Commons Sitting of 11 January 1989

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS
PORT OF TYNE BILL [Lords]
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Oral Answers to Questions
  FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

    Drug Trafficking (Central and Latin America)
    Mr. Tracey: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on international efforts to eradicate drug trafficking in central and Latin America.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Timothy Eggar): There is close co-operation between central and Latin American countries and the rest of the international community to combat drug trafficking. The United Kingdom is contributing to these efforts both bilaterally and through the United Nations.
    Mr. Tracey: Is my hon. Friend aware of the extremely good work being done by the Bahamas Government in co-operation with the United States coastguard and the drug enforcement agency to combat drug trafficking from Colombia in particular to Florida? Will the Government consider any form of assistance for the Bahamas defence force in this good work?
    Mr. Eggar: I recognise the degree of co-operation between the Bahamas Government and the United States Government-and, indeed, our own authorities, both in the dependent territories and in the United Kingdom. I shall shortly visit the Bahamas, where I shall have discussions on drug matters with the Bahamas Government.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: Does the Minister agree that although good work is being done there is a tendency to be complacent and that, if the success being achieved continues, the scene of drug trafficking could move to Europe, particularly to Spain and Portugal? Is the hon. Gentleman aware of that, and what steps have been taken in co-operation with others to deal with it?
    Mr. Eggar: The hon. Gentleman is right. There is, unfortunately, a considerable amount of evidence that the drugs cartels have targeted the whole of Europe for an increase in the export of cocaine, especially from Latin America. Also, because of the difference between the
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    wholesale price of cocaine in London and in the United States there is an increasing trend towards exporting refined cocaine directly from the United States to the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe. We face a considerable threat and, together with other European countries and other countries throughout the world, we are doing what we can to combat it.
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the unfortunate fact that for large areas of Bolivia at present the cultivation of coca is the only economic way of life? Does he agree that we should be putting a considerable amount of assistance into developing alternative crops, in the form of technical and marketing assistance for the people of those areas?
    Mr. Eggar: I agree with my hon. Friend. The return to the peasant farmers of Bolivia at some times of the year is considerably greater from the cultivation of cocaine and the coca crop than it would be from any alternative crop. That is why we have a large aid programme—well in excess of £2 million—in what we call the crop substitution area of Bolivia. I pay tribute to the Bolivian Government for their determination to end drug trafficking in their country.

    Afghanistan
    Mr. Bowis: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he has any plans to seek to pay an official visit to Afghanistan.
    Mr. Eggar: My right hon. and learned Friend has no present plans to visit Afghanistan.
    Mr. Bowis: I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will find an opportunity to do so when Afghanistan is free and independent. In the meantime, will my hon. Friend and my right hon. and learned Friend press the Soviet Union to ensure that it lives up to its promise to be out of Afghanistan by 15 February? Will my hon. Friend urge upon the Soviets that their good faith depends on this? We do not want to hear any more nonsense about partitioning Afghanistan or about insisting that the Communists take part in Afghan government in the future, given that the people there have rejected that?
    Mr. Eggar: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The Soviet Union must honour the Geneva commitment to withdraw all its forces by 15 February. If Russian troops were to stay, not only would that be a breach of the agreement, but it would prolong a senseless war. The: present regime in Kabul is doomed.
    Mr. Atkinson: Does my hon. Friend recall that negotiations between the European Community and Comecon were suspended in 1980 as a result of the invasion of Afghanistan? Those negotiations have now resumed. Will they be suspended if the Soviets do not leave Afghanistan as promised?
    Mr. Eggar: I have to say to my hon. Friend that we must work on the present assumption that the Soviets will withdraw by 15 February.

    Middle East
    Sir Dennis Walters: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a further statement on progress towards a middle east peace settlement.
    The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Sir Geoffrey Howe): Mr. Arafat's recent statements, which we welcome, have pointed the way to the PLO's eventual participation in peace negotiations. The world now looks to Israel for a positive response. All of us, meanwhile, should work to see that present opportunity for real progress is not wasted.
    Sir Dennis Walters: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that Israeli oppression and repression on the west bank continues unabated? Can any steps be taken to assist the Palestinian population? Is he further aware that it is the declared intention of the Israeli Government to sabotage the talks between the United States and the PLO? Can we do anything to prevent this happening and to prevent the wrecking of a very hopeful initiative and of progress toward a peaceful settlement?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I agree with my hon. Friend that there are still grounds for very grave concern about many of the things that are happening in the occupied territories, whether in terms of recent deportations and detentions or in connection with many other aspects of Israeli conduct in those occupied territories, which have to be treated in accordance with the Geneva convention. The occupation is illegal and does not contribute at all to the prospects for peace. We shall go on making as plain as possible to the Israeli Government our recognition of the right of Israel to a secure existence behind secure borders and our clear view that that right is jeopardised by continuing conduct of that kind. As I have said on many occasions, it is for Israel to respond to the opportunity for peace that is now open.
    Mr. Cartwright: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the use of heavily armed Israeli troops to shoot down Palestinian children armed only with stones does not help to produce the sort of atmosphere that is necessary for a reasonable settlement? Will he continue to take every opportunity to press the need for sensible policies by the Israeli Government in the occupied territories?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. We are seriously concerned at continuing unrest of all kinds. We regret deaths and injuries of all kinds, particularly of innocent civilians. It is worth noting that more than 330 Palestinians have been killed while the number of Israelis killed is 11. We regret all deaths, but that balance shows how important it is for the people and Government of Israel to recognise that violence and repression offer no solution, and that it is for them to join the rest of us in seeking a peaceful solution.
    Mr. Dykes: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for the work that he has done in trying to bring true peace to the middle east. I am sure that the whole House will wish the Minister of State well on his visit to Tunis tomorrow to meet both Yasser Arafat and senior members of the PLO. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that Mr. Shamir is not leading Israel down the path of true peace with, for example, his attitude to the President of the European Parliament during a visit this week? However, the indication from Mr. Shamir that the United Nations
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    can somehow be involved is encouraging. The death toll among Palestinians to which my right hon. and learned Friend referred is an unacceptable statistic. There is a large national constituency in Israel yearing for true dialogue, true negotiations and real peace. Mr. Shamir must accept that.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I recognise the force of my hon. Friend's points. He is right to remind the House that the Israeli Government were only quite recently elected and have promised a new initiative in this respect. The Prime Minister of Israel has referred to the possible role of the United Nations, and I can certainly assure the Israeli Government that we shall be ready to look at any initiative that they offer on its merits. We certainly want to see early action on their part and I hope that we can have early discussions with the Israeli Government. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has invited Mr. Shamir, the Prime Minister of Israel, to come to the United Kingdom and I look forward to the opportunity of early contact with Israel's Foreign Minister.
    Mr. Robertson: Surely the Foreign Secretary agrees that recent American activity in the Mediterranean is likely to damage the whole peace process in the middle east. We agree that Colonel Gaddafi is, and has been for a long time, both an unstable menace and a friend to terrorists and that the construction of chemical weapons plants, whether in Iraq, Libya or elsewhere, should be of acute concern to the world, but the Foreign Secretary will surely also recognise that by manufacturing tension and brinkmanship the United States is dicing with death in the middle east. Why, therefore, do the British Government still insist on their lonely encouragement of American action, including the veiled threats to bomb the poison gas plant near Tripoli, especially when all our European allies have counselled a sober and safe course of action?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman, who normally has a balanced approach to these questions, should have been distracted by the opportunity of denouncing the United States without any justification whatsoever. In the course of my recent contacts with five Governments in the Arabian peninsula, although the matter of the shooting down of the Libyan aircraft was raised—I made it plain that it was done in self-defence—it was not seen as standing in the way of sensible discussion of the main problem of the Arab-Israel peace process, nor should it be allowed to do so. The hon. Gentleman is being distracted by something that is less than worthy of him.
    Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: On reflection, does my right hon. and learned Friend not feel that Britain's three abstentions in the United Nations Security Council in respect of the middle east were unworthy and gave us little credit in the international community? Should not Britain be playing a greater part in the European Community to make sure that Europe takes the lead in trying to get both sides in the middle east together?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I know my hon. Friend's particular interest in this subject, but I must tell him that his question could not be more misconceived. In all my discussions in the past 10 days, Britain's role and responsibility has been clearly recognised and welcomed. We abstained on those three resolutions because we took the view, for example; that the refusal of the visa was wrong and that the

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    language being used to condemn it was also intemperate. Our abstension was entirely respected and we were regarded as having played an effective and valuable part in building the bridge to the talks that will now take place between the United States and the PLO. I understand my hon. Friend's anxiety, but I can assure him that it is totally without foundation.

    Iran
    Mr. Wareing: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he last met a representative of the Iranian Government; and what subjects were discussed.
    The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. William Waldegrave): My right hon. and learned Friend met the Iranian Foreign Minister, Dr. Velayati, in New York on 30 September last year. I met him on 9 January this year. We discussed progress in the resumption of full diplomatic representation in London and Tehran. I raised the imprisonment of the Briton, Roger Cooper, in Iran. and the British hostages in the Lebanon.
    Mr. Wareing: Does the Minister agree that, quite apart from the holding of hostages by the terrorist regime in Iran, British diplomatic recognition of that regime can be forthcoming only when it stops violating the human rights of its own people? There have been reports of up to 12,000 people being executed since the end of the Gulf war by what can only be described as the butchers in Tehran. Are we so keen to have trade relations with that country that we are willing to forget about human rights? Does the Minister agree that this is another Government who are doomed, or should be?
    Mr. Waldegrave: The hon. Gentleman is probably aware that we never broke diplomatic relations with Iran. Iran is an important country in the region and it is right that we should have diplomatic relations with her. When I met the Foreign Minister, I thought that my principal duty was to seek the release of the British citizen held in Iran and to seek Iran's help, which we believe it could give, in the release of the hostages in Lebanon. We have made it perfectly clear on a number of occasions that the human rights abuses to hich the hon. Gentleman referred in Iran are unacceptable to us, as are those elsewhere.
    Sir Bernard Braine: My hon. Friend referred to certain meetings of a diplomatic nature. Was reference made at these to the disgust and horror of the British Parliament and people at the continued execution of political prisoners in Iran? That subject must be dealt with before any high level exchange of the kind which may have been suggested at those meetings takes place.
    Mr. Waldegrave: I think that the Iranian Government and Dr. Velayati are in no doubt about the feelings in this House and elsewhere about those matters. I regarded it as my principal duty in the meeting the day before yesterday to seek Dr. Velayati's urgent help in the case of Mr. Cooper and over the hostages in the Lebanon because we believe that the House and the British people will not allow us to relax in our relations with Iran while they believe that more can be done from the Iranian side.
    Sir Russell Johnston: Is the Minister aware that many hon. Members on both sides of the House believe that it was also his duty to raise the matter of the executions? The matter is important. Even if 12,000 is an exaggeration, the figure is still appallingly large. I hope that the Government will not react by increasing export credits as they did when Iraq used chemical weapons.
    Mr. Waldegrave: I repeat what I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braille). I regarded my duty to this House as being to put help for the hostages and our own citizens at the top of my agenda. Of course we make repeated representations on the wider human rights context as well.
    Mr. Temple-Morris: Does my hon. Friend accept that, concerning the ever-continuing detention of Roger Cooper, who has been detained now for three years in the Evin prison in Iran, it is exclusively within the power of the Iranian Government to provide his release? Does my hon. Friend further agree and accept that in addition to other matters that have validly been raised, full resumption of diplomatic relations must depend on the release of Roger Cooper in the first place and on the Government's satisfaction that the Islamic Government of Iran are doing all that they can to deliver the freedom of British hostages held in the Lebanon?
    Mr. Waldegrave: My hon. Friend puts it most accurately. We should also recognise that a welcome step was made with the freeing of Mr. Nicola. We welcome that unreservedly and hope that it is a sign that the kind of improvement in relations with Iran that my hon. Friend wants, and which we all want, will be possible if Iran responds to the concerns of this House.
    Mr. Winnick: The Minister was absolutely right to give priority to making representations about British citizens who are being held completely unjustly as hostages. However, does he not recognise that the Government have a responsibility to express the feeling of revulsion and horror in this House and in many parts of the country at the way in which the regime is carrying out executions of political prisoners on an almost daily basis? If it were a Communist regime, the Tories would be in uproar and rightly so. Why is there not the same reaction to the bloodstained regime in Iran?
    Mr. Waldegrave: The hon. Gentleman started well, but then characteristically fell off the rails. My right hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine) and my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris) raised the same matters with perhaps more dignity. However, I take the point.
    Mr. Robert Hicks: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is public recognition that it was correct to restore our diplomatic mission in Tehran, but since then there has been increasing impatience over the delay in the release of Roger Cooper and the role that the Iranian authorities can play in helping to secure the release of the hostages in Beirut? Will he take on board the growing impatience of the British people about those specific points?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I sympathise with my hon. Friend's impatience and I sympathise even more with the impatience of Mr. Cooper's family. However, I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that the welcome release of Mr.

