—Mr. Keith Pulman of the Egg Producers Association offered a plaintive postscript. Mr. Pulman, who is a man of considerable experience, stated:
  "I think those who were responsible"—
  for the disbanding of the authority
  "have a lot to answer for. If we still had a properly funded authority with research facilities, the whole business could have been dealt with fully and professionally."
  The Secretary of State asked me whether Labour will restore the eggs authority. We might not call it that, but call it the Kenneth Clarke Memorial Institute. We shall certainly have a properly funded, professionally staffed
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  research body—especially in an area where, because of their failures, the Government have had to sign a cheque for £20 million. When Mr. Pulman asks for
  "a properly funded authority with research facilities"
  he must surely realise that he is asking the impossible of the present Government.
  The Secretary of State may recall the second measure in his White Paper under the heading "Ministry of Agriculture", where he commented on a subject that has become very topical in the past fortnight:
  "The restrictions on the sale of untreated (that is, unpasteurised) 'green top' milk which were introduced in 1985 caused difficulty for farmhouse caterers."
  He proudly announced:
  "Following representations from the industry the regulations have been amended."
  That was in 1986. Two weeks ago, the arrangements were changed again, when the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food banned the sale of all green top milk. Small wonder that even the Prime Minister commented:
  "there appears to be some confusion."—[Official Report, 14 February 1989; Vol. 147, c. 146].
  Mr. Barry Field: Every morning in the Tea Room, the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) orders five boiled eggs. If the situation is as dangerous as it has been portrayed throughout the controversy about salmonella. why has the hon. Member for Stockton, North not stopped eating boiled eggs?
  Mr. Kinnock: I hope that it will be realised that I am not bound by this answer. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) is known as a man of many parts—not least among them being his ability to juggle eggs. It becomes really exciting when he has not even boiled them—much like the food policy of Her Majesty's Government.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a great many of my constituents like drinking green top milk and have no wish to see it withdrawn? They prefer to make their own decisions. Incidentally, cheese made from unpasteurised, green top milk is no more liable to cause disease than any other.
  Mr. Kinnock: I appreciate both points, and certainly there is some contention surrounding the subject of green top milk, both in respect of personal taste and scientific evidence. However, as Professor Livsey has testified—
  Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The right hon. Gentleman means Professor Lacey.
  Mr. Kinnock: I apologise. I should only have to look at the hon. Lady who has just intervened to think of lace. As she will know, there is less contention over the use of unpasteurised milk in cheeses. It is to be hoped that the Government can be more coherent on that subject. The hon. Lady will recall a dramatic weekend, not very long ago, when not only did the Ministry say one thing one day, and something else the next, but along came the helpful Secretary of State for Health to say something entirely different again.
  Mr. Paul Marland: The right hon. Gentleman's slip concerning Professor Lacey was his second error so far. He said that the Government have signed a cheque for £20 million, but they have not. The Government have signed a cheque for only £3 million.

  857
  Many people outside the House are anxious to hear the truth, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will concentrate on getting his facts right, for which we shall all be most grateful.
  Mr. Kinnock: The hon. Gentleman and I had the distinction of fighting each other in 1970 at our first parliamentary contest. When, during that election, he was asked how, as a working farmer, he managed to get three weeks off to fight an election, he said that he had left his hands in charge. That provoked my uncle Cliff into saying,
  "It's no good him looking for the sympathy vote."
  However, I am more than happy to correct the record. The figure is not £20 million. I am more than happy to receive that information from the hon. Gentleman, whom I shall cherish in my memory for many reasons, not the least of which is that in the late affair of the Under-Secretary of State for Health he played the part of Stalin to her Trotsky.
  The Prime Minister said that it appeared that there was some confusion. So there is. But there can be no confusion about the fact that the present cause for consumers' concern is rooted in the conditions resulting in large part from the attitude and actions of the Government, who so favour producers and sellers and so neglect the interests of consumers.
  Mrs. Teresa Gorman: Will the right hon. Gentleman given way.
  Mr. Kinnock: No, I am anxious to get on.
  That neglect is not confined to food. Indeed, it intensifies when we address the subject of water privatisation. The Government will insist that privatisation will bring new regulations to safeguard the consumer. They will insist that massive increases in charges are justified by the need to fund investment in the improvement of water treatment and supply. But that is not the true purpose. That is obvious to everyone. But perhaps it was put most graphically by The Daily Telegraph, which says:
  "Mr. Howard's declarations that the consumer will have to foot the environmental bill are providing the reassurance industry leaders want to increase the investment attractions."
  The message is obvious. The water price explosion, fostered by the Government, is not to raise standards but to raise profits. That is also why they have been so resistant to accepting the EC directives and regulations on the subject. The reason for their delays and evasions is obvious. To comply with those regulations will cost a great deal of money. As The Times put it:
  "It is going to be hard to combine this with selling shares to millions of consumers."
  Perhaps the most direct and authoritative comment on the implications of what the Government are doing comes from an expert in private water supply, Mr. Michael Swallow, the director of the Water Companies Association. Explaining the week before last why the private water companies felt it necessary to make huge increases in charges before privatisation, he said:
  "At the moment we operate under profit control, which puts the customer first. This very simple form of regulation goes back to the middle of the last century and it has been very effective. The Government's proposals will put the companies under price control, which puts the shareholders first."
  Mr. Robin Squire: The right hon. Gentleman has now reached the important subject of water safety, about which he spoke at the weekend. Far from the Government not providing investment, as I understand it investment in water sewerage controls is at its highest ever point, and the Select Committee on the Environment said that the major fall in investment of 50 per cent. took place under the previous Labour Government.
  Mr. Kinnock: I respect the hon. Gentleman, not least because of his strong support for freedom of information. The information that he is seeking is available if he looks at the consistent record, year on year, of investment in the water industry and sewerage. He will find that after a dip under the previous Labour Government investment rose and continued to rise, so much so that if this Government had sustained that trend they would have spent a great deal more money in the development of our water supplies.
  It also has to be said that such expenditure is necessary since the Government have been in power for 10 years and must be the first Government this century to mark a decade in office by an increase in rodent infestation in the major cities. I noticed on Sunday that The Sunday Telegraph reported a rise in rat infestation in nowhere other than the Prime Minister's constituency. The rat officer—there is a job for him in the Government Whips Office—in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph said that the rats are becoming very cunning; they have a nibble at the poison and then see if it goes bad in a day. I thought when I read that that was basically the strategy that guides the Government publicity policy.
  Putting the shareholders first, as Mr. Swallow so aptly and accurately put it, is another canon of the Government's creed.
  If the Secretary of State for the Environment is the shareholders' chum, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food takes the prize as the producers' friend at court. In 1987 his Ministry found salmonella infection at 21 of the animal feedstuff processing plants which supply Britain's poultry industry—one quarter of the total. In 1988, the Ministry found salmonella at 17 plants, some of them the very same plants which had been found to be infested a year before. None of those plants was prosecuted. None of the feedstuff was impounded. Incredibly, it was not until a few weeks ago that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food halted processing at plants where salmonella had been found and stopped the sale of eggs from farms where flocks were infected.
  The Minister told the Select Committee a fortnight ago that he had not dared to impose such a ban before for fear that the egg producers would stop telling him when their flocks were infected. If he knows that there is such resistance, why does he not promise 100 per cent. compensation for the killing of animals infected by bovine spongiform encephalopathy, since that would not only protect producers but is an essential protection for consumers?
  It is not that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is reluctant to help producers. The first people outside the Government who were told of the evidence linking salmonella with eggs were the egg producers. They were told on 13 June 1988, almost two months before the public were told at 4 pm on the Friday afternoon of

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  August Bank holiday weekend. I bet that Mr. Bernard Ingham was not handling that particular piece of publicity—or perhaps he was.
  Even when a salmonella outbreak hit the other place in May, Mr. Speaker, as you will recall, the producers' representatives were told the contents of the ministerial statement on the outbreak a day earlier than either House of Parliament. The reason for that prior warning, as given in the minutes of that meeting, was that it was
  "to reassure the industry representatives".
  That concern to calm the industry's anxiety is touching. It is a pity that it was not matched by an equal measure of concern for consumers. Whether they be common or noble, they all have an interest at stake.
  It would not be fair to suggest that the public were entirely forgotten at that meeting in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. On the contrary, the meeting ended with Government officials and egg producers agreeing on what they called a common "defensive briefing statement". It was not the job of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food or of the Department of Health to help egg producers draft a defensive statement; it was the job of both Departments to make sure that egg producers were responsive to the need for action to remove the threat to public health. But to this date—we may hear differently this afternoon—neither Department has made compulsory the egg industry's voluntary code of practice. Perhaps that is because the Prime Minister would consider such controls to be what she calls "bureaucratic" and as
  "imposing unnecessary burdens on the industry"
  —to use the phrases that she used in her specious letter to me yesterday.
  Perhaps that attitude also explains the reluctance of the Government to respond properly to the growing evidence of the link between listeriosis and the increased sale of cook-chill convenience foods. I touched upon this in answer to an intervention earlier on.
  It has to be brought to the attention of the House that it is in this matter that the Secretary of State for Health is at his most languid. A fortnight ago he assured listeners to the "Today" programme:
  "Most of those infected by salmonella have an upset stomach. They are not actually ill."
  Coming from the Secretary of State for Health, that is a fairly novel revision of the boundary line between sickness and health. I just hope that it does not spread to the opted-out hospitals.
  Last week the languor grew deeper. The Secretary of State informed Jimmy Young's listeners that listeria was not as frightening as it sounded. He said this about bacteria that have contributed to the death of 100 people in the last two years. In case that knowledge does not make the Secretary of State change his attitude, I draw his attention to a letter from a mother who lost her second child in the 28th week of her pregnancy because of listeriosis. The writer is a lucid and calm woman. I shall provide the Secretary of State with a copy of the letter, although, for obvious reasons, I am not disclosing the writer's identity. She wrote:
  "In the last month since my child's death I have had to cope not only with the grief from the loss of my baby, but also with feeling alternately guilty and like a helpless victim. I feel guilty because he died as a result of contaminated food eaten by me. I feel like a victim because I did not have the necessary information on the risks of listeriosis in time to safeguard my unborn child.
  Firstly, it seems unacceptable to us"—
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  that is, her and her husband—
  "that we were not given any warning about the danger of listeriosis even though the Government has known about the increase in the number of diagnosed cases for well over a year.
  Secondly, the advice issued by the Government on the 10th February focussing as it did on soft cheeses, seems partial to the extent of being misleading.
  Thirdly, it is infuriating to witness Government Ministers contradicting one another on such a serious public health issue. The danger now is that 'public confusion' will be presented as an over-reaction and Government advice will be confined to reducing anxiety rather than presenting facts and issuing clear guidelines."
  I believe that every hon. Member must share that concern and I would like the genuine reassurance of the Secretary of State in the course of this afternoon. I quote the letter in order to ensure that the Secretary of State, himself a loving father, will never again even begin to say that listeria is not as frightening as it sounds. That is not the way to put the issue into perspective.
  Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Will the right hon. Gentleman concede that in the Jimmy Young interview—a typescript of which I have in front of me—I frequently referred to the danger of listeria to expectant mothers, which was indeed the burden of the advice that we had given? Secondly, can he give a single instance of any two Ministers having contradicted each other on the risk of listeria to expectant mothers or any other sector of the population?
  Mr. Kinnock: I am not suggesting contradiction in the advice given on listeria, but, since the Secretary of State is so vigilant now, perhaps he could get his right hon. Friend to tell him, or to tell me, why it was that salmonella was connected with eggs in June and the public received a general announcement at the end of August, but it was December before the Ministry of Agriculture or the Ministry of Health drew specific attention to the risk to young children and old people of salmonella enteritidis.
  So far as listeria is concerned, yes, the Secretary of State did draw attention to the danger to expectant mothers. What we are asking for, and what the mother who wrote to me asks for, is effective action and proper information to ensure against all the food possibly contaminated with listeria. That is the comprehensive action that is now required. I put it to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for Health that a correction of his attitude and an updating of regulations and legislation are necessary as the real reassurance that I know that, as an individual and as a Minister, he would love to be able to give to people in the country, whether expectant mothers or not. I hope that he will do that.
  The danger of listeria is well known, and yet every day, as I indicated earlier, 400,000 cook-chill convenience meals are sold without specific regulations to control the temperature at which they are displayed, the length of time for which they are on display or labelling advising consumers when they are safe to eat. The Government are still attempting to control modern food technology and retailing techniques with food regulations that are merely a consolidation of basic laws passed in the 1930s.
  In addition, in their perplexity, the Government have now come up with a campaign "to urge wives", as the blurb says—as if females who are not married do not do any cooking—to return to the "rules of hygiene and good housekeeping" of yesteryear. But the solution is not to advise consumers to return to the shopping habits of the

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  1930s in order to conform with the laws of that time; it is to modernise, strengthen and enforce the law on consumer protection.
  In any case, I am sure that if Ministers needed advice on shopping and cooking, they could get it from their resident modern housewife, the Prime Minister. As she reminds us, she has extensive experience in this field. In addition, of course, she has had a more than passing acquaintance with the retail food industry ever since childhood. To her credit, as she also reminds us from time to time, she was previously a food scientist. When we add to all that the fact that she has now, according to the newspapers, taken charge of the Government's food policy, I wonder why she has not taken the opportunity to debate this particular topic on any day this week. It has to be said that the announcement that she had taken charge somewhat underwhelmed her right hon. and hon. Friends. I saw a report in The Independent that one of the Cabinet Ministers supposed to be a member of the ad hoc committee denied knowledge of its existence. And from The Times we heard the story of the Back Bencher, necessarily anonymous, who said:
  "We have seen it all before. It's 'Maggie steps in' yet again."
  —[Interruption.] No, it was not the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes). The hon. Member has gone. I suspected that it might be him, with the originality and exuberance for which he is so well known.
  It is true that there is a certain aura of "Maggie steps in again", because this is another cause of great public concern on which the Prime Minister alights, as if by her very presence she can transform conditions, like some hyperactive fairy queen. At least we know who is the Titania of this Government. What we have yet to discover, as we look across the Chamber this afternoon, is which of the two Cabinet Ministers is Oberon and which will get the ass's head. Perhaps it will be both, because they are both main agents of policies which, the longer the Government press them, the greater the unpopularity they attract.
  That is certainly true of electricity privatisation, the poll tax and the privatisation proposals for the NHS which she has imposed upon the Secretary of State for Health, to which there is huge majority opposition. It is certainly true of the privatisation of water, to which in every opinion poll 70 per cent. are opposed. It is also true in the case of food policy on which 70 per cent. say that the Government are doing too much to protect the industry and too little to protect the consumer, while 90 per cent. feel that the Government should introduce more controls on how food is produced—I swear that those polls with the 90 per cent. majority were not taken in Albania.
  The feelings of the British people on all these issues are well known, widely recorded and very obvious. The Government, in persisting in these policies that are so profoundly against the interests of the nation, are not showing toughness; they are showing obedience to vested interests. The Government are not showing strength, but arrogance. Such arrogance breeds incompetence and such arrogance is incompatible with democracy in government. The British people understand that. As a result, they do not trust the Government and the consequences of that will be that they will punish the Government.
  4.49 pm
  The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "expresses complete confidence in the Government's policies for protecting the safety and quality of the nation's food and water supplies."
  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is at the memorial service for the victims of the crash on the M1.
  I find this an extraodinary debate. It began on a tone with which we could all identify and, as Secretary of State for Health, I can agree with the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) that we are dealing with a serious issue which has had tragic consequences for some people and one about which the public wish to be reassured, both in terms of the advice given and the action being taken to deal with what is obviously a worrying new risk in the food chain.
  What I find extraordinary is that the Leader of the Opposition should choose to make a speech—I think it is his first major speech since the general election, apart from in the debate on the Queen's Speech—in a Supply day debate on a subject in which, as several of my hon. Friends have pointed out, his party has taken precious little interest for many years. Of course, we are talking about recent events, but I must say that as the worrying events have unfolded—and we have had two particular new features of food poisoning which have been identified steadily over the past 12 months—the Labour party has not taken any great interest, until today.
  One feature of the background is the worrying increase in the incidence of one type of salmonella and of listeriosis, which may be connected with food throughout the developed world—[Interruption.] There has been a steadily unfolding amount of evidence over the past 12 months. By the middle of last year, there was concern about salmonella enteritidis phage type 4 in eggs in particular. In July last year, the Government took what I would have thought would be the worrying and significant step of warning people in the National Health Service to use liquid pasteurised egg and not raw egg products. The Opposition did not react to that and took it as a minor matter. [Interruption.] On 26 August last year, the Government took a step that had to be considered carefully because the evidence was still unfolding. We took the fairly startling step of advising the public to avoid eating raw eggs and we gave a public health warning. Again, there was no reaction from the Labour party. [Interruption.]
  By November last year, the evidence was becoming clearer that lightly cooked eggs, as well as raw egg, might be involved in this outbreak and on 21 November 1988 yet another public health warning was given, bringing the matter up to date. Again, it produced no reaction. By that time, television programmes such as "Watchdog" and the "Food and Drink Programme" were often following what we had said. Good Housekeeping magazine was giving advice to housewives based on what the Government were saying. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was having a difficult time with some people in the egg industry because he was explaining that a code of practice would have to be introduced and action would have to be taken. Yet no interest was taken by the Labour party.
  Mr. Brian Wilson: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Clarke: As we all know, the matter came into the political arena on 3 December 1988 when my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), who was then the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, received a great deal of publicity for one of her weekend remarks.
  Mr. George Foulkes: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Clarke: For the first time, the Opposition came to life. They were in the vanguard, with some sections of the egg industry, in demanding the dismissal of my hon. Friend. They were not alone.
  Mr. Foulkes: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Clarke: I shall give way in a moment.
  The spokesman for the Social and Liberal Democrats attacked my hon. Friend for undermining confidence in the egg industry and the then spokesman for the Social Democrats compared the risk with the risk of being hit by a meteorite. That was the level of concern then being shown by Opposition Members.
  Mr. Wilson rose—
  Mr. Foulkes rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. If the Secretary of State does not want to give way, hon. Members must not persist.
  Mr. Clarke: The idea that the Opposition suddenly now scent the red meat of politics in the subject for an Opposition Supply day, traditionally a somewhat party political occasion, is quite extraordinary. It is two and a half months after all the political fuss, and endless events have taken place since then. They have missed the bus in exploiting the Currie affair.
  Mr. Kinnock rose—
  Mr. Clarke: I shall give way first to the right hon. Gentleman.
  I waited to see what would be contributed by the amazing and prestigious speech of the Leader of the Opposition. His contribution was his new style in wit, a very good line in jokes, a rather inadequate understanding of the problems of food poisoning and a theory that it is all caused by the policies of the Government.
  Mr. Kinnock: The Secretary of State is absolutely right about my wit. Everything else he has said about the Opposition is a travesty. That is the only reason I have intervened. Over the years, we have repeatedly drawn attention, in all the debates on local government, for example, to the effect that the Government's policies would have on public health. In even more recent times, we dedicated a whole day of the debate on the Queen's Speech to the environment. I, together with two of my hon. Friends in the course of that debate, drew attention from the Front Bench to what the British Medical Association was then calling an "epidemic" of salmonella. There have been many other occasions on which we have taken an effective and vigilant interest in the whole problem of food hygiene. I hope that the Secretary of State will get on with his speech and will stop fooling about with completely false reports.
  Mr. Clarke: The Leader of the Opposition has been fooling about for most of the afternoon so far with his new-style wit on the subject.
  Mr. Allan Roberts: This debate is about water as well as food. Do I take it from the remarks of the Secretary of State that he disagrees with the Secretary of State for the Environment and that speeches arid statements made by myself and my hon. Friends over the past three years about drinking water quality have not been scaremongering, of which he accused us?
  Mr. Clarke: I have not accused the hon. Gentleman of scaremongering yet, but I shall. The whole point of the debate seems to be to arouse the alarm of the public and then to try to turn that to party political advantage. I shall, in due course, return to the extraordinary proposition that where there are worrying problems about water purity, somehow one is safe with public water but not with private water. That seems to be wholly irrelevant to the Water Bill and is only raised again by the hon. Gentleman because he wants to oppose the privatisation of water for other reasons.
  Mr. Jack Ashley: If the Secretary of State is giving us dates and explaining his interest in this subject, can he tell us why it took him from 15 December 1988 to 15 February this year to answer a simple question that I tabled about what was his responsibility for food safety? It took two months to answer a simple question. How many meetings did he have about that question? How many draft answers? How many nights' sleep did he lose? I suggest that that prevarication and delay showed a complete lack of interest or lack of confidence by the Secretary of State.
  Mr. Clarke: My duties on food safety have been clear as were those of my predecessor. They are in the published details of the responsibilities of Government Ministers. .1 apologise, of course, that it took so long to answer the right hon. Gentleman's question. I fear—as is always the position when people first suspect a conspiracy and then think of the alternative—that his question, quite improperly, remained in the bottom drawer of some official over the Christmas recess. [Interruption.] There have certainly not been any changes in my responsibilities for food safety nor in those of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for many years. The present system has been working effectively for the past few months.
  Dr. John Reid: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Clarke: I must be allowed to get on a little further, but I shall give way later.
  Having dealt with the background to this debate and its contents so far, may I suggest that we are all agreed that those who are following the debate from outside the House wish to have clear advice and clear action and to know what is being done about a problem that is causing concern in this and every other developed country in the westerm world? The housewives of this country do not want party political exchanges across the Floor of the House, which are plainly dependent on the opportunist instincts of the Leader of the Opposition. They want to know exactly what advice we are now giving them so that they can protect themselves and their families. They want

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  to know the background to the problem and why we are giving such surprising advice and they want to know what is going to be done about the problem. On all those counts, on which the Leader of the Opposition did not spend over-long, we have a duty to be clear and to demonstrate that we have been clear and consistent in the past few months.
  I remind all hon. Members of the precise status of the warnings that we have given. We have had to give warnings to certain sections of the public about the way in which they should treat certain foods. If the Opposition are really sincere in their declaration that they wish to be responsible—I shall take that at its face value and in the way in which it was put to me—they should underline the advice that has been given and agree that it is the crux of the issue.
  We have been consistent throughout in our advice about eggs. We went to the lengths of publicising the Chief Medical Officer's advice in full-page advertisements in the newspapers. I have a small offprint with me. The extent of that advice, which evolved as the evidence during the autumn, was that for healthy people there is very little risk from eating eggs which are cooked in whatever way one prefers them. For vulnerable people—the elderly, the sick, babies, toddlers and pregnant women—eggs should be thoroughly cooked until the white and the yoke are solid, but everyone should avoid eating raw eggs or uncooked foods made from them.
  Mr. Wilson rose—
  Ms. Mildred Gordon rose—
  Mr. Clarke: I shall give way later.
  That remains our advice on eggs. No one is suggesting that it is wrong or that it should be changed. No one is suggesting that at any stage any Minister has given any advice inconsistent with that which stems from the Chief Medical officer or from the course of public debates.
  Mr. Wilson: Before the Secretary of State strays too far from his somewhat sketchy chronological account, is he categorically telling the House that his Department had no warnings of salmonella in the poultry flock before 1988?
  Mr. Clarke: Salmonella in the poultry flock is a subject with which everybody who follows this issue has been familiar for many years. The new type of salmonella—salmonella enteritidis phage 4—and the discovery that it could be carried inside the egg, was first suspected and emerged towards the end of last year. To this day, we are still trying to discover exactly why and how it has emerged. We want to increase our scientific knowledge of it so that we can react to it.
  Ms. Gordon: Does the Secretary of State agree that what old people, pregnant women and mothers with children require are not warnings about not eating eggs, but safe eggs that they can eat? They want an assurance that the producers have been inspected and they want lists of safe producers and retailers from whom they can buy eggs with confidence. The Government have not provided that.
  Mr. Clarke: I agree with all that apart, of course, from the last phrase. We have given the warnings because we had to—because a new problem has emerged. I agree with
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  the hon. Lady that it now falls to us and the industry to tackle that problem and to reduce the level of infection to the minimum practicable and eliminate it as quickly as possible. However, a new problem has emerged, and we must give warnings. We shall maintain those warnings until we are satisfied that it can be lifted—that is the essence of this subject. [Interruption.] I am explaining how the problem emerged, when we first became aware of its full extent and the warning that we have given.
  Mr. Foulkes rose—
  Mr. Clarke: I shall stick to this matter for the moment. I shall give way later.
  The other worrying area is listeria and listeriosis. Again, there is no doubt about the warnings that we have been giving, which were last given in a full public press notice on 10 February 1989 and which received a lot of attention. It was aimed at pregnant women and particularly vulnerable people, especially patients who have had transplants, those on certain drugs that depress the immune system, and those with leukaemia or cancers of the lymphatic tissues. Those people were warned to avoid eating soft cheeses and to follow carefully instructions on how to handle precooked chilled food and precooked ready-to-eat chicken. They were advised to warm it until piping hot.
  Mr. Robin Cook rose—
  Mr. Clarke: I shall give way later to the hon. Gentleman because I do not think he wishes to intervene on that point.
  Before we get back to the political hullabaloo, I want to ensure that the public understand the warnings and get them in proportion. It is not complacent to say that one needs to keep this matter in proportion. Indeed, I think that the public know that.
  In supermarkets and kitchens, the public are behaving more sensibly than many politicians and journalists. That is the full extent of the health warnings that we have given. Nobody has said that we should extend them—
  Mr.Cook rose—
  Mr. Clarke: Well, I shall give a simple example first. Let us take someone like myself who, as far as I am aware, is healthy. It may not be my just deserts for my way of life, but I think that I am healthy—as are most hon. Members. I have not been warned to desist from eating any food on grounds of salmonella or listeria, except raw eggs. If one has an occasional raw egg, one knows that one is running a calculated risk.
  Mrs. Gorman rose—
  Mr. Clarke: Our advice has been aimed only at vulnerable groups. Average members of the public are not facing a risk that justifies hysteria or over-reaction. However, what it does justify is positive action, research and more scientific information to tackle the problem at its root before it gets any worse.
  Mr. Cook rose—
  Mr. ClarkeI shall give way in a second.
  To put this into proportion, during the 1980s deaths from food poisoning averaged about 50 per year. By comparison, deaths from accidents in the home were over 4,800 and for road accidents nearly 4,950. No one is

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  complacent about any of those figures, but they do put the comparative risks in context. The average person is nearly 100 times more likely to die from an accident at home or on the road than from food poisoning. Although the risk from food poisoning in this new form should be reduced, it does not justify the amazing alarm expressed about it in some places.
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours rose—
  Mr. Cook rose—
  Mr. Clarke: I shall give way in a moment. As I shall show later, the risk does not justify the attacks on the Government for our reaction to the problem—to the worrying extent that it exists.
  Mr. Cook: I thank the Secretary of State for giving way after that "second". He said several times that the problem emerged only last year. However, he will be aware that the figures that he has deposited in the Library show that between 1981 and 1987—not last year—the incidence of salmonella enteritidis increased sixfold. Is he aware that in 1987 the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food discovered infection in one quarter of the poultry foodstuff processing plants but did not close a single one? Is he further aware that in September last year the Lancet was able to state that there had been an "uncontrolled" epidemic of salmonella poisoning "for about two years" in Britain? If the Lancet knew that in September 1988, why did his Department wake up to the problem only a couple of months earlier?
  Mr. Clarke: The big increase in salmonella enteritidis was in 1987. Its connection with the whole egg became clear only in the summer of last year. Nothing that the hon. Gentleman has said has contradicted that. Indeed, I do not believe that it is possible to contradict that.
  The big increase in listeria and listeriosis occurred two years ago, but we stil do not know why there has been a big increase in listeriosis. Only four cases have been positively traced back to food. In 1988 the World Health Organisation gave us its opinion of the problem-that probably the bulk of listeriosis was, in some way as yet unknown, foodborne as an illness.
  As I shall explain in a moment, we are in the forefront of monitoring systems and research. In the advice that we are giving to the public and the steps that we have taken vis-a-vis the industry we are ahead of most other countries in western Europe and across the Atlantic.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: This debate must be about reassuring the public—[Interruption.] That is what the public demands of Parliament today. May we have an absolute, unconditional assurance today that all feedstock protein coming from these plants is salmonella-free? If we receive that assurance today, why could not we have had it in August of last year, when it would have meant so much more?
  Mr. Clarke: I shall be coming to that in a moment. I shall leave most of the assurances to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, but I shall touch on the 17 measures that he has taken to check salmonella in our flocks.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: We want an assurance.
  Mr. Clarke: Yes, I believe that I can give that. We have made orders controlling—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) asked a question and he is receiving a reply.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: I am not.
  Speaker: The hon. Gentleman should not point at the Minister and demand the answers to other questions.
  Mr. Clarke: We have created the necessary powers to be able to give that assurance. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will be able to bring the hon. Gentleman up to date with the enforcement of those powers when he replies.
  As I shall explain in the appropriate part of my speech, we have taken much action and given ourselves many additional powers to control salmonella in egg-laying flocks.
  Mr. Foulkes rose—
  Mr. Tom Clarke rose—
  Mr. Clarke: I shall give way in a second. It is a little rich for an Opposition Member to declare that the purpose of the debate is reassurance when the Opposition have so far spent their time misrepresenting both the date at which the problem first became known and the advice that the Government have given. With no scientific grounds on which to do so, they are challenging the action taken by the Government last year when the nature of the problem first became clear.
  Dr. Reid: Does the Secretary of State realise that if anything in today's debate will cause wide public concern, it will be his refusal to give the categorical assurance asked for by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours)? Does he think that comparing the statistics of people who died from food poisoning with those of people who died on roads is any consolation to the relatives of those who died from food poisoning?
  Does the Secretary of State understand that advertisements in newspapers are no substitute for policy? Will he take the opportunity today to explain to the House and the country why the Government vetoed their own 1984 proposals to subject new food premises to Government regulation and approval? In doing so, did the Government put the health of the nation or the Prime Minister's dogma of deregulation first?
  Mr. Clarke: I have already explained that I gave the figures, not to minimise the impact on the individuals affected, but to make it clear to everyone in the Chamber that it is still safer to eat any kind of British food than it is to cross the road. Quite demonstrably, that remains the case.
  Mr. Foulkes rose—
  Mr. Clarke: Secondly, I shall—
  Mr. Foulkes: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. As a Front Bench spokesman the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) should be the first to know that if a Minister, or even an hon. Member, does not give way, he must not persist.
  Mr. Clarke: I shall not give way before I have answered the last intervention because that would reduce the debate

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  to a farce. I have given an assurance that the Government have the necessary powers to control the production of protein in this country. As part of the assurance that I shall give about the steps we have taken, I can say that the Government have the necessary powers to monitor the flocks and are checking protein as it comes from the producers.
  The hon. Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) is doing what his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition does by calmly changing the subject to talk about a regulation on new food premises that was introduced three years ago. He cannot demonstrate that any case of the food poisoning with which we are concerned this afternoon arose from the Government's decision about that regulation. The Opposition must stop thrashing about trying to find vaguely food-related topics to suggest that the risk is worse than it is or that, somehow, the Government are not tackling the problem.
  Sir David Price: In order to make some sense of assessing the degree of the problem, will my right hon. and learned Friend deal with the point raised about the alleged under-reporting of salmonella cases? Does he agree that academics who multiply the Department's figure by 100 do not add to our appreciation of the problem? Is he aware that applying that factor of 100 to the basic health figure—the mortality rate—would mean that all of us in the House and the nation would die 1·2 times every year?
  Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friend helpfully takes me on to my next point, which concerns the exact extent of the infection and our assessment of what action should be taken to reduce it.
  As I have explained several times, we are talking about a new form of salmonella. There are hundreds of different types of salmonella of varying seriousness, but we are dealing with a new type—salmonella enteritidis phage 4. Cases of that particular type associated with poultry and eggs have risen during the 1980s. In 1988, 12,553 cases of phage 4 were reported in this country. The latest score for 1988 of cases directly associated with eggs is 60 outbreaks, involving about 1,600 people.
  It is true that all types of food poisoning are under-reported. Many people's symptoms are not severe enough for them to trouble their doctor, or if they do, he does not always submit his results for pathological examination. In America, where I suspect reporting systems are not as good as ours, by convention some academics multiply by 100 the number of reported cases to give a figure closer to the truth. By definition, no one knows exactly how much under-reporting takes place, but those involved in the matter in this country believe that a factor of 10 is more suitable for monitoring the conditions in Britain.
  Mr. Foulkes: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Clarke: Let me again give some factual information about listeria. I do not think that any hon. Member in this debate can challenge the information I have given, because they have none better.
  The difficulty about listeria is that it is also a new and insufficiently understood problem. The type of listeria with which we are dealing is an organism that is widely
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  distributed in the environment and with which we all come into frequent daily contact. It is present in water, vegetation and soil. For some reason, as yet imperfectly understood, although we are all exposed to it—about one in 20 of us probably carry it in our bodies—it causes ill effects in vulnerable people.
  For a few of us the organism causes a disease known as listeriosis, which is fortunately quite rare. Last year there were 287 cases. In the past two years the number has suddenly risen. In healthy adults it can cause a mild flu-like disease but unfortunately, in more serious cases, it can cause meningitis and septicemia. As the Leader of the Opposition said, it presents a particular problem for pregnant women, in whom it may also infect the developing baby and lead to miscarriage, stillbirth or the baby being born with severe illness. The problem is being studied throughout the western world. However, it is only in the 1980s that serious outbreaks have begun to occur.
  Soft, ripened cheese appears to be a particularly common carrier of listeria. Again, before people rush out to cancel their orders for soft cheese, I shall repeat that healthy adults have probably consumed listeria several times in the past few days without even being aware of it or showing any symptoms. However, pregnant women are at risk if they eat cheese with listeria.
  In the 1980s there were outbreaks of listeria, first in Canada, and then a particular cheese, Vacherin Mont D'or, caused deaths in Sunderland—[Interruption.]—in Switzerland. [Interruption.]—and had to be banned. Then in America they had a serious outbreak involving Mexican soft cheese. Hence, we have given the advice to those consuming soft cheese in this country, although to date we are aware of only four cases directly attributable to food, only two of which concerned soft cheese. It seems to make no difference whether the cheese is pasteurised or unpasteurised. We have given warnings to this carefully selected group of vulnerable people because most of us can eat soft cheese, which has a lot of listeria in it, without knowing that we have it and without suffering adverse effects.
  That statement produced some momentary silence and even a little less hilarity from the Opposition because it is a factual description of the particular aspects of food poisoning with which we are concerned. Those facts do not lend themselves to party political attacks. They are not facts about which the Opposition are any more scientifically informed than the Government.
  Dr. Lewis Moonie rose—
  Mr. Clarke: But certainly they wish to know exactly what we are doing about it.
  Mrs. Rosie Barnes rose—
  Mr. Clarke: First, the Government are armed with many independent expert committees.
  Dr. Moonie: Perhaps I am slightly better informed than the Secretary of State on this subject. He must be well aware that the rise in the number of cases of listeria is exactly paralleled by the rise in the use of cook-chill methods of storing food. He will also be aware that this fact is recognised by major manufacturers such as Marks and Spencer, which have taken action to ensure that this bacterium is eradicated from their food production.
  Mr. Clarke: Certainly it is true that, among other things that have happened during the 1980s, there has been an increase in listeria, especially in the past two years. There has been an increase in the use of pre-cooked chilled foods on sale for retail. It is certainly true that listeria is a risk that must be looked out for in pre-cooked chilled food. I shall come to that in a moment. No one has yet established the direct link. We know that the level of listeria should be kept reasonably low and precautions should be taken by those who are particularly vulnerable to the bacterium. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie) is a registered medical practitioner who I know therefore has qualifications in his field. The hon. Gentleman claims to know exactly why particular groups get listeriosis from listeria. If he knows exactly what steps must be taken to reverse that, he should be in pursuit of a Nobel prize, and not in pursuit of retaining his seat in the House of Commons.
  Mr. Tom Clarke rose—
  Mr. Clarke: I do not believe that the medical and scientific world is entirely sure yet of the answers to these questions. We will take the hon. Gentleman's advice, and we are taking advice. The Government already have many independent expert committees to rely upon, including doctors and vets within the Government and a wide range of outside expertise, such as the food advisory committee, and the committee on toxicology. Those committees will not be attacked by anybody on either side of the House. We have 10 specialist working parties dealing with all aspects of food hygiene, which contain experts from inside and outside.
  I trust that we shall not hear any bizarre attacks upon them as part of some political conspiracy in support of the producer, private industry or whatever is claimed to be at the root of this difficulty. No subject is considered closed by them. We analyse thousands of samples of food each year. We monitor what is going on in this country to a much higher extent than most other countries.
  Mr. Tom Clarke: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Clarke: Research has been mentioned. We are financing research on a considerable scale. That case is not undermined by finding one disappointed researcher whose research has been finished—and where the money is being switched to some other aspect—and suggesting that that is incontrovertible proof that we are neglecting research. At present, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is funding 14 research projects, either specifically on listeria or including work on listeria. We are in the forefront of work in this sphere.
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Clarke: Most developed countries, as I keep on saying, are experiencing a similar problem. It is not confined to this country. One thing that arises from our system of monitoring, answering questions and giving advice—indeed, from our system of parliamentary debate—is that we in this country are more aware of the extent of the problem than most members of the public in other countries are aware of the extent of similar problems in those countries.
  Mr. Robert Hughes rose—
  Mr. Clarke: We are taking a considerable amount of action to tackle this. We are taking more action than most of our neighbours.
  On salmonella in eggs, going back to the question that was raised by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture has put in place a package of no fewer than 17 measures. 1 shall touch on some measures that are especially relevant to the hon. Gentleman's intervention, because the Minister will deal with his own measures.
  We have given ourselves new powers to stop the supply of products from protein processing plants where salmonella is found. We have put out notices preventing the sale of eggs from flocks that have been identified as a source of salmonella-infected eggs. Very shortly, an order will be made under section 29 of the Animal Health Act 1981 to provide, where necessary, for the compulsory slaughter of laying flocks in which salmonella has been confirmed. Much interest has arisen, especially since my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South made her remarks about the extent of infection in the flocks. Another order will be made shortly providing for the compulsory bacteriologial monitoring of all laying flocks which will enable us to improve our knowledge of the extent of infection of the flocks.
  Mr. Foulkes: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Clarke: I shall give way, although I will not give more details at this stage. I know of no country, and I challenge the hon. Gentleman and any of his colleagues to disagree, that has introduced a more comprehensive package of measures to deal with the problem, although we are by no means the only country that faces it.
  Mr. Foulkes: The Secretary of State said earlier that we need clarity and not confusion. I think he was trying to accuse us of scaremongering. He will recall that all this confusion started with the statement that he has just mentioned from the former Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie). Could the Secretary of State now tell us what he said to the hon. Lady immediately after that statement was made? Did he ask her to correct her statement because it was misleading, or did he ask her to shut up?
  Mr. Clarke: The first time that serious interest was taken in this subject by the Opposition was when they joined in the demands to sack my hon. Friend because of her remarks. On the following day, when the hon. Gentleman was probably in the House, I answered a private notice question in which I gave the clear advice of the Government and a clear description of the nature and extent of the problem. To the best of my knowledge, nobody, certainly not so far this afternoon, has challenged anything that I said on that occasion.
  The Chief Medical Officer gave widespread interviews on television and to newspapers to give the public health advice. I use the Chief Medical Officer because, although he is a civil servant, he is quite free of any suggestion of being subject to political interference in his medical judgment. He is also best qualified to give medical advice to the public and he did so. What I said to my hon. Friend was that she should decline to give interviews, because the only interviews that she would give was where she would face attacks from people like the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) demanding that she withdraw—

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  [Interruption.] Yes, certainly. At that stage, this responsible Opposition put the issue on a par with woolly hats and Edwina-baiting—[Interruption.] Yes, of course that was said.
  Again, the following day, my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South repeated her belief in what she had said on the Saturday and added to it the Government's health advice, in exactly the same terms as I and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food had given it, as well as the Chief Medical Officer.
  Mr. Foulkes: Will the Secretary of State follow that up?
  Mr. Clarke: We have had quite enough of that. I gave evidence on it for an hour to the Select Committee on Agriculture. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Tom Clarke: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Clarke: I shall give way to my namesake, who is being most persistent.
  Mr. Tom Clarke: I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. While he attempts to reassure the House, will he accept from me that in the past 15 minutes I have received information from the management of D. B. Marshall's chicken factory in my constituency, which has just announced redundancies for 239 people, which is more than half the work force at the factory? The management has told me that recent publicity has much to do with the decision. Does not the Secretary of State agree that the Government will have to get their act together much better than this unless even more jobs are to be lost?
  Mr. Clarke: With the greatest respect, the hon. Gentleman should take that up with his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition—[Interruption.] A few moments ago I attempted to repeat—and, despite the interruptions, I think I succeeded—the medical advice currently being given to the public about the safe handling of food. It was not greeted with derision, because there is no different advice that the Opposition want us to give, but it was greeted with repeated interruptions, weak jokes and general disbelief that I should compare it with road accidents or anything of that kind.
  It is important that the vulnerable groups take the advice that we give, and it is important that other people realise that if they use common sense in handling food they are perfectly safe. It is also important that the Opposition parties stop messing about on this subject and find a subject for debate in respect of which they can make a useful contribution.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Clarke: No, I cannot keep giving way.
  Let me go on to the question of cooked, chilled food. We have dealt, so far, with salmonella in eggs and with listeria in soft cheese. Cooked, chilled food is also an important matter. Listeria is carried in soft, ripened cheeses. We are concerned also about the handling of cooked, chilled and ready-cooked food in supermarkets. A recent report, produced by the Government's own public health laboratory service, which appeared in The Lancet, gave what is, so far, the best measurement of the extent of
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  listeria infection in some foods found in supermarkets. That report was known about and was fully taken into account by Sir Donald Acheson when, recently, he gave pregnant women and seriously sick people his advice about listeria and the handling of cooked, chilled food.
  Nevertheless, we do intend to follow up recent concern about cooked, chilled food, and we now have regulations in draft, under the Food Hygiene Act, to require a maximum temperature for the distribution, storage and sale of pre-cooked, chilled foods. This is an aspect into which the hon. Member for Livingston entered a few days ago, with an essay at his own regulations. I said at the time that he was a little bit like a third-rate Liberal candidate in a county council election, knowing that we were producing regulations and that they were about to come, but demanding their introduction. Nevertheless, what he said was interesting, although, in fact, he lifted our existing guidelines for cook-chill catering in hospitals and applied them to the retail sale of various pre-cooked, chilled foods. They are not quite the same; the practical problems are different. Nevertheless, we have our regulations in draft, and our experts' conclusions—and plainly we have access to a much wider range of expert advice than he has—will come out soon.
  The hon. Gentleman was not wholly foolish in choosing as a model our cook-chill guidance to National Health Service hospitals. I am glad to say that it comes out extremely well in all recent surveys. Our National Health Service guidelines have a good record. In the case of cook-chill in hospitals, there is such a short time between cooking at a high temperature, storage at a very low temperature for a very short time and then bringing the food up to piping hot again that the process has a good record and is giving rise to no concern.
  Contracting-out was said to be about to cause a wave of food poisoning throughout the hospitals. We have gone through a tendering process for well over three quarters of hospital catering, and the rate of salmonella infection in hospitals is dropping, not increasing. [Interruption.] Yet again, the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) cannot resist bringing into a debate about food poisoning absolutely irrelevant ideological nonsense about his resistance to private caterers or contracting-out. In fact, since contracting-out started, salmonella infection has dropped.
  Mr. Frank Dobson rose—
  Mr. Clarke: If the hon. Gentleman waits to hear what I have to say about the regulations, I will give way before moving away from them.
  On the question of cooked, chilled, our experts have now agreed, and we will be laying the necessary hygiene regulations in the very near future. Those regulations will control the maximum temperature throughout the manufacturing and distribution chain, and that is important. We are working on a code of practice to ensure careful handling at every stage, from the preparation of foods to their sale on the shelves. We are also carrying out investigations into the temperatures necessary to kill the organism during heat treatment and into the effectiveness of microwave cooking. The results will be available shortly, and, once more, we shall take action at once.
  Mr. Robin Cook: I readily accept what the Secretary of State says about the promise of regulations in this area. The Government have been promising regulations in this

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  area since they issued a consultative document in June 1987. Can the Secretary of State explain to the House why, 20 months later, no action has been taken on that consultative document, despite the growing evidence of listeriosis? If it really is necessary for his Department to take 20 leisurely months to consult over one statutory instrument, could we please have 20 months of consultation on the White Paper before he dismantles the National Health Service?
  Mr. Clarke: The Opposition keep bringing in subjects that it might have been wiser to debate this afternoon. They would have been more relevant to a Supply day debate.
  On the hon. Gentleman's first, and serious, point, let me say that I regret that it has taken 20 months, since we first announced our intention to consult, to produce these regulations. I can give the hon. Gentleman a perfectly straightforward explanation: the experts have taken a long time to come to agreement. [Interruption.] It really is quite absurd that every time we produce anything in an area of this kind Opposition Members insist that there is a party political conspiracy behind it. The fact is that when one is dealing with an area in which the scientific knowledge is far from complete, one brings together the widest body of expert knowledge. But the experts do not always agree. They had pressure put upon them by me and by my right hon. Friend because we needed the regulations. I am glad to say that—without compromising their scientific position, I am sure—they have finally agreed, and that we are about to lay the regulations.
  I agree with the Leader of the Opposition that the consumer is entitled to look for the safest food that it is possible to get. It is not the consumers' responsibility in the first place. Nevertheless, consumers have a responsibility to take good care of themselves and of their food in the home, and we shall soon be launching a full-scale health education campaign on food hygiene to explain to people making increasing use of convenience foods in modern kitchens how they can handle that food safely in order to reduce the risk of disease there.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: Does the Secretary of State recall Question No. 16 on today's Order Paper concerning the irradiation of food? Contrary to normal practice, the written answer to that question is still not available in the Library. though the other written answers are available. Why is he so coy about his Department's position concerning a proven method of making food safer? Will he say what is his policy towards the irradiation of food?
  Mr. Clarke: It is true that all the best evidence we have so far is that irradiation actually kills bacteria and poses no problem for the consumer. But, as the hon. Gentleman, who follows these matters, knows, we are again in the hands of an expert working party, whose report we are considering. It is one of the ironies of the recent controversy about food that a lot of the lobbying is contradictory. Irradiation tends to kill bacteria in food, and there is no evidence that it creates any difficulties.
  People talk about the safety of eggs. We hear about battery farming, which is not popular with many people in this country. There is no evidence that free range eggs are any more free of the newer types of salmonela than battery eggs. Infection has been found in both.
  When we have looked at the infections that come from cheese, we have found nothing to suggest that
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  factory-made cheese is safer than the farm gate variety. As someone said, we are consulting all over again on the question of the sale of unpasteurised farm gate milk, which some people like to buy and which undoubtedly also gives rise to a degree of food poisoning. Irradiation is a subject to which we shall certainly have to return, because the process would not actually kill some of the bacteria about which we are talking.
  Mrs. Rosie Barnes: I wonder whether the Secretary of State could say something about the use of unpasteurised milk in cheese making. Comments at the weekend before last caused a considerable degree of anxiety about which cheeses were safe and which were not. Some hard cheeses are made from unpasteurised milk, and I know that many small manufacturers of cheeses have been finding their livelihood very hard hit in the days following those remarks.
  Mr. Clarke: When questioned on the Jimmy Young programme I gave my understanding of what the newspapers told me my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food had been saying on Saturday. At the same time, in Brussels, he was explaining that he had not said it—that we were not contemplating a ban. The position is that we are not contemplating a ban on any kind of cheese. So far as listeriosis is concerned, we cannot detect, from any evidence, any higher risk of disease in unpasteurised cheese than in pasteurised cheese, and there is no case for discriminating between them.
  Mr. Shersby: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the point raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) is important? Can my right hon. and learned Friend comment on what studies his Department has made on the use of irradiation in other countries such as the Netherlands? Does he share my view that if he intends to legalise irradiation, the Opposition should support that as a valuable measure for dealing with food poisoning?
  Mr. Clarke: It will be interesting to see. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food may find time to deal with irradiated food when he replies to the debate. There is considerable concern about it and at the moment it is not allowed in this country. Much of the public concern is caused by confusion about the general subject of radioactivity. There are people who do not hesitate to confuse the two things. Again, we shall examine the best, up-to-date scientific information, both from here and abroad, about irradiation.
  I cannot have been asked many more questions in any debate than I have been asked this afternoon, but there are limits to the extent of the scientific knowledge that exists about the new strains of salmonella, the worrying increase in listeriosis and other things connected with the subject.. No one denies that during the 1980s—not, as the Leader of the Opposition says, uniquely in this country because of the political policies of the Government, but throughout the developed world—there has been a worrying increase in particular types of food poisoning. No one knows exactly why. We all know that there have been sociological and technological changes in the production and handling of food. There has been a big increase in the mass production of food, which has had desirable consequences for the consumer, not least in reducing the price. Supermarket sales of food are increasing, and increasingly

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  food is of a convenience type, made to be prepared in new inventions like the microwave oven by busy people coming home from work.
  All the evidence from this country and abroad gives no cause for panic or hysteria. As we have all said throughout, in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of Health, the evidence gives rise to serious concern that more infection is getting into the food chain at some point than used to be the case. It needs the most close scientific investigation. For that reason the Government have already announced their intention to appoint a committee on the microbiological safety of food. The committee will contain the widest possible range of expertise. Its members will be able to give advice on every part of the food chain and bring together their various specialities so that we can improve our understanding of why there has been an increase in food poisoning and what we ought to be doing to reverse it.
  We have invited Sir Mark Richmond to be the chairman of the committee. Sir Mark is professor of molecular microbiology and vice-chancellor of Manchester university. He is also chairman of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals. Among his various posts he has been chairman of the British national committee for microbiology, a member of the Lister Institute and a member of the Jarrett committee for university efficiency.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: Is he a Tory?
  Mr. Clarke: Once again the Opposition have betrayed the full extent of their interest in the subject. The political predilections of the chairman of the committee are more important than his scientific background. I have not a clue whether he is a Tory.
  The terms of reference of the committee will be:
  "To advise the Secretary of State for Health, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Secretaries of State for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on matters remitted to it by Ministers relating to the microbiological safety of food and on such matters as it considers need investigation."
  That means that it will be invited to respond to specific issues put to it by Ministers but it can also initiate longer term studies of its own.
  The committee will look at the increasing incidence of foodborne illnesses particularly from salmonella, listeria and campylobacter. It will try to establish whether this rise is linked to changes in agriculture and food production, food technology and distribution, retailing, catering and food handling in the home. It will recommend action where appropriate. It is intended that the committee will have an expert membership which will include an epidemiologist, a microbiologist, an environmental health officer, a veterinary surgeon, a farmer, and food scientists with experience in production, distribution and catering. Consumer interests will also be represented on the committee. I hope that it will make some of its early recommendations in time for them to be included in the food legislation which the Government are contemplating.
  I have taken a great amount of time, most of it in deference to interventions from all over the House—I have promptly provoked another one.
  Mr. Christopher Gill: My right hon. and learned friend will be aware that the Leader of the
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  Opposition referred to certain vested interests in the food industry. Will my right hon. and learned Friend take the opportunity to reassure the House that the food industry, whether producers, manufacturers, processers, retailers or whatever, has a big vested interest, that is, ensuring that it markets a product that gives total satisfaction? The food industry has as big a vested interest as any individual.
  Mr. Clarke: Of course, food producers, retailers and supermarket chains are all anxious, above all, to restore consumer confidence in their product. Within the food industry there is considerable expertise on catering, retailing and the handling of cooked, chilled products. We are working closely with the Ministry of Agriculture and the food industry in what we are doing.
  We have a record which is second to none of any country in the developed world of careful monitoring, of research, of prompt advice to the public and of action on the threats that are posed to the public by new varieties of food poisoning. We have set up a new independent committee to advise us on the worrying new developments in food poisoning in recent years. The whole subject has been trivialised to some extent this afternoon by the Opposition who made it a Supply day debate and then tried to make cheap political points out of it.
  I began by saying that I was astonished that the right hon. Member for Islwyn was here. This is his first major Supply day presence since the election. Was it on defence, on the Health Service or on economic policy? No. He talked about the unity of his party, but his party either has no policy and is listening to various groups before deciding on what it should be, or it is only unified on the question of bad eggs and goat's milk cheese which it sees as its route back to power. The Labour party has made a deliberate attempt to arouse public concern, for party political advantage. On an issue which should be bipartisan the Labour party has tried to fan public concern. I invite my right hon. and hon. Friends to treat the Opposition motion with the contempt that it undoubtedly deserves and to vote for the Government amendment.
  Mr. Speaker: Before I call Back Benchers to participate in the debate, may I remind them that there will be a 10-minute limit on speeches between 7 o'clock and 9 o'clock. I hope that those who are called before then will set a good example by not taking much longer.
  5.47 pm
  Mr. Martyn Jones: I shall try my best, Mr. Speaker, to make my five minutes count.
  Whatever may be said from the Government Benches, some of us are qualified to speak on the issue. It does not take an expert to know that public confidence in food is at an all-time low, with some justification. In the last few years, a combination of Tory free market dogma and ministerial complacency and bungling has been literally deadly.
  I have no wish or right to pre-empt the report of the Select Committee which is investigating salmonella in eggs, but I wish to comment on the evidence which was given in public. When the Secretary of State for Health, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) were interviewed, the ordinary person in the street had to assume that one of two things appertained: that there was a cover-up of evidence by the former Under-Secretary of

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  State for Health, who had been ordered to shut up, or that the former Under-Secretary of State had decided to keep quiet for her own personal reasons, literary or egotistical. Neither says much for inter-departmental liaison or the people involved.
  Inter-departmental relations between the Department of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food were also pretty scrambled, for whether eggs are the cause of the increase in salmonella infection generally or not, it has been known literally for years that there has been a problem with salmonella of all kinds—there are, after all, 2,200 species or so—in poultry meat production, and the kind of action we are now hopefully seeing—the enforcement of zoonosis orders and tightening up of feed regulations and the 15 or so other measures which are to be listed later—are probably years overdue, both for the benefit of the consumers and the producers, who by and large want to produce good, wholesome food, and do not benefit from scares. This is a perfect example of how free market theories cannot work in a modern society. Indeed, they have never worked in health and hygiene matters.
  What further delights have we in store in this area? Will the cutback in research funding have an effect? Of course it will. My right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock ) mentioned BSE—bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which is quite a mouthful and is a long name for a potential hazard of gigantic proportions, dealing with a very esoteric and long-term pathogenic agent. It is supposedly viral-like, but nobody really knows. It is resistant to heat, capable of causing degenerative brain disease in cattle and is very similar to scrapie in sheep.
  That leads to a very interesting question. We have compulsory slaughter for cattle in place now albeit, I believe, with insufficient compensation. If the Ministry believes that the risk from cattle with BSE is enough to insist on the incineration of the bodies, why is there no such order for sheep with scrapie? The carcase of a scrapie sheep still ends up in the butcher's. People in Britain and probably elsewhere have been eating meat from sheep with scrapie for hundreds of years. Any shepherd worth his salt can recognise the first signs of scrapie and would tend to send the sheep to the butcher's before anyone else noticed, which could happen with BSE.
  However, there are other knock-on effects of this problem. The disease has frightened off buyers from other countries. Britain's cattle exports are worth about £58 million a year, and 12 months ago Australia and Israel banned the import of British cattle. Australia's ban also includes semen for artificial insemination, although there is no evidence that the scrapie agent can be transmitted via semen. The Ministry will pay compensation, as I said, but it is only for half the average market value for a cow that must be slaughtered. We are fobbed off with the idea that the cattle in that condition are probably worth only that much, but that is not the point. We need to prevent the likelihood of this disease getting into the food chain, because we do not know whether it is transmissible to human beings, and we are not likely to know if we do not research the issue.
  Kuru is a very esoteric human disease. Microbiologists have this as an example of a very strange pathway, in that it is reckoned that it is passed on because of the cannibalistic instincts of the Fore tribe in New Guinea, who had the unfortunate habit of eating their relatives, which is not widely known in the hills of Wales. But we
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  certainly eat beef, and as cows are in the food chain, it is possible that this unusual and basically unknown disease can get into human beings.
  Another human disease, which is probably not connected but is a similar sort of organism, is called Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, which shows at least that human beings can be susceptible to this sort of organism.
  Mr. Ron Davies: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the incidence of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease is 30 times higher among Libyan Jewry who treat as a delicacy the consumption of sheep's brains? Is this not a fairly firm indication that there is the possibility of transmission of scrapie via this unknown agent into humans where it is manifest in clincial forms of CJD?
  Mr. Jones: I suggest that it is very likely an indication of the possibility of transmission in that way. I understand that there is some evidence that the eating of sheep's eyes can cause a similar problem. On a lighter note, I inform my hon. Friend that mock turtle soup is made from sheep's brains, and it may be something to avoid in future, bearing in mind the possible problems. I certainly do not wish that to be used as an excuse to start killing turtles again, because that would be the wrong inference to draw.
  We have an example here of inter-departmental bungling, because we do not know what risk there is of human transmission of BSE and I doubt whether this is near-market research, so I would think that this is a problem of both Government policy and Government intentions. Over the last few years we have seen that free market dogma simply does not work when it is applied to food production and research. In fact, it is tantamount to a licence to kill.
  5.55 pm
  Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith: I very much welcome the fact that we have had this debate today, because there has been, as has been acknowledged on all sides, a great deal of confusion over the whole of this issue. To that extent at least I welcome the opportunity.
  I enter this debate, I hope as the House recognises, as someone who has had a reasonable amount of practical experience of what is involved in the production and processing of food. Indeed, I was brought up on a family farm which, in the early 1930s, in the east of Scotland, was one of the pioneers in producing tuberculin-tested, tuberculin-free milk. The need for proper hygiene and for freedom from disease in food production is one with which I have certainly been concerned for the whole of my life.
  I also hope that in speaking in this debate I can speak from a degree of practical experience, because I had responsibility in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for four years, admittedly dealing much more with European matters perhaps than with domestic food matters. None the less, the one thing that did impress me and which was touched on by my right hon. and learned Friend in his speech a few moments ago was that, when we relate our standards in the United Kingdom to standards elsewhere in the western world and in Europe, ours are the highest standards. Yet from what we have heard in recent weeks one would wonder whether that was true. It seems that we could be accused of literally shooting ourselves in the foot over the good record of our industry.
  I need no persuasion of the need for the highest possible standards of hygiene and quality in our food industry. To

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  maintain such standards requires, as I think my right hon. and learned Friend acknowledged this afternoon, constant vigilance and persistent effort. I hope that there will never, from any quarter in this House or elsewhere, be signs of complacency. For that reason I very much regret the amount of confusion and contradiction there has been. If we are honest with ourselves there has been an element of confusion and contradiction over recent weeks, and this has not helped.
  I am particularly grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health for what I believe was a much clearer statement in the House this evening of exactly where we stand on these issues, why we stand where we do, and what action is being taken in the future. I feel reassured, and I hope that the Opposition will acknowledge that as well. I certainly believe people outside the House ought to be reassured as well. I believe that the problems have been identified and, having been identified, must be dealt with.
  Equally, whilst I regret some of the confusions that have arisen, I deprecate even more the degree of irresponsible scaremongering to which people have been subjected over recent weeks. Consumers have been misled, and the livelihoods of innocent people outside the whole of this controversy have been threatened or at worst destroyed, as was said by the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) a few moments ago in an intervention.
  Mr. Eric Martlew: When the hon. Gentleman said that there had been a good deal of scaremongering, was he referring to the comments made by the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie)?
  Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Scaremongering has come from all quarters. I exclude no one and no political party. Such scaremongering in connection with the nation's food is something that I deprecate, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me in doing so.
  What worries me is that so much of what has been said is based neither on clear evidence nor on scientific principles. To a great extent, reason has gone out of the window. What I hope that the debate will do, and what I shall certainly try to do, is to keep matters in their proper perspective. Given the way in which people have talked in recent weeks, it is surprising that there are any elderly people in the population. As a journalist said to me today, how frequently—if ever—do we meet someone who has actually suffered from food poisoning?
  Over the years the Ministry of Agriculture has had a good record in protecting the quality and standards of the nation's food and promoting healthy food production. Since pre-war days, through the Ministry and the country's agriculture departments, disease after disease has been eradicated from animal food production—foot and mouth being perhaps the most significant, although it is probably less important in relation to human health. Tuberculosis and brucellosis are examples of human diseases on which the initiative has been taken by our agriculture departments. After their eradication effective and careful monitoring has ensured that they have never returned to our livestock population with the subsequent threat to human health.
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  The Ministry's record applies to a long list of other diseases: swine fever among pigs; Aujesky's disease, almost completely eradicated through work supported by the industry, financially as well as in other ways; and fowlpest among poultry. I hope that the Minister will not be diverted from this course by the events of recent weeks. The Department that he heads has a record to be proud of, and I believe that it will continue to be our best insurance against disease and in support of proper health and food hygiene standards. If we examine it properly and dispassionately, we see that this is the record of an industry and a Ministry that are not irresponsible, but have considerable achievement behind them. Comparison with other countries suggests that we have one of the best records—if not the very best—in the western world. I hope that the Ministry will remain true to its history and will continue to tackle the problems resolutely and unwaveringly.
  If the Government and the Ministry are to be effective, they must provide proper resources. That is especially critical in two respects. First, it goes without saying that proper resources must be given to the state veterinary service for the eradication and monitoring of disease. It is important to attract staff with qualities necessary for the task by offering appropriate salaries. Staff numbers are another issue to which, in view of what has happened in recent weeks, renewed attention should be given and, if necessary, additional resources devoted. The veterinary service is in the front line of the battle against disease and in support of hygiene, and I hope that the Government will provide the necessary support.
  My second point concerns research. As my right hon. and learned Friend knows, I have serious doubts about the classification of some areas of near market research, the financing of which he wishes to return to the industry. I remind him that we are dealing with an industry with a multiplicity of small, independent units, and that at present it is finding things very difficult financially, for reasons of which he is aware. Some of the research needs to be reviewed to establish whether it should more properly be the Government's responsibility. I am thinking especially of public health and food hygiene. Of course we want support from the industry, but I think that we need more attention from the Ministry as well.
  One example is the work on listeria being done at the Moredun research institute in Edinburgh, currently being funded by Government but earmarked as near market research to be funded by the industry. Another—I know that the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) will agree—is the work of the Torry research institute in Aberdeen. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health spoke of chilled food and the importance of refrigeration. At that institute, some of the foremost work in Britain is being done on refrigeration techniques and how to improve them. I beg my right hon. and learned Friend to re-examine some of those research programmes, which I think should receive continuing Government support rather than being handed over to the industry—not because the industry is uninterested, but because of the difficulties of providing finance from that source.
  As I have said, I welcome the debate. We needed a clear lead from the Government, and I am glad that my right hon. and learned Friend has given it today. We need an end to scaremongering, and I hope that the Opposition Front Bench and others will recognise that. Otherwise it

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  will be the British consumer who will ultimately suffer through unwarranted uncertainty. It is in the British food industry—production and processing—that livelihoods will be lost. The only winners will be overseas producers and processors. That will be bad for our balance of payments, and bad for Britain.
  6.8 pm
  Mr. Ronnie Fearn: It is very difficult to assess accurately what is happening to the food and water industries, and the repercussions for the health of the nation, especially at this stage. Excessive secrecy—the dominant feature of the present Government—and a lack of real information have served only to fuel the controversy. The public are utterly confused, and the question "What would you like for dinner?" has taken on unnecessary and nightmarish proportions.
  Much of the hysteria of the past few months could have been avoided if the Government had for once approached an issue on the basis that the people have a right to know. If clear and sensible information and guidelines had been issued when the salmonella infection in egg production was first identified, much of the subsequent panic reaction from various Government Departments need not have happened. The response to the issue of soft cheese, unpasteurised milk and the listeria risk was such a reaction, and the issue still needs thorough investigation and clarification.
  It is obvious, however, that, in our rush to progress and our haste to produce food more efficiently and profitably in a market-oriented society, certain people and industries have been allowed to cut corners. Consumers' rights have been neglected and the dangers to their health have become much more prevalent.
  In the present era of mass production and of scientific and technological advance it is even more important that the public have access to information. Individuals have the right to know what they are eating; mothers have the right to know what they are feeding their babies and what the effects may be. They should have the right to choose what substances they are consuming. Above all, they have a right not to he used as guinea pigs without their consent. Food should state clearly all contents, and where that is not practicable, the information should be easily available.
  An example of the public not being informed or being given little choice as to what they consume is the use of bovine somatotropin treatment in milk production. Milk containing that hormone should be bottled separately and clearly labelled. In addition, the facts and information surrounding the use of BST should be made available to the public now. Are the public aware that in the United States the Food and Drug Administration is not completely happy with BST and there are restrictions on its use in that country. What does the Minister intend to do about the fact that the Veterinary Products Committee has refused to license the use of BST on the ground that not enough work has been conducted into its effects on animals?
  It is known that there is an increased incidence of mastitis and anaemia and there is concern that it may reduce fertility. Although the possibility of the bovine somatotropin hormone becoming active in humans is very remote, there is some risk. What will be the overall effect on farmers and milk production? This is the first time that a genetically-engineered hormone has been introduced
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  into the human food chain, and instead of clouding the issue in secrecy the Government should take the opportunity to set up hard and fast procedures to cover the introduction of other such drugs in future.
  Consumers must be given the opportunity and information to make an informed choice. Consumers should also be given more information and more protection from the possible ill effects of cook-chill foods. The expansion of that industry makes it imperative that not only should such food be subject to stringent quality control, but that wherever it is used the individual consumer should be informed. The Department of Health particularly needs to look into its wide use in the Health Service and in local government services such as schools and meals on wheels. The fact that it is cooked and dispatched from one central unit to many hospitals exposes more patients to the possible source of contamination and makes any food poisoning outbreak difficult to control. The recent outbreak of salmonella poisoning at St. Helen's hospital, Mersyside, which was traced to a cook-chill cottage pie, should cause deep concern since it is known that listeria is a much tougher bacteria able to survive at very cold temperatures. Will the Minister consider introducing regulations requiring health authorities, hospitals and other units to inform patients of the use of such food and to offer alternatives to those patients most susceptible, such as those in maternity units, or perhaps even to ban the use of such foods at least in certain units until further investigations have been conducted?
  The report in The Guardian this morning that leaders, in the food industry and retailers were being asked to draw up a draft code to help prevent listeria is not good enough. Surely we have passed the stage where the food industry should be allowed to regulate itself. The Government must act now. There is a need for strict legislation, regulations and enforcement.
  Mr. Shersby: Has the hon. Gentleman ever heard of the Food Act 1984? Has he read the provisions of that Act and does he not know that there are already very strict regulations governing food production in this country?
  Mr. Fearn: I have read the Act and I have seen the regulations, but they are not implemented because there is not enough inspection.
  The practice exposed in The Sunday Times on 19 February whereby large retailers such as Sainsbury's are allowed to offload surplus rejects or near-to-shelf-date goods, knowing that they will be sold for human consumption, cannot be tolerated. The fact that the wholesalers of such food cannot be prosecuted under the present law is not acceptable. The poorer sections of the community should not be put at risk or sold poor quality food in the interests of large companies cutting their losses.
  Mrs. Gorman: I should like the hon. Gentleman to know that I regularly buy such products which have gone past their sell-by dates. I buy a whole tray of yoghurts in my local market for 50p and they are absolutely excellent. Many people who are much less well off than I am find a marvellous source of food in the supply of items which are marked with ridiculous sell-by dates.
  Mr. Fearn: I hope that others do not follow the hon. Lady's example.