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    Nicola shows that the careful and limited steps that we have been taking have paid off. We hope that there will be further steps in the same direction before too long.
    Mr. Anderson: We could have made representations to the Iranian Government on the appalling mass executions as, of course we did properly about Mr. Cooper and the hostages, because we maintained a residual diplomatic link with Iran. On the other country in the region which the Minister mentioned as that important country of Syria, we cannot make direct representations about the British hostages in the middle east or generally about the middle east peace process. Have the Government now come to the point where they are reconsidering diplomatic relations with Syria?
    Mr. Waldegrave: No. There is no change in the situation in relation to Syria. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we find it impossible to have relations with a regime, senior officials of which took steps which might have led to a catastrophe in the centre of London as bad or worse than that which we recently saw in Lockerbie.

    Fiji
    Dr. Marek: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he intends to pay an official visit to Fiji.
    Mr. Eggar: My right hon. and learned Friend has no plans to visit Fiji at present.
    Dr. Marek: Can the Minister confirm that the constitution of Fiji published last autumn by the military-installed Government is not democratic and does not allow the people of Fiji to participate in periodic and genuine elections by universal and equal suffrage? Will he do what he can to persuade the rulers of Fiji to accept a constitution under which they could, without any trouble, become signatories to the United Nations declaration on human rights? Can he also tell the House what success he has had in that respect by giving aid in the drafting of the constitution to the present Fijian Government?
    Mr. Eggar: As the hon. Gentleman is aware, we have consistently urged the Fijian Government to return to parliamentary democracy. They are currently looking for a constitution that will be acceptable to all communities within Fiji. The hon. Gentleman, from his experience of Fiji, will be aware that that is not an easy task. We have undertaken to recruit an expert to draft the new constitution, but that expert will be working for the Fijian Government and not for the British Government.
    Mr. Boswell: Will my hon. Friend clarify the position of Fijian nationals resident in the United Kingdom and of other Anglo-Fijian ties in the light of Fiji's inevitable but regrettable self-inflicted withdrawal from the Commonwealth—or has that made no difference at all?
    Mr. Eggar: It is difficult to make a blanket comment without knowing the position of the individuals to whom my hon. Friend refers. If he will contact me about them, I shall of course comment.
    Mr. Corbyn: Can the Minister throw any light on information that he may have received concerning the circumstances of the overthrown Bavandra Government in 1987? Many people are suspicious that a Government
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    committed to a non-nuclear and non-aligned foreign policy should be destabilised and overthrown. Does the Minister agree that an investigation is necessary into the circumstances surrounding that destabilisation, bearing in mind other destabilisations that have been effected in the Pacific area wherever countries have followed a non-nuclear, non-aligned foreign policy?
    Mr. Tony Banks: Not to mention Harold Wilson.
    Mr. Eggar: Obviously the hon. Gentleman has been refuelling his supply of conspiracy theories over the Christmas period. I am surprised at the nature of his question. Is he suggesting that the British Government should enter an independent country and conduct an inquiry?

    CSCE Review Conference
    Mr. Atkinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the concluding document of the conference on security and co-operation in Europe review conference in Vienna.
    Mr. Waldegrave: We hope that the Vienna meeting will conclude shortly with the adoption of a substantial and balanced document. That should represent a major step forward on previous CSCE commitments—for example, on religious freedom, freedom to emigrate, and freer flow of information.
    Mr. Atkinson: I commend my hon. Friend and his western colleagues on their refusal to conclude the Helsinki review conference until substantial progress on implementation can be agreed. Will he accept that, far from a few dozen religious and political prisoners being left in the gulag—as was suggested following Chancellor Kohl's visit last October, when he announced that all prisoners would be released—there remain several hundred prisoners, the names of whom I have given to my hon. Friend? Will my hon. Friend confirm that there will be no human rights conference in Moscow until further real, substantial and irreversible progress is made on human rights in the Soviet Union?
    Mr. Waldegrave: As we have said, the United Kingdom's attendance at the Moscow conference depends on the Soviet Union's making further specific human rights improvements between now and 1991. I shall arrange for a copy of the Foreign Office statement on the matter to be placed in the Library of the House.
    Certainly some political and religious prisoners remain in the Soviet Union, but we think—and this is a happy state of affairs—that my hon. Friend's list is somewhat out of date, and that the number is now somewhat less. However, it is still very much higher than a few dozen.
    Mr. Michael Marshall: My hon. Friend will be aware of the parliamentary exchanges through the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which are part of the CSCE process. Will he take this opportunity, in a week when the leader of the German IPU delegation is visiting the House, to reaffirm his understanding of the position whereby both British and German parliamentarians have refused to meet in Romania in May to discuss CSCE progress? Does he understand that position and support it?
    Mr. Waldegrave: It is no news to the House that Her Majesty's Government regard the human rights position in Romania as very unsatisfactory and getting worse. There are problems now between Romania and its allies, who, I think, are almost as fed up with it as we are.
    Mr. James Lamond: Is the Minister looking forward to the talks about conventional weapon reductions in Europe which should flow from any agreement in Vienna? Will we be making a positive, progressive proposal there, rather than taking the negative attitude that we have taken to the proposals of President Gorbachev?
    Mr. Waldegrave: The hon. Gentleman rightly emphasises the next great step forward available to us, which should result—as he says—from agreement in Vienna. The principle of reducing the disequilibrium in conventional forces to which President Gorbachev has committed himself is very welcome, and there will certainly be a practical response from the western side.
    Mr. Corbett: Given the importance that the Foreign Secretary attaches to the rights of individuals who have emigrated from the Soviet Union to Israel to be reunited with their families there, does the same principle apply to people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who have waited for up to a decade for their families to join them in this country?
    Mr. Waldegrave: That is quite a creative development of a question about the Vienna CSCE. The hon. Gentleman knows what the regulations are, and he knows that there are queues.
    Mr. Lawrence: I hope that I shall not embarrass my hon. Friend, but what on earth happened to the Government's commitment of only 11 days ago not to support a human rights conference in Moscow until the Soviets had improved their performance on human rights more than they have so far managed to?
    Mr. Waldegrave: It would be impossible for my hon. and learned Friend to embarrass me on this or any other matter, and I am sure that that is not his intention.
    The position is clear. We believe that it is right that the progress that has been made should be recognised by an acceptance in principle of the possibility of a human rights conference in Moscow, but we reserve the right not to go if the firm pledges made by President Gorbachev and his colleagues are not met, and we shall retain that right up to the day before the conference.

    UK-India Relations
    Mr. Janner: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement on relations between the United Kingdom and India.
    Mr. Eggar: Relations between the United Kingdom and India are close. We continue, with the Indian Government, to look for ways to improve the relationship still further.
    Mr. Janner: Is the Minister aware that when I visited India during the Christmas recess I was pleased to find that relations between Britain and India were very much better than they have been in recent years? Will he please pay a tribute to the British high commissioner in Delhi and his
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    staff for the patient work that they are doing, and will he continue to be aware that a number of very fragile issues need watching if the position is to continue and indeed. improve further?
    Mr. Eggar: I am very pleased indeed to hear what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said, and I shall of course ensure that his comments are passed on to our high commissioner in Delhi. I should also like to pay tribute to the work of the present Indian high commissioner here in London—the deputy high commissioner who took responsibility when Dr. Alexander returned home after a distinguished period as Indian high commissioner in London.
    Mr. Jessel: Are not the relations between Britain and India of great importance as the Commonwealth link, in that the traditional ties of history, language and law can act as a bridge between Europe and Asia? Does my hon. Friend accept that a modern India wants close relations with Britain as a whole and with the Conservative Government and that any idea of a special link with the Labour party is 40 years out of date?
    Mr. Eggar: I agree with my hon. Friend about the close ties between the two countries. I would not want to create any kind of a divide across the Chamber on the importance of the relationship between India and the United Kingdom, under whatever Government.
    Mr. Madden: Does the Minister understand that the introduction of DNA testing as a formal part of entry clearance procedures in India or elsewhere on the Indian sub-continent, whereby the applicant would be charged several hundred pounds, is wholly unacceptable? Will he look at the terms of early-day motion 249 where he will see the expressions of concern about such a procedure, and will he undertake urgent discussions with Home Office colleagues to ensure that their secret plan is scrapped and that there is no introduction of charges to applicants or sponsors for DNA testing?
    Mr. Eggar: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that DNA testing applies mainly to people from Bangladesh and Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, to people who wish to come to this country from India, because of the difference in the period of time that has elapsed since the main amount of immigration from India compared with the other two countries in the sub-continent. I shall of course have discussions with my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Home Office about DNA testing. The hon. Gentleman well knows that the matter is under consideration.
    Mr. Dicks: Have the British Government made any representations to this evil Indian Government about their persecution of the Sikhs in the Punjab? If not, why not?
    Mr. Eggar: For my hon. Friend to put the question in that way is extremely unhelpful and it is inappropriate in the House. My hon. Friend is well aware of the Government's position on this matter. It was fully explained to him in an Adjournment debate before Christmas.
    Mr. Wall: Will the Minister have early discussions with the Indian Government about a time scale for the withdrawal of the Indian peace-keeping force from Sri Lanka? In view of the Indian Government's close interest

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    in the island of Sri Lanka, will the Minister also ask the Indian Government when they feel that conditions in Sri Lanka will return to normal so that business people and tourists can go there and peacefully carry out their activities, with this Government no longer carrying the odium of threatening to send refugees back to that country—including sending Viraj Mendis, the refugee, back to his death?
    Mr. Eggar: The hon. Gentleman should remember that Indian troops are in Sri Lanka at the request of the Sri Lankan Government. The newly elected President of Sri Lanka has recently asked for a reduction in the number of troops from India, and I understand that that is happening.

    NATO Secretary-General
    Mr. Gerald Bowden: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he has any plan to meet the secretary-general of NATO to discuss North Atlantic foreign policy co-operation.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I expect to meet the secretary-general of NATO at the ministerial meeting of the North Atlantic Council scheduled to take place on 8 to 9 June in London.
    Mr. Bowden: When my right hon. and learned Friend meets the secretary-general of NATO, will he explain that, while we welcome the progress that the Soviet Union is making towards cutting the numbers of nuclear weapons, we are nevertheless witnessing an increase in their quality? While the numbers may go down, the quality goes up. Does that not make it even more important that NATO should have its own modernisation programme?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend is quite right. The Soviet Union's modernisation programme is continuing at full speed with, for example, more accurate SS2 1 s replacing FROGS, without any diminution in numbers, despite the massive 14:1 Soviet superiority in SNF missile launchers, the continuing build-up of Backfire and Fencer aircraft, nuclear-capable artillery being modernised and SSM21 sea-launched cruise missiles recently deployed. Hon. Members must understand that whereas NATO is considering modernisation options, the Soviet Union is going full speed ahead with a whole panoply of programmes.
    Dr. Owen: Will the Secretary of State ensure that when the NATO Foreign Ministers meet they will discuss a statement by Secretary Shultz that has not received much publicity? Mr. Shultz said that there is a grotesque spectre of the proliferation of biological weapons. He alleged that nations were stockpiling and producing different and more virulent strains of bacterial weapons, in direct contravention of the 1972 biological weapons treaty. That is a very serious allegation. It is the first time that it has been made in such strong and trenchant terms. Will the Secretary of State ask NATO Foreign Ministers to name the countries that are breaching the treaty and take co-ordinated action to bring them to book?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The right hon. Gentleman is right to be concerned about the matter. As he knows, we have
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    been pressing for a long time for a world-wide, effective comprehensive ban on chemical weapons, and the case against biological weapons is just as strong.
    Mr. Thurnham: Will my right hon. and learned Friend reject the views of the West German Admiral Schmähling who is talking about the reunification of Germany and the withdrawal of all American forces?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The views expressed by that gentleman have not been described as the views of the West German Government, who understand, as was made clear in their commitment to the NATO summit communiqué last spring, the importance of the continuing presence of United States troops in Europe.
    Mr. Robertson: Will the Foreign Secretary comment on reports that the Americans have decided not to develop an air-launched stand-off missile and that they are increasingly reluctant to consider any replacement for the Lance missile system? Will he comment on what that will do for the present NATO posture, especially the Government's enthusiasm for modernisation? Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that the meeting on 9 and 10 June will be a Foreign Ministers meeting, or will it be upgraded to a meeting of Heads of Government?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The matters that the hon. Gentleman mentioned at the start of his question are only some of the aspects affecting the modernisation of NATO forces under consideration by the United States and the Alliance. No decision has yet been taken about the possibility of a summit this year. At present, the June meeting is foreseen as being at Foreign Minister level.
    Mr. William Powell: Will my right hon. and learned Friend take time with the secretary-general to consider the awesome deployment of advance battle divisions by the Soviet army in East Germany? Will he make it plain that for the British Government improving relations with the Soviet Union will depend upon progress being made in the talks on the elimination of chemical weapons and the reduction of conventional weapons in Europe by the Soviets?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend is right. We attach the highest importance to continued progress in the discussions, not only on the chemical weapons worldwide ban to which I have already referred, but in the shortly to be commenced discussions on conventional weapons in Europe, where Soviet predominance is still massive.

    Vietnamese Refugees (Hong Kong)
    Mr. Tom Clarke: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he had with the Governor of Hong Kong on the plight of the Vietnamese refugees.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: We are in close and frequent contact with the Government of Hong Kong on all aspects of the problem of Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong. My noble Friend the Minister of State is at present paying a visit to Hong Kong.
    Mr. Clarke: Is the figure of 1,000 refugees, recently announced by the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar), based on two or three years? What is the criterion for selection and why, given the

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    ungenerous nature of this announcement, is the Foreign Secretary insisting that it must be conditional on the reaction of other countries?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: The length of time over which the 1,000 Vietnamese refugees from Hong Kong may be able to come to this country has not yet been specified. It will be over two or three years and, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, that statement is made with the proviso that others are prepared to contribute commensurately. That is an important and valuable qualification because we greatly value the willingness of other countries to match Britain's commitment to accept an additional intake of refugees. It is important to ensure that our offer of a further intake secures the same sort of response from the other countries whose generosity we appreciate.
    Sir Peter Blaker: Will my right hon. and learned Friend pay tribute to the responsible way in which the Government and people of Hong Kong have handled the burdensome matter of the Vietnamese boat people who have reached Hong Kong? Does he also accept that the Government's announcement about accepting into this country 1,000 more refugees, and the proviso that was added to it, will be welcomed in the House? Have any other countries such as Australia expressed their willingness to accept more refugees from Hong Kong?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: My right hon. Friend is entirely right to emphasise the debt that we owe to the Government and people of Hong Kong for their willingness to provide accommodation for large numbers of people, not least the 15,000 who arrived there during 1988. We have not yet had any fresh commitments as a result of the statement to the House before Christmas, but of course it is early days.
    Mr. Mullin: Would not the best way to reduce the flow of refugees be to end the trade and aid embargo against Vietnam and to stop supporting the Khmer Rouge?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: That is not our view. We have made it plain that we are prepared to give financial assistance to the boat people who return to Vietnam, but the economic condition in Vietnam depends on substantial changes in the economic policy of that country. There are some signs that the Vietnamese are beginning to recognise the need for those changes.
    Mr. Yeo: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the problem of the Vietnamese boat people has been burdensome for the Government and the people of Hong Kong? In discussions with other countries that might accept a larger number of refugees, will he undertake to draw attention to the British Government's offer to accept a bigger intake into this country?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: Yes, certainly. That is one of the main consequences of our offer to accept a further 1,000 refugees into this country. We also owe a great debt of gratitude to the Hong Kong Government and people and to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees whose help and advice we have greatly valued. In September we announced a contribution of £1 million towards his work and I can now confirm that we shall be contributing another £1 million towards the UNHCR in 1989.
    Mr. Foulkes: For once it is a great pleasure for me to welcome the direction in which Government policy is moving. Will the Secretary of State supply a little more detail about how he will translate the principle into practice? Will he provide some indication of the timetable of discussions with other countries, as the Canadians have already made an unconditional announcement that they will take more refugees? Will he make it clear that he does not need the total agreement of all possible countries before putting together a package to deal with the problem?
    Finally, in the longer term, is it the Government's intention and hope to ensure that the whole problem of refugees in Hong Kong is dealt with by the time we hand over the colony to the People's Republic of China in 1997 so that people are no longer condemned to exist in camps, some of which are very much like an oriental Alcatraz.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: Despite the rather sharp phrase with which the hon. Gentleman closed his question, I am glad to welcome his support for Government policy. Of course it is our firm intention to ensure that the problem of Vietnamese refugees and boat people should be resolved well before 1997. It has been important to establish the various components now in place, including the screening process to distinguish genuine refugees from the rest. It is important for us to get ahead as fast as we can in finding homes for those refugees. We shall have to judge the scale and nature of the response of other Governments as we receive responses to the approaches we are making and have been making for some time. We welcome the offer which was made by Canada before my latest announcements.

    President Gorbachev
    Mr. Robert G. Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he expects that President Gorbachev will next visit the United Kingdom.
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: Mr. Gorbachev's planned visit to the United Kingdom last month had to be postponed due to the tragic earthquake in Armenia. We hope that it will be possible to agree new dates for the visit in the near future.
    Mr. Hughes: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that when that date is announced—and we look forward to the visit with great anticipation—it would be good for President Gorbachev to have an understanding of the work done by many thousands of people in this country to seek the release of Russian refuseniks? In particular, will he bring to the attention of President Gorbachev the work done by people such as the group from Pinner synagogue in seeking to bring forward the release of Ilya Resnikov and his family who are being held unreasonably in the Soviet Union?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I agree with my hon. Friend that it is important on this occasion—as on every other occasion when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I have met Mr. Gorbachev or my opposite number—to draw attention to the importance of human rights matters. The Russians have responded positively on previous occasions and we shall hope for the same response this time. The case of Ilya Resnikov will be among the refusenik cases that will be raised during Mr. Gorbachev's visit.
    Mr. Grocott: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that one reason why poll after poll in the west shows President Gorbachev to be one of the most admired leaders in the world is that he has shown such vision in trying to end the arms race? Does the Foreign Secretary share my pessimism that there does not seem to be any sign that any western statesman has similar vision?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: I do not want to diminish the extent to which we welcome the decisions and statements of Mr. Gorbachev on those matters in recent times, but it is crucial to emphasise that they are responses to long-standing western positions, sustained by the united determination of the western Alliance. We have had on the table for years plans for the massive reduction of conventional weapons in Europe. We have been pressing for years for a worldwide ban on chemical weapons. It is against that background that we should welcome the announcements made by Mr. Gorbachev.
    Mr. Ian Taylor: Will my right hon. and learned Friend note the latest information that the Soviet economy is worsening rather than improving? Will he consider, when Mr. Gorbachev visits this country, trying to come forward with an initiative to provide specific assistance to the Soviet Union, such as help with the framing of their joint ventures for Western companies in that country, given the tremendous expertise we have in such matters?
    Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the continuing poor condition of the Soviet economy, in which a great deal remains to be done. That is now being seen as an additional reason for reducing the huge burden of defence expenditure, which still runs at about 15 per cent. of Soviet GNP. We also recognise that there is a useful part to be played along the lines suggested by my hon. Friend. We have been suggesting a number of joint venture opportunities, such as management consultancy and exchanges of students, and we shall continue to do so.

    Tibet
    Mr. Maxton: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the Government of China on the subject of Tibet.
    Mr. Eggar: The subject of Tibet was raised by my right hon. and learned Friend with the then Chinese Foreign Minister, when he visited the United Kingdom in March 1988.
    Mr. Maxton: Although we all welcome the continuing and improving relationship between this country and China, will the Minister take the earliest opportunity to make the strongest representations to the Chinese Government about the recent killing of peaceful protesters by the Chinese army in Tibet and the continuing violations of civil liberties in Tibet?
    Mr. Eggar: I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that we have already made clear our concern about human rights abuses in Tibet. On appropriate occasions, we shall, of course, continue to do so.
    Mr. Adley: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that those of us who are well disposed towards the Government of the People's Republic are, nevertheless, concerned and
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    uneasy about some of the reports emanating from Tibet? Will he also bear in mind that there is quite a well-maintained campaigning organisation on behalf of Tibet, which is itself hardly well disposed towards the People's Republic?
    Mr. Eggar: I have taken careful note of what my hon. Friend has said and, of course, the House is saddened to hear that there has been further violence and loss of life recently in Tibet.
    Sir Russell Johnston: Does the Foreign Office now regret not agreeing to meet the Dalai Lama?
    Mr. Eggar: The Dalai Lama is, of course, welcome to visit this country, but he is regarded by some as the leader of a Tibetan Government in exile, which is recognised neither by Her Majesty's Government nor by any other Government. A meeting with Ministers would, therefore, be open to misconstruction.

    Nicaragua
    Mr. Tony Banks: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he has any plans to visit Nicaragua.
    Mr. Eggar: My right hon. and learned Friend has no plans at present to visit Nicaragua.
    Mr. Banks: Is it not a fact that the Minister has a great predeliction for gallivanting around the world, saying nasty and offensive things about Nicaragua? I understand that he will be in that area during 1989, but why does he steadfastly refuse to visit Nicaragua? Is it because he is worried about upsetting his masters in the United States or because he does not want to find that the facts conflict with his prejudices?
    Mr. Eggar: Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I do not use General Noriega's aeroplane to get around central America. The hon. Gentleman is, however, quite right—I shall represent the Government at the conference in San Pedro Sula in February. I do not by any means rule out the possibility of a visit to Nicaragua at some stage in the future but unfortunately, other commitments will not make a visit possible in February.
    Mr. Marlow: In view of my hon. Friend's responsibility towards this House, will he consult—I am not sure whether it is a psychologist or a psychiatrist—to ask why the Opposition have such an obsession with Nicaragua, a country for which we have no responsibility and in which we have even less interest?
    Mr. Eggar: I would very much like to hear the result of a similar inquiry addressed by my hon. Friend to a psychiatrist. [Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I also will read Hansard carefully!
    Miss Lestor: If the Minister is seriously thinking of going to Nicaragua, may I urge him to go as soon as possible, bearing in mind the fact that hon. Members and Ministers visit a large number of countries in which we have no direct responsibility? If the Minister went and saw the results of the hurricane, the economic embargo, horrific inflation and the Contra fighting, and saw the Government's efforts to make a success of the economy, he

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    might come back and persuade the Minister for Overseas Development to give more humanitarian aid, in particular, to the people of Nicaragua.
    Mr. Eggar: I am sure that the hon. Lady will welcome the fact that the Government made more than £400,000 available for relief assistance following the recent hurricane. I know that she is also aware that Nicaragua is the largest recipient of European Community aid to central America, so the Government's contribution to assistance for Nicaragua is already considerable.
    Mr. Greg Knight: Is it not important to ensure that massive Soviet and Cuban military aid to Nicaragua is reduced? Does my hon. Friend accept that that aid is quite disproportionate to the country's needs?
    Mr. Eggar: I agree that a considerable amount of Soviet Union and Cuban assistance goes to Nicaragua. I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that recent actions by the Sandanista Government continue to be contrary both to the letter and to the spirit of their Esquipulas obligations.

    Chemical Weapons
    Mr. Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress has been made in the last six months towards negotiating a treaty on chemical weapons.
    Mr. Waldegrave: Negotiations aimed at achieving a comprehensive global ban on chemical weapons continue at the conference on disarmament in Geneva. Progress has been made, but complex issues remain to be resolved, particularly concerning verification. The Paris conference, at which I represented Her Majesty's Government, should give welcome impetus to this progress.
    Mr. Wallace: I am sure that the Minister agrees that that impetus is much needed in view of Iraq's use of
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    chemical weapons and the frightening possibility of Libya acquiring a chemical weapons capability. Neither Iraq nor Libya could go ahead with chemical weapons without expertise and materials from elsewhere and there have been rumours of such sources in West Germany. Have the Minister or the Foreign Secretary had discussions with their European Community counterparts on this issue? Is the Minister in any position to dispel rumours of West German involvement?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The use of such weapons in the Gulf war was the immediate cause of the conference in Paris. I believe that the West German Government are taking seriously the reports to which the hon. Gentleman referred, and that they are taking action on them.
    Mr. Cash: In negotiations on chemical weaponry, is similar attention being given to the dangers of biotechnology and the sort of genetic defects that could result if viruses of the kind that can be developed were used on an international scale?
    Mr. Waldegrave: There is already in place a convention that bans biological warfare, but we have fears, to which the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) referred earlier, that these bans are not being respected. It would be all too possible to imagine a catastrophe of the kind that my hon. Friend mentions.
    Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, arising out of questions.
    Mr. Speaker: I shall listen with great interest after the statement.