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  Profit and loss issues lead me neatly to the quality of water now and in future. The reported cases of water pollution incidents in England and Wales between 1980–81 and 1986–87 rose from 12,500 to 21,095, yet the Government have granted some water authorities new and relaxed effluent standards. At the same time, in the drive towards cost efficiency, the water authorities' capacity to invest in improvements has been curtailed. Lack of investment in the infrastructure means broken and rotten sewers which have contributed to an alarming increase in the rat population with the inherent danger of disease.
  We have heard today that people in Oxfordshire and Wiltshire are being advised to boil their drinking water. Claims that the warmer winter may have some bearing on such events should not be allowed to detract from the real problem. Surely we can expect those in control of our water authorities to have expertise and knowledge as to the effects of warm weather and to provide some protection against it.
  At least 5 million people in the United Kingdom receive tap water that does not meet the legal limits set in the European Community directive. Now the Government are to ask for a time extension. Do we seriously believe that a privatised industry intent on profit will improve matters? Stringent controls will impose greater costs and will be vigorously resisted by water companies.
  Everyone is aware of how easy it is to find loopholes in the law or to flout regulations. The consumer, unable to refuse to buy that necessity of life, will be virtually powerless. Once again the Government's obsession with secrecy has led them to refuse to accept freedom of information amendments to the Water Bill in Committee. What makes us so different from the rest of Europe? Are we so immune from bugs and the effects of pollution that the Government think that they have the right to ignore or manipulate EEC regulations and directives?
  Once we could boast of some of the purest water in Europe. Now the name, "sick man of Europe" is applied to us, not in terms of our place in the league of powers, but because of our poor standards of environmental pollution, hygiene and so on. Are we proud of that? Are we content that British people are exposed to more possibly harmful substances than people in other countries? Do we accept the line of thought that British people do not have the right to know about things that affect their everyday lives, or that they are incapable of making a sensible, informed choice?
  The Government must get their act together. There must be freedom of information for the consumer and increased consumer representation at the decision-taking level. The lines of responsibility within and between various Government Departments need to be clarified. Tougher legislation and regulations are required for food and water production, processing and so on. However, laws and regulations are useless unless they can be enforced. The Government should make available resources for the training, recruitment and retention of environmental health officers and investigate ways to increase their powers.
  Mr. Gill: I should be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman's view on how many additional inspectors would be required to make sure that our food was 100 per cent. safe.
  Mr. Fearn: No country could boast that its food is 100 per cent. safe. I was asked how many inspectors would be needed. I have looked into the question and I learn that 1,500 inspectors are needed.
  I hope that the Minister will take to heart the issues that have been raised today. I hope, too, that action will be taken to prevent the chickens from coming home to roost.
  6.19 pm
  Mr. Paul Marland: I accept, as do others, that there is widespread concern about bacteria in food, and the debate has attracted great interest. I pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health for telling us in such great detail about what his Department is doing. He did his best to reassure both those who have been listening to the debate and those who will read the report of the debate in Hansard and to set the record absolutely straight. The hype and sensationalism that the issue has generated is quite wrong, and it culminated in a few tasteless jokes by the Leader of the Opposition. That hype and sensationalism has misled consumers, jeopardised many businesses and resulted in a severe slap in the face for all those who are involved in the production, distribution and sale of food.
  The issue has become a charter for cranks. They have blown it out of all proportion. Dubious professors and assorted nut cases have ached to tell us that virtually everything that we eat is bad for us, or poisonous, or in some way will jeopardise our health. That is fair enough with cigarettes and alcohol. However, when I heard one of the so-called experts tell us on radio that there is a trillion to one chance that we shall be infected if we eat a certain brand of processed food, I knew that the time had come to turn it off.
  It is hard to achieve a true sense of proportion. When I was in west Gloucestershire last weekend, therefore, I conducted my own research by visiting food manufacturers and retail outlets. I also talked to my friendly local doctor. They know a great deal more about these problems than they are given credit for. They have had in place for many years methods and systems to minimise infection and disease. In the case of responsible firms, the methods and systems that they use are far in excess of what is demanded by local authorities.
  Voluntary practices should be backed up by local regulations that are enforced by inspectors. It is easy for Opposition Members to say that there should be 1,500 inspectors, but I found that statement about as convincing as the man on the radio who said that he thought that there was a trillion to one chance of people being infected if they ate a certain brand of processed food. The hon. Member for Southport (Mr. Fearn) made an off-the-cuff remark. He was on the ropes. He had no idea what the answer was, so he just trotted out the first figure that came into his mind.
  Hysteria is causing more trouble than listeria. My friendly doctor told me that listeria is an organism that is found in soil, water, vegetation and even grass cuttings. None of us can avoid it. It is present in some soft cheeses and in certain cook-chill foods. However, it can be completely destroyed by thoroughly heating the food. As Sir Donald Acheson said of listeria, the chances of an ordinary person becoming infected are so remote that it is not worth worrying about. Those of us who have met him, or who have heard him talk, know that he is not a man

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  who is given to overstatement. I was moved, as I am sure other hon. Members were, by the Leader of the Opposition's story about the lady who lost her baby through listeria infection. I do not, therefore, dismiss the fact that in certain cases listeria can be dangerous.
  Salmonella is a more serious problem, but it has been grossly overstated; there has been a great deal of scaremongering by hon. Members. Producers and retailers are well aware of the dangers, but it is ludicrous to use—as some have—the multiplier of 100 to arrive at an estimate of the number of people who have been infected. People have always suffered from upset stomachs. It is wrong to attribute all of them to salmonella. Nevertheless, it is a problem and it should be further investigated. We have heard today that that is precisely what is happening.
  I welcome the new programme of microbiological research and the inquiry into food infection that is chaired by the Prime Minister. This Government have never discounted food poisoning scares. They have acted responsibly by finding out the truth. It would be pointless to go into the history, but BST in cattle, radiation from Chernobyl, lead on solder in cans that are used for preserving food and anti-freeze in wine have been dealt with quietly and efficiently by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. In 1988, £20 million was spent on ensuring food safety, and 500 people were employed in that work. If the Ministry is guilty of anything, it is guilty of not having blown its own trumpet loud enough. It has not said precisely what has been done.
  I welcome the education programme that is to be targeted at consumer practices. I believe that more than 50 per cent. of food poisoning outbreaks start in the home. Cracked eggs that have been stored in the fridge are used by the housewife. I wonder how many people check the fridge temperature when they store frozen food and ensure that it is stored at the right temperature. I wonder, too, how many housewives and cooks check the defrosting instructions and make sure that they cook the food in the right way. As most families shop only once a week, I wonder how many people check the storage instructions on the back of the products that they buy? The industry takes great care to put instructions on their products so that the consumer knows under what conditions frozen or chilled foods should be stored and then cooked. Today's occasional shopping practices and irresponsible cooking play a fair part in causing food poisoning.
  Guidelines are needed, but we have them already and they should be followed. The cry for more Government legislation and for more restrictions reminds me of the nanny state that we have worked so hard to abolish. Our opponents want more Government control, more regulation, more bureaucrats and less choice, but we should end up with tasteless lunches. We do not want that. We need to find out the facts and to act on them. We need to adopt a prudent and cautious approach. We must also bear in mind that the ever-changing practices and customs when preparing and eating food and the ever-changing practices and customs in its production and distribution are having an effect in the increase in food poisoning.
  It is a complicated subject, but plans have been made and advice for the consumer will be forthcoming. The consumer will be given advice on how to look after food products. The Select Committee's report is soon to be published. I hope that it will make interesting reading for all those who are interested in the subject.
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  Two key principles underlie the Government's strategy on food safety. First, prompt action should be based on proper and detailed scientific evidence. Secondly, the need to provide consumers with information on food quality and safety is imperative. That is the right spirit and way in which to go forward.
  6.30 pm
  Mr. Frank Cook: Anyone would think from the speeches of Conservative Members that this whole issue had been invented by people other than their own spokespersons. Despite their protestations, any lingering doubts we may have had about the validity, if not the total accuracy, of the remarks made before Christmas by the former junior Minister, the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), have been dispelled by subsequent events.
  The comical sight of Ministers rushing to defend the indefensible as their friends in the food production and distribution lobby cried "foul"—contradicting themselves and each other on radio and television over eggs, poultry and cheese—proves that the Prime Minister's first priority must be to make "foot in mouth" disease notifiable, at least for her Ministers.
  For once, the media have managed to get it right. There is a justifiable crisis of confidence in our food production which will not be dispelled by the largely cosmetic actions which Ministers have taken so far. There can be no argument about the facts. Food poisoning has increased dramatically in the last 10 years and, according to recent reports, is continuing to rise. To the long-standing problem of salmonella has been added the new fear of listeria, a common enough bacteria the potential for harm of which has only recently been recognised as new methods have enhanced the risk of infection and the medics have recognised how serious the consequences can be.
  Let us not forget how serious food poisoning can be. Gastrointestinal infection can be a major systemic illness, causing high fever, copious diarrhoea, vomiting and pain. Weight loss and dehydration are severe and death in elderly and infirm people is all too common.
  Mr. Gill: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that another relevant statistic is that we have the second highest proportion of old people in our population in the world? It follows that that would not be the case if the food industries were providing a substandard product to those people, who are, in any event, the most vulnerable section of society.
  Mr. Cook: That is an interesting line of argument. Perhaps they are better cared for than those in the same age group in Third world countries. I was referring not to statistics but to conditions that result from food poisoning, as the hon. Gentleman would have been aware had he been paying attention to what I was saying.
  Listeria infection may cause abortion, with all the grief and anguish that such an unforeseen event can bring. When we fully recognise the damage that these conditions can cause, it is right for us to expect effective action to be taken. The problem which we are facing affects the whole food chain—production, distribution and preparation, either commercial or domestic. I agree that stringent control of practices in the home can reduce the chance of

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  eating infected food, but that cannot be the whole answer, unless we adopt in the kitchen the same standards as in operating theatres to prevent cross-infection.
  People have a right to expect their food to be clean and substantially free from powerful bacteria or additives before they purchase it. Government have an absolute duty to see that that is so. For Ministers to attempt to blame anyone but themselves for the problem is a gross dereliction of duty on their part.
  The Secretary of State was a singularly inappropriate choice to speak first for the Government in this debate. He is not responsible for food production or distribution—the direct source of the problem—but is merely the gatekeeper trying to lock the door after the horse has bolted. Of far greater importance are the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, with total responsibility for food production and most distribution, and the Department of the Environment, which is responsible for the upkeep of local standards. The balance between those two areas is critical.
  One can argue a reasonable case that food in Britain is over-intensively produced—for example, poultry and eggs, the factory farming of beef and pork and the attempt to extract extra milk from cows by using hormones—and that much of it is over-processed, over-dependent on additives and sold through far too few outlets. Many friends of mine who have lived in Europe testify to the latter, comparing the number of outlets for fresh food in Holland, Germany or Switzerland with the situation in this country. We have mistakenly concentrated on quantity and convenience rather than quality and choice, and we are paying the price for our folly.
  Several actions must be taken now to restore public confidence and improve standards. I welcome unreservedly the proposal to ban unpasteurised milk in England and Wales, as is already the case in Switzerland. I am less certain of the need to use only pasteurised milk in cheese production; the number of producers is small enough for action to be taken to control the process and ensure that harmful contaminants are excluded.
  We in Britain must shift the emphasis away from the producer-oriented Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to a new food standards agency which would make the well-being of the consumer its primary concern. It is no accident that such a plethora of information is coming from major producers and distributors of food. They know that they have been rumbled, that they have forfeited our trust and that they will have a hard job to regain it.
  A food standards agency would concentrate on quality and have regard to the nutritional and health standards that the Government must set. It could build on much of the excellent work that has been carried out locally on food policy in areas such as Fife, London and elsewhere. The excellent work done by local authorities and health boards compares favourably with achievements in this sphere at central Government level. No wonder Ministers want such bodies to be abolished.
  We must strengthen control over food distribution and sale. The whole cook-chill process must be investigated and revised, with more stringent control of temperature
  890
  and sterility. If, hopefully, we reverse the over-centralisation of food production and the over-concentration on huge retail outlets, we shall have to accept an expansion of environmental health departments. Practices such as the improper display or handling of cooked or raw meats must be stamped out.
  The Government must not go ahead with cuts proposed in research and development. It is high time that we took a serious look at the CAP and the appalling effects that has had on quality and the price of food in this country. The featherbedding of production at any cost must stop before farmers will concentrate on rearing high quality animals, cereals and vegetables which will command a decent price without the need for the processing tricks at which the manufacturers are so good. On all those aspects, the Government have woefully failed in their duty to the public.
  I should hate people to have the wrong impression about the technique of the irradiation of food. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) is right to say that it kills bacteria. However, it fails to remove the toxins that are generated by the bacteria, so it can leave food looking decent and healthy but also retaining toxins which are dangerous. In no way will irradiation improve the standard of food or make it healthier to eat. It succeeds only in prolonging shelf life. It serves no purpose for the consumer, only for the retailer.
  For all those reasons, and despite the protestations of the Secretary of State and the whingeing of Conservative Members, the Opposition have been right to choose this subject for today's debate. It highlights the confusion and contradiction that are still clearly evident on the Government Benches. That is why the Government stand condemned for their incompetence and folly and for mismanaging the whole affair.
  6.39 pm
  Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock: In concentrating my remarks solely on food matters, I speak as a Member of the House and as a consumer; and let us not forget that every member of the public is a consumer and therefore has an important role to play. With that in mind, we must bring some realism and clear thinking into the issue of food safety.
  Some issues are being taken out of context and exaggerated out of all proportion. We have one of the finest food industries in the world, with reputable farmers and manufacturers attempting to provide us with the best produce. Their record shows that, despite the present furore, they are succeeding. Britain has recently demonstrated that, together with Denmark, it has the highest quality milk in Europe; they are the first countries to achieve the EEC's new health and hygiene standards. Also, we have our milk delivered daily to our doorsteps, which many of us appreciate.
  I challenge any right hon. or hon. Member to deny that we have some of the best-run and cleanest supermarkets in the world, offering the widest choice of foods, and meeting all tastes. Anyone who has shopped outside the United Kingdom will be aware of that. The situation has changed over the past 20 years. We are handling and purchasing food in better condition than ever before, and there is much greater choice. I am not saying there is no need for further change. There is always room for improvements, but they must be introduced in a logical, carefully thought

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  out way, and not be panic measures. The Government must be receptive to changes and improvements, but I implore them not to be panicked into taking steps that are likely to damage the food industry, manufacturers, retailers, or consumers.
  The question of salmonella in eggs and poultry and of listeria in other products must be addressed as a matter of priority and be resolved. However, we cannot tolerate allowing an eccentric professor at the university of Leeds, who has analysed a few eggs and a few cooked dishes, to draw conclusions that such foods are killing hundreds of people every year. It is not sensible to draw such a conclusion, and our deliberations must not be guided by such a pseudo-scientific approach.
  I understand that listeria is a common bacterium that is to be found in soil and in vegetation, in the atmosphere, and in human bodies. It has been shown to be present in many of the raw foods we eat, such as vegetables and salads, yet we do not view those foods as posing a problem to our health. Nevertheless, Professor Lacey at Leeds has found listeria in cook-chill foods, causing total panic and misunderstanding among many consumers. My belief is that he does not know either the level of listeria that he has discovered or the level that is needed to make a person ill. However, he still concludes that many, many people have died from listeria. In my view, his views border on science fiction. I am not saying that nothing should be done, but we should be sensible and keep matters in perspective.
  As to the quality of farm products, the Government must be given sufficient powers to improve and defend quality where necessary—even if that is to the detriment of producers on some occasions. The Government have long experience of eliminating tuberculosis and brucellosis in cows, and a similar campaign must be mounted to eradicate samonella from the country's poultry flocks, on a region-by-region basis.
  The Government must also intensify their efforts to improve the quality of animal foodstuffs. We cannot allow the spread of salmonella through contaminated chicken feed, be it of British or imported origin. We must ban for ever the use of animal or chicken offal as an ingredient in animal foodstuffs. We must never again need to wonder whether the use of sheep offal has spread the widely recognised sheep disease, scrapie, to cows, which, as we have already heard, causes in them the unpronounceable disease known as BSE—sometimes called "mad cow disease"—which currently attacks our herds.
  In the best-run factories, exhaustive steps are taken to ensure that all food manufacturing operations are conducted hygienically. There, processing procedures are designed to ensure—as they should be in the home—that unsafe, raw food never comes into direct contact with processed, finished products. That should be a basic rule in anyone's kitchen, and I defy any right hon. or hon. Member to state that it has not been followed by producers, as well as in many homes, for years.
  Mrs. Audrey Wise: The hon. Lady made a number of sweeping assertions about Professor Lacey—calling him, for example, eccentric. Is she aware that he is professor of microbiology at Leeds university, and is also a consultant of microbiology to Leeds western health authority? Is she aware also that his work has conclusively proved a link between stillborn and premature births and listeriosis? Does the hon. Lady still adhere to her view that Professor Lacey is eccentric?
  Mrs. Peacock: I knew of the information that the hon. Lady gives, but I reiterate my remark that Professor Lacey has caused confusion and concern among many consumers.
  We must ensure that consumers follow strict codes of practice in preparing and cooking food. The critical process of heat treatment or cooking kills the offending bacteria, and many techniques, such as milk pasteurisation, guarantee that products are not released before they are properly heat treated. However, it is still possible for food to become contaminated during the final assembly and packaging operations, and perhaps those are areas in which the Government should lay down firm but sensible modern guidelines, covering factory standards in respect of buildings, cleaning and sanitation—where, if great care is not taken, problems can often arise.
  Such guidelines could best be drawn up by specialists from the food industry sectors concerned, who have the relevant information, and who are already well versed in good practices. They could work closely with specialists from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and from the Department of Health. We do not need to introduce specific legislation for each type of operation, but food factory licensing, linked to adherence to specific industry operational guidelines—monitored by environmental health officers as part of their routine activities—is needed.
  I suggest that a separate food regulatory body, as envisaged by some Opposition Members, is not required, because it would soon be at loggerheads with local government. It would lack the local knowledge and contacts necessary properly to perform its duties.
  One of the most important points to emerge from this debate is that there must be better control over the temperature at which food is stored. Right hon. and hon. Members may be aware of the leaflets that one well-known store is offering to its customers, and 3½ million copies of which have been produced. It serves to remind the housewife how products that have been manufactured and packed under the strictest conditions of hygiene should be treated in the home. There is also a leaflet about the safety chain. Marks and Spencer says that the key elements it has found to have held good for the past 20 years are clean factories, safe cooking, good refrigeration, and short shelf life. With the help of the leaflet laying down guidelines for the housewife to follow, none of the scare stories that have been emerging should come true.
  Much has been achieved in the area of better food temperature control by retailers such as Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury, Tesco and Asda, to ensure that companies supplying food to them do so at the right temperature. They recognise equally the importance of maintaining food at the correct temperature in their own display counters. However, experience shows that more must be done, and perhaps controlling legislation is needed. However, one must approach that task sensibly, with retailers working together with the Department of Health in devising guidelines not only for supermarkets but for the corner shop, which is an important form of food outlet in many areas, including my constituency of Batley and Spen.
  We should also ask housewives to check their fridges. How often do we check that our fridges are not frosted up and are operating at the right temperature to ensure correct product storage? Fridge manufacturers should consider incorporating red warning lights in the event of a

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  rise in temperature and we may need to store food at lower temperatures. However, the Government must not remove whole sectors of food from retail display, putting manufacturing jobs at risk and denying many consumers the choice of prepared dishes they have come to expect. I welcome the Government's announcement that they are to sponsor research into the operation and maintenance of domestic fridges. That will be helpful and it is long overdue.
  We must not concentrate solely on the food manufacturing and retail sectors. We must look also at standards in catering. Many food poisoning outbreaks stem not from the home but from pubs, hotels, restaurants, residential premises and hospitals. They have a duty to ensure that the food that they are serving is of the highest possible standard, particularly in hospitals where people are extremely vulnerable and may be affected when others in the community are not.
  If there are hygiene problems in some of the so-called best restaurants in London, what are the standards in some of our more humble establishments? Some guidelines may be helpful in that area. We may need a review of some of our manufacturing practices and better control of food storage at retail level. We also need a general food hygiene drive in all food outlets.
  We must not forget the consumer. We can do much to promote food safety until the product reaches the consumer who can then undo everything at one stroke. Conditions in the home cannot be controlled. People set their own standards and conditions in the own kitchens. But we can improve knowledge and understanding of food safety matters and that is important. I look to the Government to mount a domestic food hygiene programme, not just through leaflets but by using television, which reaches many people, radio, particularly local radio, and perhaps an advertising campaign. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science should take steps to improve education in this area in our schools since many young people use microwaves for preparing their suppers.
  The Government should review the food industry to dispel the uncertainty about food safety. It would be helpful if all food manufacturers and packing premises were licensed, perhaps by local authorities, to agreed standards of hygiene and construction. The safety and hygiene of all food manufacturing and packing processes should be capable of inspection by local authority environmental health officers. All premises selling or preparing food for human consumption, such as shops, supermarkets, cafes, restaurants and public houses, must be licensed by local authorities and minimum standards of construction and hygiene, particularly in their kitchens, must be clearly defined.
  As a further safeguard, there should be written codes of practice, agreed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of Health, covering all sectors of cook-chill food manufacture and packing industries. The food distribution chain is an important link in food reaching the retail outlets, in retailing and in catering and institutional food preparation. Those guidelines should lay down methods of processing, product temperature control and hygiene. Agreed codes of practice are preferable to legislation and trade associations
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  should be able to implement them with the minimum of delay. They should provide a framework for monitoring by environmental health officers.
  We need a sensible, systematic approach to the problem. We must not be panicked into taking steps in the House which many of us, including consumers and housewives, would eventually regret.
  6.54 pm
  Mr. Eric Martlew: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak. You may remember that on 24 January, when we had a similar debate, I was unsuccessful in catching your eye. As a result, I had to sit throughout the debate, which I enjoyed. However, I did not enjoy the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who, I am sorry to say, is not in his place. He made a complacent speech which suggested that we had the finest food in the world, that there was no problem about food quality and that it was the wicked Labour party, aided and abetted by irresponsible media, which had made up all the horror stories about food poisoning.
  On 14 February, St.Valentine's day, the Prime Minister announced that not only was there a problem with food poisoning but that it was so great that it could not be left to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food or the Secretary of State for Health, but she personally had to take charge. I cannot understand why she is not here to take charge today.
  The Prime Minister took charge to save the nation. Where does that leave the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food? It leaves him looking rather foolish, and rightly so. If ever there was a speech that did not stand examination in the cold light of day, it was that one. It oozed with complacency and was wrong in tone and content. Even when the hon. Gentleman introduced the great Cumbrian philosopher, Beatrix Potter, referring to the political essay, "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", he got it wrong.
  Let me remind hon. Members about that story. Peter invaded the garden of a rather dim-witted, grim individual called Mr. McGregor, eating his vegetables and avoiding the ponderous Mr.McGregor on his way home. The point of the story is to be found on page 56, which says:
  "I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed and made some camomile tea and she gave a dose of it to Peter."
  Hon. Members will be aware that camomile tea is a traditional cure for food poisoning. Peter Rabbit got food poisoning from eating something out of Mr. McGregor's garden.
  That story was written at the turn of the century, but the serious point is that 80 years later people are still getting food poisoning from eating food from Mr. McGregor's garden. Since 1980, reported cases of food poisoning have increased from fewer than 10,000 to more than 30,000, according to official figures, and there is the possibility of under-reporting by a factor of 10 or even 100.
  Conservative Members have not asked what happened under the previous Labour Government because their record was three times better than the present Government's. The situation in Britain today is so bad that it has reached "epidemic proportions". Those are not my words but the words of the chief medical officer of health to the Select Committee on Agriculture, of which I am a member.

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  The Government have presided over a massive reduction in local authority spending. They have reduced the number of environmental health officers in every district at the very time when they should have been increasing them. The Government have taken credit for the number of restaurants, cafes and take-aways that have opened and the new developments in cook-chill methods and microwaves, but at the very time when such developments demand more and more inspections the Government have reduced expenditure, laying the consumer open to more problems.
  Worse still, standards have been reduced. In 1970 the medical profession recommended that any food handler who had salmonella poisoning or food poisoning of any kind should be excluded from work and not allowed to return until he or she had had three negative tests. In 1983 the Government changed those regulations. Now people who are still salmonella positive are going back to work in our food factories, shops and restaurants. Only yesterday I was talking to some environmental health officers—I will not name the constituency—and they told me about a woman who worked in a butcher's shop, serving meat, and was salmonella positive but, because of this Government's regulations, could not be stopped from going back to work. She is back at work serving over the counter. That is a disaster waiting to happen, and it is the same all over the country. If the Minister wishes to investigate, he will find that I am telling the truth. The reason for this is that when people are laid off public money has to be spent on keeping them at home.
  The Government have reduced the standards under which we produce food in our factories to those of a Third world country. The standards of a factory which is fulfilling export orders, whether the goods are for export to the United States, Germany, Nigeria or El Salvador, have to be much higher than the standards demanded by the Government here. There are higher standards of packaging and labelling and the buyers insist upon knowing exactly what is in the product, which is not the situation in this country. There are higher standards with regard to food additives. Many of the additives which the Government allow to be put into food are banned abroad. There is a lower bacterial count, and there are more bacterial counts than we demand in this country. Goods for export have a shorter shelf life.
  I do not want to give the wrong impression. We have some very good food-producing companies in this country. I worked for 20 years for a company with a very good reputation for quality. The United Biscuits factory also has a very high standard, and there is one company, the largest employer in my constituency, Cavaghan and Greys, which has the highest standard in Europe, if not the world. However, this has nothing to do with Government regulations; it is in spite of Government regulations. It is all to do with the fact that it manufactures for Marks and Spencer. Firms such as Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury demand very high standards—or so they seem, but they are only high standards in comparison with those the Government lay down.
  Those firms want to make maximum profits, but they lay down standards that will safeguard the health of their customers. I suggest that it would be better if Marks and Spencer, instead of making thousands of pounds available every year to the Conservative party, gave its members a
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  copy of the food hygiene regulations. We should be aiming for the manufacturing standards that Marks and Spencer insists upon.
  Mrs. Peacock: The hon. Gentleman, in the early part of his speech, made a scurrilous attack on many of the companies in this country producing food for many stores. He then redeemed it a little by saying that there were companies that supplied Marks and Spencer whose standards were very high, but they were high only because—and so on. Will he admit that there are many food-producing companies in this country that have the highest standards, not because they are exporting but because that is what the consumer and the housewife demand and are willing to pay for?
  Mr. Martlew: The hon. Lady misunderstood me. I was not attacking the companies. I was making a vicious attack on the standards laid down by the Government. I will give the hon. Lady an example.
  In 1986, after the Chernobyl incident, the milk in this country was contaminated by radiation to varying degrees. Milk was transported from one part of the country to another. It was taken out of factories that were making milk products for export because it would not meet their standards and sent to another part of the country to be put into bottles or made into cheese or butter. That is how high the "marvellous" standards in this country are and that is what I am complaining about—not the standards of the food companies but the standards of the Government.
  I will give two more examples of the Government having let us down. I refer again to the Chernobyl incident, and the question of irradiated lamb. The Government failed to safeguard the health of the people. Lamb went into the food chain in this country that had a degree of radiation above the safety level. The Select Committee said that.
  Green top milk is another example. I have heard one or two hon. Members try to defend it. We know that since 1983, when the Government refused to ban it in England and Wales, there have been 1,700 recorded cases of food poisoning caused by green top milk. That means that 2 per cent. of the milk on the market has been responsible for .50 per cent. of food poisoning caused by milk. In the Calder Valley, in Yorkshire, in 1984, eight people died through drinking untreated milk. The Government have refused to do anything about it.
  I asked the Minister on 19 January whether there were any plans to ban green top milk. The answer was no. The hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander) asked the Minister on 3 February the same question and the answer was that the Government were entering into immediate consultations on banning it. That shows not only the incompetence but the confusion of the Government.
  Those are all examples of the Government failing to protect the consumer.
  I do not understand why the Prime Minister is not here today, but I have grave doubts whether any plan put forward to safeguard food in this country will safeguard the consumer. Let me revert to the incident before Christmas when the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) made her famous statement. A Minister who was, I believe, very frustrated made a statement that was exaggerated. There was a great clamour from the farming lobby, the food-producing lobby, the egg producers and the Retail Consortium for the hon. Lady to be sacked.

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  There was also a clamour from the Labour party but the right hon. Lady never takes any notice of members of the Labour party so I will not include them.
  Did the Prime Minister defend that Minister and refuse to ask for her resignation? No, she did not. Within 11 days she was asking for the hon. Lady's resignation. The right hon. Lady is putty in the hands of those powerful lobbyists, and I do not trust her with the food health of the country.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I remind the House that the 10-minute limit on speeches is now in operation.
  7.9 pm
  Mr. Michael Shersby: As in previous debates on the subject, I declare an interest. I worked in the food industry for about 20 years and I am an adviser to a section of the food industry today.
  I have listened to the debate with great care. In some ways, I am rather sad because it seemed that it was being used as yet another opportunity for the Opposition to make political mileage out of a situation that is worrying many consumers. I intervened during the speech by the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) and made the point sincerely to him that, without wishing to pull his leg, it was the first time in my 16 years in the House that I had heard the Labour party use an Opposition Supply day for a debate on food, except for the debate in January, to which the Opposition drew attention. That is a long time.
  I am glad that the Opposition have instigated the debate today because, unlike the Labour party, my party—I hope that the Leader of the Opposition will be kind enough to listen—has a special committee dealing with food and drink industry matters. I know that the Labour party had a food and agriculture committee and when Tom Torney was a Member of Parliament, he was a regular spokesman on those matters and took a great interest. I should like to see the Labour party take more interest in the food and drink industry than it has. I make that suggestion constructively and not in criticism of the way in which the Labour party organises its committees.
  Despite the problems to which the Leader of the Opposition referred, we in Britain have a wide choice of healthy food. Our food is among the safest and best in the world. Let us be very careful before we allow criticism of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, of farmers, of the food industry and of our retailers to reach such a level that it suggests that there is a widespread or large-scale risk to human health in Britain today. That is not so. There are some problems, and some are serious, but they must be put in perspective and discussed in a well-informed and moderate manner if we are to deal with them properly. I say to hon. Members, including the Leader of the Opposition, that they should remember that ill-informed criticism of our food could affect our food exports. They were worth £5,575 million to Britain in 1987 and the main markets for them were western Europe, north America and the middle east. Many people in those areas will read what hon. Members have said today.
  Today, there is a more varied supply of food than ever before in the history of this country. Consumers must not be misled into believing that there is a major threat to their
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  health or that of their children as a result of what the Opposition said or of the media coverage of the problems of salmonella and listeria, serious though they are. Both of them have been known by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of Health for some considerable time and timely action has been taken. Where further action is appropriate, it has been taken quickly.
  Let us first consider the question of salmonella enteritidis. It has been a problem in chickens, as has been widely recognised by the British Poultry Federation and by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The phage 4 type is a new and growing problem here and in many other countries. It has not become a problem as a result of inactivity by MAFF or the Department of Health and it has been tackled with vigour at each point along the egg production chain. Some time ago, the British Poultry Federation told me and my fellow members of the food and drink industry committee that it had taken steps to isolate chicken flocks where outbreaks had been detected, and that was well before the comments on salmonella made by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie). It moved quickly to ensure that poultry feed that might be contaminated was excluded from feed for chicken flocks.
  MAFF has now complemented the timely self-policing action by the respected and responsible poultry industry by bringing forward new regulations to avoid contaminated food entering the chain. We have new codes of practice to minimise the risk of infection. A new code has been introduced to require bacteriological monitoring, rodent control, the cleaning of poultry houses and the hygienic handling of eggs. But salmonella enteritidis will not be eliminated by MAFF, by the Department of Health or by the Leader of the Opposition. It is in the environment, but with 17 measures to deal with the problem our approach is among the most comprehensive in the world.
  I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he replies, to deal with the interesting point raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) about irradiation. Many hon. Members would like to know what Government policy towards that is likely to be. It is an interesting and important matter on which I hope the Government will make a statement.
  Mr. Frank Cook: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Shersby: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I shall not because I have only 10 minutes and Mr. Deputy Speaker has asked us to be brief.
  Mr. Cook: I took only nine minutes.
  Mr. Shersby: I would like, in the short time available—
  Mr. Cook: This is an important point.
  Mr. Shersby: I remind the House that the food and manufacturing industry in this country has been well ahead of the Government in taking action to inform the consumer about the importance of food hygiene in the kitchen. I have here a publication entitled "Common Sense about Food Care in the Kitchen", which was published in July 1988. It starts by warning the consumer about food poisoning and its causes and it advises consumers how

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  food poisoning can be avoided by common-sense measures in the kitchen. It was preceded in September 1986 by another publication called "Common Sense about Food". Those publications have been complemented by a widespread campaign addressed to schools called Foodline, which started in December 1988. It deals with food care and hygiene in the home. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to launch a campaign from his own Ministry which will be as good and comprehensive as the one that has been run by our own food manufacturing industry and which has been in place for some time. In the nature of things, the amount that the food industry can do is limited. The Government have greater resources at their disposal. I hope that they use them wisely to complement what I regard as an excellent initiative.
  We have heard much about listeria in this debate. Listeria was first identified in humans in 1928 and it has been widely distributed in the environment for a long time. For the average healthy person, the risk of becoming ill with listeriosis from eating food is very small. We have been told of the risk with certain soft cheeses, especially for pregnant women, and that has been a matter on which my right hon. Friend has rightly been quick to advise those at risk.
  One would think that cook-chill food was only invented yesterday from the amount of interest shown and by the number of hon. Members who see it as a major source of listeria. We know that cook-chill foods are safe, convenient and of high quality if they are manufactured, stored and reheated properly. I am glad that MAFF is to introduce new regulations covering the manufacture, storage and reheating of such foods. I have urged my right hon. Friend to do that for some weeks in a series of parliamentary questions and I am glad that he has taken good advice from his expert advisory committees and has not been stampeded into premature action. I look forward to the regulations being approved soon by the House. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give some idea of when the regulations will be published because I am sure that the House is anxious to pass them into law.
  There is an urgent need for the consumer to be aware of the need to store cook-chill food properly immediately following purchase. It seems that some consumers buy cook-chill food at lunchtime and keep it in the office for four, five or six hours at room temperature before taking it home and putting it in a domestic refrigerator. Perhaps some consumers do not realise the difficulty that that can cause, or the problems that may arise from leaving cook-chill food in the car on a hot, sunny day. For absolute safety, cook-chill food needs to be stored at— 5 deg Centigrade. It may cost a little more to run a refrigerator at that temperature, but at least one has a guarantee that the food is safely stored. I understand that MAFF will run a campaign about food hygiene and food storage and I hope that it will deal with that aspect. I wonder whether my right hon. Friend will talk to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and suggest that the manufacturers of domestic refrigerators fit a temperature gauge to their equipment as standard practice. Surely that is not too much to ask and it would aid many people to know that their food was stored at the right temperature.
  The Government are taking timely action to deal with the problems that we have been debating today. I am glad that we have had another debate on this topic, I hope that
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  the Labour party will keep up its interest in food matters and that we shall have the pleasure of hearing its views on other occasions.
  I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health on his speech. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will complement it when he replies.
  7.19 pm
  Ms. Mildred Gordon (Bow and Poplar): Modern food production methods could lead to plentiful cheap food and a higher standard of living if they were properly regulated and controlled. However, with this Government's philosophy, which puts profits before public health, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is inevitably forced into acting first and foremost in the interests of the farmers' lobby.
  Even this Government can no longer keep the lid on the fact that things are going dangerously wrong. It is true that in the past most people closed their minds to the hideous concentration camps for animals that modern farms have become, but most people had no idea that chickens were being cannibalised and that a great deal of animal feed was made up of excrement. For many years, while feeling somewhat uneasy about what was happening, most people kept silent because they felt that there was no halting the changes that were being made in the name of progress.
  However, the press has now opened up the matter. Indeed, the Government could hardly keep the problem of the increasing incidence of food poisoning out of the papers after the outbreak of food poisoning in this building. People are beginning to realise the dangers to themselves and their families. People who have been campaigning for years in favour of healthy food and who were looked upon as cranks now begin to assume the role of prophets.
  Most of the purchasing and preparation of food in this country—as in every other country—is done by women. The work of women who have to manage on a limited budget is made much harder because of the lack of information, conflicting information, and the insufficient details on labels. The Government are allowing information about manufactured food ingredients to be kept a trade secret when it should be available to housewives. That is shocking and must be stopped.
  As has been said by hon. Members of all parties, women need more information about frozen food. One of my worries is that owners of corner shops, operating on tiny margins, with high rents to pay and who work all hours in the struggle to compete, may be tempted to lower the temperatures in frozen food lockers when they are hit by the coming huge increases in the cost of electricity.
  It is the most vulnerable groups in society that are forced to shop at corner shops, such as those who have no transport, or who find it difficult to get about. These vulnerable groups have already been mentioned and include old people, mothers with babies and disabled people. We need an army of inspectors to check frozen food lockers in shops and supermarkets. We need guidelines on temperatures and on the lengths of time for storing frozen products.
  The same vulnerable groups are now being forced to eat cook-chill meals in hospitals, day centres for the elderly