Water Privatisation (Merger Policy)
3.30 pm
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the merger policy in relation to water privatisation.
On Second Reading of the Water Bill, I announced that, in conjunction with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, I would be bringing forward proposals to ensure that there are arrangements to preserve comparative competition in the water industry following privatisation. I am now able to give the House full details, part of which it was necessary for me to announce at the opening of the stock market at 9 o'clock this morning because it affects stock market dealings.
The proposals will ensure merger control provisions which will allow competition through takeover for the management of water companies, while guarding against undue concentration and reduction in the number of independently owned companies. In order to protect the basis of comparative competition and assist effective regulation of the water industry, there will be special provisions applying to any water company takeovers which would have the effect of bringing any company holding an appointment under the Water Bill, whose asset value exceeds £30 million, under common control with any other such water company. Common control for the purposes of these provisions would be as defined in section 65 of the Fair Trading Act 1973. The provisions will apply to statutory water companies as well as the new water services plcs.
The proposed amendments to the Water Bill will require the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to take into account, in considering any bids for water companies, the undesirability of mergers which would reduce the comparative information that the regulator will need if he is to make yardstick competition effective. The Director General of Water Services will advise the Director General of Fair Trading when water bids are under consideration.
The Bill would enable the MMC to make an adverse report on a merger and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to take action to prevent or reverse it solely on the ground that a successful bid would reduce the number of water companies in independent ownership, although the MMC would not be required to reach such a recommendation if it considered that there were other public interest reasons which, in a particular case, outweighed the loss of comparative competition.
The Government intend to introduce amendments that will allow takeovers of statutory water companies initiated from today to be considered against the amended criteria following the coming into force of the new legislation. The amendments will provide that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry can refer to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, within six months after the Bill comes into force, any water merger covered by the new provisions which is initiated after 9 am today.
In addition to the proposals I announced this morning, I am now in a position to tell the House our proposals on special shares.
The need for comparative competition implies that, in order to stimulate efficient and effective management, the market must have the opportunity to bid for these
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companies, especially where performance is inadequate, subject to the restrictions I have announced to prevent undue concentration. But we have decided, in the case of the water authorities, given the difficulties of transition from nationalised industry to private sector company, to protect their successor companies for a limited period by providing for a time-limited special share.
Any takeover within a five-year period will require both the approval of shareholders to a change in the relevant articles of association of the company and the written consent of the special shareholder who will be the relevant territorial Secretary of State. Thereafter, the decision would be solely for shareholders, subject to the merger control provisions I have announced.
Dr. John Cunningham: Why has the Secretary of State waited so long to take this action to prevent the concentration of private monopoly control of the nation's water resources in fewer hands, when it was obvious from the outset that that was exactly where his proposals would lead?
Why are the Government now running away from market forces? At least 15 statutory water companies are now either in French control or the subject of very large French shareholdings. Is it not true that, if the Secretary of State had acted earlier, the Newcastle and Gateshead water company and the Sunderland and South Shields water company purchasers would at least have been referable to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission? He has waited until that is too late to make his announcement.
Have not Government disarray and the right hon. Gentleman's vacillation resulted in three French water conglomerates accumulating a huge stake and influence in statutory water companies, thus again concentrating private monopoly power? Does not even this pathetically belated action leave the majority of those statutory water companies which he says he wants to protect—those with assets of less than £30 million—at the mercy of further predatory takeovers and mergers? Where does that leave the right hon. Gentleman's promise to the House on Second Reading on 7 December when he said:
"It is vital that people should feel that they have a local water company, with those running it living and working locally."—[Official Report, 7 December 1988; Vol. 143, c. 338.]
What does that mean now to people whose local water companies are in the hands of the French?
Why does the Secretary of State waste words and our time on meaningless phrases on the pretence of comparative competition? There is no competition and there will be none as a result of his policies. What is it that requires protection for five years by taking a special share, other than the need to cosset private enterprise monopoly? That is the objective and that is the result of taking a special share in private water monopolies: cosseting the private sector and protecting private monopoly is what the statement is all about.
Have the proposals been agreed and accepted by the European Community? What discussions has the right hon, Gentleman had with the Commission about them? Will he explain to the House what he means by "other public interest reasons" preventing the need for the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to investigate takeovers?
This pathetic statement offers no guarantees of independence to statutory water companies. It is a belated

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piece of Tory party political window dressing that offers no protection, choice or competition to water consumers either.
Mr. Ridley: The hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) is making rather a meal of this. He asked why it had taken so long to bring these proposals forward. It may have escaped his notice that they involve legislation. I believe it only right that we should have waited until the Bill was before the House—[Interruption.] The moment the Bill was debated on Second Reading I warned the House and the country that proposals of this sort were on the way, and the hon. Gentleman quoted from a part of my speech near to the point at which I made that statement.
As I am proposing legislation to amend the Bill, it seemed right that on the first day back after the recess—[HON. MEMBERS: "First day?"]—or second day back, I should put the policy straight away to the House. [Interruption.] The House met yesterday for the first time after the recess. This is the second day back.
The hon. Member for Copeland alleges that there has been a massive concentration in the meanwhile. That is not the case. There are 20 water authorities and water companies with assets worth more than £30 million and, as at the moment when I came into the Chamber, there were still 20 in independent ownership. I am aware that there may be a takeover of Newcastle and Gateshead and Sunderland and South Shields, which would of course reduce the number of comparators, but that has not yet been confirmed.
That was referred to the Director General of Fair Trading, as the hon. Gentleman presumably knows, and my noble Friend announced this morning that that bid would not be considered by the MMC for reasons which I am sure he would be prepared to explain to the hon. Member for Copeland, being reasons which reinforce the need for the statement that I have made today. So no concentration of power of the sort which this statement seeks to restrict has taken place. This will ensure that those who manage water companies and indeed those—the vast majority of them—who own water companies will indeed be living and working locally. That is exactly what this statement will achieve.
The hon. Member for Copeland did not seem to know what comparative competition meant.
Dr. Cunningham: It is fatuous.
Mr. Ridley: Let me tell the hon. Gentleman what it means. I am always having to explain things to him, and I am delighted to do so again.
Dr. Cunningham: It is meaningless.
Mr. Ridley: If the hon. Gentleman will stop making sedentary interventions—[Interruption.]—and if his hon. Friends seated below the Gangway will stop interrupting, I will explain. Shareholders, investors, auditors, the Director General of Water Services, who is awarding cost limits, and customers of all sorts will have information before them as to the relative cost at which water is sold in each area where an independent operator is preserved. They will be able to compare those statistics and see if one operator is not doing as well as others.
That is what comparative competition means. I am delighted to have this opportunity to explain to the hon.
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Member for Copeland, who has a lot to learn, what it means, and I am prepared to spend as long as he likes teaching him.
The hon. Gentleman did not seem to believe that there should be any special shares for the water industry. I believe it to be correct that nationalised industries which are coming out of the public sector need time to get themselves into an efficient, well-organised state so that they can face the rigours of the market and the threat of takeover, and the five-year fledgling company—as it is called—special share will be to the assistance of the industry as a whole.
These proposals will, of course, have to be discussed with the EEC, but we could not do that in advance, until we had made the proposals, and I have high hopes that they will be acceptable to the Community.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked what "other public interest reasons" means. If we rely on the MMC to interpret this policy, there may well be the odd example of the commission believing that a merger should be allowed, but the final decision will rest, as always, with my noble Friend the Secretary of State.
Sir Giles Shaw: Does my right hon. Friend accept that his announcement about the golden share will be substantially welcomed in the Water Authorities Association? I am grateful for his responding so quickly to the points raised on Second Reading.
With regard to the other element in my right hon. Friend's statement, will he take note that, although this morning's decision by our right hon. and noble Friend was not to intervene in the Newcastle and Gateshead affair, which my right hon. Friend's scheme was perhaps designed to prevent had it occurred 48 hours later what is now to prevent a water authority from seeking to take a share in Newcastle and Gateshead, thus bringing the matter further into play? Does that mean that such a bid or attempted bid would result in a referral which my right hon. Friend cannot make now?
Mr. Ridley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who sees the merits of the so-called golden share, which the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) did not seem to believe was the right way forward. The latest information I have is that the Newcastle and Gateshead and Sunderland and South Shields water companies have not had an agreed deal. I cannot predict what will happen in that particular case.
If a water authority seeks to take over a statutory water company, three conditions will apply from now on. The first will be the mergers policy which I have just announced. The second will be the outcome of any judicial proceedings which have not yet been settled as to the vires of the takeover by water authorities. I gather that there is likely to be an appeal against a court judgment; until the law is clear on that point, it will be relevant. Thirdly, it would not be my intention to increase the external financing limit of any water authority for this purpose. Within these constraints, the water authorities will be their own masters when deciding what they wish to do.
Mr. Richard Livsey: When he mentioned a territorial Secretary of State, did the right hon. Gentleman mean that the Secretary of State for Wales would have the power to prevent a takeover of a Welsh water plc? Is it correct that he will have that power for only five years? If so, why not for longer?

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How many water companies does the Secretary of State think will be necessary to maintain his so-called comparative competition? Would it not be better to write into his merger policy a share limitation scheme which included the consumers who were resident in the area of the water plc?
Mr. Ridley: On the first point, it is correct that during the five-year period of the special share my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will have the power to block or accept a takeover. He will be making a further announcement about arrangements in Wales later this afternoon.
On the hon. Gentleman's other point, I believe that the takeover of an inefficient water authority or company could be very much to the benefit of the consumers if that authority or company is not performing properly. I would not want to discourage that in any way once the companies had found their feet in the private sector. That is why the special share comes to an end.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: My right hon. Friend honestly said that these proposals had not been discussed or approved by the EEC Commission, but has he at least discussed with it the implications for its new proposals on monopolies and mergers? In particular, can he say whether any specific direction that he proposes to give under these powers could be overturned by the commissioner at the European Commission in Brussels? Does he agree that any proposals that he puts forward to preserve what he rightly regards as comparative competition could be wholly undermined and overturned by Brussels? Therefore, what is the point of this so-called protection, which I accept he is bringing forward for the best possible reasons?
Mr. Ridley: On the first point, this was a market-sensitive announcement which clearly had to be made public before consultation could take place with anyone. I am confident that the Commission will accept our proposals. That is a matter to be determined in future. Clauses will be coming forward for the Bill and the matter can be debated in Committee and in due course on Report in the House. Once these proposals have been accepted by the EEC and by the House, I do not see any way in which they can be overturned later by the Community.
Mr. Jim Cousins: Does the Secretary of State accept that a combination of this morning's statement by Lord Young and the Secretary of State's statement this afternoon has reduced the provision of water services in the north-east to a complete shambles in which there will be a kind of squires' war between Sir Michael Straker of the water authority and Lord Elliott of Morpeth, chairman of the Newcastle and Gateshead water company? They will be fighting a kind of feudal war at the expense of the water consumers in the north-east.
What advice can the Secretary of State give water consumers in the north-east who are faced with this uncertainty about the provision and ownership of their water services? What are prospective purchasers of Northumbrian Water to make of a situation in which most of the direct water services for which they will be responsible will not only not be in their hands but impossible for them to acquire?
Mr. Ridley: It is not clear whether the two water companies that the hon. Gentleman mentioned have been taken over by the French company. That had not been decided at the moment when I came into the Chamber, and I cannot predict what will happen. The Newcastle and Gateshead water company and Northumbrian Water have existed in this situation ever since water authorities were set up. I hope that I tread on no one's toes when I say that they have always shown a healthy rivalry, and that perhaps some comparative competition benefits have come out of that. Nothing is changed by this situation. The only diminution in the number of owners would be if these two companies passed into the hands of one French company.
Mr. Alastair Goodlad: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, whereas it is mandatory to refer offers for statutory water companies with gross assets of £30 million or more on an historic cost basis to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, those statutory water companies, numbering about half, whose assets are valued at less than that can be sold and a reference would not be mandatory? Will he also confirm that the arrangements he has announced are in no way affected by the anti-French sentiment emanating from the Opposition but arise from a desire for competition on a level playing field?
Mr. Ridley: I am not the right person to interpret monopolies and mergers law, but from memory I think—I apologise if I have it wrong—that the referral of a takeover of a water company with an asset value of less than £30 million would depend on whether the combined assets of that company and the company seeking to take it over exceeded £30 million.
Dr. Cunningham: That is wrong.
Mr. Ridley: Perhaps it is wrong. I was trying to help my hon. Friend. If the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) knows more about it than I do, let him say so. He has not so far shown any prowess in this matter.
I confirm that there is no bias against any nationality in making this announcement; it applies equally to all nations. It would be quite wrong for me to bring forward any measure that discriminated against a fellow Community country. We are not allowed to do that and want to see an internal market as well as a common market.
Dr. David Owen: The Secretary of State's statement makes him and the whole concept of water privatisation look ridiculous. Is this not a classic French farce in which the Government are locking the bedroom door and inviting Madeleine back in in five years' time? Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that, if a golden share is necessary now, it should be necessary for ever? Only on those grounds would the European Community countenance this proposal. Otherwise it would be thrown out, and so it should be.
Mr. Ridley: I do not think that there is anything wrong with takeovers. The possibility of takeover is one of the great spurs to greater efficiency in this industry. I am astonished that the right hon. Gentleman believes that the Community would look more kindly upon a permanent special share than upon a temporary special share to protect fledgling industry. He seems to have overlooked the fact that what I announced, which can be paraphrased

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as "one company, one owner" would stop the French coming back to take water authorities. Each of the three big French companies already owns one of the qualifying water companies, which means that they cannot even contemplate bidding for a water authority as well.
Sir Peter Hordern: Will my right hon. Friend tell us why the French should be so interested in our water companies? Do they know something that we do not? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that his objection is to monopoly, whether it be French or British?
Mr. Ridley: The reasons why the French are so interested in our water industry are not for me to go into, but they must feel that they can run the companies very well. That must have been one reason why they showed interest in them.
I should correct what I said earlier; I apologise to the House. The assets test applies to £30 million gross assets in the takeover target. Reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission in such circumstances is discretionary but not mandatory.
Mr. Jeff Rooker: Who chose the £30 million figure? Why was the £30 million figure chosen? The Secretary of State has put that figure to the House, but it is not wholly clear whether he chose the figure.
Mr. Ridley: That is the figure in the monopolies legislation above which a reference must be made. That is the reason for choosing the figure. It happens to fit very well with the particular statistics of this industry.
Mr. Ian Gow: How many of the 28 statutory water companies are now controlled by shareholders outside the United Kingdom, and how many of them are controlled by any of the 10 water authorities in England and Wales? Is it not surprising that my right hon. Friend's statement, which will limit the monopoly and the potential of monopoly abuse in the water industry, has not been welcomed by the Labour party, which has always claimed to be against monopoly?
Mr. Ridley: The answer to the first question is that at present three water companies are controlled by non-British companies. There are 10 water authorities and they control no water companies. I ceased some time ago to wonder at what the Opposition say.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: The Secretary of State said that the Secretary of State for Wales would make a statement in due course this afternoon. I do not know whether you, Mr. Speaker, are aware that a statement will be made in the House. If not, Welsh Members will be considerably dismayed to learn that a statement will not be made on such an important matter so that we can cross-examine Ministers in the House.
On the general aspects, many people would have welcomed a golden share on the basis that it existed to safeguard the public interest, but the public interest does not run out after five years; it is a continuing interest interest. What proposals has the Secretary of State, therefore, to maintain the safeguarding of the public interest after five years? Will he consider special shares for consumers in those water authority areas that could collectively provide veto?
Mr. Ridley: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will not be making a statement. I used the word "announcement".
The hon. Gentleman asked about preserving the public interest in this most vital industry of water supply. I gather that he is a member of the Standing Committee on the Water Bill. He will find that the Bill is full of ways to ensure such things as water, sewage and effluent quality and a whole range of other provisions to secure the public interest. That can be done through the legislation, irrespective of ownership.
Sir Anthony Grant: As Northumbria has been mentioned earlier in this exchange, may I ask whether my right hon. Friend agrees that there is no better supporter of the consumer—water consumer or otherwise—in the north-east than my noble Friend and former colleague Lord Elliott? Does he further agree that this is a thoroughly sensible amendment to a most important Bill, and that the sooner it is put on the statute book the better?
Mr. Ridley: I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to Lord Elliott and to Sir Michael Straker, who are both doing an excellent job despite what Opposition Members say. My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I agree that the statement and the Bill are excellent.
Mr. Peter Hardy: In how many profitable French water companies is there any substantial, significant or controlling British interest? If the answer is none, why is that? Does the Secretary of State believe that water is as essential as oil because in many of the 15 companies to which my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) referred the level of foreign ownership certainly exceeds the level at which Kuwait was obliged to dispose of a large proportion of its shares in British Petroleum?
Mr. Ridley: I am not aware of the extent of British participation in the equities of the three French water companies. I gather that there are only three large water companies, but I have no doubt that some British interests own some of the shares, although I do not know how many. The French companies have been so successful and powerful because they have not been run on the local authority or public enterprise models. They have been run on the model of commercial companies which can move around the world and do business around the world as well as in France. We should note the powerful and successful companies which have been created. Perhaps we have something to learn from that. We may learn that it is better to put water in the private sector.
Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. Friend realise that many of us share his dislike of public monopolies? However, will he explain why private monopolies will be so much better? Private monopolies have a different object from public monopolies. Why will privately owned water be better for those who consume it and have nowhere else to turn for that vital commodity?
Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend should know that the proposed system of regulation will stop the consumer being exploited by monopolies—[Interruption.] I hope that my hon. Friend will listen to my answer. If the private company which owns a licence wants to make more

849
money, it will have to increase its efficiency and standard of service to consumers. That has been the effect of regulated private monopolies wherever they have been properly regulated. The safeguards in the Water Bill will add to that protection. I should have thought that my hon. Friend would agree that that was the way to get a better service as well as good environmental protection.
Mr. A. J. Beith: Is it not ludicrous beyond belief that the proposals designed to prevent monopoly among regionally independently owned water companies will not apply to any of the bids already initiated for the water companies which serve more than one fifth of those who get their water supply from private water companies? In view of today's statement by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry that the £60 million bids for the Newcastle and Gateshead and Sunderland and South Shields companies—which have a monopoly over most of the north-east—will not go to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, does not the Secretary of State fear that he has not only locked the door after the horse has bolted, but helped the horse out of the stable as well?
Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman would have been one of the first to criticise the Government if we had proposed retrospective legislation. We are not doing that. The legislation will take effect from this morning, but not before people knew what the legislation would do. The hon. Gentleman must be aware that legislation is necessary. We cannot announce that we are going to legislate unless there is a vehicle in which to legislate. It is not clear whether the water companies have been taken over yet. The hon. Gentleman referred to 25 per cent. of the water industry already subject to takeover from foreign interests. I repeat that, apart from the two companies about which there is uncertainty, only three companies are controlled by French companies at the moment.
Mr. Tim Smith: Is it not complete nonsense to talk about running away from market forces when all the monopolies legislation is designed to counter market forces? Is it not important to achieve the delicate balance between ensuring that water companies remain subject to the healthy threat of takeover and ensuring that there is not such a concentration in the industry that the regulator is unable to do his job because of the lack of comparative information? Is that not what my right hon. Friend's proposals achieve?
Mr. Ridley: I have to admit that my hon. Friend puts it very much better than I did in the statement.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Is there not something a little incongruous about a Secretary of State who only a short time ago, when introducing the Water Bill, was in favour of market forces come hell or high water, and who then comes along with a Perrier amendment based on comparative competition? Where did he find that new theory? Will it mean that a consumer in one area who finds that his water is too dear has an opportunity under the system of comparative competition to get on his bike and move elsewhere? If the very basis on which the Water Bill was introduced has fallen foul of the takeover bids, would it not make more sense to chuck the Bill in the Seine?
Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman would benefit, as always, from reading my speech on Second Reading of the Water Bill. I set out the Government's intention to achieve comparative competition and to prevent concentration in the industry. I said that I would announce the details as soon as possible. That is what I am doing today. The hon. Gentleman will find that, far from wishing to allow market forces, as he calls them, to run riot, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) said, in controlling monopolies it is necessary to control market forces. That is the effect of the statement.
Mr. Roger Knapman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that comparative competition will greatly assist the Director General of Water Services when he tries to place a valuation on the companies?
Mr. Ridley: If the director general is to set a price level for each company which is fair to protect consumers and adequate to allow the company to earn a decent return, it is vital that he should be able to see which companies operate cheaper and better than others and the potential for improvement. Comparative competition is a vital tool in his armoury to ensure that the consumer is protected.
Mr. Bob Cryer: Is the Secretary of State saying that the final decision on the matter that he has announced today is not in his hands or in those of the elected Government, but in the hands of the European Commission? Will he make it absolutely clear that final power has moved from this House and this Government to the Common Market, of which he is an avid supporter? Does he agree that, as he is apparently trying to grapple with and control market forces which he has supported for so many years, one of the best ways of doing that is through public ownership and democratic control, which he is abandoning through this privatisation measure? Is it not time that he made it clear that he is robbing people of publicly owned water supplies which are bound to be monopolies—he knows that full well—and selling them to the highest bidder?
Mr. Ridley: I assume that the hon. Gentleman does not like the European Community or the Water Bill. However, his prejudices should not be allowed to dominate our proceedings on the Bill. The European Community, as he knows, has an interest in competition throughout the Community. He knows perfectly well that on previous occasions it has been necessary to agree with the Community the arrangements that we make for safeguarding competition in this country. There is nothing new about that. The hon. Gentleman does not like the Bill. No doubt he voted against its Second Reading and found that he was in the minority in the vote. As a good democrat, I am sure that he will accept the majority decision.
Mr. Robert G. Hughes: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the reason why some French companies want to buy into our water industry is that they recognise that, with privatisation, there will be greater efficiency and higher standards and that they will make profits from that? Does he further agree that it is only in the early days that our water companies will not be able to protect themselves from unfair competition and that when they feel the benefits from the privatisation of the water industry they will be able to stand on their own feet, and that we will show the French a thing or two?
Mr. Ridley: That is entirely right, and I wholly agree with my hon. Friend. It will be interesting to see whether water companies purchased by the French perform better than under their predecessors. We shall then have a good test of the comparative ability of the different owners to supply a better service and cheaper water to their customers.
Mrs. Ann Taylor: Will the Secretary of State explain the basis of what he described as his "high hopes" that the proposals will be acceptable under EEC law? Can he say when he expects to complete his discussions with the Commission? Will he guarantee that members of the Standing Committee will know whether the proposals are acceptable under EEC law before the relevant clauses are reached in Committee? If not, will he guarantee that consideration of the Bill in Committee will be suspended until it is known whether the proposals will stand?
Mr. Ridley: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will be taking this matter forward. I cannot say when he hopes to determine the matter with the Community. I hope to publish the draft clauses, which will give the hon. Lady an opportunity to discuss the matter. long before they are reached in Standing Committee. By then it will be easy for the hon. Lady to inquire whether agreement has been reached with Europe. We would not ask the Committee to proceed with a matter that was in doubt. That will not delay the Committee's progress.

European Community
4.11 pm
Mr. Tony Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. M. Delors, who knows a thing or two about the European Community because he is, I think, President of the Commission, has said that within a
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short time 80 per cent. of the legislation of the European Community countries will be decided in Brussels, within the Community itself. We are aware of what is called the democratic deficit. It is massive and it is growing. Is the House aware, for example, that the European Community is seeking to introduce a draft directive to require everybody in cars to wear seat belts? This is not the sort of thing that we anticipated would come from the Community.
We have one opportunity every few weeks to ask questions about the European Community, and that was today. But there was not a single question on the Order Paper that was asked on the European Community. The first question to be asked on the European Community was No. 24, and of course we did not reach it; I am not complaining about that. In the past we had a specific slot for European questions. Given the growing impact of European legislation on the House, and given the present massive democratic deficit, I put the plea to you, Mr. Speaker, that you get together with the usual channels with a view to reinstituting the very important facility that the House used to have.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I share the hon. Gentleman's concern, and I am aware that, in the past, 10 minutes were allocated to European questions.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Twenty minutes.
Mr. Speaker: Twenty minutes, then.
The best course for the hon. Gentleman and for other right hon. and hon. Members to take, if they feel strongly about this matter, is to question the Leader of the House during business questions tomorrow.