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  and disabled and, increasingly, in schools. That dangerous trend is definitely the result of the Government's policy of cuts and enforced privatisation within local authorities. It is equally disgraceful that baby food containing aluminium has still not been banned by the Government, in spite of the call by doctors and scientists that it should be banned.
  The result of the Government's policies, which put the interests of powerful profit-making lobbies before the interests of the community, is always more work for women. Cases of salmonella and other types of food poisoning have increased enormously since 1986 and the work of looking after the sick members of their families and managing on less money if the wage earner is ill all falls on women's shoulders. They bear the brunt of the policies of this uncaring Government.
  Intolerable problems are created when older people succumb to senile dementia brought on by aluminium in the water supply. Some chemicals that are suspected of causing cancer are being used by farmers and residues meant for plants above the surface are seeping down and ending up in drains and watercourses. About 4 million Britons drink water that breaches EEC nitrate levels. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is not invoking the powers that it was granted under the Control of Pollution Act 1974. We in this country can no longer boast about having safe water. People are deeply worried about the future standard and cost of water when the industry is privatised.
  A further cause of concern, which has already been mentioned, is the future maintenance of sewers and the increasing problems of rodents, which pose a further health hazard. I have raised that subject many times since becoming a Member of the House.
  Chemicals and pesticides used by farmers are now said to penetrate the skins of apples and potatoes, so the earlier recommendation to wash all fruit before eating it will not help. The increasing numbers of allergy eczema cases probably stem from the increased use of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides.
  Air and ground pollution from nuclear power is also a problem. The books have not been closed on the effects of Chernobyl, but the Government are proposing to build yet more nuclear power stations, although they do not yet know how to dismantle the ones that were built 30 years ago.
  There is a marked class gradient affecting one's chances of survival and remaining healthy in old age. The ability to buy good food is a major factor. Several reports have shown that working-class people and the poorer ethnic minority groups have the poorest health. That point is especially relevant to my constituency. In the case of ethnic minority groups, poorer health does not stem from their type of diet, which is often healthier than the usual diet in the West, but is directly related to poverty.
  We need cheap food, but we also need good food. We need a Government policy that considers the interests of the consumers and makes them paramount. We need a Government who are not the puppets of vested interests. We need a new Consumer Protection Act, which not only requires companies to trade safely, as the Consumer Protection Act 1987 requires them to do, but one that is extended to include agricultural produce. We need a
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  Government policy that is less concerned with cover-ups and allaying public fears, and more concerned with cleaning up the increasingly dangerous mess into which we are drifting.
  The public do not want to be assured that healthy people can take a fair gamble in eating food that is infected with listeria and salmonella. The public want proper control to make food safe for everyone.
  7.27 pm
  Mr. Barry Field: It is a remarkable fact that, in a debate that has been well trailed and given much publicity, there are precisely nine hon. Members on the Opposition Benches and 12 on the Government Benches. There could not be a better demonstration of how much the Opposition parties truly care about the health of the nation in relation to food.
  Mr. Frank Cook rose—
  Mr. Field: Before the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) intervenes in my ten minutes because he wants to mention my earlier intervention about eggs—
  Mr. Cook rose—
  Mr. Field: If the hon. Gentleman insists I shall, of course, give way to him.
  Mr. Cook: The hon. Gentleman is as accurate in his counting of eggs as he is in his counting of hon. Members in the Chamber. He cannot fail to get things wrong this evening. I sympathise with you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in having to deal with him.
  Mr. Field: That was probably the least worthwhile intervention that we shall hear this evening. However, it confirms the accuracy of the statement that I made to the Leader of the Opposition when I pointed out that his hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, North regularly takes an egg in the Members' Tea Room in the morning—[Interruption.] Well, I have seen him order as many as five, but that was probably when he was taking them up to those of his hon. Friends queuing to introduce ten-minute Bills. Nevertheless, that confirms that the hon. Gentleman consumes eggs so, although the Leader of the Opposition was endeavouring to tell us how dangerous those nourishing little things are, it is clear that members of his team are continuing to consume them.
  I thought that the first rule of politicians was that there were no votes in sewerage. Obviously, part of the new Labour party review is that there are votes in Montezuma's revenge. The Opposition's contribution to this evening's debate on the motion standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition should be completely refuted. For me, the only effect of the whole debate has been that I have eaten more eggs—boiled, scrambled and fried—in public in the last few months than ever before.
  It is hypocritical of Opposition Members, with their mouths full, to criticise farmers, particularly during food and farming year. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) made a good point about the agricultural contribution to the balance of payments. It is hypocritical to criticise farmers when the demand from housewives is for cheap, good-value food.
  A retired medical officer of health told me that he hated a warm Christmas because the turkeys hung around in the

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  butchers and salmonella bred inside them. He guaranteed that after a warm Christmas there would be an increase in tummy upsets. However, I shall not dwell on that.
  In his speech in Southampton this week, the Leader of the Opposition spoke of care of the environment. I should like to speak about pollution, particularly on our beaches. I noted that the hon. Member for Southport (Mr. Fearn) used the usual Social and Liberal Democrat trick of donning the mantle of protecting the environment.
  We have heard so much recently about the water industry that I felt that in a debate on food and water I should draw the attention of the House to the remarkable progress that has been made in my constituency in the disposal of sewage and the cleaning up of the environment.
  In 1984, a triple ditch oxidation plant costing £2 million was installed at the Fairlee sewerage works on the Medina river. There is one similar installation in Kent and another in Denmark. In recent memory, before the plant's installation, the river Medina was so polluted—I believe, though I have not been able to check, that this was under a Labour Government—that the medical officer of health banned the consumption of mussels taken from the river because of the number of bacteria they contained due to the raw sewage in it. As a result of the installation of that plant there has been a remarkable improvement in the quality of the river water.
  In Cowes, an outfall system costing—8 million was installed which used, for the first time in the United Kingdom, the horizontal direction-drilling technique for the cross-Medina river and seaward outfall. At Sandown, the clariflow system was pioneered by Blue Circle Industries and Portsmouth polytechnic. It was installed in 1985, at a cost of £1·5 million, and under a Conservative Government, long before the hype about the care of the environment and the nation's health. It is so revolutionary that it is the only sewerage treatment plant of its type in the world. It relies on the injection of clariflow—a chemical that reduces the bacteria to make the water ideal as an EEC standard bathing beach. In the past two years, a new sewer outfall costing £8 million has been installed at Ryde.
  This debate is about not simply the safe disposal of sewerage, but the quality of drinking water. At Sandown water works, Southern Water has installed a new Neptune Nichols system and at the Knighton water works the iron removal plant has just been completed, and the island's entire water supply is now up to EEC standard. In the past two years, the expenditure per head of population has been more than £80. When that is set against the average water bill of £120 per head for the Isle of Wight, even Opposition Members will begin to realise that this country's water industry is investing in the nation's future and environment.
  For far too long water authorities have been the judge and jury on pollution, but water privatisation will bring an end to that remarkable situation. Under the new Bill, for the first time the criminal law will apply to pollution and the standard of the drinking water supply.
  Frankly, Opposition Members' contributions to this health debate amount to chicken feed.
  7.37 pm
  Mr. Calum Macdonald: I am grateful for being called and I shall try to keep my remarks within the recommended time limit, Madam Deputy Speaker.
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  The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) began his speech by suggesting that the absence of Opposition Members showed their lack of interest in the nation's health and food. The most conspicuous absentee from today's debate has been the Prime Minister, and I suggest that he addresses his remarks to her.
  I shall try to relate my brief remarks to a comment made by the Secretary of State for Health at the beginning of the debate in response to a question put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), who asked why it had taken the Secretary of Stale two months to answer a question that he had tabled. The Secretary of State replied that he was sorry but that the question had probably remained in some official's bottom drawer for those two months.
  That answer sums up the Government's attitude to this problem. First, the Government have given low priority to food and health. The Secretary of State falsely accused the Opposition of not addressing those issues. As has been pointed out by several Opposition Members, we have raised the dangers caused to health and the environment by the Government's successive cuts in research. The number of environmental health officers has been cut as a consequence of their policy.
  The Government have also wholly failed adequately to regulate private businesses because they prefer profits to people. The Opposition are right to say that the Government have accorded the problem a low priority.
  The other notable aspect of the Secretary of State's remarks was his reference to an official. Passing the buck has been another characteristic of the Government's handling of this issue. The prime victim of that trait was the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), to whom the Secretary of State passed the buck towards the end of last year.
  To return to the question or low priority, the Secretary of State's comments and the Government's attitude make it clear that not just written answers, but consumers have been left in the bottom drawer over the past several months. Meanwhile, the producers have been in the Secretary of State's top drawer. That is exemplified by the now notorious defensive briefing that was conducted by Government officials and representatives of the egg industry as early as last June, with the Government feeling it should be their duty to get into huddles with egg producers to produce defensive briefings rather than telling the public at that stage what they knew about the problem. That says a lot about the Government's attitude.
  When the Government did move, it was to alert officials of the National Health Service. They gave the excuse that they did that because people might be at risk in hospitals, ignoring the fact that most sick people would not be in hospital but would be at home being looked after by relatives and would be equally at risk. It is fair to say that the Government have consistently afforded low priority to the issue and put it in the bottom drawer.
  What I really wish to deal wall is the trait of passing the buck as exemplified by the Secretary of State's response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes).
  The right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) spoke about the confusion over the issue. The responsibility must lie with the Government. The right hon. Gentleman also spoke of irresponsible scaremongering. The right hon. Gentleman was asked whether he would associate the hon. Member for

  905
  Derbyshire, South with that irresponsible scaremongering, and he coyly declined to answer the question directly. But it must have been clearly in his mind. I would have said to him—unfortunately he is not in the House at the moment—that if there was scaremongering and confusion, the responsibility lay not with the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South alone but, in the last analysis, with the Government and especially with the Secretary of State for whom the hon. Lady was working at that time.
  In response to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, the Secretary of State repeated the astonishing admission, which he also made to the Select Committee on Agriculture when he came before us, that he had advised the hon. Lady to keep quiet following her controversial statement on 3 December about most egg production in this country being affected by salmonella. When the Secretary of State came before the Select Committee he said that his advice to her to keep quiet had been given because he felt that Sir Donald Acheson was the most appropriate person to go about the country and to clarify the question of salmonella infection. Again, I suggest that he was passing the buck to an official rather than taking responsibility upon himself.
  The solution offered to the problem of the controversy generated by the remarks of the former junior Health Minister was wholly inadequate and stretches credulity.
  Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The hon. Gentleman totally ignores the fact that I spent the afternoon answering questions on the subject in the House of Commons on the Monday in question. I received enormous coverage of my remarks because of the interest in the subject. Similarly, the chief medical officer is the best placed person inside Government circles to give medical advice to the public. I simply do not understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying today, which was the gist of his questioning in the Select Committee—that because we gave advice in that way for 24 hours, we somehow failed to correct the impression created the day before. People like the hon. Gentleman, and some of his hon. and right hon. Friends on the day, were more intent on pursuing the personality issues that they thought were raised by the position of my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South. That would have got in the way of information getting to the public, if they had been allowed their day out on the Monday trying to pursue my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Macdonald: It is astonishing for the Secretary of State to say that the junior health Minister would have got in the way of providing correct information to the public, and it shows a grave lack of confidence in the abilities of his former junior Minister.
  Mr. Clarke: I did not say that she would have got in the way, but that the hon. Gentleman and people like him who saw the whole thing in terms of the personality of my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South would have got in the way of information being given to the public.
  Mr. Macdonald: The Secretary of State is simply missing the bald and obvious fact that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South, who was then a Minister, was
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  conspicuous to the whole nation by her silence. The very fact that she remained silent attracted the attention that the Secretary of State now complains of.
  If I could use a literary reference, I shall repeat a story about Sherlock Holmes and the dog that did not bark in the night. Holmes was investigating a crime and referred Dr. Watson to the curious incident of the dog in the night. Watson said that the dog did nothing in the night and Holmes replied that that was the curious incident. That is what people are saying about the former junior Minister. It is even more curious because, on this occasion, the dog did bark in the night but then was put quietly to sleep.
  The Secretary of State came up with a new excuse in response to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, which relates to his previous feeble excuse, namely, that if he had asked the hon. Lady to clarify and expand on and qualify her statement, she would have been subjected to the unfriendly questioning of the media and from the Opposition. It is astonishing for the Secretary of State to suggest that the hon. Lady needed the Secretary of State's protection from Opposition Members.
  The central mystery remains unsolved. If the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South said nothing wrong in her remarks on 3 December, why did she have to resign? If, on the other hand, she said something wrong, why was she gagged and advised not to clarify or to expand upon her statement? If what she said was neither right nor wrong but simply ambiguous, which is the Secretary of State's interpretation, the same question must be addressed to the Secretary of State. Why was she advised to keep silent and advised not to expand her remarks?
  I remind the Secretary of State that he can pass the buck only so far. Those who pass the buck to ensure their own survival will eventually die by having the buck passed to them. The Prime Minister has today sent in the two Ministers—
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. Mr. Jacques Arnold.
  7.47 pm
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: I wish to speak about the listeria hysteria. I must admit that in the course of the debate I felt somewhat sick; not sick to the stomach, because I had cheese for lunch and I thrived on it, but sick at heart at what we are seeing in the House of Commons and generally in the grand commotion to put fear into the British people about the food they eat. There can be nothing more base than taking that approach. I am also made sick at heart to see Opposition Members leaping on the bandwagon in the hope of demolishing a few Conservative Members, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie).
  The worst possible example of this hysteria during the afternoon was the shroud-waving of the tragic case of the death of a baby, which was far too reminiscent of the way in which the great debate over the NHS was conducted. That shroud-waving was to the shame of the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock).
  Mr. Marland: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does he agree with me that we should have a little more background information as to what actually infected the mother who was carrying that child, because I have much sympathy with my hon. Friend's remarks?
  Mr. Arnold: Indeed, I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend. So frequently, in the health debates in this Chamber, and now in this debate, have family tragedies been bandied about without the facts upon which hon. Members could come to a view being substantiated.
  I am angry at the current situation because there is in my constituency a modern cheese packer. H. T. Webb and Company. That firm was set up three years ago in the Springhead enterprise zone, and today it gives work to 300 of my Northfleet constituents. Thanks to the hysteria in which Opposition Members indulge, there has been a drop in sales, and 200 of those workers, in the packing and production part of the plant, are now on short time, with the fear of redundancy.
  Let us look at the facts of the matter. Last year there were only 287 notified cases of listeria. It is not known how many of those were caused by eating contaminated food. Clearly, the right hon. Member for Islwyn knows even less about listeria, as he demonstrated today when he strayed from his carefully prepared text to try to answer a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham), which he seemed incapable of doing. Listeria is nothing new; it has been present on the farms of this country for generations, particularly in silage and in cows and grazing sheep. But it is containable if sensible hygiene is practised. The success over the years can be seen in the survival of our farming community. Listeria has had no significant impact on the health or mortality rate of farmers.
  It is cheese packers and producers and their workers who are being affected by the current hysteria. How has my local firm reacted to the very real problems? When the problem of listeria in cheese raised its head in early 1987 the firm took acton. The problem, it may be recalled, raised its head in a serious manner in the Swiss canton of Vaud, where the local cheese, Vacherin Mont D'Or, was found to he infected. The firm in my constituency required all suppliers to certify their cheese to be listeria-free, and it did this by insisting on certification by laboratories in the country of origin—usually in the universities—and in all cases authorised by the respective countries' Governments. It then carried out continuous testing in its own laboratories. Hon. Members may care to know how much listeria it has found. The answer is none. The tests for dangerous listeria have always proved to be negative.
  One thing that I would, however, ask of my right hon. and learned Friend is that the advice given to the public be more clear. The public have been advised to avoid some cheese. What they should have been told is that only ripened soft cheese, such as Brie or Camembert, is liable to listeria, and 90 per cent. of that is made from pasteurised cream and milk. Tests have been carried out regularly, both here and abroad. We might care to reflect, when we consider both Brie and Camembert and their propensity to dangerous listeria, that generations of Frenchmen have eaten these cheeses, yet the population of France has not been decimated.
  Other fresh soft cheeses, all of which have acidity below 4·8 pH cannot, technically, carry listeria. We are safe in buying cheese such as roulé, Philadelphia or potted cheeses and yoghurts with foil tops that are available in supermarkets.
  The hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke), who, no doubt, is also at dinner, reported to this House the loss of over 200 jobs in his constituency owing to the collapse of an egg producer. He was told that less than an
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  hour after his leader had made great play on public fears. The producer no doubt thought his cause, in restoring public confidence, was lost, and threw in the towel and, with it, those jobs.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State was right: the Opposition are concerned with woolly hats and Edwina-baiting and with scoring party political points. What is at stake is thousands of jobs in the food industry and the restoration of faith in public advice on food safety. To my mind, the Secretary of State's long speech earlier today clarified that advice. I hope that it will be reported clearly to the public and that it will be heeded.
  7.56 pm
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths: The House will, I hope, forgive me for confessing that I have no financial or constituency interest in the food industry. I make no plea on behalf of the agricultural business or the procesing business or the storage and distribution arms of the industry. For me, and for many hon. Members, the interests of the public are paramount.
  I fundamentally reject any suggestion from Conservative Members that legitimate concerns voiced by Labour Members about the standards that prevail in the food business are harmful to the interests of this country. Unlike advisers to the Government, I do not believe that the
  "concept of consumer protection … has to be balanced against business considerations."
  In truth, it is the failure of this Government to impose standards that has had the effect of undermining both export potential and the domestic purchasing of products. I am very concerned that hon. Members on the Government side seem wedded to the concept of voluntary regulation when, so obviously, voluntary regulation has brought us to our current sorry state.
  I wish to draw the attention of the House to the threat posed to research on listeria being carried out in my constituency. Staff at the Moredun research institute have been studying the effects of listeria on sheep, and their studies may well have beneficial implications for humans. The research being carried out by Dr. William Donnaghie has benefited from a grant of £10,000 a year from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for Scotland. But the Barnes review has cast doubt on the future funding of this project beyond 1991. This Government review is recommending that listeria research must be funded by industry instead of by the Government, but all the attempts by the Moredun research institute to secure funds from industry have failed. Industry does not appear to be interested in funding such work, I am told; there is simply no profit in it.
  Yet earlier this month the Department of Agriculture warned, in a press statement, about the dangers to pregnant women of contact with sheep or lambs. The infection which causes enzootic abortion in sheep can also affect humans. Unfortunately, the Department is not so willing to make long-term financial commitment to research and development in this area. In the White Paper on the Government's expenditure plans to 1992, which was debated in this House on 9 February, the Government make their commitment clear. Chapter 4 shows that the expenditure on agriculture, fisheries and food research and development is falling. My hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald) was perfectly correct when he lamented the cuts in food research. Table 4.24, on

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  page 18 of the Government's expenditure plans, sets out the cut at £20 million in real terms by 1991–92. The cut in MAFF expenditure on agricultural and food research and development has occurred in each year from 1984 to 1988 and will have fallen from £125·1 million in 1984 to £88·8 million in 1992.
  It is hardly surprising that the Government seek to cover their tracks by looking for scapegoats. Earlier Professor Lacey, who has an interest in the food industry, was called a crank. The Government have been accused in responsible newspapers such as The Independent of covering up. There has been the headline:
  "Secret document charts spread of salmonella".
  Other newspapers have pointed to the cover-up in the baby milk scandal involving aluminium. The headline in The Observer was:
  "Danger baby milks kept secret."
  These newspapers are not the rags that have been condemned on both sides of the House; they are not given to hyperbole and their sales are not dependent on sensationalism and exaggeration. I have quoted from The Observer and The Independent, respected papers for which the Minister, the Secretary of State and their colleagues write.
  The Government's search for scapegoats has to end. Their attacks on the press have to stop. Their attacks on the public and their pious view that the public should take almost full responsibility for any food poisoning must also end. The Government have to face up to their responsibility. The problem emanates from their cuts in research and development and from their championing of the interests of business rather than the consumer and of profit against the public good.
  8.1 pm
  Mr. Michael Morris: I declare an interest as an adviser to a trade body and to a company in the food industry. If the charge of the Opposition is to stand, they have to prove that the Government, by their actions, have ignored the problems in the food chain. The Labour party itself has consistently challenged the Government with alternative policies which it believes would solve the problems.
  The key determinant of whether food poisoning is being controlled and analysed properly lies with the public health laboratory at Colindale. I hope that hon. Members who take an interest in the subject have visited Colindale. I took the opportunity last year to spend a morning there. I do not think that anyone who has visited that establishment can be in the least worried that the medical side is being ignored. That extensive laboratory, which is well staffed and equipped, is doing an enormous amount of analytical work on salmonella and on other problems in the food chain.
  For anyone to suggest that the range of work is superficial or inadequate shows a complete misunderstanding of the work of the laboratory. The work is being done competently and with great thoroughness. The nation should recognise that. It is to the work of the laboratory that Ministers in the Department of Health and in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food react. At the time that I visited the laboratory—I have had no reason to believe anything to the contrary since—the right warnings were given at the right time.
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  If that is so, one asks why there has been an increase in problems, particularly when the standard of living is rising noticeably. The problems in the poultry industry have not arisen in the last 12 months. There has been salmonella in chickens probably for 10 years or more. The Secretary of State for Health correctly pointed out that the most recent strain is difficult and that the evidence is that it was introduced through infected feed material.
  The underlying problem has been there for quite a long time. Whereas in the 1950s and 1960s the House, Members of Parliament, the press and the public accepted what scientists put forward as a result of their analyses of food and nutritional values, that is no longer so. Every time scientists present reports, they are challenged by the media or by what I call the greater green movement. There is a great distrust of what scientists say. That is a worrying dimension. A small group of activitists challenge everything that scientists, particularly food scientists, put forward.
  I understand that E numbers are supposed to be a safeguard. No doubt other hon. Members share my experience of people saying in surgery, "Does it mean that we should worry if a product has an E number on it?" So E numbers have had the reverse effect. Through the media the public are calling for the removal of preservatives and additives, and for restrictions on herbicides and pesticides. There is a flotilla of claims that these are all harmful in food manufacture and production. We have even reached the extraordinary stage that because a tiny percentage of hyperactive children react to a particular additive, some people demand its removal from food products. I think that a distrust of scientists is causing some of the problems today.
  On my way to the House at lunch time I listened to the "World at One". It was announced on the programme that six supermarket chains had set up a hotline called "Foodline" as a food safety advisory service. What a good thing they have done. By taking the initiative, the food chains have shown a proper regard for a difficult situation. What was the comment by the BBC reporter? He asked, "Can we trust what is being put out by these interested parties who are food retailers?" He also asked, "Can we trust Government statistics?" When people in an industry which is fundamental to the economy take action to help, it seems extraordinary that commentators should immediately debunk it and assume that the whole thing is being done in self-interest.
  A key determinant has to be what the Labour party offer as an alternative. Opposition Members will remember several documents produced by their party. One was called
  "Food Policy—a Priority for Labour"
  It was a microcosm of the National Advisory Committee on Nutrition Education and the chairman of NACNE appeared to have written three quarters of it. I assume that that was dumped because we got another document called "Health for All", which was a charter on preventive health. It included about half a page on healthy eating, which was indicative of the deep research done by the Labour party. Very little of it had anything to do with what we are debating today, apart from something about withdrawing additives if there were doubt about safety, and a little about the irradiation of food.
  On Friday of last week there was a press release from the Labour party. I note that it was on House of Commons paper. I hope that the Select Committee on Services will

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  check why two Front Bench Labour Members issued a press release on House of Commons paper because I believe that that is illegal. That is on the record and I hope that someone will c heck on it.
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths: Get on with it.
  Mr. Morris: I will get on with it. I am talking about a press statement by the shadow Minister for Agriculture and the shadow Secretary of State for Health. They say:
  "It is clear that the voice of the consumer has taken second place to that of the producer."
  That is absolute rubbish and bunkum.
  They then go on to say:
  "We believe our proposal would have averted the problems that arose with salmonella and listeria." The hon. Gentleman would know if he had listened to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State today that we do not yet know what the answer is to the new strain of salmonella. Perhaps he does know, and perhaps he will inform the scientific world of the answer, but I do not think he knows it.
  Finally, we see that the proposal is to set up a food standards agency
  "which would be independent of Ministers and able to speak authoritatively on food protection matters."
  The press statement continues:
  "The Agency will be responsible to the Cabinet Office and to Parliament."
  Who will answer in this House? Will people from the Cabinet Office come here and answer questions on the food standards agency, or will it be the Public Accounts Committee?
  Is this a deeply thought-out policy arising from all the policy documents? No. The truth is that it was knocked out at the end of last week on House of Commons paper and thought to be a good idea. It is a very shallow approach to a very difficult problem. The real truth is that the Labour party has not done any work on this. It has just run a scare programme and frankly I think that that is deplorable. I suppose that one good thing has come out of this debate, and that is that the people of Britain recognise the importance of food safety and that they should listen to the scientists and the people in the public health laboratories. When the chief medical officer makes a statement, that is a statement based on fact, and he is the person they should listen to, not to the media or the other hype and the sort of comments that we have heard from the Labour party today.
  8.11 pm
  Mr. Elliot Morley: I would like to make it quite clear that I have no connection at all with the food industry. Unlike some Conservative Members, I have not been paid to come along here to today to state the case of vested interests.
  I want to examine the facts at issue. I am not interested in scaremongering or in trying to frighten consumers. I am interested in getting to the bottom of what I think has been the irresponsible handling of the situation by the Government and in seeing whether there are any practical lessons to be learnt.
  I believe that the root of the problem lies with the whole attitude of deciding that the market should be self-regulating, and that goes back to a comment made in 1980, when the Labour party argued for a tightening of controls in the protein processing order, which we had discovered was not working successfully. It was said in
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  response that in the present economic climate the industry should itself determine how best to proceed. The underlying theme of the Government's food policy is that the industry itself should be allowed to decide its own priorities.
  When we had a discussion about regulation, about a policy, about a strategy, it was said to be the policy of a nanny state. I would rather have a nanny state than a free market economy, which simply lets loose the Lucrezia Borgia of the free market into the kitchens of this country. When we are taken to this extreme, the choice for the consumer lies between salmonella and listeria. I emphasise that that is taking the issue to the extreme.
  I would be the first to concede that there are many good food producers and many caring farmers in terms of standards of food production, but some Conservative Members have been trying to blame the consumer, the housewife, the people who cook the food. It seems to be they who are responsible for the outbreak, not the producers. I know it is fair to say that cooking methods have changed over the years. We have microwave cooking now, for example. However, it is equally fair to say that farming methods have changed over the years. They are far more intensive now. There is far greater use of inputs, chemicals, agro-business, agro-product methods.
  On that point, I wonder whether the Minister will take into account the animal welfare issue. It is fair to say that the Secretary of State for Health did mention that many people were concerned about such things as battery farming and, apart from animal welfare, there are very real arguments. There is evidence to suggest, for example, that if there is infection within intensive animal units, it is spread at a far greater rate than it would be if there were more space.
  There is also a problem with the grandparent stock of hens, for example, and the cloning that there is these days in intensive animal units. It is something which needs to be looked at in terms of the conditions of intensive animals—the cage spaces—and whether there should be a move away from battery egg production towards deep litter egg production. Although deep litter production is not exactly perfect, it is more desirable than the intensive method, where hens spend the bulk of their lives, on average two years, locked up in a tiny cage, with no daylight and no floor to stand on. A great many people are concerned about that. I think that the answer is that people will eventually decide themselves through their own pockets, through green consumerism, that they will not purchase the products of such intensive methods of farming.
  There has also been concern about pigs. Again, I would pay tribute to some of my local farmers, who have introduced different models of farrowing cages which allow sows to stand up and turn round, something which the traditional farrowing cage does not allow. That is a step in the right direction.
  Nevertheless, although there are caring farmers and good producers, there are also other farmers and producers who simply want to maximise their profits without taking any interest in the welfare of their animals, or anything else for that matter.
  I believe that we need to do more research into intensive animal rearing to find not only the best way of producing food for the consumer, but to pay more attention to the condition of battery animals and intensive farm animals.
  One of the worst issues that has come to light in this whole inquiry into what has been happening with food is

  913
  the way that the Government have been cutting back on research and development in the farming sector. We already know that there is a proposal to cut £30 million from the AFRC over a number of years in a move to shift the research to what is deemed near market research. We have heard from some Conservative Members that they accept that the farming industry itself is fragmented and it is very difficult for the industry to pick up the research on this. The real condemnation comes with a scheme at Bristol led by a Dr. Mead, which was told last summer, before this scare on salmonella started, that it would be axed in March of this year. That research scheme was actually very near finding ways of eliminating salmonella in chicken and is now deemed to be ready and suitable to be picked up for the market.
  On the Select Committee, when I asked whether any firm had picked up this scheme, the answer was no. So here we have a Government-funded scheme which was near to developing a system for eliminating salmonella which has been axed and thrown on to the free market to be picked up or not. I think that that is an irresponsible way of dealing with important research to tackle the serious problem of salmonella.
  The hon. Gentleman talked about positive suggestions from the Labour party; I will give him one now. The Government set aside £19 million for compensation to farmers and only £3 million has been taken up. A total of £16 million is earmarked in the Budget. Why do the Government not take some of that £16 million and inject it into the various research programmes investigating animal husbandry, intensive farming, salmonella elimination and methods of identifying salmonella in the early stages? The money is there, it is budgeted, and it could be used now. It is a question of political will and desire, and I would be interested to see whether the Government are prepared to do that. It is no use saying that they do not have the resources; we know full well that they have.
  There is also the question of the reaction to other issues, such as BST in milk. To be fair to farmers, I quote Mrs. Mary James, a delegate at a recent meeting of the NFU, who said:
  "All BST will do is line the pockets of the drug companies. The salmonella scare tells us that we cannot afford to take risks where the safety of food is concerned."
  What I would say on that issue, if hon. Members want a positive suggestion, is that if we are to have trials with BST, why not label the milk coming from herds of cows injected with BST so consumers themselves can choose whether they want to buy that milk or not? That is certainly not being done by the Government. BST-treated milk simply goes into the milk pool, and people have no idea whether it is in their milk bottles.
  There is also the question of BSE, or "spongy brain" as it is commonly called. An inquiry has been set up by the Ministry and the Department of Health under Professor Richard Southwood of Oxford university's zoological department. The Guardian claims that, because Ministers do not like its findings, the report is being held up. It is also alleged that the Treasury has put pressure on proposals for a joint inquiry into salmonella because some of the proposals that might emerge from such an inquiry could prove expensive to implement. That again is a condemnation of a Government who take risks with people's health rather than making available what are, in
  914
  comparison with the alternative, quite small sums to ensure that health is protected through the research that we need.
  The Government have failed in many cases to notify the public or to give enough warnings. There was no excuse for them to withhold, for over a year, the information that listeria in cheese threatened pregnant women. Such information is not scaremongering in the way that Ministers have described. It is balanced, reasonable and rational, but it came too late.
  Let me say a brief word about water quality. It is outrageous that the Government have suggested that the standards for effluent and discharge levels for sewage outfalls will be lowered rather than meeting EEC requirements simply to try to make water more attractive to investors and public institutions. The Government's priority should be to ensure that our beaches reach EEC bathing standards, that our rivers do not deteriorate and that our drinking water is of adequate quality. I do not believe that privatising water is the way in which to do that. It simply enhances the risk to the consumer. The underlying failure of the Government lies in their claim that the free market delivers. It certainly does not. We need regulations, planning and strategy, and we are not getting them from the Government.
  8.22 pm
  Mrs. Teresa Gorman: I speak as a housewife. The women in this country buy 90 per cent. of the food, and on their behalf I want to say how disgraceful it is that the Labour party has sought to worry and confuse them by making a political issue out of matters which are nothing of the sort.
  Housewives like me are eminently grateful to our excellent food industry for the tremendous variety of foods available—not least cooked chilled foods, which make our lives much easier by cutting down enormously on preparation time. Along with the microwave oven, they have revolutionised the lives of women like me who go out to work but want to provide a variety of interesting foods for our families. To suggest that the cooked chilled food industry is somehow harmful to the population is nonsense.
  I am sick and tired of these campaigns. We get one almost every week. Everything that makes life interesting and bearable seems to be wrong for us: the air that we breathe, sex, tobacco, alcohol, sugar, salt, unwashed food, red meat, fast food, eggs, chickens—and now lovely smelly cheese. I would quarrel with the French about many things, but their cheese is delicious, and to suggest that it is bad for people is absurd.
  The truth is that germs are everywhere. They are all over our skins—some 2 million on every square centimetre. Every time that we open our mouths to breathe we suck a load of them in. They are a damn sight less dangerous than many politicians—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—particularly those on the Opposition Benches.
  Furthermore, if we eliminated all those germs, the minute that we stepped out of this country we should all go down with the local version of Delhi Belly, the Aztec Two-Step or Montezuma's Revenge. In fact, a good dose of germs every day builds up natural immunity and is an essential part of human biology. Without it we should all be a good deal worse off.