Orders of the Day

  Employment Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. Speaker: Before I call the Secretary of State for Employment, I must announce to the House that I have selected the reasoned amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) and his hon. Friends.
  4.13 pm
  The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Norman Fowler): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  This Bill is about the widening of employment opportunities for women and young people and the removal of unnecessary burdens on employers. It is introduced against the background of a major reduction in unemployment in this country that is in excess of anything achieved elsewhere in the European Community. Since the general election in June 1987, unemployment has fallen by about 750,000; long-term unemployment has reduced by 350,000—a fall of nearly 30 per cent.; unemployment of young people between 18 and 24 has reduced by 250,000; and the rate of unemployment stands at 7·5 per cent., compared with 10 per cent. in July 1987, with the biggest reductions being in some areas where the problem has previously been greatest—the west midlands, Wales and the north-west.
  There are still areas of the country where further improvements are needed, and I recognise that. At this point, the whole House will welcome to the debate the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher). [SEVERAL HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] We assumed that the Bill's proposals are so uncontentious that the hon. Gentleman did not intend opposing them. However, we shall wait to hear one of his usual genial speeches.
  I shall bring the hon. Member for Oldham, West, up to date. I was seeking to set out the reduction in unemployment in this country.
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Labour party do not consider that the Bill is controversial, as they do not even seem to have an amendment on the Order Paper?
  Mr. Fowler: We do not want to work them up. I shall keep to what I was going to say and seek to convince any doubters there may be—including the hon. Member for Oldham, West, who is now settling down.
  I recognise that there are still areas of the country where further improvements are needed. It should equally be recognised that it would be folly to put all those achievements at risk by unjustified pay increases. The one sure effect of excessive pay increases is fewer jobs, and that must be recognised by unions and employers alike.
  By any measure, this country's employment position has dramatically improved in the past 18 months, and there is no reason why that should not continue. Our latest estimate shows that there are more than 700,000 unfilled job vacancies throughout the country. There are new opportunities for unemployed people, but there are also opportunities more generally. The Bill is about extending
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  opportunities for women and young people in the labour market and taking further action to bring down the barriers standing in the way of developing employment.
  Mr. Dave Nellist: Given the Secretary of State's strictures against what he calls "excessive pay increase", will he tell the House how he voted on the 1988–89 wage increases for Members of Parliament of more than 25 per cent. or £110 per week?
  Mr. Fowler: I would have voted in favour of the proposed increase. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to bandy figures about the salaries of Members of Parliament, I may tell him that Ministers such as myself are taking a 3 per cent. increase in the current year, which I believe is substantially less in percentage terms than the increase that the hon. Gentleman is taking.
  In the labour market of the 1990s, there will certainly be new openings for women, and it is vital that they are taken. Women already play a vital part in many of our industries and professions, but their role in the economy will need to increase. The labour market is already changing dramatically, and it will change more. In particular, the number of young school leavers will substantially reduce. The number of 16 to 19-year-olds has already begun to drop, and by 1995 it will fall by more than 500,000—a drop of nearly 25 per cent.
  Employers will not be able to rely on a steady stream of young people to meet their recruitment needs. They will have to develop their existing work forces' full potential through training, and take full advantage of other potential sources of recruitment. Clearly, women are among the most important of those.
  The Bill then tackles some of the issues of sex discrimination in circumstances where discrimination is not only unfair to its victims but damaging to the economy. It does it on the basis that a nation that fails to use fully the skills and talents of more than half of its population will be competing with one hand tied behind its back. The Bill sweeps away a number of archaic restrictions on women's employment. It introduces a general rule that equal opportunity takes precedence over restrictions on women's employment. Restrictions are retained only where they can be strictly justified. The Bill also gives women the right to statutory redundancy payments up to the same age as men—a further step towards equality.
  Let me emphasise just how many women are working outside the home in this country. Over 10 million women are working. Women now make up about 43 per cent. of the total labour force, and 60 per cent. of women under 65 are employed or seeking employment. That is a higher proportion than in any other European Community country, with the exception of Denmark.
  The increase in women working has been evident in all areas. There are certainly more women working in service industries such as retailing. But at the same time the proportion of women in the total entry to the professions—medicine, law, accountancy—has increased dramatically over the past 10 years. The proportion of young women taking courses of further and higher education is now greater than that of young men.
  Ms. Clare Short: Will the Secretary of State confirm that the overwhelming majority of working women work in low-paid employment, and that their position is getting worse? Will he tell us whether

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  he has any proposals to improve that position, if he wants to invite more women into the labour market? Why is he suggesting that wage councils might be abolished, when that would make the position of those women worse?
  Mr. Fowler: We have set out the position on wage councils in the consultation document, and I shall obviously want to make a statement about it in due course.
  The position is changing. Women will want not only jobs but careers. They will expect not just equal rights but equal promotion opportunities. The wise employer and the forward-looking professions will recognise that.
  We must take away restrictions which can stand in the way of women finding jobs or pursuing careers, and it is from the same standpoint that we have reviewed the position of young people. The philosophy of the Bill is that they too are entitled to every job opportunity compatible with a proper concern for their health and safety. They should not be denied access to jobs for arbitrary or irrelevant reasons, least of all restrictions based on the labour market of the last century.
  Let me make it clear who is affected. All the restrictions on the employment of children—that is, people under the minimum school leaving age—will be retained. The people about whom the Bill is concerned are those between school leaving age and 18: broadly speaking, the 16 to 18-year-old group. Here too we are preserving restrictions on employment that are demonstrably necessary.
  For example, we are preserving all the safeguards necessary for health and safety, and regulations such as those on working with dangerous machinery and the sale of alcohol. What we are taking away are the complex restrictions on the hours of work of young people. We are doing that partly because there is no evidence that hours of work affect those between 16 and 18 differently from those over 18. It is an arbitrary distinction, but above all we are doing it because such restrictions can have a detrimental effect on young people's employment opportunities.
  Mr. Robert N. Wareing: The right hon. Gentleman has talked about removing restrictions on women's employment. Some of us are doubtful about how far that will be achieved by this measure. But as it is an Employment Bill giving an opportunity for the lifting of restrictions, why does it contain no mention of discrimination against disabled people—or, indeed, of the fact that well over three quarters of firms in this country still do not apply the quota?
  Mr. Fowler: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are at present reviewing the position of disabled people at work, and when the review is complete I shall want to make an announcement. I share the hon. Gentleman's concern; as it happens, I think that the position has improved substantially over the past few years, but I should like it to be improved further.
  Mr. Bill Michie: My point concerns the abolition of the protection governing young people's hours of work that has rightly applied for many years. Just as they did last year, the Government are tying in the Employment Bill with social security legislation. They say that young people are being given better opportunities for employment; but what will happen is that young people will have to accept jobs whether they like it or not.
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  Under the Bill, some small firms with 20 or fewer employees will not have to provide conditions for their employment. A young person therefore may not like a job, and may leave it. He will then be affected by the new social security regulations. This is clearly a plot to ensure that young people no longer have the right to the employment of their choice, or the right to work a short week and not be exploited by employers.
  Mr. Fowler: It is not a plot at all. We are trying to take away restrictions and regulations that, in some cases, stand in the way of employment opportunities for precisely the group about whom the hon. Gentleman professess concern.
  Many of the present rules governing young people's hours are absurdly complex and cannot be justified. For example, one of the provisions in the Factories Act 1961 is that in any factory employing young people between 16 and 18 the law requires them all to start work, take their breaks and finish work at exactly the same time. Section 112 excepts young persons aged 16 or over from the hours of work provisions in the Act where they are employed in preserving, canning or curing fish, preparing fish for sale or preserving or canning fruit or vegetables from June to September. That is subject to restrictions on hours laid down in the Fruit and Vegetable Preserving (Hours of Women and Young Persons) Regulations 1939.
  Section 113 excepts young persons aged 16 or over from the hours of work provisions in part VI of the Act where they are employed in the manufacture of dairy products. Their hours of work must not, however, exceed 54 hours a week, except where they are employed in the manufacture of cheese at certain times of the year, where they may be increased to 60. That is included in the Milk and Cheese Factories (Hours of Women and Young Persons) Regulations 1949. The Railway Employment Exemption Regulations 1962 exempt males aged 16 or over employed as engine cleaners, firemen or signal box lads.
  There is a whole series of such regulations. Section 109 of the Factories Act allows young persons who are Jewish, where they work in a factory where the occupier is Jewish, to be employed on Sunday, provided that the factory is not open for business on that day and is closed on Saturday. Where an occupier uses this exception, those provisions of the Act regarding Sunday should be read as referring to Saturday, and those provisions regarding Saturday should be read as referring to Friday or Sunday.
  With respect, I think that even the hon. Member for Oldham, West, when he has caught up with what the Bill is about, will concede that some parts of the legislation are indefensible. But it is restrictions like that that the Labour party, which is now nosing its way into the 1950s is fighting to preserve. Indeed, it is worse than that. The hon. Member for Oldham, West is the John Betjeman of the statute book: show him a Victorian statute and he will fight to preserve it.
  The present law is full of such anomalies. The great majority of these restrictions serve no useful purpose and there is no evidence that there is any difference between areas of work where hours have been regulated, such as factories and shops, and areas where there have been no restrictions on hours, such as offices.
  The only sure thing is that the complexity of the present legislation deters employers from taking young people into employment. The Bill continues the drive that my

  857
  Department is making to deregulate the labour market. As a result, this Bill sweeps away two whole Acts, 55 sections and subsections of six other Acts and 22 statutory instruments which, between them, contain over 100 provisions regulating young people's hours of work.
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Under the arrangement of clauses, Nos. 7 and 8 are headed "Removal of restrictions on employment." While I abhor the restrictions that my right hon. Friend is abolishing, when do the Government intend to abolish the restrictions on employment in the docks, under the dock labour scheme, that the trade unions have enforced, which would allow those who wish to work in the docks to do so without restriction?
  Mr. Fowler: The issue has been raised before, but the Bill does not cover my hon. Friend's point.
  In addition to the provisions to which I have referred, the Bill seeks to remove unnecessary burdens on business. It formally abolishes the Training Commission, previously the Manpower Services Commission. I shall deal later with both of those matters.
  Turning to the detail of the Bill, the first six clauses amend the existing law defining the relationship between the legislation on sex discrimination—principally, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975—and other legislation.
  It has always been the policy of this Government that discrimination between the sexes should be avoided unless there are special circumstances which positively require it, such as the protection of pregnant women. We also have an obligation under the European Communities equal treatment directive to remove any legislation that is contrary to the principle of equal treatment of the sexes and we fully accept that obligation.
  Britain's obligations under the directive were largely implemented by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. The 1975 Act did not in itself take any steps to remove existing legislation that conflicted with the principle of equal treatment. The approach followed by successive Governments has been that any such legislation could be reviewed and repealed or amended on a case-by-case basis as the need arose.
  The 1975 Act itself did no more than preserve the status quo. Under section 51 of the Act, any earlier legislation, which requires people to discriminate between the sexes, overrides the prohibition of discrimination in the 1975 Act.
  The 1975 Act is then open to the criticism that this automatic precedence given to discriminatory requirements is in conflict with the equal treatment directive. The Government have considered the matter carefully and have concluded that on balance there is a conflict with the directive. Therefore, the Bill puts that right. It reverses the priority given to existing discriminatory legislation. In future, the prohibition of discrimination will take precedence.
  In December 1987 we issued a consultation document proposing how this should be done. The Bill broadly seeks to implement the proposals in that document. There may be cases where the requirements in the earlier legislation, though discriminatory, are still objectively justified. For instance, there may be strong health and safety reasons for retaining them. In such cases the directive allows
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  exceptions to be made. So the new approach we are taking is this. We have conducted a thorough review of legislation enacted before the 1975 Act to identify requirements that discriminate between the sexes. The results of this review are set out in the consultation document.
  Where such requirements are, in our view, still justified and consistent with the directive, the Bill will allow them to continue in force. For example, we are retaining protection for women in areas—such as working with lead or radiation—where there could be danger to an unborn child. We are also retaining an exemption for different treatment of the sexes in a few special cases in education. Where, on the other hand, discriminatory provisions are not justified, the Bill will repeal them or amend them to remove the unjustified discrimination.
  Mr. Ron Leighton: The Secretary of State says that women will not have to work with radiation. Will he explain why anybody should have to work with radiation?
  Mr. Fowler: We are seeking in this Bill to recognise the particular problems that face women under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. They include the danger to the unborn child from lead or radiation. That is why we have made that exception.
  Taken together, the first six clauses of the Bill contain a new and coherent approach to the problem of conflicting legislation. They will ensure that we meet our Community obligations, but beyond that they are an indication of the priority that we attach to equality of opportunity.
  Clause 7 takes this a step further. It repeals a number of archaic restrictions on the employment of women. The most important of these is the prohibition on women working for any length of time underground in mines and quarries. This prohibition goes back in part to the 1840s.
  We have a straight choice here. Because of the action we are taking on section 51, we must seek either to re-enact this prohibition or to lift it. The difficulty with the present blanket prohibition is that it not only prevents women working at the coal face but, much more to the point, it prevents women from developing careers as mining engineers, mining surveyors and managers. We believe that that is an unjustified restraint. It is for that reason that we are removing it.
  The present restrictions are an obstacle to women working not only as face workers but as managers, engineers, or in any other professional function underground. Nor is that a theoretical point. Let me quote from a letter sent by two women students at the Sheffield city polytechnic to The Independent on 28 November. They said:
  "With regard to the reforming of the employment laws relating to women working underground, we would like to express our delight that at last equal opportunities will triumph over this antiquated piece of legislation.
  As students in mine surveying, we can now look forward to a greater choice in our job prospects, to options previously closed to us due to the fact that we are female.
  This proposal should be seen as a move forward for the extractive industry and not a return to Victorian values, as Norman Willis believes. Only too often, we have come across this chauvinistic attitude—that mines are no places for women to work. We would remind Mr. Willis that there is more to mining than the 'pick and shovel', as any mine engineer (male or female) will tell him."
  Mr. Frank Haynes: The Secretary of State has not yet learnt his lesson. Why does he not take note of