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  We must keep this problem in perspective. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on his excellent exposé of the political motives behind all this nonsense. The truth is that there were fewer than 40,000 reported cases of food poisoning in this country last year compared with—this is not my estimate—1some 120 billion portions of food eaten in the same period. Such problems from food are less the equivalent of being hit by a meteorite but rather that of finding a particular grain of sand on the beach at Blackpool. The chances are infinitesimal, and although the cases that happen are unfortunate they are not the end of the world.
  Of the 50-odd cases of people who, on average, have died from food poisoning in this country over the past five years, almost all have died in public institutions such as hospitals and old people's homes. In the Stanley Royd hospital, 19 people died not because the food was bad but because of the hygienic practices in the hospital. The food had been left standing around for too long.
  Most problems are caused not by food itself but by the way in which it is handled, prepared or left standing around. That is the message that we must get across, and not necessarily to housewives. Most cases happen because people nowadays can afford to entertain more, and food is prepared in advance and left standing around.
  astThe Labour party is looking around for some cause to embrace. It is even harping back to the idea of a Ministry of Food. I heard a Labour party member on the radio the other day actually extolling the virtues of the old days when we had a Ministry of Food and people's diets were controlled by the Government: good old Socialist rhetoric. The Leader of the Opposition has told us that the Labour party would also like another 500 health inspectors, another 500 researchers and more and more jobs in Government Departments for more and more of the boys. That is the motivation behind the campaign, and it is disgraceful that the British public are not being warned.
  Even more interesting is the source of most of the Labour party's information. Just as the Low Pay Unit stirs up nonsensical campaigns about what it alleges to be three quarters of the British public living on below average wages, Labour relies considerably on the organisation called the London Food Commission, set up by the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) with a £1 million grant. Masquerading as a respectable organisation, it publishes almost all its stuff in Left-wing journals, including the journal of the International Marxist Group and other such bodies.
  The publications have such names as "Food and Profit: It Makes You Sick". If we did not know their political orientation before, we would when we read stuff like that. They are also behind the campaign to prevent the irradiation of food, which one Opposition Member actually extolled. He will get into hot water for extolling the virtues of a process that the Labour movement is officially opposing.
  The organisation has as its declared aims
  "to expose the evils in society in which we live and how the health of society is affected by social and economic conditions, particularly in the case of food, its production and its consumption."
  That is the motive behind much of the nonsense that is appearing in our newspapers.
  Mr. Frank Cook: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Mrs. Gorman: No, I will riot. I have only 10 minutes, and I am going to fill them up.
  One of the campaigns is against fast foods. The organisation has got it in for the hamburger. Its employee—known as Dr. Tim Lobstein—is conducting a campaign against the Big Mac. Another is the cook-chill campaign. This is what it has to say:
  "Cook-chill foods result in job losses, change of working hours, reductions in pay and de-skilling."
  One of its leading lights, Dr. Tim Lang, is also an adviser to COHSE, which is trying to protect food jobs in the Health Service by alleging that cook-chill food brought in from outside and served to the patients is infected. He makes a scurrilous attempt to discredit the Government's policy of bringing private enterprise into the catering industry. That reveals the motivation of that organisation. It is another Labour party front which is visibly running out of money and trying to drum up support for its campaign. I warn industry against giving any money to that organisation as it is a thoroughly sinister body.
  Mr. Frank Cook rose—
  Mrs. Gorman: I want to warn the Government, because the editorial of The Food Magazine published by that organisation tells us that after 6,000 letters were sent to the Government complaining about the lack of openness in the food industry, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, which ought to know better, has finally
  "allowed a consumer representative into its party to the world talks in Geneva."
  These people are definitely and openly trying to infiltrate those Ministries which influence Government policy, and no doubt the Chief Medical Officer of Health. The Government had better watch out for that organisation because it is definitely not devoted to the policies to which the Government are dedicated.
  In my opinion, the whole campaign has been drummed up by the Labour party, which is devoid of campaigns by which to justify its existence. Among other things, the Labour party is calling for a food policy—shades of the Labour movement after the war—and a Food Ministry. It attacks the multinational companies—the great Satan of the Left—which provide most of our major chains with the excellent quality food that they offer the housewife and I have already explained why I think that is a wonderful idea. It has even mounted an attack on cheap food. I am sure that the British housewife will be delighted to know that that is Labour party policy—not that we have a cheap food policy thanks to the CAP which puts £12 a week on the food bill of the average British family. But the Labour party is quite happy to see the price of food rise if it can use that as a means of attacking the private sector, which provides a high-quality, interesting and varied diet.
  Now that we know who is behind much of that nonsense, I ask the Government to keep their wits about them and examine what is going on in Ministries to find out whether an infection of Socialist ideas is influencing Government policy and to ensure that they are wiped out and disinfected.
  8.32 pm
  Mrs. Audrey Wise: The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mrs. Peacock) called Professor Richard Lacey who has done a great deal of work on listeria an eccentric. Although I pointed out that he is doubly qualified as a doctor and a microbiologist, and that he is

  917
  professor of microbiology at Leeds university and a consultant in microbiology to Leeds Western District health authority, the hon. Lady stuck to her views, which were echoed by other Conservative Members. One of the major results of Professor Lacey's work has been to establish a link between premature births, stillbirths and listeriosis. I suggest that that is far from eccentric. After all their demands for facts, I am interested to see Conservative Members react in that way when they are presented with facts by someone who has become quite interested in his research and is enthusiastic about informing people of its results. I am quite sure that expectant mothers are keen on knowing about the dangers that they may face.
  We have been told by Conservative Members with the utmost confidence that cooked, chilled food is safe. One Conservative Member said, "You would think that it had been invented only yesterday". But it has not been in use for much longer, as it was introduced only two or three years ago. In that time there has been an explosion in the use of cooked, chilled foods, with massive investment in equipment and products. Listeria is important not because of the proven incidence of listeriosis but because of what the future may hold due to the current investment in cooked, chilled food in the private and public sectors. It is the only form of food preservation being used on a large scale without proper scientific evaluation or having stood the test of time. The issue is not whether we like cooked, chilled food or whether it is nice to have a convenient form of food, but the fact that that particular form of food preservation needs further evaluation and the products need particularly careful handling. It is not simply that the listeria bacterium survives refrigeration—it thrives under refrigeration. There is a very narrow band at which it is safe. I understand that it is stunned at between 0 deg and 3 deg, but that at any temperature above that it multiplies and becomes more pathogenic. In that way it differs from most organisms. Therefore, listeria is very important.
  We have received from the Chief Medical Officer of Health and from the Government advice which is hardly precise. We have been told to keep our food really cold. By means of parliamentary questions I am trying to find out how cold is really cold. It is hardly self-explanatory. We have been told that the bacteria, which are very common, are thriving and multiplying because of the extensive practice of keeping food refrigerated for lengthy periods at insufficiently low temperatures. That is a possible reason why the disease is spreading.
  It is not hysteria on the part of Labour Members to say that the matter needs to be treated very seriously, not least for the sake of workers in the industries involved as they will carry the can if the investment in cook-chill products proves to be ill-founded and firms get into difficulties through the distortion of trade which results from its expansion without proper evaluation.
  Listeria is important and the Government are not providing adequate information. We are told that everything is all right, that analysis is taking place and the public are being informed. However, when we realise that public analysts can analyse only four out of every million items purchased and that total spending on food analysis represents only 5p per person per year, we are entitled to say that that is hardly an extravagant use of resources. It
  918
  is not even an adequate use of resources for food analysis. We believe not only in adequate regulation, but in the proper resourcing, financing and enforcing of those regulations.
  We have heard a great deal from Conservative Members about the housewife. Their motto seems to be, "If in doubt, blame the housewife". I resist that as I do not consider that the blame can be laid at the door of women in Britain. We choose what we buy and what we eat, but over the years our choice has not been increased but has in an important sense been narrowed. In a really profound way it has been narrowed. It is difficult for people to buy food with confidence that it is pesticide residue-free and to feel sure that they know what they are eating. The public want that information. That is why there is such a huge demand for organic food.
  Some of the reasons for these deep problems can be found in the way that animals are reared and in the way that food is grown. When "The Food Programme" on Radio 4 investigated the way in which pigs are reared in Britain, it found that 250,000 sows are tethered so closely together that they can barely lie or stand. That is not a healthy way in which to keep animals.
  I keep free range chickens. I know about hens. The notion that hens can be healthily kept in tiny cages where they are unable to turn around and that they can be stuffed with antibiotics with impunity is a monstrous distortion of food production. People are resisting more and more the production of food in that way.
  The Government's job is to ensure that consumers can find the healthy food that they want. It is also their job to ensure that nobody lives in such poverty as to be unable to afford healthy food.
  Food is a political issue. Research has shown that it is easier and cheaper to buy healthy food in the better-off areas than in the worst-off areas of Preston. Poor people find it harder and more expensive to gain access to healthy food. That puts food on the political agenda, good and proper.
  8.41 pm
  Miss Emma Nicholson: I have a keen interest in the debate. As a cook, I once poisoned 120 people with salmonella. Having listened to what Opposition Members have had to say today, I feel that it is proper to issue a guide as to how to poison people with salmonella. It is quite clear that the Opposition do not know how to go about it. It is a very interesting trick.
  What one does is to become a hotel cook in a rather run-down hotel where the profits are slender and the free market does not seem to operate. That cannot be in this country. It must be in a country where everything is state owned and nationalised, where there are no profits and where the free market does not operate. One takes from the back of a lorry a job lot of frozen chickens. Because one has come from a farming background, one has never seen peculiar, misshapen, frozen lumps before. One bungs them in the oven and cooks them for the time that one normally allows for cooking a chicken from father's back yard that one has plucked and drawn oneself. Alas, 120 hot air balloonists from all over the world were fed by me with salmonella, which meant that they were unable to rise in their hot air balloons for the best part of a week.
  Since those days, I have taken the keenest possible interest in food. I have watched closely the inaccuracies

  919
  that have been put forward by Her Majesty's Opposition and—dare I say it?—by those dreadful people the media. What about the headline, "Eggs poison boy"? That led to the sad death of nine-year-old Zamire Hussain. A week later it was agreed by the medical authorities that no trace of salmonella—egg induced—had been found in that lad's body, but there was no apology in the media for that inaccuracy.
  The Sunday before last the health correspondent in one of the Sunday "heavies" spurned the coming Government leaflet on food and said:
  "We won't have the Government telling us to wash our hands."
  The correspondent said that virtually all food poisoning comes from cross-contamination or from food storage and handling. Before I am accused of being on the side of the farmer, I should point out that, at a meeting of my farm council about 10 days ago, 350 farmers referred to their keen interest in the consumer. My constituency depends on food. We produce, process, transport and ship it. We sell it to the consumer who eats it. The consumer is the whole purpose of the exercise.
  When we consider hygiene and why food poisoning is on the increase, it is worth remembering that 7 billion meals were cooked and consumed outside the home last year. I suffered from food poisoning last year on the way to Stoneleigh. On the way to the agricultural show we stopped at a cafeteria early in the morning. Somebody in the cafeteria was wiping his nose, another person had grubby hands and somebody else had grubby hair. We should have walked away, but it was early and we were hungry. By midday at Stoneleigh we felt extremely ill.
  Of the 2,000 or more strains of salmonella, very few are injurious to human or animal health. One must match containment at source, which is a most crucial element, with improvements in food handling. Most egg infections have arisen from the multiple handling of eggs. As for salmonella enteretidis, phage type 4, it is good news that the discovery has been made that it is contamination not from the ovi-duct but from the gut. That is a much more regular form of cross-infection from a chicken and it is something that will be easier to contain. All the evidence points to that conclusion, and it is genuinely good news. I know that the House revels in scare stories, but let us occasionally be glad to hear good news.
  It is the utmost ill-fortune that the United Kingdom is suffering from phage type 4, either by mutation or because it has come from Spain. It is a close cousin of two salmonellas that have been virtually eradicated in the United States. I do not believe that all is lost. I am confident that it will be contained by the excellent and speedy measures that have already been taken by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The key is to maintain good food hygiene. With phage type 4, one starts with the broiler breeder; it should be eliminated from the food chain.
  Contrary to views that have been expressed this evening, it is important to remember that if salmonella is present in an egg, a small number of the bacteria can multiply to levels that cause illness. If, for example, we leave eggs outside either the refrigerator or a cold room and if they are then broken open in a warm temperature and fed to people who are sick and who can therefore tolerate only a much lower level of salmonella concentration, they may become ill. Conversely, one can identify eggs with only a small number of salmonella
  920
  which, if properly handled, are perfectly tolerable, even by somebody who is in poor health. If we look hard enough, we can find salmonella in all the food that we eat. It is the way that food is handled that is critical. For example, if we make a salad in a bowl in which we have stored raw meat and the bowl has not been disinfected properly, our families may suffer stomach upsets.
  Families' shopping habits have changed. They shop once a week. People have small refrigerators in small flats and kitchens without larders. The Government must try much harder to educate and help the housewife as well as to enforce proper regulations, as they are already doing, in the case of those who mass produce food.
  The sterilisation of eggs does not help. They need an effective temperature of 56 deg C and eggs have to be cooked at that temperature for 15 to 20 minutes. That will eliminate the salmonella, but it kills our appetite, too.
  It has been said in the debate that the withdrawal of funding from near-market research has led to cuts in research into salmonella or scrapie. I want to put that right. The funding of one particular project on the competitive exclusion of salmonella, which had been in progress for more than a decade at the Institute of Food Research, has been terminated because, after comprehensive review, it was decided that it had reached a successful conclusion. However, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is continuing to fund other research on salmonella at the IFR. There is also funding of research into scrapie. The requirement for research into BSE is currently under review. Scrapie research is being carried out at the nemopathogenesis unit, which is jointly funded by the Agricultural and Food Research Council and the Medical Research Council. MAFF is collaborating with the NPU and is already funding work on BSE. That is a most important point.
  I should be appalled if the Government followed the Opposition line and banned the sale of green top milk. Consumers increasingly prefer food which has the least processing—that is the move towards more natural foods—but there are dangers inherent in this. Listeria from raw milk is an extremely rare possibility. Regular drinkers have developed an immunity, and occasional drinkers should be given warnings, particularly if they are sick or pregnant.
  Is it the Government's line, if we are to ban raw milk, to ban cigarettes and tobacco because of the known causal link between self-induced lung cancer and smoking? If we are not to follow that line—and I know that we shall not—it would be wholly wrong to ban fresh raw milk. I was brought up on it, and I am exceptionally fit.
  The majority of listeria-contaminated soft cheeses are made from pasteurised milk which has been reinfected during subsequent manufacture. This bug is adept at living at a wide range of temperatures. Bacteriological analysis applied to dairy products is the key to ensuring safe consumer choice. This will protect the consumer and the manufacturer.
  I will give an example of the least need to be frightened of food poisoning from cheese. Gidleigh park, one of the major hotels in my constituency and a five-star establishment, has served 75,000 meals since it opened, and 90 per cent. of the clients have cheese, almost all of it made from non-pasteurised milk and over half of that being soft or semi-soft cheese. That hotel has not had any cases of food poisoning.
  The withdrawal of additives—the E number fuss—which means that food has a shorter life, has in many ways

  921
  been reflected in the rise in the incidence of food poisonings as food decays sooner. Undertakers will be sorry to hear this. I am referring, of course, not to sewage or water undertakers but to those who are concerned with human carcases. They used to say that, with all the preservatives we ate, we spent two weeks longer on the slab.
  The keynote issue is consumer choice—giving consumers complete information, regular knowledge and public education—following the ministerial line rather than the Opposition line in wishing to take away from consumers that to which they have a right, the choice to buy and consume what they wish. After all, if the market does not work, will the Opposition seek to nationalise farming?
  8.52 pm
  Mr. Robert Hughes: I must be brief because I have less than five minutes in which to speak.
  I agree wholeheartedly with the right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) in the united approach that north of Scotland hon. Members have adopted in trying to restore the funding of the Torry research institute which deals with fish and which has had 25 per cent. of its research budget cut. It cannot make that up in near market research and I hope that the Minister will meet us to discuss the issue before the matter becomes final.
  I have been deeply disturbed by the way in which some Conservative Members—including the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Marland), who I see leaving the Chamber—have behaved in this debate. I am glad to see that that hon. Gentleman has decided to remain to listen to me. There has not been the slightest contribution about the fact that there is food poisoning from primary food sources, no hint of shame and no whiff of apology for the fact that food is contaminated at source. There has been only screaming that housewives are to blame because they are not handling food properly. I have also found the attitude of the farming industry reprehensible; it is simply screaming about its compensation.
  There is an old adage about prevention being better than cure. Clearly it would be better if bacteria and other organisms did not get into food. I have some knowledge of these matters, having been the convener of the health and welfare committee in Aberdeen at the time of the major typhoid outbreak. I am therefore aware of how bacteria works its way through the food chain. I also appreciate the way in which the farming industry sometimes feels under threat, when it believes that it is not the only responsible party—that the processors, distributors, manufacturers and handlers all have a degree of responsibility, as have the restaurants and everyone else in terms of trying to avoid food poisoning.
  Everyone must bear a responsibility, and the Department of Health should take a lead and push more strongly for the irradiation of food. That technique kills 99·99 per cent. of the pathogens that are dangerous to human beings. This health matter should be pursued. We accept modern technology in terms of cook-chill, refrigeration, microwaves and so on. The fact that food is refrigerated, for example, means that it lasts longer and that the organisms get a chance to develop.
  922
  In the old days, when we had no refrigerators, the food went off, it stank like hell and it was thrown out. I should add that irradiation does not help with eggs because they pong if they are irradiated. Nor does it affect fatty foods. But the possibilities are such that we should pursue these issues with greater vigour.
  We must increase the number of environmental health officers. Only by that means shall we be able to do more checking. It is high time, considering the dangers facing the public, that we brought into the food industry the concept of product liability in the way in which it exists for other manufactured goods. If one sells a dangerous iron or television and somebody is killed, one is responsible. It should be a badge of honour for the food industry to boast that its food is contamination free, that it has done everything possible to protect the public. If that is not done, it should have a responsibility, by way of criminal prosecution and compensation.
  This has been a valuable debate. I regret that it has been devalued by those who spoke, in a totally uncritical way, on behalf of the food industry and who were not willing to accept that faults exist in that industry. Nevertheless, it has been a valuable debate and I hope it will not be long before we return to those matters.
  The degree of interest in the subject has meant that, whereas most hon. Members thought there would be ample time in which to speak, that has proved not to be the case. There are many other issues on which I would have liked to have spoken. I was told that, had I done so, I would have probably got myself into hot water, so I will resume my seat and face the consequences.
  8.56 pm
  Mr. Keith Raffan: In the few minutes available to me, I will comment on only one issue raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes), and that is water, although I wish to speak about cold rather than hot water. The debate is about the safety of food and water, though most contributors have, perhaps understandably, concentrated on food.
  The British Government signed the EEC drinking water directive in 1985. Even by that time, many treatment works were up to standard. Since then, a further 300 have been brought up to standard, and by next year a further 90 will have joined that number. By the mid-1990s, 150 of the 170 remaining will be brought up to standard, though many of them are covered by derogations under article 9 of the directive because the lower standards in those areas do not cause any health risk. Indeed, the lower standards are due largely to geological problems making water purification difficult. So by the mid-1990s nearly all of Britain's water will meet or better the EEC drinking water directive.
  We on the Government Benches must concede the Opposition's point that this could have happened earlier. But it did not happen earlier because in 1976 capital expenditure by the water authorities was cut by a third by the then Labour Government. Labour Members must therefore accept responsibility for the fact that it is taking us till the mid-1990s to get our water treatment works up to standard. They cannot blame the present Government for the delay.
  The Conservative Government have increased capital expenditure on water treatment works by 50 per cent. in real terms. In 1976–77, Welsh water authority capital

  923
  expenditure was £32·9 million but by 1987–88 it had risen to £67·8 million. Incidentally, I am glad to see the hon. Member for Clwyd, South-West (Mr. Jones) in his place as I shall refer to him later. Expenditure on water infrastructure has greatly increased under the present Government, compensating for gross neglect by the Labour Government.
  The Water Bill is the key to attaining higher standards for Britain's water. For the first time, the European water directive's provisions will be given the full force of law. It will also free the new water pies from external financing limits, enabling them to borrow money for capital works as they require it, and so to accelerate their capital programmes. They will no longer have to queue behind schools or hospitals. Should the nightmare occur—difficult though it is to fantasise—of Labour ever returning to power, the pies will not face the prospect of that Labour Government slashing capital expenditure on water and sewage treatment works as they did in the mid-1970s.
  The Water Bill will also establish a tough, regulatory framework. For the first time, it will be a statutory offence to supply water that is unfit for human consumption. The National Rivers Authority will play a valuable role. I recall that in 1985, in the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, many Opposition and Conservative Members, when considering coastal sewage pollution, made the point that it was ridiculous for water authorities to be both poacher and gamekeeper. The NRA will bring an end to that position. It will now monitor and enforce quality objectives. A drinking water inspectorate will ensure, for the first time, that suppliers monitor water quality and comply with standards. That has not occurred before, assessment being left to the water authorities. The pies will also be required to give detailed information about water quality to the public. For the first time, there will be exact, numerical standards for drinking water quality set down in United Kingdom law, approved by Parliament. All that is due to privatisation.
  I am glad that some Labour Members have admitted, no doubt unintentionally, that high water standards can be achieved by a private water company. I refer to a report in the Wrexham Water News of November 1988:
  "Three Clwyd MPs have praised Wrexham Water Company for the work it does in maintaining the quality and safety of water supplies to its consumers."
  There follow quotes from the three Labour Members concerned. The hon. Member for Clwyd, South-West, who is himself a microbiologist, and on whose opinion we can therefore surely rely, commented:
  "I have been a resident of Wrexham all my life and have always found the water to be of good quality and very dependable."
  The shadow Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones), stated:
  "1 was very pleased to be given every assurance that the company's top priority is to deliver safe and wholesome water to every household it serves. I rate this aspect of the water industry of enduring priority."
  And the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) commented:
  "It is reassuring to see the dedication of the staff and the work they do to maintain a safe supply of water."
  The hon. Gentleman was reported as saying that he had been impressed with everything he had seen.
  Those are the comments of three Labour Members. They show that, behind the scenes, when they visit a
  924
  private water company, they acknowledge that water supplies can be kept perfectly safe. Under privatisation, the consumer has nothing to fear.
  9.2 pm
  Mr. David Hinchliffe: Having sat in the Chamber for five hours, it is a matter of concern to me that my contribution is limited to five minutes, but I shall try to make one or two serious points about issues that concern me.
  It has been interesting listening to a variety of speeches. Tonight, I learnt why my wife plays merry hell with me if I purchase food from supermarkets that is past its sell-by date. She realises that if I consume such food, my brain will end up in the same state as that of the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman). I have never before heard remarks of the kind that she came out with tonight. To say, as she did, that a good dose of germs each day is good for one sums up the Government's policies on food hygiene.
  The present Government have presided over a threefold increase in food poisoning. Their record is one of incredible complacency. Giving due justice to parliamentary answers I have received on the cook-chill issue, there are contrived cover-ups time and time again, with the Government refusing to divulge information that I know is available. As my hon. Friends have said, at the heart of the problem is that which is at the heart of so many other problems existing under the present Government: vastly increased profits are sought at the expense of wider considerations of safety and care of the environment.
  Alongside that political question there are deep moral issues. My hon. Friends have mentioned animal welfare, although that has not been taken up by any Conservative Member. In factory farming we see maximum output with minimum input. There is a complete disregard for animal welfare in many aspects of their treatment in factory farms. Animal transport is a matter for deep concern. Animals are crammed into lorries and poultry into cages to be carried about and that is a disgrace.
  Those conditions create stress, which in turn creates infection, often just before animals are slaughtered. Mass slaughter itself is new. Poultry are often slaughtered in flocks of 10,000 at a time. Abbatoirs have a huge through-put, carried out at such speed that cross-infection is a frequent occurrence.
  The huge increase in food poisoning is clearly linked to the way in which we have moved towards mass food production. It is as though nature is telling us that we are getting it wrong; that the food poisoning is a sign that what we are doing to the animal kingdom is wrong. We should address that issue as a nation.
  Alongside the mass production of food we have seen the development of mass catering techniques such as cook-chill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) said. I wanted to spend a good deal of my speech looking at what is happening in the Yorkshire region where cook-chill methods are coming into our hospitals as part of the privatisation of NHS catering services. The extent of the problems that arise from cook-chill methods is not known. Conservative Members say that we have no figures, but the Government do not ask the questions in order to obtain them.
  Within the past 18 months in the Leeds area there have been six known deaths from listeriosis—three babies and three elderly people. Those deaths have been proven to be

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  the result of listeriosis related to food consumption. That fact comes from Professor Richard Lacey, who has been abused several times today by a number of Conservative Members. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mrs. Peacock) left the Chamber a long time ago, no doubt to go for dinner. I wish that she would address her comments on Professor Lacey to the lady in Horsforth who lost her baby through consuming food purchased from a supermarket. The complacency that I have heard tonight from Conservative Members is incredible.
  If the six deaths in Leeds reflected the situation nationally—there is no reason to believe that they do not—that would mean 400 deaths per annum from listeriosis. That is a disgrace.
  I have had a bad day. I have sat here for five hours and have only five minutes at the end of the debate. I also sat through health questions today. My question was No. 15 but we reached only No. 12. I asked the Secretary of State for Health:
  "what proportion of perinatal deaths, still births and miscarriages which have occurred over the past year have been examined for the presence of listeria monocytogenes."
  The answer was:
  "Post-mortem examinations of still births or perinatal deaths to establish the presence of listeria monocytogenes would only be carried out at the request of clinical staff or a coroner, and we do not hold information on these requests centrally."
  That is why we know nothing about listeria. The figures are not asked for. The Government are covering up the reality of what is going on.
  It is a disgrace that I am limited to this small amount of time at this stage in the debate. My constituents are faced with the introduction within the next few weeks of cook-chill methods in their hospital. They cannot opt out of that. They do not have the great consumer choice about which the Government talk. They will have that method whether they like it or not. The people of Wakefield are frightened by what is facing them.
  9.8 pm
  Mr. Bill Walker: We have been exposed to substantial media scaremongering in recent weeks and months. One example of that is the so-called level of radiation said to be found in the Rannoch area of my constituency. At best that can be described as dangerous misinformation. It could have a damaging impact on the major industry—tourism—of that area. No thought was given to that by those who appeared on television to talk about it.
  It is interesting to hear that all the things that make us Scots so happy and enjoy being on this planet—whisky, haggis, lamb, red meat, fish and chips—are not good for one. What nonsense. We have to achieve a balance; a balance about the risk.
  Every aspect of human activity contains risk. We must look at the element of risk and what the choices are. In car driving, coach tours, travelling on ships, cycling or even walking on the roads there is a risk. We have to evaluate the risk and how we should deal with the problems. Sufficient levels of inspection and supervision are required, not repressive levels. Hon. Members on the Opposition Benches have leaned largely to repression.
  There is no question whatever but that the housewife and the farmer have a joint interest in this matter. To put the record straight on some comments that were made
  926
  earlier about farmers, the farmers in my constituency made it quite clear during the salmonella scare connected with eggs that the first thing that we had to do was to get the facts, the second was to deal with the facts when they were known and the third was, if any compensation was required in any area, to deal with that. The farmers approached the matter, as they have in my experience approached all such matters, responsibly and respectfully. I wish to put the record straight because I will not have Opposition Members calling the people in my constituency, who are the backbone of Scotland.
  9.11 pm
  Dr. David Clark: This has been an interesting debate, a debate of two halves. One half of the debate has been about facts and the other about false perceptions. I must say that from the beginning the majority of the facts came from the Opposition and the false perceptions from the Government.
  I found it rather strange that we on the Opposition Benches were being attacked for considering bringing in legislation to ban green top milk. It is not our proposal to do that; it is a proposal, if I understood correctly what he said as reported in the papers, that the Minister of Agriculture is considering. We were also attacked for making assertions about listeria in soft cheeses. It was not we who raised that matter; it was none other than the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture.
  I felt that Government Members were slightly unfair in accusing us on those points, but this emphasises perhaps the point that 1 am making, that they were talking about false perceptions and we were talking about facts.
  We have had a good, wide-ranging debate in which a great many hon. Members have been able to participate. I regret that we did not have longer, because I know that many hon. Members would have liked a little more time to develop some other arguments.
  I also think that it was unfair and unwarranted to accuse us of scaremongering. It is the duty of the Opposition to highlight the inadequacies of the Government. Indeed, if we had not done so, especially when public health is at risk, we would not have been doing our duty. So we reject and rebut absolutely the charge of scaremongering. My right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) made that point quite clear at the beginning of his excellent speech today.
  We are not attacking the farmers or the food manufacturers. We accept that the overwhelming majority of those people are trying to provide us with food of a high quality. But we feel that the Government have been acting in a manner which is not beneficial to the consumers.
  The theme that has come from all Opposition speakers is that we should really not be surprised at the Government's failure to protect food. Food safety and the basic philosophy of the Government are simply incompatible. For any Government to proclaim their priority to sweep away regulations and their ambition to reduce public expenditure and to cut the number of public servants in monitoring food, research and development is a recipe for an epidemic of food poisoning, and that is what we have in Britain. Incidents of food poisoning have doubled since 1985. That is a fact and we have approached the debate on the basis of facts.
  I shall examine some of the points in a little more detail. I asserted that the Government do not like regulations.

  927
  Ever since the Government came to office, they have made no pretence of their ambition to sweep away regulations because they have seen regulation as an unwarranted attack on free enterprise. The Opposition reject that view. We contend that, without minimal positive state intervention, the public will remain vulnerable in terms of safeguarding our food and the environment. Almost from their first day of office, the Government started dismantling and weakening the regulations that protect the general public.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn said that the chairman of the United Kingdom Renderers' Association, John Field, summarised the situation well in his comments on the Government's proposal to regulate protein processing plants. He said:
  "There was a change of heart when the Conservatives came into office. They were happy to drop the idea of a code and settle for random testing."
  As we now know, the result was that thousands of people suffered from salmonella poisoning as the regulations for protein processing plants were not strict enough.
  For almost 10 years, the Government have continued their unremitting campaign. In July 1985, they were bold enough to publish a White Paper called "Lifting the Burden", in which they made no secret of their views. They argued:
  "the impact of regulation takes its toll in diverting precious time and energy that would be far better used in generating products, services, sales."
  I might add, "and profits". Their intentions were clear and, as a consequence, they continued the process of removing statutory protection, at the cost of the health of the general public. I put to the Minister the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew): is it right that the public health regulations have been changed and that people with a positive salmonella test result could be working in the food processing industry or serving in food shops? That is a serious matter which affects public health directly and we need to know whether that is the case.
  Time and time again in the recent debate on the quality of food there have been examples of the Government pursuing that key theme and, by doing so, putting the public at risk. On listeria, we know that the Government had in preparation 20 months ago regulations that covered cook-chill foods. The Secretary of State for Health said that there was disagreement between scientists about that. Yes, there was, but the Secretary of State could have taken it further and said that there were disagreements between scientists in the Department of Health and scientists in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The two Departments were bickering and arguing and, as a result, we have not yet had those regulations. The sooner we have them the better.
  Of course, not only consumers are concerned. Our evidence is that most progressive manufacturers and food retailers support sensible regulation because that is the only way in which they can retain the confidence of consumers and customers and, therefore, stay in business. However, our criticisms do not concern only regulations. The Government have been involved in delay and procrastination all the way. From the beginning, they had a deliberate policy of cutting back on research and development, as well as on monitoring. Tragically, the pace is quickening, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) argued accurately at some length.
  928
  It is widely acknowledged that we are short of environmental health officers who are the first line of defence for the customer. However, although it may have gone largely unnoticed, there has been a swingeing decrease in the number of staff employed by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Between 1981 and 1984, there was a reduction in science staff of over 8 per cent. Between 1984 and 1988, there was a loss of a further 15 per cent. That means that since the Government came to office one quarter of the science posts in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food have been axed. That is not good news for food safety.
  Let us examine the picture in a little more detail. The state veterinary service is vital to animal and therefore to human health. Its role is critical to food safety because vets intervene at an earlier stage than environmental health officers. Although they are vital, in a written answer that I received yesterday from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, I was informed that the number of veterinary officers permanently employed in Great Britain since this Government came to office has fallen by nearly one quarter.
  Those drastic cuts have had an effect on food safety. They have resulted in a reduction in the level of abattoir monitoring for hygiene and welfare standards from 53 man years in 1983 to 45 man years in 1987. The monitoring of poultry slaughter premises over the same period shows a fall from 8·5 man years to 7·1 man years. Those are serious and significant reductions in the inspections undertaken in relation to meat and poultry slaughters.
  In turning to further examples to make my point, I emphasise that we are talking about facts. We are not speculating. It is clear that, although there is a growing link between problems in animal health and human health, the Government are failing to recognise that. Although the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has the greatest difficulty in recruiting veterinary officers, the Treasury is forcing the University Grants Committee to cut the number of veterinary schools. The proposals to close the two schools at Cambridge and Glasgow are indefensible and are yet another example of the Government putting short-term financial considerations before the long-term health of the British people.
  The Government's cuts in research and development are proceeding unabated. During the past four years, cuts in research and development in the Ministry have resulted in the loss of no fewer than 2,000 research posts—a reduction of 25 per cent. in staff numbers. On top of that, the Government are now proposing to cut research and development in agriculture by another 30 per cent., which will include vital research work in food and other environmental concerns.
  It is true that
  "public funding in this area has been significantly cut, and further reductions are in prospect. This is not in the long term interest of the United Kingdom."
  Those are not my words, but were given in evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on Agriculture and Food Research. That was a considered view shared by a Committee with a majority of Conservative Members.
  Only last Friday the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food issued a statement warning pregnant women to stay away from sheep and new-born lambs because they could be risking their own health and that of their unborn baby in a condition known as enzootic abortion. That was

  929
  wise and sensible advice. The tragedy is that, while the right hand is issuing that advice, the left hand is making research cuts at the Moredun research institute in Edinburgh. What hypocrisy from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
  I shall not outline the cuts in research into salmonella but I feel that the Minister has been little more than disingenuous in his claims that research at the institute of food at Bristol has been completed. The research is complete but he knows that it will not be worth while until the development work takes place.
  I shall repeat the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley). He asked how the Minister could find £19 million at the drop of a hat to support the egg industry but not find £300,000 to allow this project to continue for another few years. That is the sort of question which I hope that the Minister will attempt to answer.
  At the Moredun research institute, vital research into listeriosis has also been cut back. Why? The Opposition submit that it is another example of the Government's actions not matching their words.
  Furthermore, the Opposition know of a range of cuts in agriculture and food research into milk and cheese production. I would have thought that cheese production was one issue about which the Minister would like to know more.
  The Government are culpable not only of cutting research and staffing but of delay in action. Their complacency in dealing with bovine spongiform encephalopathy—BSE—is little short of a scandal.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Donald Thompson): Rubbish!
  Dr. Clark: The Minister shouts rubbish, but it took 18 months before the Ministry could summon enough courage in June 1988 even to make the disease notifiable. We then had to wait another two months before it introduced a compulsory slaughter and compensation scheme. Compensation of 50 per cent. of the estimated market value is not good enough. It means that farmers stand to lose between £350 and £400 per cow. What is most serious is that reports show that as a result some farmers sell animals for slaughter—hence into the food chain—as soon as the first suspicious signs appear.
  In The Sunday Telegraph of 19 February, a senior National Farmers Union source is reported as saying:
  "It is common knowledge in the industry that infected animals have gone into the food chain."
  That could be lethal.
  It should be noted that BSE is increasingly widely recognised as constituting, eventually, a possible risk to human health. It already appears to have jumped species from sheep to cattle. It is widely acknowledged in medical circles that it has jumped to humans in the form of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. All three forms of the disease affect the brain and the central nervous system. If hon. Members doubt that, I refer them to the British Medical Journal of 4 June—
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: Half the Cabinet have spongybrain.
  Dr. Clark: My hon. Friend appears to have other ideas.
  930
  This species jump appears to occur when the brain or spinal cord of an affected animal is eaten, yet the Government refuse to take steps to stop meat products made from sheep and cattle brains entering the food chain. It must be noted that the incubation period before the disease manifests itself may be two or three years, and many animals with the latent disease inevitably enter the food chain. Why do not the Government ban the sale of animal brains in the United Kingdom?
  There is a lighter side to the matter. I know that the Minister occasionally eats in the House. Is he aware that mock turtle frequently appears on the menu of the House and that it is made from calves' brains? Does that make a lot of sense? I urge the Minister to ban the sale of calves' and sheep brains.
  How can the Government justify cutbacks on research into BSE? Is the Minister aware that blood samples from infected herds are held in storage at the central veterinary laboratories because there are no resources to proceed with research projects jointly with the institute of animal health in Edinburgh? Why will the Government not release necessary monies for that vital research to go ahead?
  While we are on the subject of animal health, it is difficult for the public to assess accurately the extent of many of these events because of the excessive secrecy of the Ministry of Agriculture. We have seen this attitude especially during the drug trials by companies including Monsanto in which the milk-producing hormone BST has been tested. It is inexcusable that the Government have allowed 15 farms throughout the country to allow tests on cows to boost their milk production but then have allowed the milk to enter the food chain, so that consumers unwittingly drink milk produced in this way.
  We appreciate that the public safeguard to this lies in the veterinary products committee of the Ministry of Agriculture, which advises Ministers on the safety of BST. The committee advised the Government to go ahead with field trials and we have no grumbles about that. But does the Minister deny to the House tonight that that same veterinary products committee has on two occasions advised the Minister against granting a product licence to Monsanto chemicals in respect of BST on grounds of safety? Will the Minister come clean and confirm to the House the accuracy of that information?
  In the past few months the Government have been in a state of complete disarray and confusion. This would be amusing if public health had not been at risk. There can be no doubt that the Government have shown incompetence in handling this issue. They have been pushed in one direction by the powerful drug and chemical companies and in the other by the strength of public feeling. But the issue goes to the root of the Conservative party's approach to the quality of life. Food safety and environmental protection cannot be attained purely by market forces. The food issue proves that even wealth cannot guarantee food of safe quality. Increasingly, both prosperous and poor people in Britain are seeing a great reduction in their quality of life.—[Interruption.] I am most amused by the ribaldry on the Government's side. I am sure that that is not shared by the commuters coming into our big cities who are caught up in the traffic when they travel by road or who experience overcrowding and cancellation if they travel by rail, for that is the order of the day. Anyone who travels on the London Underground knows that that service has deteriorated and that cuts in investment lead to delays, overcrowding and poor safety standards.