  859
  many recent comments about women working underground in the pits? The regulations were introduced for a particular reason. The Secretary of State has not yet been underground to have a look for himself, and I am prepared to bet that he would not dare to take a look underground. Many hon. Members know what coal mining is all about.
  Why does the Secretary of State not take seriously the points that have been made so that he gets the full picture as to why women should not be allowed to work underground? I shall end with this point—[HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."] No, it is not too long. The two so-called young ladies at the Sheffield city polytechnic to whom the Secretary of State referred had had a sex change.
  Mr. Fowler: I shall leave it to The Independent to check up on the hon. Gentleman's last allegation. However, I shall try to answer in detail his lengthy intervention. I understand, although I am subject to correction on this point, that when he last spoke on the matter the Opposition Front Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Oldham, West—who even now is being briefed on the subject—said that he did not oppose the proposal. We look forward to hearing his views later in the debate.
  Mr. Bob Cryer: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Fowler: No. I should prefer to finish my answer to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes), although I know that the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) always expects to be given precedence.
  Ms. Short: The Secretary of State should stop being so rude.
  Mr. Fowler: As for going underground, I make the hon. Member for Ashfield a fair offer. I am certainly prepared to go down a mine, as long as the hon. Gentleman is prepared to come down with me and show me the way.
  Mr. Haynes: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State knows that I worked in a pit for 35 years and it would be nothing for me to make another visit. I am talking about the Secretary of State who has never been down a pit.
  Mr. Fowler: I am asking for the hon. Gentleman's help and advice. I recognise his experience and importance in this matter.
  In their letter to The Independent the two ladies—who can reply to his allegations themselves—said:
  "When will these so-called intelligent men realise that women are as competent and efficient as themselves and that we will be treated as equals?"
  That is the genuine response to the point made by the hon. Member for Ashfield.
  Mr. Cryer: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Fowler: No. I have given way several times.
  Clause 8 deals with restrictions on young people's employment. The consultation document contains the results of a review of a mass of legislation in that area.
  The review revealed a jumble of restrictions on young people's hours of work with no rhyme and very little reason to them. Different rules applied to factories, mines and shops, while other sectors, such as offices, farms and hospitals, had never been regulated at all. In many cases, the legislation had its roots in the 19th century and had been amended and consolidated in a piecemeal way at
  860
  intervals ever since. In the regulated sectors, there were generally some restrictions on maximum hours of work and working at night, but there was little consistency between different industries.
  The position has changed radically since Victorian or even pre-war days, and the progressive raising of the school-leaving age means that the age range covered by the regulations on young people's employment now covers only 16 to 18-year-olds, not younger children, as was often the case when the restrictions were introduced.
  We also now have a comprehensive framework of protection under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which imposes general duties on employers not to expose employees to conditions, including hours of work, which would endanger their health and safety. That also applies to 16 to 18-year-olds.
  Circumstances have changed so much that there should be no presumption that special protection is needed. In our review of the legislation, we have concluded that many of the restrictions are now unnecessary and the Bill will remove them. However, I stress that we are keeping all the safeguards that the Health and Safety Commission advises us are desirable for health and safety reasons—for instance, on working with dangerous machinery and chemicals. We are also keeping restrictions on the sale of alcohol, and in betting and gaming, where young people's welfare must be taken into account. We recognise that these are special cases. I must also emphasise that nothing in the Bill will affect the employment of children below the minimum school leaving age. All the safeguards in that area are left untouched.
  Mr. Richard Holt: Perhaps my right hon. Friend will tell me why, in this spirit of getting rid of all these regulations, it is perfectly lawful for a bookmaker to employ someone to work in the back office of a betting shop and take bets on a telephone but not over the counter? If the moral argument is that people under 18 should not be associated with gambling in any employment context, surely the law should make that absolutely clear and not allow the current anomaly, which is perpetuating a myth.
  Mr. Fowler: My hon. Friend has made a fair point about what is clearly an anomaly. The Government have not extended to the front counter the freedom which my hon. Friend says exists in the back office. Doubtless that is something we shall discuss in Committee.
  The Bill will greatly simplify the rules governing the employment of young people. It will widen their opportunities and remove disincentives to employers. The simplification of this law is long overdue.
  The Bill provides for a number of amendments to be made to other legislation, to ease the burden of regulation on employers. These stem from proposals contained in the White Paper, which we published in May 1986. My right hon. Friend, the Minister of State, with his special responsibility for small businesses, will deal with those clauses in detail. We are seeking to strike a balance between safeguarding employees' rights and enabling employers to improve their competitiveness and create new job opportunities.
  For example, clause 9 exempts employers with fewer than 20 employees from the requirement to provide their employees with particulars of any disciplinary procedures which apply to them.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] The

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  reason is that now such statements set out who deals with the matter at each level of the organisation. Clearly, small firms have limited administrative resources and are, by definition, smaller. Often, the employer will deal personally with staff grievances. All employers will still have to give employees the name of the person to whom they can go if they have a grievance.
  Clause 10 restricts the duties for which paid time off can be allowed.
  Clause 11 increases from six months to two years the qualifying period of employment after which employees are entitled to be given on request a written statement of the reasons for their dismissal. That brings the qualifying period into line with that for unfair dismissal complaints.
  Another important provision is intended to deter ill-founded applications to industrial tribunals. Clause 16 enables me to provide that the chairman of an industrial tribunal can hold a pre-hearing review of a tribunal case and, where he considers a case has no reasonable prospect of success, or appears to be frivolous, vexatious or unreasonable, to require the person to make a deposit of up to £150 as a condition of taking the case further.
  Mr. Keith Vaz: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Fowler: I have given way many times already and I should like to move on.
  That does not mean that all applicants will have to make a deposit. I would expect only a small minority of cases to be affected. Also, £150 is not a set amount: it is the maximum. It seems entirely reasonable that someone who has a weak case should be made to think carefully before putting all concerned to the trouble and expense of a full hearing.
  Mr. Vaz rose—
  Mr. Allen McKay rose—
  Mr. Fowler: I will not give way. It is not in the hon. Gentlemens' own interest to press ahead with a hopeless case.
  Clause 12 provides for women to receive statutory redundancy payments up to the same age as men—up to 65 or to the same normal retirement age if that is lower in a particular firm. I believe that that will be generally welcomed.
  Clause 13 is a further amendment to the redundancy provisions of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978, dealing with redundancy rebates.
  In clauses 14 and 15 the Bill also makes some technical amendments to the insolvency provisions of the 1978 Act. Those are intended to expedite payments out of the redundancy fund to employees of insolvent businesses, and to make it easier for my Department to recover such payments from liquidators or receivers.
  Clause 17, provides for the abolition of the requirement under the Celluloid and Cinematograph Film Act 1922 whereby firms wishing to store celluloid film on their premises must register with the local authority and pay an annual £2 fee. The reason for that is to remove the requirement to abolish the registration fee and the need to register with the local authority, given that most people are now using acetate instead of celluloid.
  862
  Clause 18 is an important clause and formally dissolves the Training Commission. The history of the abolition of the commission is well known. Formerly we had a commission which was in effect nominated by different parties—three commissioners were nominated by the Confederation of British Industry and three by the Trades Union Congress and there were three others representing different interests such as education and local authorities. Basically that system broke down because of the TUC's action in relation to its own commissioners' proposals. In 1987 the TUC commissioners agreed a programme called the new job training scheme but when it went to the TUC General Council it voted to boycott the programme—which it did, to the damage of that programme and the interests of unemployed people.
  We had a repeat performance when it came to employment training for long-term unemployed people. Again, the programme was agreed by the TUC commissioners, including at that time Mr. Ron Todd the General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union. Mr. Todd first withdrew his support and then campaigned against the programme of which he had been co-author. Partly because of that, partly because of a failure of leadership of the hon. Member for Oldham, West and in spite of a last-minute appeal by the Leader of the Opposition, the TUC decided to boycott employment training. Fortunately, that has had little effect on employment training and there are now more than 100,000 people on the programme.
  We were left with a position where three of the commissioners were committed to a policy of opposition to the biggest programme being run by the Training Commission. That was an unacceptable and untenable position, which inevitably led to the Government's announcement that the commission would be abolished.
  The hon. Member for Oldham, West and the Opposition bear a heavy responsibility for presiding over that policy. The TUC and the Opposition quite deliberately turned their backs on long-term unemployed people in this country. Frankly, we are not prepared to take lectures from the hon. Gentleman on training policy in Britain, either in the House or in the many newspaper articles that he writes.
  In place of the old system there is a framework for training with a number of features which I draw to the attention of the House. Instead of the Training Commission we shall have a new Training Agency directly accountable to me as Secretary of State, but with substantial management independence and with the benefit of the commission staff who have had very great success in delivering training programmes in this country.
  Rather than nine commissioners I am appointing a national training task force—which is employer-led, including the heads of IBM, NFC, Tarmac, Grand Metropolitan and the Scottish Development Agency. Its members also include people with experience of trade unions, local authorities, chambers of commerce and voluntary organisations. By any standards it is the best team on training that has ever been put together in this country.
  The team's first job will be to set up the first training and enterprise councils which will not only take over from the old area manpower boards but will also have important new powers and responsibilities. We envisage that eventually there will be a network of about 100 councils—which again are industry-led—and they will be

  863
  responsible for assessing the training needs of the local area, managing training programmes for the unemployed such as employment training, and, crucially, for promoting training for employers in the local area.
  Those changes add up to a very substantial revolution in training, and rightly so. In my view nothing is more important than that we improve the training standards in this country. It is a structure which gives employers the opportunity to plan for the future not on the basis of some remote national plan but on the basis of the needs in the local labour market. It will be their responsibility to ensure that their staff are trained to international standards. It will also be their responsibility to ensure that the people without jobs are trained to fill the jobs without people. It is only by improving training that we will ensure our competitiveness in the future.
  One of the reasons why employment in this country is improving faster than that of the other European Community countries is that we have taken down some of the barriers that have stood in the way of jobs. We have tackled, for example, the problem of bad industrial relations which in the 1960s and 1970s succeeded in exporting British job after British job overseas. We have lifted the burden of regulations and restrictions which hindered the growth of businesses and jobs in the 1970s and previous decades. We have taken a number of steps to increase the flexibility of the labour market, and we have now set in hand the biggest revolution in training arrangements there has ever been in this country—a revolution which is designed to ensure the supply of skilled labour that our industries and services will need to sustain economic growth into the 1990s and beyond.
  The Bill continues that process. It removes obstacles that stand in the way of some women taking jobs and it at long last reforms the position of young people. It is another step in the process of lifting restrictions and encouraging employment. The Department of Employment stands for policies of deregulation, because such policies will create new jobs and lead to the further reduction of unemployment in Britain.
  4.55 pm
  Mr. Michael Meacher: The Secretary of State claimed that the Bill is designed to meet the demographic gap in the labour market that will be produced by the shortage of school leavers in the next seven years. If that is its aim, it is remarkably badly targeted. But of course it is nothing of the sort; it is yet another Bill from the Government's ideological stables. As the Secretary of State said, it is a deregulatory measure. It will enhance the power of employers to hire and fire at will but will do nothing to provide the increased work force that the economy needs for the 1990s. It is a Bill not about increasing employment but about diminishing employment rights.
  The right hon. Gentleman has recently taken on something of the role of a soothsayer. Tearing his hair, he laments in the columns of the press that a great demographic change is upon us—repent all ye employers of little training and no creches or ye shall surely perish in a famine of skill shortages and school leaver shortages.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: He will when she sacks him.
  Mr. Meacher: I shall come to that later.
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  We waited for the oracle to speak again and give us the solutions to all our woes, and now we have them. First, the Bill allows women to work down the pits—that is, those pits that the right hon. Gentleman's fellow Ministers have not seen fit to close. What a decisive contribution that will make to opening up the labour market of the 1990s. Secondly, it seeks to get what young people there are to work longer hours.
  Mr. Fowlerrose—
  Mr. Meacher: The right hon. Gentleman seeks to intervene a little early. If he wishes to speak now, he certainly will not get in later.
  Mr. Fowler: Even at this early stage, will the hon. Gentleman tell us his position on opening up opportunities for women to work underground?
  Mr. Meacher: The right hon. Gentleman is displaying his usual impatience. If he can contain himself, it will certainly be made clear to him.
  The second object of the Bill is to get what young people there are to work longer hours—54 hours a week —and to allow 16-year-olds to work nights. Mr. Gradgrind would turn in his grave. The Bill seeks to make it easier to give someone the sack and harder for them to find out why they have been sacked or to take their case to a tribunal. What is astonishing about this blinkered, one-sided attack on employees' rights is that this little Bill displays breathtaking inadequacy in the face of the fundamental changes in the labour market.
  The right hon. Gentleman presents us with a picture of a demographic time bomb—a 23 per cent. drop in the number of 16 to 19-year-old school leavers in the next six years. He is quite right that we need to plan for that gap now. Basically, there are only three options. The first is to bring more unemployed people back into work. There is not a word about the unemployed in the Bill. The second option is to retrain more older workers. There is not a word in the Bill about older workers. The third option is to help more married women to return to work. What does the Secretary of State do to encourage them? He legislates to enable them to go down the mines. That is his answer to discrimination at work and to restrictions in the labour market. If it were not written in black and white in a Government Bill, one might think that he had pinched it from a "Carry On" film.
  In November the Secretary of State made a speech in which he said that discrimination by employers against women or blacks in the new demographic climate would mean cutting off a source of skilled labour that they could ill afford to ignore. That must mean that women must have the same career opportunities as men. The Secretary of State has now given an example of what he means by that, because the Bill will allow women to go underground in mines and quarries. The other major initiative is that it will remove the prohibition on women cleaning moving machinery in factories.
  In his speech, the Secretary of State urged employers to give women a better deal, but the Government are major employers and what example do they set? This Government provide the least publicly funded child care in western Europe. They are the only Government who do not give maternity leave to all mothers as a right. This Government have abolished the maternity grant that was available to all, making us the only country in Europe in