  931
  The Government, in their bid to reward their friends by privatising water, not only openly announce that they do not intend to adopt the European Commission's standards of safety for water, but actively campaign for those safety standards to be lowered. They are condemning millions of people in Britain to inferior water standards. That is not accepted by the Opposition.
  In essence, the debate has highlighted the differences between the Labour Opposition and the Government. The time has now come when the people see that the Government's fundamental approach is not in the interests of protecting the quality of life, whether that is the safety of our food, our water, our environment or our transport system. The events of the past few days illustrate clearly that people will demand better and higher standards with regard to their quality of life, especially for those essentials—food and water. It is clear that the Government, with their philosophical hang-up, are incapable of meeting the demands of the British people.
  9.35 pm
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John MacGregor): We have had a debate—[Interruption.] TI at shows how little the Opposition are prepared to lis .en. We allowed the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) who wound up for the Opposition to make his speech, and I hope that I will be allowed to reply to the many points that have been made in this debate. I will endeavour to reply to as many as possible, but at the beginning I should like to set the general background.
  I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) and with my hon. Friends the Members for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Marland) and for Batley and Spen (Mrs. Peacock), who emphasised the very high standards of food safety we have in this country, both compared with any earlier period and compared with most other countries, and who insisted that it is right that the Government continue to deal with food safety issues in a logical, carefully thought out, clear and unhysterical manner. That is what we have been doing.
  Let me start by stressing that we see it as our responsibility, first, to ensure the safety of all food supplies, regardless of their source; secondly, to ensure that the interests of consumers and of the industry are taken fully into account; and, thirdly, to ensure that, throughout the food chain, there is effective monitoring and a framework of fully adequate regulations and the right framework to enforce them.
  In carrying out these responsibilities, we act on three principles, which I think it is very important to bear in mind: first, thorough surveillance and monitoring; secondly, prompt action—[Interruption.] On all the issues that have been raised today I will demonstrate that we have taken prompt action, but—and this is a critical point—it has been based on the best scientific, medical and technical advice, which, of course, means not acting on supposition or rumour but only when we have the clear information and evidence. The right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) talked about deregulation and about the Government's desire not to overburden the industry. We do not burden any industry with regulations unless there is good reason to do so, but we take the necessary action when the evidence is there.
  932
  The third general principle is that the public should be given full information, including the results of research and monitoring, and timely health advice. I shall have something to say later about the substance—or, rather, the lack of it—of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. Let me say straight away that there are three points on which I agree with him. First, the Government must set and maintain standards of protection—and that we have done and are doing. Secondly, as he accepted, consumers need to handle food properly. I was grateful to him for saying that, because some of his hon. Friends have suggested that when, this point is made, the Government are endeavouring to shuffle off responsibility. I do not think that that is the case at all, and he agreed that it was right to advise consumers of the need to handle food properly. We have to acknowledge the fact that food hygiene issues apply throughout the food chain.
  Dr. Reid rose—
  Mr. MacGregor: I am not going to give way, because I have many points to answer.
  We are carrying out the food hygiene education programme following market research that we undertook last year. That research indicated, among other things, that a surprisingly low proportion of consumers actually regard the home as a potential hazard for food. We agree on that, and we are taking action on it.
  The third point on which I agree with the right hon. Gentleman is the importance, as he put it, of the British people not over-reacting to panic headlines. This is a very important point. Many of my hon. Friends have emphasised the importance of keeping food issues in perspective. I only wish that some Labour Members had heeded their own leader's advice, including what the hon. Member for South Shields said in his winding-up speech.
  Dr. Reid rose—
  Mr. MacGregor: I have to give answers to many hon. Members who have raised questions in the debate, and I intend to do so.
  The right hon. Gentleman and some others spoke in exaggerated terms that do nothing to keep the matter in perspective. Let me emphasise that we are certainly) not complacent. We recognise that we have some new and serious problems.
  Dr. Reid rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. This has been a quiet debate so far. I hope that hon. Members who were not present during the debate will not now interrupt the Minister.
  Mr. MacGregor: I have a lot to cover. Many important points were raised. If I can get through them, I will give way.
  I want to emphasise that we are not complacent. We recognise that we have new and serious problems, which we have tackled and are tackling. Equally, there is no cover-up. We have always made public the information that is available to us. Indeed, one of the problems in the whole food issue is that we publish so much information it is sometimes difficult to get the key facts through consistently. So let me get the perspective clear.
  Our consumers are better protected than ever before in terms of our knowledge of potential risks and the action taken to reduce them. I emphasise the point on reduction

  933
  of risks since it is impossible to live in a risk-free environment. Those who ask that we should be salmonella-free do not understand the nature of the problem. Salmonella has existed ever since man can remember. [Interruption.] There is nothing odd in saying that. Salmonella is in the environment. It is not possible to eradicate it and no country has succeeded in doing so.
  What we aim to do is to reduce salmonella to the absolute minimum. I am told, for example, that each gramme of soil contains 10 to 100 million bacteria. It is self-evident that we cannot control birds and rodents or avoid muck among livestock. So problems always exist. What we can do is to observe all rules that protect the food chain. This we have done by regulations on what animals eat, what additions can be made to their diet and what medicines they can be treated with. For arable and horticultural crops, we have greatly increased the controls and regulations over pesticides and the quantities in which they can be used on land. There are strict controls over diseased animals. There are controls at slaughterhouses and throughout the distribution chain down to the retail cabinet in the supermarket.
  That demonstrates that the Government are very active in pursuing a science-based reduction of risk. In all areas where improvements can be made we are seeking to enhance safety margins. Often safety margins are ultra-safe.
  Dr. Reid rose—
  Mr. MacGregor: That is a clear response to the charge of the right hon. Gentleman that our emphasis is on protecting producers. On the new legislation on pesticides, on the fact that we have 17 measures dealing with the new strain of salmonella—[Interruption.] They are all in parliamentary answers. It would be pointless to reply to them now. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman does not do his homework. He does not read Hansard; they are all there. I shall happily send him the parliamentary answers.
  In all these ways, we have been taking measures to deal with the problems in the industry. On mineral hydrocarbons, despite the fact that the advice to us is that there is no food risk, to be ultra-safe we have taken further steps which the industry will have to follow. We are guided by various advisory bodies.
  Dr. Reid rose—
  Mr. MacGregor: We have a wide range of advisory bodies with outside experts on whose advice we act. I will demonstrate in answer to some of the issues that have been raised how quickly they have acted. These produce a stream of reports and we act on them promptly.
  Dr. Reid rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Opposition Front Bench spokesman was listened to quietly. I hope that the Minister will be accorded the same courtesy.
  Mr. MacGregor: With the background I have given, I come to some of the charges. We get advice and we publish reports. There was prompt action on Chernobyl lamb, on BSE, on dialdrin in eels, on salmonella and on mineral hydrocarbons, to give a few recent examples. Until very recently, we were constantly taking action based on the advice we received, but the reports of surveillance and the
  934
  action that we took normally did not get much press coverage. That did not mean that they were ineffective. They were doing a job and appropriate action was being taken in the interests of consumers.
  Dr. Reid rose—
  Mr. MacGregor: I want to get through the points that were made and then I shall give way.
  Of course, the industry, from the primary producers right through the food manufacturers to the retailers, has an equally strong interest, as some of my hon. Friends have been pointing out, in ensuring the highest possible standards of food safety and quality. After all, they depend on their customers, and increasingly their customers are demanding higher standards of quality. I believe that the industry has responded extremely well over recent years, and let me illustrate that by two points.
  British food exports have increased by nearly 140 per cent. over the last 10 years—and in the added-value food sector exports rose by 20 per cent. in the last year alone. One does not get that standard of performance of increased exports unless our food standards and quality are of the highest. That is the proof. British industry is spending substantial sums on investment. One company is spending £200 million in two years to improve food standards and quality. Those hon. Members who mentioned the importance of what supermarkets do to ensure high standards were quite right. Much has been happening recently.
  I would like to bring out a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen, when she drew attention to the fact that this country and Denmark are the only two member states in the European Community which have been accorded high standards of milk hygiene. When we reached that status at the end of last year it received a lot less publicity than a single food poisoning story, but I have to say that it was of much greater significance to the consumer. It was evidence of very high standards.
  As to the charge that we do not take the consumer into account when we are considering food issues, let me make it clear that my Department takes full account of consumer interests across the whole range of its activities. We have always been ready to meet representatives of consumer organisations and Ministers have always responded when asked to do so. Last year, in addition, my officials had 31 meetings with consumer organisations. My Department also requests written consultation with consumer organisations on a wide variety of issues. Much of the consultation is and can be taken into account in writing. In 1988 we consulted 40 consumer organisations on no fewer than 225 occasions on 35 different issues. We always consult under the Food Act when subordinate legislation is being proposed and last year we did so on 38 occasions. So consultation with consumers is intense.
  Now let me come to the salmonella issue, because I have indicated how we have taken prompt action on others. This is a new and growing problem, as everyone recognises. It is an international problem, which is being met in many other states. When the problem first came to the attention of our scientists, they had to investigate it carefully and closely towards the end of 1987 to be sure of the evidence before we acted. When it became clear that there was a problem with raw eggs, the Department of Health acted promptly both in relation to the hospital

  935
  service and the consumer. When it became clear in November of last year—and it only became clear then—that there could, in addition, be a problem directly related to lightly cooked eggs, on 21 November a health notice and an announcement were issued straightaway. In the period from August until the end of November my officials were working flat out with the Department of Health and with the industry to develop the measures we now see. As I told the Select Committee, a package was put in front of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and myself in early November. We took decisions within a fortnight, strengthened them, and the first announcement was made in December. Since then we have taken 17 measures, and we can fairly claim that they are among the most comprehensive in any country in the world, because I have consulted all my ministerial colleagues in the Community, and I am confident that that is so.
  Similarly, with mineral hydrocarbons, we received the advice of our food advisory committee on 2 February this year. Within a week we had not only taken a decision but announced it to Parliament. That is the promptness with which we act.
  Let me turn now to BSE—[Interruption.] I will answer the point that the hon. Gentleman asked earlier about food protein and salmonella. He is quite right that I owe him an answer on that. The answer, as with so many of the issues concerned with salmonella, is that until this new and growing strain became clear, it was not necessary to take the kind of measures we take now, and that applied also to food protein. Incidentally, the hon. Gentleman ought to know that there are very few cases of salmonella enteritidis virus type 4 coming from food protein, whether imported or domestic.
  Nevertheless, one of the 17 measures that we have implemented is to take powers to stop the protein going from the plant. Those powers have been in operation since 2 February, and we will use them whenever the evidence is there. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) must not start shouting from a sedentary position. He has had his questions answered.
  Mr. MacGregor: The hon. Member for Clwyd, South-West (Mr. Jones) raised the question of BSE. He is right to say that this is a new problem which must be taken seriously. Here, too, we acted promptly. The moment that it became clear that the probable source—not yet proved at that stage—was protein from other ruminants, namely sheep, we banned it. I also set up a committee under Sir Richard Southwood to advise us. Sir Richard will acknowledge that within days I accepted the exact advice and recommendations set out in his two interim reports and we took the necessary action.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours rose—
  Mr. MacGregor: I have a lot more to say.
  Very recently, Sir Richard put before me his final report. Ministers are now examining the report and its recommendations. We shall take a very quick view of it and publish it in full: I give that promise to the House.
  Hon. Members have given examples of food poisoning resulting from unpasteurised milk. The Government made a number of decisions to deal with the problem in England and Wales by limiting substantially the number of outlets for unpasteurised milk. We have a problem here. Let me
  936
  say to some of my hon. Friends who are unhappy about my recent announcement that I thought long and hard. It could be argued that straightforward information enabling the consumer to take his own view about a product is sufficient, but there is increasing public concern about food safety and we are constantly seeking ever higher standards. That is why we decided that in this instance such considerations outweigh freedom of consumer choice in relation to the continued sale of untreated milk.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that the Secretary of State is going to give way.
  Mr. MacGregor: I hope that my hon. Friends will forgive me for not giving way. There will be other opportunities for them to speak, and I must get through the rest of my reply.
  Effective heat treatment is known to be the only way in which to minimise the risks of transmitting milk-borne diseases to the consumer through unpasteurised milk. I therefore feel that it is right to take that step now. We shall be publishing—[Interruption.] Opposition Members want issues such as research and development to be discussed, and I am anxious to deal with them.
  We shall be publishing the consultative document later this week. Issues concerned with unpasteurised milk and other milk products will be included in that document. May I make it clear, however, that there is no intention of banning cheese.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. If the Minister will not give way, the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) and other hon. Members must not persist.
  Mr. MacGregor: I have some serious points to respond to about research and development. I hope that, despite the hubbub, I have made clear the position on cheese from unpasteurised milk. We do not propose a general ban, as will be clear from the consultation document.
  I have defended the position relating to near market research and development many times in the House. But it is not the case that the industry funding of near market research and development applies to issues of public good and food safety. We shall still be spending more than £200 million a year on research and development.
  With regard to salmonella, I am currently considering the recommendations of the working party's report and we have increased the amount of research into BST in the past year.
  The Leader of the Opposition charged us with the task of anticipating, planning and providing for change. One of the big challenges these days in relation to food safety is the fast-changing food technology, food processing and food innovation. We have been doing that regularly by bringing forward necessary regulations based on scientific advice such as the food hygiene regulations to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State referred.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours rose—
  Dr. Reid rose—
  Mr. MacGregor: Since October 1987 there has been a review of food legislation and when parliamentary time permits we propose to introduce a new Food Bill.
  We announced last year that we accepted the expert advice that under prescribed conditions irradiated food is safe and wholesome, but we also stated that we wanted to make sure that we had proper advice on the scope and format of regulatory controls before doing so. We expect a report from officials on that point.
  Because of the lack of time I have not been able to cover many issues that have been raised, but I have demonstrated that there has been no cover-up, no conspiracy with the industry and certainly no complacency, but regular and prompt action based on a wide range of scientific advice.
  The criticisms levelled against the Government and the British food industry today have been misleading and alarmist. They are also out of date and inaccurate. Labour's feeble claim that the British food industry is no more than a capitalist conspiracy against consumers is even dottier than suggesting that the Leader of the Opposition uses words as sparingly as Clement Attlee. If the Labour party is so concerned about food safety, why did it not initiate a single Opposition day debate on the subject between 1979 and 1989? Was it because Labour Members were satisfied with and supported our policies or was it because they lacked interest in and knowledge of the subject? The answer is yes to both questions. Now, suddenly they try to belittle our policies, which some of them have supported for the past 10 years and others have ignored.
  I refer to the exchanges in the House on 5 December 1988 when my right hon. Friend reported on salmonella in eggs and the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) responded—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: I doubt whether it is a point of order, but I shall hear it.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: At 4.50 pm the Secretary of State gave me a promise that I would receive an assurance from the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that all protein feedstuff supplies from the producer were free from salmonella. I still have not received such an assurance. What am I to do?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. That is patently not a point of order from me. It is a point of argument with the Minister.
  Mr. MacGregor: The hon. Gentleman raised that point of order for the simple reason that he is afraid of what I am about to say.
  In his reply on 5 December, the hon. Member for Livingston did not refer to the food safety aspects of salmonella; he simply called for the resignation of my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie).
  The Labour party lacks credibility on food issues and the performance of Labour Members today has shown us why. Their grasp of the subject has been scanty and their knowledge even scantier and that was reflected in the speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. By contrast, we have increased the number of food scientists and surveillance of the food chain. We have
  938
  increased expenditure on food safety and we have taken promptly all the necessary action based on the scientific advice.
  Another point of interest to the consumer is food prices. I noted that the Labour party is now suggesting a new food agency. I shall talk about that on another occasion. However, when the Labour Government had a Department of Prices and Consumer Protection, there was a massive increase in food prices much larger than has ever occurred under this Government. That is why we say that we are proud of our record. We are proud of the scientists, doctors and veterinary surgeons who monitor the changes with skill and probity. Today was expected to be the Leader of the Opposition's big day. He failed to make his case. I rest mine on our record.
  Mr. Derek Foster rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
  Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 199, Noes 289.

  Division No. 107]

  [10.00 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Cunningham, Dr John

  Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

  Darling, Alistair

  Alton, David

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Anderson, Donald

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Armstrong, Hilary

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

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Dewar, Donald

  Ashton, Joe

  Dixon, Don

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Dobson, Frank

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Doran, Frank

  Barron, Kevin

  Douglas, Dick

  Battle, John

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Beckett, Margaret

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Beith, A. J.

  Eadie, Alexander

  Bell, Stuart

  Eastham, Ken

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

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

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Fatchett, Derek

  Blair, Tony

  Fearn, Ronald

  Blunkett, David

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Boateng, Paul

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

  Boyes, Roland

  Fisher, Mark

  Bradley, Keith

  Flannery, Martin

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Flynn, Paul

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Foster, Derek

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Foulkes, George

  Buchan, Norman

  Fraser, John

  Buckley, George J.

  Fyfe, Maria

  Caborn, Richard

  Galbraith, Sam

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Gordon, Mildred

  Cartwright, John

  Gould, Bryan

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Graham, Thomas

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Clay, Bob

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Clelland, David

  Grocott, Bruce

  Cohen, Harry

  Hardy, Peter

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Corbett, Robin

  Haynes, Frank

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Cryer, Bob

  Henderson, Doug

  Cummings, John

  Hinchliffe, David

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  939

  Holland, Stuart.

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Home Robertson, John

  Patchett, Terry

  Hood, Jimmy

  Pendry, Tom

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Pike, Peter L.

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Radice, Giles

  Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

  Randall, Stuart

  Illsley, Eric

  Redmond, Martin

  Ingram, Adam

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Janner, Greville

  Reid, Dr John

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

  Richardson, Jo

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Lambie, David

  Robertson, George

  Lamond, James

  Robinson, Geoffrey

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Rooker, Jeff

  Leighton, Ron

  Ruddock, Joan

  Lewis, Terry

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Litherland, Robert

  Sheerman, Barry

  Livingstone, Ken

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Short, Clare

  Loyden, Eddie

  Skinner, Dennis

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  McCartney, Ian

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

  Macdonald, Calum A.

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

  McFall, John

  Snape, Peter

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Soley, Clive

  McKelvey, William

  Spearing, Nigel

  McNamara, Kevin

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  McTaggart, Bob

  Steinberg, Gerry

  McWilliam, John

  Stott, Roger

  Madden, Max

  Strang, Gavin

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Straw, Jack

  Marek, Dr John

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Turner, Dennis

  Martlew, Eric

  Vaz, Keith

  Maxton, John

  Wall, Pat

  Meacher, Michael

  Walley, Joan

  Meale, Alan

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Michael, Alun

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

  Wilson, Brian

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Winnick, David

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Morley, Elliott

  Worthington, Tony

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Wray, Jimmy

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Mullin, Chris

  Murphy, Paul

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Nellist, Dave

  Mrs Llin Golding and

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Mr. Nigel Griffiths.

  O'Brien, William

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Body, Sir Richard

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Boswell, Tim

  Amess, David

  Bottomley, Peter

  Amos, Alan

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Arbuthnot, James

  Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Bowis, John

  Ashby, David

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Baldry, Tony

  Brazier, Julian

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Bright, Graham

  Batiste, Spencer

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

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Beggs, Roy

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Bellingham, Henry

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

  Bendall, Vivian

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Benyon, W.

  Burns, Simon

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Burt, Alistair

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Butcher, John

  940

  Butler, Chris

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Butterfill, John

  Holt, Richard

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Carrington, Matthew

  Howard, Michael

  Carttiss, Michael

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

  Cash, William

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Chope, Christopher

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Churchill, Mr

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Colvin, Michael

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Conway, Derek

  Irvine, Michael

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Irving, Charles

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Jack, Michael

  Couchman, James

  Jackson, Robert

  Critchley, Julian

  Jesse], Toby

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

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

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Day, Stephen

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Devlin, Tim

  Key, Robert

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Kilfedder, James

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Dover, Den

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Dunn, Bob

  Knapman, Roger

  Durant, Tony

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Dykes, Hugh

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Knowles, Michael

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Knox, David

  Evennett, David

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

  Lang, Ian

  Fallon, Michael

  Latham, Michael

  Favell, Tony

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Forman, Nigel

  Lightbown, David

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Lilley, Peter

  Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Forth, Eric

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Lord, Michael

  Franks, Cecil

  Lyell, Sir Nicholas

  Freeman, Roger

  McCrindle, Robert

  French, Douglas

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Gale, Roger

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Gill, Christopher

  Maclean, David

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Madel, David

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Matins, Humfrey

  Gow, Ian

  Mans, Keith

  Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

  Maples, John

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Marland, Paul

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Marlow, Tony

  Gregory, Conal

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Grist, Ian

  Mates, Michael

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Mellor, David

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Hannam, John

  Mills, Iain

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

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Harris, David

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Hayward, Robert

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Heddle, John

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Needham, Richard

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Hill, James

  Norris, Steve

  Hind, Kenneth

  Pawsey, James

  941

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Raffan, Keith

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Riddick, Graham

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Thorne, Neil

  Ross, William (Londonderry E)

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Thurnham, Peter

  Rowe, Andrew

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Ryder, Richard

  Tracey, Richard

  Sainsbury, Hon Tim

  Trippier, David

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Trotter, Neville

  Scott, Nicholas

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Viggers, Peter

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Walden, George

  Shersby, Michael

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Sims, Roger

  Waller, Gary

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Walters, Sir Dennis

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Ward, John

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

  Watts, John

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Wells, Bowen

  Speed, Keith

  Wheeler, John

  Speller, Tony

  Whitney, Ray

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Squire, Robin

  Wilkinson, John

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Steen, Anthony

  Wolfson, Mark

  Stern, Michael

  Wood, Timothy

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Woodcock, Mike

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Yeo, Tim

  Stokes, Sir John

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Sumberg, David

  Summerson, Hugo

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle, and

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Mr. Tom Sackville.

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments):—
  The House divided: Ayes 287, Noes 199.

  Division No. 108]

  [10.14 pm

  AYES

  Adley, Robert

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Body, Sir Richard

  Amess, David

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Amos, Alan

  Boswell, Tim

  Arbuthnot, James

  Bottomley, Peter

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

  Ashby, David

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Bowis, John

  Baldry, Tony

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Batiste, Spencer

  Brazier, Julian

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Bright, Graham

  Beggs, Roy

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

  Bellingham, Henry

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Bendall, Vivian

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

  Benyon, W.

  Buck, Sir Antony

  942

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Burns, Simon

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Burt, Alistair

  Hind, Kenneth

  Butcher, John

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Butler, Chris

  Holt, Richard

  Butterfill, John

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Howard, Michael

  Carrington, Matthew

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

  Carttiss, Michael

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Cash, William

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Chapman, Sydney

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Chope, Christopher

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Churchill, Mr

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Colvin, Michael

  Irvine, Michael

  Conway, Derek

  Irving, Charles

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Jack, Michael

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Jackson, Robert

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Jessel, Toby

  Couchman, James

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Critchley, Julian

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

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

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Key, Robert

  Day, Stephen

  Kilfedder, James

  Devlin, Tim

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Knapman, Roger

  Dover, Den

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Dunn, Bob

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Durant, Tony

  Knowles, Michael

  Dykes, Hugh

  Knox, David

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Lang, Ian

  Evennett, David

  Latham, Michael

  Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Fallon, Michael

  Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

  Favell, Tony

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Lightbown, David

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Lilley, Peter

  Forman, Nigel

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

  Lord, Michael

  Forth, Eric

  Lyell, Sir Nicholas

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  McCrindle, Robert

  Franks, Cecil

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Freeman, Roger

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  French, Douglas

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Gale, Roger

  Maclean, David

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Gill, Christopher

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Madel, David

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Malins, Humfrey

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Mans, Keith

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Maples, John

  Gow, Ian

  Marland, Paul

  Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

  Marlow, Tony

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Gregory, Conal

  Mates, Michael

  Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Grist, Ian

  Mellor, David

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Mills, Iain

  Hannam, John

  Miscampbell, Norman

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

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Harris, David

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Hayward, Robert

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Heddle, John

  Needham, Richard

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  943

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Norris, Steve

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Pawsey, James

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Raffan, Keith

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Riddick, Graham

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Ridsdale Sir Julian

  Thorne, Neil

  Roberts, Wyn ,(Conwy)

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Thurnham, Peter

  Ross, William (Londonderry E)

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Rowe, Andrew

  Tracey, Richard

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Trippier, David

  Ryder, Richard

  Trotter, Neville

  Sainsbury, Hon Tim

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Scott, Nicholas

  Viggers, Peter

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Walden, George

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Waller, Gary

  Shersby, Michael

  Walters, Sir Dennis

  Sims, Roger

  Ward, John

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Watts, John

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Wells, Bowen

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Wheeler, John

  Speed, Keith

  Whitney, Ray

  Speller, Tony

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Wilkinson, John

  Squire, Robin

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Wolfson, Mark

  Steen, Anthony

  Wood, Timothy

  Stern, Michael

  Woodcock, Mike

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Yeo, Tim

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Stokes, Sir John

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Sumberg, David

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Summerson, Hugo

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle and

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Mr. Tom Sackville.

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  NOES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Alton, David

  Cartwright, John

  Anderson. Donald

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Clay, Bob

  Ashton, Joe

  Clelland, David

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Cohen, Harry

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Barron, Kevin

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Battle, John

  Corbett, Robin

  Beckett, Margaret

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Beith, A. J.

  Cryer, Bob

  Bell, Stuart

  Cummings, John

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

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

  Cunningham, Dr John

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Darling, Alistair

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Blair, Tony

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Blunkett, David

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

  Boateng, Paul

  Dewar, Donald

  Boyes, Roland

  Dixon, Don

  Bradley, Keith

  Dobson, Frank

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Doran, Frank

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Douglas, Dick

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Buchan, Norman

  Eadie, Alexander

  Buckley, George J.

  Eastham, Ken

  Caborn, Richard

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  944

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Meacher, Michael

  Fatchett, Derek

  Meale, Alan

  Fearn, Ronald

  Michael, Alun

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

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

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

  Fisher, Mark

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Flannery, Martin

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Flynn, Paul

  Morley, Elliott

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Foster, Derek

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Foulkes, George

  Mullin, Chris

  Fraser, John

  Murphy, Paul

  Fyfe, Maria

  Nellist, Dave

  Galbraith, Sam

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  O'Brien, William

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Gordon, Mildred

  Patchett, Terry

  Gould, Bryan

  Pendry, Tom

  Graham, Thomas

  Pike, Peter L.

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Grocott, Bruce

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Hardy, Peter

  Radice, Giles

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Randall, Stuart

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Redmond, Martin

  Haynes, Frank

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Reid, Dr John

  Henderson, Doug

  Richardson, Jo

  Hinchliffe, David

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Robertson, George

  Holland, Stuart

  Robinson, Geoffrey

  Home Robertson, John

  Rooker, Jeff

  Hood, Jimmy

  Ruddock, Joan

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

  Sheerman, Barry

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

  Short, Clare

  Hume, John

  Skinner, Dennis

  Illsley, Eric

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Ingram, Adam

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

  Janner, Greville

  Smith, Rt Hon J. (Monk ds E)

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

  Snape, Peter

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  Soley, Clive

  Lambie, David

  Spearing, Nigel

  Lamond, James

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Leighton, Ron

  Stott, Roger

  Lewis, Terry

  Strang, Gavin

  Litherland, Robert

  Straw, Jack

  Livingstone, Ken

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Loyden, Eddie

  Turner, Dennis

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Vaz, Keith

  McCartney, Ian

  Wall, Pat

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Walley, Joan

  McFall, John

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Wareing, Robert N.

  McKelvey, William

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Wilson, Brian

  McTaggart, Bob

  Winnick, David

  McWilliam, John

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Madden, Max

  Worthington, Tony

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Wray, Jimmy

  Marek, Dr John

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Mrs. Llin Golding and

  Martlew, Eric

  Mr. Nigel Griffiths.

  Maxton. John

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  MR. SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House expresses complete confidence in the Government's policies for protecting the safety and quality of the nation's food and water supplies.

  Rating
  10.25 pm
  The Minister for Local Government (Mr. John Selwyn Gummer): I beg to move,
  That the draft Rate Limitation (Councils in England) (Prescribed Maximum) (Rates) Order 1989, which was laid before this House on 14th February, be approved.
  Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I draw your attention to the fact that the Order Paper notes:
  "The Instrument has not yet been considered by the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments"?
  I am happy to tell you that the instrument has been considered by the Committee and that there is nothing in the instrument to which we wish to draw the attention of the House. However, may I draw it to your attention that if there had been, the Committee would not have had time to ask for a memorandum or to take evidence and report to the House? Opposition and Government members of the Committee wanted me to express our deprecation that the order was being taken on the same day that it was being considered by the Committee. Such an arrangement should not be repeated because it hampers the work of the Committee.
  Mr. Speaker: Although I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern, I am pleased to hear that the Committee made no objection to the instrument. However, I am sure that members of the Government Front Bench have noted the hon. Gentleman's comments.
  Mr. Gummer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman that that was the case. As he knows, this is the last time that this particular format will be used. There are specific legal problems about timing that make this extremely difficult, but I apologise to all members of the Committee that this has happened.
  The order specifies rate limits for four of the seven authorities subject to rate capping in 1989–90. It marks the end of the rate-capping process, not only for the recent round, but for ever, for rate capping, of course, is not part of the new system of local government finance we are introducing from April 1990 and the system of charge capping, which we have provided in the new system, is rather different from rate capping both as regards its purpose and its operation.
  We introduced rate capping to protect ratepayers of those relatively few authorities which, due to their extravagances and incompetence, had a history of excessive spending—and rate capping has done its job. Gradually, the spending of the worst offenders has been brought down, so that this year we have been faced only with a hard core of seven authorities. We have lost some of our old favourites such as Liverpool and Lambeth, whose spending this year is now only modestly above their grant-related expenditure, or GRE—our needs assessment—although I would certainly not pretend that all is well in those authorities as regards the management of their finances and services.
  Even in the case of the seven authorities capped this year, we have made real progress in bringing down their spending. In 1984–85, Greenwich spent at nearly 60 per cent. over GRE. That compares with around 30 per cent. if it spends next year at the level implied by the limit we are
  946
  proposing in the draft order. Camden in 1984–85 was 85 per cent. over GRE compared with some 19 per cent. for next year, Lewisham nearly 53 per cent. in 1984–85 compared with 15 per cent. next year and Thamesdown 90 per cent. over GRE in 1984–85 compared with 37 per cent. next year. The average overspending of those authorities in 1984–85 was 69 per cent. Next year it will be a little over 20 per cent. That shows that rate capping has not only benefited ratepayers, but that it has enabled the more moderate and sensible of those authorities to bring their spending under control.
  Of course, I accept that some authorities have used creative accounting to camouflage for a time their true level of spending and to put off the day when real reductions have to be made. This, of course, made the reductions all the more painful when they had to be made.
  Mr. Peter Shore (Bethnal Green and Stepney): Simply as a point of information, may I say that I believe that three other local authorities are subjected to rate limitation but are not included in the order because agreement had already been reached with them. Can the Minister give the equivalent figures for their alleged over expenditure of GRE in 1984–85 or for whatever base year he was using, and what that figure is today?
  Mr. Gummer: I shall be happy to do so. Although I cannot give those figures now, I shall give them to the right hon. Gentleman later. In all cases, including those that have agreed with the final figures, we have gone into these matters in great detail. I pay tribute to all the authorities that have given information to us, especially the three that have reached agreement with us.
  Over the last couple of years we have been seeing authorities making real strides in reducing their excessive spending. As to rates, over the years there have been substantial reductions amounting to several hundred million pounds. Next year alone, ratepayers in those seven authorities will be contributing £40 million less than this year, with rate reductions of up to nearly 50 per cent., averaging 11 per cent. overall. I believe the position today is a tribute to the success of the rate capping system over the past five years.
  Turning to the current round, my right hon. Friend announced last July that he had designated seven authorities for rate limitation. They were budgeting to spend from 13 per cent. to 69 per cent. over their grant-related expenditure. He also informed the seven rate-capped authorities of the expenditure levels that he had determined for them using general principles as required by the statute, and they were given until 14 October to apply for redetermination of their expenditure levels—that is, to seek an increase.
  We received five applications and, as ever, examined them carefully. We looked at the individual circumstances of each authority and it was in the light of those circumstances that I took my decisions, which I announced to the House on 19 December. Those decisions had been delegated to me because of my right hon. Friend's visit to China. As hon. Members will recall, I decided in four cases—Greenwich, Hackney, Southwark and Tower Hamlets—that it would not be appropriate to
  redetermine their expenditure levels at a higher figure. I also decided, as I told the House in December, that given its particular circumstances it would not be appropriate to

  947
  grant Camden any increase in its expenditure level. In each case where I granted some redetermination, I imposed conditions as I am empowered to do under the statute.
  I emphasise that the purpose of the conditions is to encourage the authorities concerned to focus on their areas of greatest inefficiency. The problem facing us is not necessarily a party political argument. It is a question of efficiency in the attempt to use the ratepayers' money and the grant in the best possible way.
  It was against that background that I took my redetermination decisions. These conditions are to help those authorities which, for a variety of historical reasons, have real management problems. In many cases, if there has been poor management over a long period, it is extremely difficult to put the management right. I wanted the authorities to continue the process of putting their house in order and getting their management into shape. Sound management is a prerequisite of any political debate by those authorities about the level of the services that they wish to provide for their communities—[HoN. MEMBERS: "What about Westminster?"' Well, if we are talking about Westminster, we are not talking about rate capping because it is a well-run authority that does not charge high rates. What do Opposition Members want to do about Westminster? Do they want to refuse employed people their statutory rights? I am sure they do not.
  I see every sign that authorities are viewing the conditions positively. The rigorous self-examination that the conditions necessarily require of the authorities will be to the benefit of all concerned, leading to greater value for money for the ratepayers. We all want that.
  Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith): Talking of greater efficiency and better management of ratepayers' money, let us return to Westminster. If ever there was a case for a Minister to step in, it was there. We know that the money was not just what was legally due to the man, but that the council bought silence by an agreement—that is public.
  Mr. Gummer: When the hon. Gentleman is willing to say that outside the privilege of the House, I shall listen to him. He knows perfectly well that what he said is not true.
  I must return to my narrative of the events behind the order. On 19 December, all seven authorities—[interruption.] These are important matters for the authorities concerned. If they want to debate Westminster, no doubt Opposition Members can table a motion to enable them to do so; however, I am discussing important decisions taken over a long period. Some of us care about them strongly, which is why we redetermined the grant and gave the authorities more money when we thought that that was right. If Opposition Members do not care about Camden, Hackney, Lewisham, Greenwich, Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Thamesdown and prefer to make party-political points, that will be noticed in all those places.
  On 19 December all seven authorities were also informed of the rate limits that I proposed for 1989–90. They were given the opportunity, as statute allows, to accept their proposed limit within a specified deadline—by 20 January. In passing, I may tell the hon. Member for Bradford. South, who so courteously raised the point about the Select Committee, that the deadlines make it difficult to offer the Select Committee the courtesy that it deserves. I apologise again to him for that.
  948
  When councils did not accept their proposed limit, it was open to them to make representations for a higher limit. As hon. Members who have been following these matters closely will know, Tower Hamlets accepted the rate limit I had proposed, but the other six authorities did not. They made representations for a higher rate limit. We received a large amount of material from most of these authorities seeking to persuade us that in their particular circumstances we should allow some relaxation of the rate limits.
  I had meetings with representatives of Camden, Greenwich and Lewisham; I had also met Thamesdown and Greenwich councillors earlier in the rate limitation round. Officers from Hackney, Lewisham and Southwark met my officials. All these meetings were frank, but courteous, and my right hon. Friend and I found them of help to us. Indeed, the contact we had with authorities was a measure of the progress we have made in the past few years in tackling extravagance, waste and inefficiency in local government. All the capped authorities—[Interruption.] It is a little difficult to discuss these councils if Opposition Members want to talk only about Westminster. I should be happy to do that, except that, as the council is not rate capped, I should be out of order if I did.
  None of the authorities was seeking a confrontation and their dealings with us were restrained and, as I have said, courteous. With Hackney and Southwark we were able to reach agreement on higher limits. So we were left with the four authorities in the draft order—by far the fewest we have had in the five years of rate capping and, as I said earlier, a vindication of its success. But I must not. even on the occasion of such felicitations from both sides, paint too rosy a picture.
  These four authorities, and indeed the three authorities with whom we have agreed limits, still have much to do to get themselves on a sound footing. As well as keeping expenditure down, they could do more to get income up. Their council house rents are still generally low compared to those charged by other councils. There are often problems in completing right-to-buy sales. Camden and Lewisham had a backlog of almost 5,000 cases between them at the end of December last year. That means that those who want to buy their homes have not been able to do so, and also that the receipts from those sales are not available to the authorities concerned.
  Some authorities continue to maintain considerable and valuable portfolios of surplus land. Opposition Members say that this is unacceptable, but many of them represent areas where Labour councils would be ashamed to have such large backlogs. There is an embarrassment where authorities are not competent in dealing with these matters when compared with other authorities, such as Barking and Dagenham and the way in which it is able to deal with its rent and rates arrears. It is a Labour authority with more than 30,000 houses, yet is able to deal efficiently with the collection of rents and rates. It is difficult I o understand why, if that authority can do it, some other authorities seem unable to do so. It cannot be that there is something wrong with it politically or because it is in London; the reason must be, in the case of many of the rate-capped authorities, that an authority is not running its organisation efficiently enough.
  Mr. Bernie Grant (Tottenham): Does the Minister accept that there is a difference on the question of poverty

  949
  between an outer London borough such as Barking and Dagenham and an inner London borough such as Hackney, because the Minister's own index of deprivation puts Hackney at the very top, whereas Barking and Dagenham is a lot lower than Hackney?
  Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman puts that argument, but a comparison between, say, Wandsworth and Southwark shows that the hon. Gentleman would be wrong. Those are both inner London boroughs, one having a reasonably good record in rent and rate arrears and the other a very poor one.
  But let me compare Brent with the London borough of Barking and Dagenham, two outer London boroughs. I am speaking from memory, but I recall that Barking and Dagenham has rent arrears in the range of 5 to 6 per cent. whereas Brent has rent and rate arrears amounting to 100 per cent. of each rent roll, or certainly very nearly that.
  The reason in such cases must be very often that the council officers do not get support from the elected members in dealing with these matters whereas in other authorities they do. This is not a party political matter. Labour-controlled Brent is bad at doing it, and Labour Barking and Dagenham is good at doing it. They ought both to be good at it for the benefit of the ratepayers and those who rent their houses.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover): There is another way of looking at the question of arrears. Does the Minister accept that in 1988 the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that there would be arrears on the balance of payments in Britain of about £4 billion, but at the end of the year they were more than three times higher, at £14 billion?
  Mr. Gummer: That does not have much to do with the fact that in Barking and Dagenham the council collects the rents whereas in Brent it does not. It is easier to collect the rents if an example is set by the elected councillors, and the officers know that the councillors will support them in their actions.
  Southwark, for example, told us that it was owed about £53 million in total in rent and rates. Hackney has rent and rate arrears of £19 million. The conditions that I have imposed on both of those authorities are designed to address that situation. The remedy is one of more effective collection arrangements, coupled with more realistic accounting should the debts appear no longer likely to be collectable. Such measures would do much to improve the financial position of these authorities.
  When authorities in deprived areas—whether they be Labour or Conservative—despite difficulties, manage to do this properly, it is reasonable for them to ask why others find it impossible. It is necessary to say that it is a matter of competence and not of party politics.
  We looked very carefully indeed at the material we received from the four authorities to which the draft order refers, but I have to say that my right hon. Friend remains convinced that the rate limits for these authorities that were proposed in December are reasonable and appropriate in their circumstances. All four authorities are planning to live within their means. Also—and this is truer of some authorities than of others—they have plans afoot to cut costs in an organised, rather than an ad hoc, way.
  950
  We believe that the best way to ensure that this trend continues is by not allowing any relaxation of the rate limits.
  As I have indicated previously, there is an air of realism pervading local government today, and with these limits I am confident that the authorities will continue along the sensible path, on which they have all embarked, of seeking to provide the services their communities need at a cost their communities can afford.
  But I am afraid that there are still some silly things going on which, although not often significant in financial terms, show that authorities have still not completely learnt the lesson that it is their ratepayers' interests that count—not ideological nit-picking. Lewisham, with all its much-trumpeted cost-cutting and staff reductions—which I accept it has made—still thought it a priority to appoint an arts adviser at £11,000 a year to advise on locations for municipal sculpture. Greenwich found time to discuss in one meeting having a street named after Ms Deirdre Wood.
  As for Camden, its ventures in lesbian propaganda amongst its caretakers may have given many people a good deal of innocent amusement. Less amusing have been Camden's advertisements for a director, direct services, at £40,000 a year, and an assistant director, business management, at £28,000 a year—both dedicated to keeping services in Camden in-house, among them refuse collection and street sweeping, for which Camden council's incompetence is now a byword.
  People are being taken on at that price to try to keep services within the local authority when, if ever there were local authorities that needed to seek advice from professionals outside, for the benefit not only of their ratepayers but of everyone else, this is one. After all, bad street sweeping and bad refuse collection affect especially those who are least able to look after themselves. That is why this is a matter of very considerable concern to many of us.
  Of the assistant director, business management, we learn that
  "ensuring that essential public services are provided in house is one of the more demanding and rewarding activities in local government today."
  It does not seem to me a rewarding and demanding activity to try, for ideological reasons, to retain a particular series of services which, as is obvious to anyone who knows the borough, are not very well run in-house. Would it not be well to see if others could provide them better and more cheaply, giving better value for money? I am sure that that would result in savings and that the money saved could be spent on all sorts of things that most of us realise the ratepayers of Camden would like to have.
  Mr. Frank Dobson (Holborn and St. Pancras): Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that there are officials employed by his Department and the Department of Health whose task is to further the privatising of services? What is the difference?
  Mr. Gummer: I cannot answer for the Department of Health. The purpose of the officials in my Department is to try to ensure that people in local government have a choice. They go out to tender and decide what is best. No, the choice lies in the local authority deciding what is best for the ratepayer. What we are talking about here is the appointment of officials to decide what is best for the

  951
  ratepayer but to make sure, for ideological reasons, that the ratepayer is not getting the choice, because services are provided in-house.
  I have to say to the hon. Gentleman, who represents part of Camden, that I hope he will go back and ask people there whether they are entirely satisfied with the street cleaning and the refuse collection. If the first 10 people asked at random agree, I shall be extremely surprised, and I shall certainly withdraw my comments about that matter.
  To be completely fair to Camden, I want to point this out: both advertisements emphasise the need for quality services, competitiveness and even entrepreneurial skill—three requirements which are somewhat new in Camden's vocabulary. But the way to give Camden's ratepayers a better deal is simply to put its services out to competition and try to find the best way to deal with them.
  Mr. Dobson: Can the Minister tell us the last time the district auditor commended Camden's refuse collection services?
  Mr. Gummer: I think that the hon. Gentleman knows that in the decisions about these matters I have to consider as a whole the various information which I receive about Camden. I will tell the hon. Gentleman much more directly. I know very well that if Camden runs a good service it has nothing to fear from going out to competition. It has something to fear only if it runs a bad service. Why does Camden want to employ somebody to make sure that it does not lose the contract? We want competition to ensure that the people of Camden and of all the other boroughs—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) and his views about religion are well known. He is an expert on the subject. [Interruption.] From a seated position, he continues about it.
  Mr. Allan Roberts (Bootle)rose—
  Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman has been spouting his views on religion from a seated position for some time. The hon. Gentleman must listen to this—
  Mr. Allan Robertsrose—
  Mr. Gummer: I am not giving way. [Interruption.] There is nothing abusive about that. I am sure that he has very good views about religion.
  The three authorities—Camden, Greenwich and Lewisham—have in total budgeted to spend over £2 million on lesbian and gay, women's and race committees in 1988–89. The Government are committed to equal opportunities, but I doubt whether highlighting matters by having a women's committee or a gay and lesbian committee is anything other than expensive and counterproductive. That £2 million could be better spent, even on the very subjects that are supposed to be covered, than on such committees.
  Last, but by no means least, I would not want hon. Members to think that I had forgotten Thamesdown. Indeed, one cannot easily forget the Thamesdown councillors after the riveting account in the rate support grant debate on 19 January by my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) of their "naughty but nice" activities. There was, he said, "money for everything". Rather than cut back on its extravagances, Thamesdown resorted to creative accounting, selling the largest park in the centre of Swindon. All this was to finance every kind of extravagance, including grandiose
  952
  twinning schemes with central American countries. I wonder whether the people of Thamesdown would prefer to own their own park rather than find themselves twinned with parts of Nicaragua.
  I return to the draft order. At an individual authority level, the changes in the rates of these four authorities range from a reduction of 16 per cent. in Lewisham to an increase of 11 per cent. in Greenwich. Taken together with the rate limits already accepted by Hackney, Southwark and Tower Hamlets, the rate reduction is equivalent to £40 million.
  I believe the rate limits specified in the order to be reasonable and appropriate to the individual authorities concerned in all their circumstances. I believe, too, that the overall result for local ratepayers is good. There is every sign that authorities are buckling down to the task of living within these rate limits. I ask the House to have regard to ratepayers' interests in this final year of rate limitation. I remind hon. Members that many of those who are asked to pay rates are less well off than many for whom the services are provided. We have to remember that many ratepayers find it difficult to pay the very high rates which have been levied in many parts of London. I say that with some feeling, coming from the London borough of Ealing, but the coming of rate limitation has brought down the rates in many authorities. Many authorities have learnt to live within those rate limitations, and many of them have found that it is perfectly possible to provide the necessary services without hitting the ratepayer in an unacceptable way. I commend the order to the House.
  10.55 pm
  Mr. David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside): I feel a sense of nostalgia this evening, on the fifth occasion of rate orders being laid against authorities. If it were not so late, there would be a great deal that I could say, but I want to put on record that I do not think that this House should sit, except in very unique circumstances, after 10 pm, and, given that the weight of numbers overrides the weight of reason on these occasions, there is little point in trying to persuade Government Members that the rate capping that they have imposed over the last five years has been both futile and unsuccessful.
  It has been futile because each action that they have taken has led them inexorably into another turn of the screw and another piece of legislation, and there is no question whatsoever that what has been imposed through rate capping has distorted the making of budgets, the planning of the financial management of authorities, the use of capital resources, and the stretching of ingenuity in a quite unhelpful way in terms of delivering services and improving the lot of those whom we seek to serve.
  If I might just go over the history of rate capping, with which I am all too familiar, it was, of course, way back in the early 1980s that the suggestion was made that local authorities' expenditure and rates should be fixed from the centre, a suggestion which is unmatched anywhere else in the world, and which is unjustified financially and politically. We went through with the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) the performance of putting forward proposals for a referendum, which were then withdrawn on the ground that the electorate might actually vote to spend money and provide services rather than agree with the Government.

  953
  We then came to the rate capping issues of 1984–85 and promises that authorities, if they behaved responsibly and responded to Government demands that services should be reduced and the rates lowered, would actually be treated in a responsible fashion. Tonight we see the results of that: five years of rate capping. The four authorities that we are dealing with tonight find that each Government budget and rate set for them determine that they will be rate capped the following year, because the Government set the criteria. The Government have set the rate for five years, rigged the criteria in the first place, then adjusted it. That is what they did. That resulted in the inevitable. The authorities being debated tonight could not escape from rate capping, whatever they did. Their spending and their rate levels were fixed by the Government and they could not free themselves from that yoke.
  Ironically, those authorities which used ingenuity in the first year of rate capping and used means that have since been condemned and outlawed by the Government actually escaped from the second and subsequent years of rate capping. For instance, deferred purchase deals, which have been abused so roundly by the Government, not only ensured that the accepted spending levels were lower because of the recognition of income for that criteria to be applied, and that those authorities which used it effectively escaped from rate capping, but maximised their grant income. A more stupid system one could never have imagined.
  Of course, when we changed Secretaries of State, and the present Secretary of State for Education temporarily assumed the mantle of the Department of the Environment, he pronounced, in May 1986, that he found rate capping intellectually indefensible. He did not last more than two months after that. He was moved on to pastures new where he could perform more readily in relation to his prospects.
  None of us could intellectually accept, justify or defend rate capping, because it cannot be defended. Only the authorities whose budgets were already above a certain level were eligible for rate capping anyway—a neat way of ensuring that very high-rating authorities with a lower spending level would automatically escape. That is why the authority in the Minister's constituency has not been rate capped. Since 1981 Suffolk, Coastal has increased its rate by 218 per cent. and its budget by 132 per cent. Small authorities such as Selby have almost equalled it. Selby has increased its rate by 177 per cent. The City of London, of course, has exceeded the expectations of everyone except those who would have a vote in the area, but do not, with a rate increase of 79 per cent. but an expenditure increase of 180 per cent. Brentwood's expenditure has risen by 322 per cent., which I do not think can be matched anywhere.
  Hon. Members may say, "It is not the expenditure level but the amount over grant-related expenditure assessment that determines the rate cap." The present Secretary of State for Northern Ireland had something to say about that when he was Minister of State at the Department of the Environment. On 1 April 1980—a very appropriate date to pronounce on the matter—he said that it was not suggested that grant-related assessment prescribed a specific level of spending for any particular authority. He said that he wanted to make it clear that that was not the intention and that he was seeking to find the fairest way to
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  distribute public money to local authorities. It did not take four years to denounce that. In July 1984 the Secretary of State—now Lord Jenkin—summed it up by saying that that was then, and that now was now. In other words, whatever Conservative Members may say, it may not last 24 hours if they feel that the circumstances have changed sufficiently.
  Now that we have reached the fifth year, let us examine what is happening to local authorities. Let us take the district of Thamesdown, which has been so roundly abused by the Minister tonight. If its expenditure had been slightly lower in 1984 it would never have been rate capped in the first place, and could have joined the authorities that can spend as much as they like above grant-related expenditure because they do not already fall within the criteria. It could join authorities such as the City of London which have constantly exceeded grant-related expenditure levels—in the case of Brentwood by the enormous figure of 276·7 per cent. The City of London has done so by 99·6 per cent.
  I got on to the wrong train on Friday. Instead of going to Southampton I made my way towards Guildford. Luckily I got off at the wonderful junction of Surbiton, but had I gone to Guildford I would have found that its expenditure over GREA was 98 per cent. That seems a peculiar justification for treating certain Labour authorities in hard-pressed urban areas in the way in which they have been treated.
  When Thamesdown councillors met the Minister on 24 November they put a reasonable case to him, suggesting that the amount allowed to them for poll tax preparation—£164,000—had fallen short by £500,000, their real expenditure for next year being £658,000 on implementation. The Minister listened carefully and acknowledged that that was a reasonable point. He also acknowledged that it was reasonable to take into account the historic debt of a town that had developed rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s, but when the rate-capping order was laid the case of Thamesdown was ignored.
  I do not consider that any of the authorities had a fair and reasonable hearing because they were condemned to rate capping from the beginning as they were unable to avoid meeting the criteria. Given their existing expenditure, the extent of their problems and the fact that those in London have to cope with the preparations for the transfer of ILEA and taking over education, and taking into account the fact that, using the GDP deflator, there has been a cut of more than 17 per cent. in their expenditure, it would not have been unreasonable for the Government to have lifted rate capping completely in the final year before the poll tax and to have allowed local authorities to budget sensibly.
  Poll tax was suggested as the antidote to rate capping. The Green Paper "Paying for Local Government" contained no suggestion that there would be poll tax capping. Only when the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Patnick) asked a planted question on 28 October 1987 did the Government reveal that they had changed their mind, that the poll tax was not so accountable, responsive and democratic after all and that poll tax capping would have to be introduced.
  The hon. Member for Hallam is not here tonight because he has one of the occasional days off that Conservative Members get under their rota system.
  Mr. Skinner: Bisques.
  Mr. Blunkett: I would call them beasts rather than bisques, if that is not an unparliamentary term.
  The hon. Member for Hallam knows all about rate capping because just after Sheffield was rate capped in 1985, and a tremendous debate took place in the city, just two months after the rate was set there were two local government by-elections. The other two Tories who contested the Broom Hill ward in Sheffield decided to bail out, given the political climate. Both seats fell to the Labour party for the first time in history and in 1988 so did the seat held by the hon. Member for Hallam. That was the democratic verdict of the people of Sheffield on the introduction of rate capping. They will reach the same verdict on the poll tax and poll tax capping.
  The Minister should make absolutely clear what criteria will be applied for poll tax capping. How will authorities know whether their expenditure levels and poll tax levels will subject them to the poll tax regime? If they do not know, they cannot plan and will be condemned after the event. They will not have a chance to plan sensibly with financial management that assists the people of their areas, as all the treasurers and members of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy have said for many years. Those are important questions, because we are involved not in a game, but in issues affecting the lives of people who need home helps, want decent education, care about what happens to the under-fives, want to invest in the future of their children and want to live in a decent environment. Everyone wants those things and steps need to be taken to ensure that expenditure is handled fairly, reasonably and competently. Of course, housing rents need to be collected and no one could justify the Minister's figures. But when we compare those figures with the activities in which some Conservative authorities are indulging, the matter is brought into perspective.
  It is not just the sale of cemeteries for 15p, or the £1 million handout to the chief executive of Westminster city council; it is the contempt that authorities such as Westminster show towards the people whom they are supposed to serve. Some Conservatives in local government—for example, Philip Merridale in Hampshire have bailed out because they have had enough of the abuse, intimidation and degradation that is handed out to them.
  A number of local authorities were taken before the district auditor over rate capping. Lambeth and Liverpool were surcharged. Islington still awaits the district auditor's decision. Lambeth—in my view, quite outrageously—is threatened again, four years later, with a return visit of that kind. If anybody deserved to be taken in front of the district auditor and to be accused of wilful misconduct and the threat of surcharge, it is Lady Porter and her colleagues on Westminster city council.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not stray too far from the terms of the order.
  Mr. Blunkett: I accept your judgment, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The sums of money that were allegedly lost because of delayed rate making under the rate-capping regime and the action that was taken by those councillors to defend services bear no comparison with the millions of pounds to which I have just referred.
  Let us look to the future. After the turning of the screw, capping, abolition, the Local Government Bill, the poll tax
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  and the Local Government and Housing Bill, the Government may now realise that enough is enough. They have introduced 50 Bills that affect local government in one way or another—and if they do not realise that, the electorate will make their views clear. They want to be free to decide for themselves. They want the dead hand of the state to be removed. They want to be able to enjoy diversity, to take advantage of pluralism and to raise money and spend it on services that will benefit them. Those issues will be so important that they will form a major plank in ensuring that once and for all we get rid of the Minister and his colleagues.
  11.3 pm
  Mr. John Maples (Lewisham, West): The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) chose to defend rate-capped authorities in reasonable terms, but he has completely failed to come to grips with what so outrages my hon. Friends and me. It is not that these authorities are choosing to levy high rates to help poor people in their boroughs; it is the outrageous waste, inefficiency and extraordinarily distorted sense of priorities that they have demonstrated. If the hon. Gentleman cannot come to grips with that fact, it is an amazing reflection on his party's attitude to local government—that it condones some of the matters to which the Minister referred and some of the matters that affect Lewisham.
  The best thing about the order for my constituents and me is that it still contains a rate limitation on the London borough of Lewisham. That will be welcomed by the borough's residents. They are intelligent and perceptive people. At least, they were in 1970 and 1983, although they had a lapse in between. It was during the time that they had that lapse that they found that in every year when there was no council election their rates increased by 20 per cent. That happened four or five years in a row, until the rates reached almost astronomical proportions. If they had continued to increase at that rate, rates for the average householder in Lewisham would now be about £1,200 a year. Rate capping has meant that during the last five years rates in Lewisham have remained fairly constant. There is to be a 9 per cent. cut this year, which will be worth between £50 and £60 for each household in the borough.
  The Labour party petitioned for a redetermination. It wanted the rates to be increased by 19 per cent., which would have resulted in an additional £100 rates burden on each household. The difference between rate capping and what the council wanted to do is well over £3 a week for the average ratepayer in Lewisham.
  We have discovered during the last five years in Lewisham that, despite the prediction that the world would come to an end, the borough has managed to survive within its rate-capped limit and that at last it is beginning to take some of the tough decisions which, if they had been taken some time ago, would have made their financial position now much easier.
  I will give some examples of the waste and inefficiency to which I referred and of some of the distorted priorities that we find in rate-capped councils such as Lewisham. In the housing department, a basic function of local government, the rent arrears in Lewisham are £7…5 million, what I thought was an astronomical figure until the Minister mentioned the level of rent arrears in other boroughs such as Brent and Southwark.

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  The rate arrears of non-council tenants in Lewisham are also £7.5 million. We have 80 tenants who owe over £3,000 each and one tenant, who has not paid any rent for seven years, now owes £8,500 to the council. We have 132 overseas students each of whom owes over £600. Nobody can suggest that this policy is helping poor, deprived and disadvantaged people in Lewisham.
  To continue this saga of horror stories from the housing department, we have plenty of empty properties, but one house has been empty and totally unoccupied for 14 years, since December 1975, even though we have a homeless family problem in Lewisham. We spend £30 million subsidising the rents out of the rates, which is an average of £15 per house. Labour Members know this because we had a public meeting about it and they were surprised to learn that that was the level. The level of subsidy is running at £750 per house.
  This is evidence of rank bad management. It is not evidence of an attempt to move resources from the better-off in society to the less well-off. It is no wonder, with that record of bad management, that, even with the money that is spent by the housing department, the tenants are unhappy. They cannot get repairs done, they can never get a transfer and there is a mass of empty houses and a long waiting list of homeless families who want them.
  The council is not short of money. It is short of the ability to direct that money in a sensible way. There are many other stories of inefficiency and an extraordinary sense of priorities in Lewisham. We have a children's home containing two children and 11 staff. We spent £500,000 on a construction industry training programme sponsored by the council to train 30 people, which managed to lose ?500,000, so it cost us £17,000 for each person trained over the course of a year.
  Staff sickness in the transport department of the council is running at an average of two months per employee per year and, unsurprisingly, the level of sickness went up when the employees discovered that they could still collect their bonuses regardless of whether they went sick. Early last year we had 1,500 more staff than we had in 1979, yet we are supposed to have been subjected to the most awful cuts. We have a council propaganda sheet on which the council spends £80,000 a year, a fraction of the budget that its PR department manages to spend.
  It also has an extraordinarily warped sense of priorities because at the same time as it is threatening to cut basic social services the council has taken on 10 staff from the London strategic policy unit at a cost of £150,000 a year. We have a mobile creche with a £74,000 grant which works out at a unit cost of £1,000 an hour. During a council committee meeting at which Conservative councillors asked for that grant to be examined for its efficiency and effectiveness, the council refused to do that, but at the same time froze the grant for disabled people's holidays at £25,000. That is Lewisham council's sense of priorities. It is prepared to spend £150,000 on a political propaganda unit and freeze the budget for disabled people's holidays at £25,000.
  A few months ago it looked as though the council was going to abolish its rates and sex equality units, a piece of news which was greeted with joy by my constituents and the other voters of Lewisham. But that joy was premature
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  because they found that they were not being abolished. A new equality unit, which would cost more£250,000 a year—was being set up in their place.
  My right hon. Friend mentioned our borough artist. We had one a few years ago who cost £10,000 and who produced a bit of art. The present one is getting £11,000 and his only task is to advise on whether there is scope for putting art in public places. Lewisham is also spending £12 million on a new town hall. All that comes at a time when my constituents are being told how short of money is the council, that vital services are being theatened, that repairs to council property cannot be effected, and so on.
  A report that the council itself commissioned shows that it cannot keep the borough's streets clean. Pensioners in lunch clubs are made to do their own washing up to save money—and, I repeat, the grant for disabled people's holidays has been frozen. But there is plenty of money available for the pet political projects of Lewisham council's Labour group.
  One of the good points about rate capping is that it forces down the level of the community charge. The first exemplifications suggested that, after the safety net expired, Lewisham's community charge might be nearly £700. Simply as a result of rate capping in the last two years, the figure is now below £600. The council's Conservative group believes, as I do, that a community charge of £300 is attainable, but to achieve that there must be a safety net reduction over four years of £300. That is £54 million—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not go too far down that road. The order makes no mention of the community charge.
  Mr. Maples: I shall be careful not to stray out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was merely endeavouring to explain to my right hon. Friend the beneficial effects of rate capping in Lewisham and that to reduce future expenditure to a level that ratepayers will find acceptable we must make savings of ?54 million on a budget—after we take responsibility for education—of £400 million.
  Such a saving is distinctly achievable—mainly by paying regard to the items I mentioned. The council makes no effort to redeem part of the enormous debt that it has run up over the years—which now totals £450 million, and costs nearly £50 million per year in interest—yet there is a simple way of doing so. If the council gets rid of some of the right-to-buy backlog that it refuses to process, it could easily clear a substantial part of that debt.
  Rate capping has been good for Lewisham. For four years it has been welcomed by the residents of the borough, and it will be again this year. The council is finally seeing sense and finding ways of saving money, and, despite its blackmail tactics in respect of cuts in social service provision, it is realising that sensible economies can be made. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is taking power to continue capping of the community charge, but I hope that, come next year, we shall be able to offer him a far better alternative—a Conservative-controlled council, so that no further such action will be necessary.
  11.22 pm
  Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro): This is the first time that I have had an opportunity to speak in the House on the subject of rate capping, and it may be appropriate to begin by making clear my party's position—which is one of

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  opposition to such powers being given to the Minister. We oppose it in the same way that we opposed it on each occasion in the past. I shall explain why that is, and why the House should not agree to the order—any more than it should have accepted earlier orders.
  I am opposed to rate capping because it is an attack on the principle of local democracy, and because it is a crass way of trying to meet the needs of areas having special and particular problems—some of the poorest, most needy areas of the country. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister refers to needs and expenditure assessment, but they are in each case a matter of his assessment and that of his Government—not of the local people who are forced to suffer the impact of such changes.
  No one defends the excesses of the Labour Left that the Minister attacked. I agree with much of what he said, and accept the veracity of many of the examples he gave of local government going wrong. However, I will defend to the last the right of local people to decide whether they agree with their council's actions—rather than the Minister, or this or any Government, making that decision for them. I defend also the needy, who have seen services cut back—yet they have no power, through the ballot box or by making representations to their councillors, to influence what happens. In effect, the Minister and the Government have taken that power to themselves. That should not come as any surprise because throughout the Government have taken the same attitude. They say that they have identified problems in local authorities and identified local authorities which are getting matters substantially wrong, and their response is to take power to sort matters out rather than let the local electorate make their choice.
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett: As the hon. Gentleman should be aware, in the boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich and Camden especially, less than one third of the electorate pay rates. We intend to change that by introducing the community charge which will affect all voters, creating a direct correlation between those who vote and those who pay for the services that they receive. Why did the hon. Gentleman's party vote against that?
  Mr. Taylor: I shall come to that later.
  First, let me quote the Secretary of State for the Environment in 1987, who commented very much along the lines of the hon. Gentleman, when he said:
  "We must either have more and more central control or local electors must exert real local control. We vote for local control."
  The hon. Gentleman is trying to say that through the poll tax local control will be given to people in a way that does not exist under the present rating system. That is the justification that Ministers have given. They have said that rate capping is needed because local authorities are unrepresentative. They have referred to near one-party states. They have frequently said that such a step was necessary because so few people contributed to the rates, so few people responded to high rate increases.
  The problem is that we now find that the Government are to introduce poll tax capping. If what the hon. Gentleman was saying is correct, they would not have had to do that. The truth is that the Government do not believe that that is what it is about. The Minister sincerely believes that he knows better than the local people what should happen; that it is necessary for him to reserve the power to
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  override the electorate. It is not rate capping or poll tax capping; it is electorate capping. The Government are telling the local electorate the point beyond which they cannot go.
  That should not be much of a surprise because it has been reflected in a host of other Government policies, whether restricting councils' abilities to build housing to meet local needs, the abolition of the local business rate to create a national business rate, or rule after rule on expenditure, quite apart from rate capping.
  I do not deny that there are a handful of extreme Labour-controlled authorities which have acted wrongly, as the Minister said. I do not deny that on occasions, as a result of some policies, Labour-controlled authorities have given the Minister the opportunity to criticise them for maladministration and extravagance, allowing the Government to introduce their policies. But it is not for the Minister to judge that. The principle of local government is that that judgment lies with the local electorate. That is why we have local government. Otherwise we would have a local bureaucracy. We do not need to elect people to translate Government decisions.
  Let me deal now with poll tax capping—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the House again that there is nothing in the order about the community charge.
  Mr. Taylor: I hope that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will allow me to develop the argument because it relates specifically to why we should not pass this order tonight. It reflects entirely on the argument that we have been given for passing it tonight, just as we have been given it in the past.
  Last year we were told that this would he the penultimate occasion when a rate-capping order would be before the House and it was supposed to be the last time that councils came under such control. The introduction of the poll tax would make it unnecessary for this sort of control to be exercised.
  On each occasion the Minister has justified its introduction by saying that it is because he and the Government believe that local authorities are not adequately controlled at present that ratepayers are not significant in the local elections, that there is a need to make the local authorities accountable and that they do not respond as they should to the needs and desires of local people. All of that was thrown out of the window; it was shown to be quite false justification. Yet we heard it again tonight when the Government introduced poll tax capping. It has all proved to be a disreputable misleading of the House.
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify for us once and for all what his party's position on this is? Is he saying that, regardless of what any council did, the Liberal party would not impose any restrictions upon local authorities? Could we be quite clear on that?
  Mr. Taylor: We would not have poll tax capping or rate capping or any other sort of capping of the ability of local authorities to raise expenditure; that is their local decision. But we would want one fundamental change that the Government have avoided on every occasion. They specifically excluded it from what Widdicombe was allowed to look at and from all consideration of local

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  authority expenditure. It is the one glaring, obvious way of making local authorities more accountable to their electorate, of ensuring that one-party states do not exist and that every person in a local authority area is able to have his or her voice heard properly. That is proportional representation, and there are people of that view now throughout the House. But the Minister is not even prepared to look at it. He was not prepared to have Widdicombe even consider whether that would be the most appropriate way of bringing local authorities under control.
  That is why the Minister has to resort to these measures, because he wants to exercise that control centrally and he thinks that he knows better. He dare not trust what local authorities do. He feels free to criticise them for being unrepresentative, but is not prepared to ensure that they properly reflect what people want.
  The result is that we debate again tonight what we have debated in so many different ways before: yet another in the battery of powers that the Minister feels obliged to adopt as an attack on local democracy. We are seeing an unwillingness to create genuine local democracy in which people are free to take decisions that reflect the needs of their area as they see them rather than as the Minister sees them.
  11.32
  Mr. Simon Coombs: I have listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) and would say only this to him. The level of support for democracy which has brought all right hon. and hon. Members to the House is far greater than that which has elected the councillors whose behaviour the House attempts to control with this order tonight. It is therefore reasonable that we should say that democracy is indivisible and that we on the Government Benches have a mandate to carry out this policy.
  I sometimes wonder whether Members of the Opposition ever wonder why the local authority in the constituency which I represent is so frequently to be found on the list of rate-capped authorities. One can understand why London boroughs might be there, with the problems they have, but surely the fastest growing town in western Europe ought not to be on the list of rate-capped authorities.
  The fact is that Thamesdown has been on the list in each of the five years that we have had to consider orders of this nature. Right from the start Thamesdown borough council was opposed to the idea of rate capping and made it abundantly clear, with a strong political propaganda campaign, that if the borough council were rate-capped it would be the end of services and support for a vast range of activities which it regarded as essential. I have to tell the House that, after five years, none of those threats has come to pass. The threat to withdraw grant from a variety of voluntary bodies and the threat to take away services from the disabled and the elderly have not come to pass.
  When I stood for re-election to the House in 1987, after three years of rate-capping, I was told that such was the disgust of my electors with my support for the policy that I would be thrown ignominiously from the House. I remember the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) saying that from the Front Bench. Conservative Members
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  who follow these matters will know that, as a result of my support for this policy and others, I was re-elected with a majority of three and a half times greater than in the first place. I took that as an endorsement of rate capping from a turn-out of 75 to 80 per cent. of the electorate, because the people of Thamesdown participated to a far higher degree in that election than in the local elections, which returned my political opponents. There we had turn-outs of 30 to 40 per cent.—half those in the general election. The reason is that only one third of the population of Thamesdown pays rates. The other two thirds had a vested interest in voting in councillors committed to high-spending policies using the money raised by the minority—the ratepayers in the borough—and they continue to do so. Frankly, I am not surprised by that and that is why I welcome the change in the philosophy of local government finance.
  Mr. Harry Barnes: The hon. Gentleman referred earlier to the much-vaunted mandate on these matters that the Conservative Government had after the last general election. But there was nothing in the Conservative manifesto on poll tax capping. The terms in which poll tax capping have been laid down are contrary to the Conservative's position at the last general election.
  Mr. Coombs: I am not sure that I can see how to answer the hon. Gentleman's question, Mr. Deputy Speaker, without transgressing the strict rules that you have laid down for the debate. However, I shall return to the point later and crave your indulgence then.
  I want first to deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett). He said, rightly, that Thamesdown councillors had come to see my right hon. Friend to press their case and that my right hon. Friend listened carefully to what was said, but was not able to make a redetermination. The hon. Gentleman should know that under the rules approved by Parliament the local authority in question has to apply formally for a redetermination. The simple fact is that over the five years of rate capping Thamesdown council has never made that formal application. It is the only rate-capped council that has never asked the Minister formally to redetermine its rate. I believe that if it had done so, it would have been allowed to increase its rate, but it has never tried. We must look to the councillors of Thamesdown to tell us why they will not do what Labour councillors in every other rate-capped borough have done naturally year upon year.
  Instead of doing that, the councillors of Thamesdown have indulged in creative accountancy and have found ways of keeping within the rate limitation imposed on them by Parliament, but at the same time they have continued to allow expenditure to rise in a variety of ways. My right hon. Friend referred to twinning with a town in Nicaragua and I could mention the quite unbelievably unattractive statues that now adorn most public places in Thamesdown. As far as I am aware, nobody wants them.
  The most recent attempt to get round the law is the method of raising finance known as factoring. I understand that that is to be the subject of a test case shortly, so it may not be proper to say what is likely to happen.
  My right hon. Friend also referred to the idea of selling assets and observed that the borough councillors in Thamesdown had decided to sell a large public park in the centre of the town. That was a little unfair on them—it is

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  only a small part of a large public park in the centre of Thamesdown. However, that is a step that other Labour councillors may want to follow in future. The only people who are determined to stop them are the Conservative councillors who represent the ward in question.
  Under its Labour masters, the borough council has never been prepared to consider a sensible policy of disposing of assets. The wealth of Thamesdown has been created over many years by its success and by its location as an attractive place in which to relocate industry. The borough has been the beneficiary of that wealth, but it has never been prepared to capitalise on it because Socialists say that all property belongs to them and should never be used for the wider benefit of the community—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] Well, if Opposition Members who scoff at that can tell me any other good reason for hanging on to a shopping centre in the centre of the town and if they believe that is the right and duty of a Labour council to be responsible for shopping in the town, let them say so instead of scoffing from sedentary positions.
  The order is essential, and may I say in answer to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) that the successor policy of charge capping is also essential. If we were not to have rate capping in Thamesdown this year, the local labour councillors admit—in private—that the rates would rise by over 60 per cent. My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess), who is sitting next to me—
  Mr. Blunkett rose—
  Mr. Coombs: I shall give way in a moment.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon has just told me that, as a result of his local authority being taken out of the provisions of tonight's order, rates in Basildon will rise by 74 per cent. That is the alternative for my constituents if we do not pass the order. I am not prepared to vote against an order that protects my constituents from a rates increase of over 60 per cent.—nor am I prepared to see them submit to that level of increase with a new regime of local authority finance next year. It is right that under the community charge we shall see greater accountability, but that will not happen straight away. Therefore, it would be foolish to withdraw the protection of capping in the first year of the new system.
  The hon. Member for Brightside said that if Thamesdown had been only a little more moderate in its spending in 1984–85, it need not have been rate-capped. What does he call 90 per cent. above GRE? What does he call the reduction that would have been needed from 90 per cent. to 10 per cent. of GRE to avoid being rate-capped? I do not call that a small reduction in expenditure. It would have been catastrophic. Of course, there was no way in which the council could have escaped it in the first year, but now I am happy to report that the overspending on GRE is down to a modest 37·3 per cent.—still the highest of the four authorities listed in the order, and still impossibly above any level that could be acceptable.
  Mr. Blunkett: At the risk of wasting my breath, the point that I was making earlier was that the level that had been set by the Government at which rate capping would start to apply was such that districts such as Thamesdown, having spent slightly less in the years before 1984, would have been exempted for ever, like Suffolk, Coastal and
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  Brentwood and Guildford, or any of the other authorities that have increased their spending and rates far in excess of Thamesdown, Greenwich, Lewisham or Camden.
  How does the hon. Gentleman square what he said earlier about rate capping being necessary because not everybody pays rates and therefore some people could vote for increased spending without feeling the pain of that with what he has just said, which is that in any case it does not matter because poll charge capping would be justified anyway?
  Mr. Coombs: I come back to what I said before: the level was 90 per cent. above GRE, compared with the target of 10 per cent. set at the beginning of the rate-capping saga. That is is an enormous disparity, so it is no good the hon. Gentleman talking about other councils. Under those circumstances, Thamesdown was bound to be rate-capped, and it has never managed to avoid it since because it has not been prepared to tackle the overspending it has indulged in every year since 1984–85. If the hon. Gentleman reads again what I have said this evening he will realise that there was no contradiction between his second point and my remarks.
  I join my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Maples) in welcoming the order for the protection it affords my constituents from the depredations of a high-spending Labour authority. I welcome, too, the introduction of a new local government finance system which will give every person in Swindon a vested interest in watching how his money is being abused and wasted by the local authority. I am sure that that will result in a year or two's time in Labour councillors beginning to lose their seats.
  11.46 pm
  Mr. Paul Boateng: The hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) had the gall to lecture us about democracy and to parade his own re-election as having been a manifestation of the people's will triumphing over the excesses of local government. If the voting procedures being applied under the Housing Act 1988 had been applied to the hon. Gentleman's election—if those who abstained were counted as having voted in the affirmative, and the undead were given a vote—he would not be here today. So his lecture was shot through with the double standards that are typical of Conservative Members when they talk about local government. There is one rule for local councils, and another for the Government: one rule for Conservative councils, and another for Labour-controlled councils.
  I apologise to the Minister. I was serving time on the Committee examining the Water Bill during his speech, but I left word with my hon. Friends to let me know if he attacked Brent. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have given Conservative Members generous latitude to explore the foibles and failings of other boroughs and the Minister cannot resist the temptation to get Brent in too when discussing the rate capping of other authorities. The Government never miss an opportunity to be vindictive about Labour authorities, or to drag in arguments that they believe can be used against local government in general.
  The Minister should not have chosen Brent as an example of a council with excessive rent arrears. Those who advise him can tell him about the measures that Brent has introduced to curb arrears. He knows of the action

  965
  that has been taken to step up the collection of arrears and to move against people who fail to pay their rent or rates. He should be generous enough to admit that Brent is trying to come to grips with its problems. But he has not shown that generosity when talking about Thamesdown, Camden, Greenwich or Lewisham.
  The measure is not to do with protecting ratepayers and residents. It is about superimposing the will of the Government on that of the locally elected representatives of the people. It is about substituting the will of the grey-faced, grey-suited men sitting in their little offices and cubby holes in Whitehall, where my constituents cannot get at them—with their calculations of what we should spend on the care of the elderly and of children, or on education, or on the gamut of services that should be run locally—for the will of the elected representatives.
  The Minister launched an attack on Brent while talking about Thamesdown, Camden, Greenwich and Lewisham. We know that he could not resist that opportunity. But he ought to consider the experience of Brent. Rate support grant has been reduced during the lifetime of this Government from 65 per cent. of the borough's net needs to some 38 per cent.
  Can Conservative Members put aside for a moment their spite and vindictiveness against a steadfast Labour authority? Can they imagine the impact of that reduction on the meals on wheels service or on care for the elderly and the disabled? Can they imagine the impact on bed and breakfast accommodation in my borough? When they talk about empty properties, they really ought to look at their own abysmal record. The biggest owner of empty properties in the country is none other than Her Majesty's Government. They should take that reality on board and not come here to lecture us about democracy and value for money. We know about democracy, we know about value for money, and that is why we are opposing the order.
  Mr. Gummer: I knew that the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) was not in the Chamber when I opened the debate. I made the comparison with another Labour authority in reply to a point that one of his hon. Friends raised with me.
  I do not believe that my attack on Brent was vindictive. The vindictive attack was by his neighbour, a Labour Member, the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) who referred to it as being worse than the Pol Pot regime. I remind the hon. Gentleman that my point was directed to rate-capped authorities. One of the most important points was that they should collect the rents in arrears. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the local authority in Brent has said that it will take some new action, but after all that follows newspaper revelations that it did not know who its tenants were, let alone collected the rents, and that keys to flats in Brent were on sale in Nigeria. It was only after those revelations, which were not denied by the borough of Brent, that the changes took place. I do not think that that is vindictive.
  Mr. Boateng rose—
  Mr. Gummer: No, I do not think that the borough of Brent is in any position to complain, until it has changed its ways. Some of the worst examples of those with rent
  966
  arrears were among the elected councillors of Brent, which was why it was difficult for the officers to get support when they set out to make those changes.
  Mr. Blunkett rose—
  Mr. Gummer: I have only three minutes to reply, and I do wish to reply to the hon. Gentleman's question. It is only fair of me to do so.
  The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) said that it was very unfair because several authorities, including my own authority of Suffolk, Coastal did not get themselves rate capped. That is not surprising, considering that it has the 206th lowest rate in Britain. It is below the national average. If there is a high percentage increase, it depends where one starts from; if one adds a penny to 2p one could say that that is a 100 per cent. increase. But the real question is what is the level of rates. I find it difficult to compare the 206th lowest in Britain with the position of rate-capped authorities.
  Taking Lewisham as an example, if we had allowed Lewisham to put the rate at the level that it wanted, it would have put another 46p in the pound on top of our proposed limit. That would be £100 per household. That is why we are defending the people of Lewisham. The hon. Member for Brightside attacked the City of London. Let me point out to him that the local authority there increased the rate by a mere 4 per cent. and that the domestic rate in the City, even after allowing for the ILEA precept, is the second lowest in the country. How dare he make the suggestion that he made?
  I am sorry that his hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) is not here, because I was rather careful not to answer him until I had received the exact facts. The truth is that Camden did indeed draw my attention to what the auditor had said, but it quoted only one sentence from the letter, so I asked for the full letter. I got the full letter, and it turns out that the auditor stated that in 1987–88 Camden's street sweeping costs per kilometre of road were £9,000 per annum, compared—
  It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 14 ( Exempted Business).
  The House divided: Ayes 176, Noes 109.

  Division No. 109]

  [11.55 pm

  AYES

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Amess, David

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Amos, Alan

  Burns, Simon

  Arbuthnot, James

  Burt, Alistair

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Butler, Chris

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Butterfill, John

  Ashby, David

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Baldry, Tony

  Carrington, Matthew

  Batiste, Spencer

  Carttiss, Michael

  Bendall, Vivian

  Cash, William

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Chope, Christopher

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Churchill, Mr

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Boswell, Tim

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushclifte)

  Bottomley, Peter

  Conway, Derek

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Bowis, John

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Brazier, Julian

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Bright, Graham

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

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

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  967

  Day, Stephen

  McNair-wilson, Sir Michael

  Devlin, Tim

  Malins, Humfrey

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Mans, Keith

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Maples, John

  Dover, Den

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Dunn, Bob

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Durant, Tony

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Dykes, Hugh

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Mills, Iain

  Evennett, David

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Favell, Tony

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Norris, Steve

  Forman, Nigel

  Pawsey, James

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Forth, Eric

  Raffan, Keith

  Franks, Cecil

  Renton, Tim

  Freeman, Roger

  Riddick, Graham

  French, Douglas

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Gale, Roger

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Rowe, Andrew

  Gill, Christopher

  Sackville, Hon Tom

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Hannam, John

  Speller, Tony

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

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Squire, Robin

  Harris, David

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Steen, Anthony

  Hayward, Robert

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Heddle, John

  Summerson, Hugo

  Hind, Kenneth

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Howard, Michael

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

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

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Thorne, Neil

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Thurnham, Peter

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Trippier, David

  Irvine, Michael

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Jack, Michael

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Jessel, Toby

  Walden, George

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Waller, Gary

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Watts, John

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Wells, Bowen

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Wheeler, John

  Knapman, Roger

  Whitney, Ray

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Wilkinson, John

  Knowles, Michael

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Lang, Ian

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Latham, Michael

  Wood, Timothy

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Woodcock, Mike

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Yeo, Tim

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Lightbown, David

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Lord, Michael

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Maclean, David

  Mr. Michael Fallon and

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Mr. Sydney Chapman

  NOES

  Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

  Blunkett, David

  Alton, David

  Boateng, Paul

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Bradley, Keith

  Ashton, Joe

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Barron, Kevin

  Buckley, George J.

  Battle, John

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Beith, A. J.

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Clay, Bob

  968

  Clelland, David

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Cohen, Harry

  Marek, Dr John

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Cryer, Bob

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Cunningham, Dr John

  Martlew, Eric

  Darling, Alistair

  Meale, Alan

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Michael, Alun

  Dewar, Donald

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Dixon, Don

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Dobson, Frank

  Morley, Elliott

  Doran, Frank

  Mullin, Chris

  Eadie, Alexander

  Murphy, Paul

  Eastham, Ken

  O'Brien, William

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Patchett, Terry

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  Pike, Peter L.

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

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Foster, Derek

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Fyfe, Maria

  Redmond, Martin

  Galbraith, Sam

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Rooker, Jeff

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Gordon, Mildred

  Skinner, Dennis

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Hardy, Peter

  Soley, Clive

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Spearing, Nigel

  Haynes, Frank

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Henderson, Doug

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Holland, Stuart

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Home Robertson, John

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Hood, Jimmy

  Turner, Dennis

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Vaz, Keith

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Wall, Pat

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Walley, Joan

  Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Illsley, Eric

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  Ingram, Adam

  Wilson, Brian

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

  Winnick, David

  Lamond, James

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Leighton, Ron

  Worthington, Tony

  Lewis, Terry

  Wray, Jimmy

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Tellers for the Noes:

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Mr. Nigel Griffiths and

  McWilliam, John

  Mr. Jimmy Dunachie.

  Madden, Max

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the draft Rate Limitation (Councils in England) (Prescribed Maximum) (Rates) Order 1989, which was laid before this House on 14th February, be approved.

  Rating
    STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.]
    STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

      AGRICULTURE
      That the draft Code of Recommendations for the Welfare of Goats, which was laid before this House on 23rd January, be approved.
      That the draft Code of Recommendations for the Welfare of Farmed Deer, which was laid before this House on 23rd January, be approved.
      That the draft Code of Recommendations for the Welfare of Livestock-Sheep, which was laid before this House on 23rd January, be approved.—[Mr. Heuthcoat-Amory.]
      Question agreed to.

    WAYS AND MEANS

      WEIGHTS AND MEASURES (AMENDMENT) BILL
      Resolved,
      That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Weights and Measures (Amendment) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund. —[Mr. Hearhcoat-Amory.]

    RIGHT OF REPLY BILL [MONEY]
    Queen's recommendation having been signified—
    Resolved,
    That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Right of Reply Bill it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

    (a) any sums payable under the Act by way of reimbursement for loss of earnings suffered, or expenses incurred, by members of the Press Commission established by the Act;

    (b) the remuneration and expenses of the Right of Reply Advisor so established and of the Secretary and staff of that Commission; and

    (c) any increase attributable to the provisions of the Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other Act.—[Mr. Heathcoat-Amory.]

  PETITION

    Mr. Charles Bester
    12.7 am
    Mr. David Alton: I have the honour to present a petition which has been signed by 58,789 Christians from churches of all denominations situated in all parts of this country. The petition is addressed
    To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland assembled.
    The Humble Petition of residents of the United Kingdom showeth
    That we call for the release of Mr. Charles Bester, the 18-year old Christian gaoled by the South African authorities for six years following his refusal on conscientious grounds to join the South African Armed Forces.
    Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your honourable House request the Government to make appropriate representations …to have Mr. Bester freed.
    And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.
    This petition has been organised by the Jubilee Campaign, which works for prisoners of conscience. Mr. Bester is an 18-year-old Anglican facing a harrowing ordeal of six years' imprisonment, which must seem like a lifetime for someone of his youth, for refusing to take up arms against his fellow countrymen.
    As a Christian, he unequivocally rejects apartheid as being morally repugnant. He is supported by 93 Members of Parliament of all parties, who have signed early-day motion 176, and by the Archbishop of Capetown, Desmond Tutu, Sir Richard Attenborough and Mr. Donald Woods, all of whom sent messages of support to a meeting held in Westminster earlier today in the Jubilee Room.
    I trust that her Majesty's Government will take every possible step to support the petition.
    To lie upon the Table.

  Transplant Organs
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Heathcoat-Amory.]
  12.9 am
  Dame Jill Knight: Our doctors, like our policemen, are wonderful. They can save lives or sight, which would inevitably have been lost just a few years ago—or at least they could have, but they cannot, because the necessary organs are not available. Instead, these precious pieces of human tissue are discarded wastefully and uselessly every day. They die in the bodies they are part of, though they could give life to another human being.
  At present 3,700 people are waiting for kidneys, 420 for hearts, 48 for livers and 600 for corneas to give them sight. That does not mean that we need 4,768 donors—the total number of needed organs—because one donor could give two kidneys, one heart and so on. We are not talking about an impossible target. It could, I think, easily be achieved, and the time has come when we must resolve to achieve it.
  It is over two and a half years since the Hoffenberg report on the subject was published. Recommendations were made but to my knowledge none has yet been adopted, and I believe that the matter is now urgent. People are dying needlessly; impoverished peasants are being prevailed on to sell their kidneys; doctors are talking about breeding animals to use their organs in human beings; other doctors are talking about using the organs of aborted babies for the same purpose. That is the stuff of scandal.
  Where shortages exist, human ingenuity works automatically to overcome those shortages. When the matter is one of life and death, entrepreneurs will go to any lengths to provide the missing items. If something is not done, the scandals will get worse.
  What, then, should be done? Should the "required request" be brought in—that is, should a legal obligation be placed on hospitals to ask relatives whether the dying person's organs can be used? Sir Raymond Hoffenberg did not recommend that in his report, although the committee discussed it. It is possible, however: there is nothing illegal about asking. Some hospitals already do it, and I am told that the practice exists in many American states, where it is said to result in many more organs becoming available. But what worries me, and what I think worried the Hoffenberg committee, is that not all hospitals can deal properly with the matter—which is, after all, highly delicate and acutely sensitive. The agony of the bereaved, or those about to be bereaved, must be respected; it cannot be trampled on. That must be considered and balanced with the desire to save someone else's life.
  I am ready to agree that sometimes the bereaved are comforted by the thought that the death has not been a total waste. Not all, however, feel that way. Besides, how on earth would such a directive be policed? Any law that cannot be enforced is a bad law. I do not see how anyone could be certain that the law was being carried out if Parliament directed that it should be. Instead the Hoffenberg report recommends a strong campaign of information, both for the general public and for hospital personnel, to encourage more people to become donors, and I urge that course on the Government.
  I cannot agree—and nor did Hoffenberg—with the suggestion that everyone going into hospital should be
  972
  asked whether he would be willing to donate his organs. I can envisage truly horrendous circumstances arising. Someone might go in for a relatively minor operation, perhaps to have a bunion dealt with, and be asked first the name of his next of kin and then whether he would donate his organs. That course would, I feel, spread alarm and despondency, and I cannot agree with it.
  I think that the time to ask the donor volunteers is when people are fit, well and flourishing and not expecting to die. Let us have a sustained poster campaign. Posters could be very well designed and very effective. They could be placed in health clubs, universities and sports facilities. Let us also use television. I am sure that if we embarked on the kind of campaign that the Hoffenberg committee recommended we would find more donors.
  Only 20 per cent. of people carry donor cards. We could easily quadruple that, and with the right publicity and effective appeals we could make it the norm and not the exception to carry a card. Some people favour introducing a system which assumes that everyone is willing to be a donor unless they specifically say that they are not. The committee rightly discarded the opting-out system. I pay tribute to the committee and the sensitivity with which it approached a highly sensitive subject. We are dealing with individual freedom and everyone has the right to decide what is done with their bodies and their organs. The opting-out system would not always allow that.
  Even when a person carries a donor card, his organs may not always be used, first because if a person is involved in an accident in the street, it is normal practice for him to be rushed into an intensive care unit, where all his clothes are quickly removed, bundled up and taken away. It is not usually the practice to search the injured person's clothes for a donor card, which gets left in the clothing. Secondly, the next of kin must agree, although the person has signed a card to say that he is willing to donate his organs. The next of kin may be the person's wife, who is likely to have been involved in the accident with the injured person. I am told that one difficulty is when they cannot ask the next of kin whether he or she is agreeable. Sometimes the next of kin is too upset to agree or cannot be found quickly enough, because obviously such cases are urgent and if organs are to be used successfully they must be removed within a fairly short time. A great deal could be done to improve hospital practice when donors are known to have agreed to the use of their organs.
  The Hoffenberg report said that:
  "organ donation should always be considered when brain stem death is diagnosed".
  I do not have time to discuss that point, but it is extremely important because there has been a great deal of controversy as to whether that is right or wrong. Many people have been made nervous by the suggestion that life support machines may be switched off too quickly, with more thought for the person to be helped by the organs than for the person donating them. That, too, is a matter of extreme sensitivity.
  Some say that we could ask on the census, but I know that my hon. Friend the Minister will say that the Government have turned their face against that suggestion for very good reasons which I do not have time to go into.
  The committee suggested that the donor card should be attached to the driving licence. I think that there would have to be an EEC agreement on that, since driving licences come under EEC regulations.

  973
  The report is not very long, but it is all very interesting. The main thrust of the report is on a national and local campaign to inform the public of the need for more organs and the ease with which they can be donated. The report concludes:
  "The goodwill of the public can be maintained and increased by publicity about the successful long-term results of transplantation. The wishes of potential donors should be made better known. Health professionals should be encouraged to respond to the generosity and compassion of the public."
  The public are most wonderfully generous and compassionate. When they see that there is a need, and when they understand the length and breadth of that need and its importance, they respond, but they need to be given a lead by the Government. I think that they need to be given that lead now.
  Sir Michael McNair Wilson rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Does the hon. Member have the leave of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) and the Minister to take part in the debate?
  Dame Jill Knight indicated assent.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Roger Freeman)indicated assent.
  12.16 am
  Sir Michael McNair Wilson: I am most grateful to my hon. Friends.
  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) on her admirable speech on a most important subject. She referred to the kidney donor card. All of us have congratulated ourselves on the number of cards that have been issued. At least 8 million cards were issued in 1987 and 1988. However, when I asked Ministers how many of those carrying donor cards have ended up as kidney donors, they were unable to supply me with that information. That suggests to me either that the card carries no weight with the medical profession, which therefore does not seek it out when people are taken into hospital, or that the card does not have the force of law that donors believe it carries when they sign it.
  If that is the case, we should look into the matter and ensure that the card is what it purports to be—the consent of the person carrying the card to have his or her organs taken in the event of death without recourse to next of kin. I understand that in law there is no requirement for hospitals to ask next of kin to remove organs.
  We know how many cards have been issued. We do not know how many cards are being carried by donors. There is no national, centralised computer register of donor cards, so I do not think that the Minister will be able to tell me that the Department knows that X number of cards are being carried in people's pockets. All that I was able to glean from his predecessor was the statement:
  "We wish to see an evaluation of the registers being established by the Manpower Services Commission, for example, in Birmingham and Sheffield, and of a similar scheme operating in Wales before giving further consideration to this question."— [Official Report, 14 July 1988; Vol. 137, c. 364.]
  974
  I do not think that that is good enough. I wholeheartedly endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston said. If only we could garner all the kidneys and other organs that are available but that are being lost through neglect, we should not have the problem of the waiting list to which she referred.
  12.18 am
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Roger Freeman): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) on her success in the ballot and on choosing a subject that is of such great importance to a growing number of patients. I congratulate also my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Sir M. McNair-Wilson) on his brief but trenchant contribution. I pay tribute to him for his fortitude over his own personal disabilities and the great experience, consideration and sympathy that he always brings to these debates.
  As transplant surgery becomes increasingly successful, demand grows and we have to concentrate on ways of stimulating the donation of organs. As a Government we have been extremely active in this area during the last year, and in a few minutes I will explain both what we have been doing and the sensitivities which many people feel on the subject.
  The United Kingdom record on organ transplants is a credit to all those involved in it. Although we do not yet have firm totals for 1988, provisional figures for the number of transplants show that it was another record year. Last year, the National Health Service carried out 1,544 cadaveric kidney transplants, 332 heart and heart-lung and 212 liver transplants. For kidneys, this implies a rise of 35 per cent. compared with five years ago. Heart and heart-lung transplants rose sixfold, and liver transplants over tenfold over the same period.
  Compared with our European neighbours, we are among the leaders both in terms of transplants performed and the technical excellence of our programmes. In terms of numbers of kidney transplants per annum, Germany and France are slightly ahead of us but have about the same activity rate per million of population.
  We do not have good figures on the number of heart and liver transplants performed in other European countries, but we know that our programmes are held in high regard by our neighbours. We commenced our transplant activities much earlier than other European countries.
  Despite the record figures, the numbers waiting, particularly for kidney transplants, are too high, and I agree with my hon. Friends about that. We are not alone in this. Most countries have substantial waiting lists and in many they are growing significantly. In round terms, the United Kingdom waiting list for kidneys is 3,500, that for hearts and heart-lungs stands at 400 and livers at between 40 and 50. The figures given by my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston probably included those for the Republic of Ireland, whereas I am giving figures for the United Kingdom. In the case of cadaveric kidneys, about 35 per cent. of patients wait for less than a year. Those with rare tissue types may face a much longer wait because of the difficulty of providing a well-matched donor.
  Organs for transplant can be obtained from two sources. They can be donated after death or from living organs. Live donation applies only to kidneys. Since

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  humans are endowed with two kidneys, and it is quite possible to function with one, close relatives sometimes donate a kidney. Where the genetic relationship between donor and recipient is very close, this can often produce a good match and lead to a successful graft.
  With other organs live donation is not possible, except in one special and rather interesting case. In recent years our surgeons have been successfully transplanting the heart and lung as a single unit. This is often carried out on patients whose lungs are in chronic failure, as happens, for example, with cystic fibrosis. In such patients, the heart is often in good condition, so instead of wasting it the cardiac surgeons put it into another patient needing only a heart transplant. Providing the donor consents—and why should they refuse?—this is one way of maximising the use of available organs.
  Our largest heart transplant centre, Harefield hospital, has performed these so-called "domino" operations successfully in significant numbers in the last two or three years, and we pay tribute to their skill. However, this is a special case. The point remains that live donation is essentially possible only with kidneys. But live donation, even between close relatives, is not our preferred source of supply of kidneys. European Health Ministers held a special meeting on transplantation in November 1987, and agreed that
  "the use of organs from living donors should be restricted and, where possible, gradually eliminated."
  The best way of making this happen is, of course, to boost donations from those who have died to make live donation less necessary. In the United Kingdom we are fortunate in not having to rely heavily on live kidney donors; in 1987 well over 90 per cent. of our transplants were from those who had died.
  One source of organs is totally unacceptable both to this and other European Governments. This is the purchase of kidneys from unrelated donors. Recent allegations of trading in organs have evoked feelings of disgust in virtually all of us, and the Prime Minister has denounced the practice in this place. Hon. Members will be aware that the health authorities concerned have moved quickly to investigate the allegations, and that the cases have been referred to the General Medical Council, which will consider whether professional misconduct has occurred. We are urgently considering legislation.
  The Government have been concerned about the shortage of cadaveric organs for some years. In 1986, as my hon. Friend said, the Department of Health sought advice from the Royal medical colleges on why there was a shortfall, and ways of remedying it. The colleges set up a working party under the chairmanship of Sir Raymond Hoffenberg, the then president of the Royal College of Physicians, which reported in 1987. The working party stressed that many factors contributed to the shortage, and accordingly made recommendations covering several areas. We have acted on two proposals in the report which appear to be the key points.
  The first recommendation was that each health authority should have an operational policy for organ donation, including procedures for identifying potential organ donors an referring them to the transplant units. Associated with that was the recommendation that a national audit be undertaken of deaths in intensive care, to show how many potential donors exist and the reasons why sometimes donation does not take place.
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  In December 1988, we issued a health circular giving effect to that recommendation. Health authorities were asked to report to the Department by 30 June this year, confirming that procedures have been drawn up. They began the audit on 1 January. It is too early to reach a conclusion, but we shall be reviewing the first three months' data so that any problems encountered in conducting the survey can be sorted out. After six months, we expect to see some useful pointers emerging—but given the relatively small number of donors, it may be one year before reliable patterns can be discerned. The audit will run for two years, with the possibility of extending it if necessary.
  I hope that my hon. Friend accepts the value of the action we have taken to establish in as many cases as possible the circumstances surrounding a death, the existence of a donor card, procedures followed by the intensive care unit and by the doctors and nurses involved, the reactions of the relatives concerned—all of which will enable us to reach a conclusion as to how best we can improve the methodology and hospital procedures.
  The working party's other key recommendation concerned publicity. Numerous surveys showed that the public generally are in favour of organ donation. About three-quarters of the population state that they would be willing to become donors after their death. But those sentiments are not always translated into action. The working party recommended more publicity both among the general public and among the medical profession. In response, we increased the Department's publicity expenditure. In the current financial year, 1988–89, we are allocating about £250,000 for that purpose. That sum is split between publicity directed towards the professions and that aimed at the general public.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston asked whether that was the right order of magnitude and whether we would consider also the use of television and poster advertising. I give my hon. Friend an assurance that I shall look further into how that money is being spent, and at how best to improve the carrying of the message to the general public of the donor programme's importance.
  In 1988 we distributed more than 14 million donor cards, compared with about 5 million in 1987. In October 1988, in collaboration with the Healthcare Foundation, we began an initiative to make donor cards available in high street stores. In January, I was delighted to participate in a venture by the Reader's Digest, which carried an article on transplants coupled with the issue of more than 5 million donor cards. In the spring, we plan to release a video, displays and leaflets for use by transplant co-ordinators, who perform valuable education and publicity work.
  The donor card has attracted its critics. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury asked me questions on that aspect, which I shall answer in a moment.
  Dame Jill Knight: I am delighted to learn that so many donor cards have been made available. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Sir M. McNair-Wilson) made the point that we do not know how many cards were signed, or the addresses of those who signed them. As far as I know, no register is kept of those people. Can something be done about that?
  Mr. Freeman: My hon. Friend reminds me of the criticisms made by my hon. Friend the Member for

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  Newbury. The first concerned the status of the card and whether it is a valid legal document. I assure my hon. Friends that it is, and that it conveys the necessary consent to the doctors concerned. However, as was mentioned, the clothing of the victim of a tragic accident is sometimes removed, and the card goes unnoticed. In such circumstances, it is quicker for the nurses and doctors involved to consult the victim's relatives. The donor card stands on its own as a valid legal document, which is all that is needed in the absence of relatives.
  The second question that my hon. Friend asked is whether we can have a computer register of those who sign the donor cards so that we know exactly who in the general public have them. It has occurred to me that we have no firm record of who holds the millions of cards in existence and of their age profile. However, the prime purpose of the card is as a signal to the friends and relatives of an individual that that individual wants his organs donated. Thus the donor card has two purposes. One is as a personal declaration to the medical profession and the other is as a signal to friends and relatives.
  The donor card has proved a valuable peg on which to hang numerous publicity campaigns, both local and national, but I shall reflect on my hon. Friends' suggestion about a computer register. However, as I am sure they understand, it is fraught with difficulties.
  In the last minute available to me let me deal briefly
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  with the "required request" legislation. Various American states have enacted laws in recent years which require hospitals to request the donation of organs in all suitable cases. Those were followed by federal legislation along the same lines in 1987. Some believe that we should enact similar legislation here. The Hoffenberg working party advised us that there was a better approach, which I have described already, and we intend to give those measures time to work before considering any other proposals. American evidence on the effect of its legislation is unclear. It is by no means certain that the laws have had a sustained impact on donation which we cannot achieve by alternative means.
  I would be most reluctant to move down the path of opting out at present. We have to carry British society with us in that regard. Although that is the practice in France, I should hesitate to move down that path at this time.
  I hope that I have shown that the Government have been vigorously tackling the issue of organ donation in the past few years. For the sake of all those waiting for transplants by our skilful surgeons we need to encourage the public to a greater consciousness of the value of donations after death, and our medical professions need to review hospital procedures to ensure that all possible acts of generosity in agreeing to donations at times of often tragic circumstances are followed up. I hope that 1989 will see yet another advance in transplant activity.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes to One o'clock.