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  that position. Can we really believe that the Government are looking to women to fill gaps in the labour market when they have given women no incentive to play a fuller role?
  Women have been hit hardest by many of the changes that the Government have made. The Secretary of State has taken away the rights of low-paid workers, and it is women who have suffered most. The Government have twice frozen child benefit—the only benefit that goes directly to mothers. They have made repeated cuts in the welfare state, and groups such as single mothers are forced to struggle to make ends meet. When the Government under-fund the National Health Service and the social services, it is women who end up caring for dependent relatives, whether they like it or not. No one is taken in by the Bill. What job opportunities matter to women? It is not the right to dig coal but the availability of proper child care and flexible hours of work.
  Mr. Tim Janman: The hon. Gentleman mentioned the NHS and women in the same breath. Does he not remember that the last Labour Government cut nurses' pay in real terms?
  Mr. Meacher: That is a silly comment, in view of the present row about the Government's unwillingness to meet the proper clinical regrading needs and the continuing unrest among nurses. When, under Labour, the Clegg award was made to the NHS, the 500,000 nurses working in the NHS were far better rewarded during those four years than they are now. There is continual unrest because the nurses are unwilling to accept the way in which they are not being properly graded. If the Secretary of State does not know that, he should visit many of our hospitals. It is a disgrace that, with a £15 billion surplus—according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—nurses are still not paid properly despite their devotion.
  Mr. Fowlerrose—
  Mr. Meacher: No, I shall not give way.
  If one wants to hear the authentic voice of Thatcherism, one needs only to look at the Prime Minister's sacked "Egg Minister," who said a few months ago:
  "Our view is that it is for the parents who go out to work to decide how best to care for their children. If they want or need help in their task, they should make the appropriate arrangements and meet the cost."
  That is a fine view for female Ministers who can afford boarding schools and nannies, but it is not so good for working mothers on £70 a week, especially when in another niggardly piece of legislation the Government have chosen to tax workplace creches on the same basis as company cars, as though they were a perk.
  Employers in this country have a poor record in their treatment of women, but they do not need lectures from the Secretary of State about giving women a better deal when his own Government have systematically cut the rights of women workers, especially part-timers, to claim unfair dismissal and to receive proper maternity pay. They do not need lectures from the Secretary of State when his Government now provide for only 1 per cent. of under-fives in local authority day nurseries and even those places are not available for the children of those who are in work.
  866
  They do not need lectures from him when in his previous incarnation, at the Department of Health and Social Security, the right hon. Gemtleman was responsible last April for the abolition of child care costs up to £40 a week in the disregard for single mothers on income support, thus trapping them in dependency and preventing them from going back to work. He may shake his head —perhaps he is not aware that he did that. He then has the gall to talk this afternoon about equal opportunities for women. Above all, employers do not need lectures from him about improving career opportunities for women when the Government have removed the right to return to work after pregnancy for women who work in small companies—as most do. How does the Secretary of State explain all those actions?
  The Opposition believe that proper child care provision is a long-term investment in the social skills of children and the employment prospects of mothers as well as in the labour force of an economy that is threatened by staff shortages in the 1990s. The complete absence of such measures in the Bill is evidence of the Government's real aim, so for the Secretary of State to preach to us today about others giving equal opportunities to women is sheer hypocrisy.
  Another detail in the Bill that caught my eye was a double-take about sex discrimination. The Bill selects certain academic appointments at Oxford and Cambridge, which are currently restricted to women, to be allowed to continue because of the under-representation of women in senior posts. Once again, the sense of priorities and proportion shown by the Secretary of State is mind-blowing. He is, apparently, happy about the number of women on the board of BP and the number who are Law Lords, permanent secretaries or even England cricket selectors, but when it comes to ensuring women's rights to be theology dons at Oxford, that really calls for Government action.
  The second main concern in the Bill is young people. There will be 1·25 million fewer young people available to enter the labour market in the mid-1990s, so one would have thought that the maximum number would need to be trained to meet the growing skill shortages. One might have expected that the Bill would do something to remedy the collapse of apprenticeships in the past decade, during which the number of apprenticeships in engineering has fallen to one sixth of the 1979 level.
  One might have expected also—assuming that the Secretary of State is a little more willing than the Chancellor of the Exchequer to admit mistakes—that the Bill would remedy the patent failures of the youth training scheme, not least in securing jobs for young people. Obviously, that was too much to hope for. One scours the Bill in vain for any such positive ideas. But for the first time in almost a century—here we are not back to the 1930s, as with the Social Security Bill, but back to the 1880s—teenagers will be exposed to working at night, more than 11 hours a day and more than 54 hours a week. The Bill is concerned not with ending discrimination but with increasing exploitation.
  The Secretary of State has made great play of his claim that the main purpose of the Bill is to bring United Kingdom laws into line with European legislation which outlaws sex discrimination. He has not done his homework. How does he explain a recent survey which showed that the majority of European Community

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  countries have legal limits on the hours of work for both female and male adult workers and even stronger restrictions on the hours worked by young people?
  Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will give me his attention. How does he explain article 7 of the European social charter which says:
  "Persons under 18 years of age shall not be employed in nightwork "
  How call that be reconciled with the proposals? I note that the Secretary of State does not leap to the Dispatch Box to give an answer.
  The Government's view is apparently that youngsters should be treated as adults but should not be paid an adult wage. The 16 to 18-year-old lacks the maturity to appreciate fully the dangers from machinery, and is generally more prone to accidents because of limited experience. That is precisely why the fatal and serious accident rate for young people in work or on YTS has more than doubled, from 64 to 136 per 100,000 workers, this decade, according to the latest figures. The adult rate in shipbuilding is now 122 per 100,000 workers, so young people are already more at risk from fatal and serious accidents than adults who work in some of Britain's most dangerous industries.
  All of this is before longer shifts and excessive hours are imposed on young people as a result of the Bill. The Secretary of State is gambling with young people's lives. If and when the fatal and serious accident rate among young people spirals upwards, on his head be it.
  Young people aged 16 to 18 are not adults. That is why they are not deemed responsible enough to vote, to marry without permission, to drink alcohol, to enter legal agreements, to borrow money, to gamble or to own property. If the Government think that they should be treated as adults, why are they not lifting any of those restrictions?
  It is inconsistent for the Secretary of State to protect young people on moral grounds by preventing them from purchasing alcoholic drinks or placing bets on horses, while permitting them to work longer hours in a factory. That is sheer hypocrisy and lays bare the real motive behind the Bill—the desire to provide a source of cheap, exploited labour.
  We are often told that the Prime Minister's values are Victorian. The truth is apparent in the Bill. They are not so much Victorian as Dickensian.
  Mr. Fowler: The hon. Gentleman is suffering under a complete misapprehension of what is set out in the Bill. As I tried to explain earlier, we are preserving the safeguards that are necessary for health and safety. We are preserving regulations such as those concerned with working with dangerous machinery. The hon. Gentleman is saying that those safeguards are not being preserved, but he is wrong.
  Mr. Meacher: The right hon. Gentleman's weasel words will not protect him. The fatal and serious accident rate among young people has already more than doubled. Is the right hon. Gentleman telling the House that he is satisfied with that rate and that he believes that it will go down if the Bill is enacted? Will he answer that question? Does he believe that the rate is already too high? Does he believe that it will not get worse as a result of the Bill?
  Mr. Fowler: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that I would like the accident rate among the working population as a whole to go down. There is no question
  868
  about that. He is often quite deliberately misleading, however, when he says that there is some special problem with 16 to 18-year-olds, especially in respect of YTS. What he says in that context is out of proportion to what is happening elsewhere. On that, too, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong.
  Mr. Meacher: The fatal and serious accident rate among adults has increased by 40 per cent. during the past five years. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting that young people should be assimilated in that rate. He seems to be saying that they should be treated as adults and liable to the same incidence of accidents. The fatal and serious accident rate for adults and young people is going up, and the Bill will make it worse. That is the key point.
  Mr. Haynes: My hon. Friend must agree that there is another reason for so many accidents of this type. Since 1979, under the Conservative Government, the number of factory inspectors has been reduced drastically. We have constantly reminded the Government of that fact, but they have done nothing about it.
  Mr. Meacher: My hon. Friend is right. There has been a major cut in the number of factory inspectors—their number has been reduced by about 30 per cent. It is no accident—that is not a deliberate pun—that the result has been a huge increase among adults and young people of fatal and serious accidents. The Government are directly responsible in that respect.
  Ms. Short: The Secretary of State suggested that there was no connection between the Bill and likely accident rates among young people. Is it not a proven fact that people who work long hours and are tired are more likely to have accidents? The Secretary of State is arranging for young people to work longer hours, so it is inevitable that the accident rate will increase. He must know that.
  Mr. Meacher: That is obvious common sense. Only the Secretary of State refuses to see it.
  Since last April, the Government have denied 16 to 17-year-olds any entitlement to income support. If they are unable to support themselves, they are expected to rely on their parents. In other words, when it comes to social security and the Government being required to pay out benefit, young people are treated as children. When it comes to employment and young people being treated as cheap labour, however, the Government are only too glad to treat them as adults—except when it comes to pay. The Secretary of State was the architect of the original and notorious Fowler Social Security Bill. Now we have this Employment Bill. How can we be expected to have any faith in the integrity of this man?
  The Bill is not about extending job opportunities to young people, as the Secretary of State likes to make out —it is about exploiting them. The right hon. Gentleman will as usual dismiss that statement with a grunt, as he dismissed as a Left-wing cavil the statement that as a result of the Bill
  "young people could be obliged to work excessive and unsocial hours by unscrupulous employers"
  That statement was made not by the Labour party or the Trades Union Congress but by the Confederation of British Industry, no less, in its response last March to the Government's consultative document on the Bill. I do not think that the CBI is well known for Left-wing cavilling.

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  If the Bill is really about improving job opportunities, we must wonder why the Secretary of State neglected to tell us why it removes the right to a statement of reasons for dismissal and the right to be told about disciplinary procedures or why it is being made much harder to take a case to an industrial tribunal. We have to ask why the Government are intent on making life so much more unpleasant for employees in ways that employers' organisations neither want nor support.
  Denying people the right to a statement of the reasons for their dismissal means that, however arbitrary or intemperate the action of an employer, the employee has no protection. We must ask why the right hon. Gentleman insists on pushing through such a grossly one-sided and unjust provision when his own Department's research paper entitled "Unfair Dismissal Law and Employment Practice in the 1980s" found
  "very little sign that employment protection legislation was inhibiting industrial recovery or contributing to the high level of unemployment by discouraging employers from taking on new people".
  Perhaps the Secretary of State has not even read that document.
  What is more, we must ask why the Small Business Research Trust, so beloved of the Conservative party, conducting surveys of small businesses throughout Britain, consistently found that lack of finance, high interest rates and skill shortages were the main constraints on expansion, not fear of unfair dismissal claims. That is no surprise to us. Two out of three of those problems have been caused by the Government, who have done nothing to remedy the situation. When it comes to something which does not bother small businesses, however, in spite of the fact that businesses are not complaining, the Government insist upon attacking it.
  The same is true in regard to denying workers in small companies details of grievance and disciplinary procedures. Even the Institute of Personnel Management opposes that move because it has been shown that there is a higher risk of unfair dismissal in small companies, which is where the change will apply, than in large ones. The same is true for the £150 deposit at the discretion of industrial tribunal chairmen. The proposal is rejected by the British Institute of Management because it would be much more of an obstacle for an employee than for an employer and, it says—I have no doubt that it is correct —employers might automatically apply for an order to deter applicants. It is also rejected by the Engineering Employers Federation, for the good reason that it would deter non-unionised employees who might have a genuine case.
  If the whole phalanx of employers is against all the Bill's proposals, why does the Secretary of State insist on pressing them? This is the man who won his spurs at the Department of Health and Social Security by bashing the poor with swingeing housing benefit cuts and the infamous social fund. Clearly, he is trying to earn his keep at the Department of Employment by crippling workers' rights. There is nothing like mindless union-bashing and hammering workers for building up credits in the Cabinet stakes, and the right hon. Gentleman needs them. There are no limits to the contortions that he will undergo in that cause.
  870
  This is the man who, in the name of democracy, insisted that there must be ballots on industrial action, and then said that the minority did not have to obey them if the vote was in favour. Now, he has gone one better in his draft code of conduct on industrial relations ballots, by saying that the results do not count unless they are at least 70 per cent. in favour. He just makes up the rules as he goes along. Every day he becomes more like the creature in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" who, when reproved by Alice for misusing a word, retorted:
  "Words don't mean anything except what I say they mean."
  That is the Secretary of State.
  The Secretary of State is fiddling the rules again. When the Government want to make it almost impossible for people to exercise their rights—for example, by having a closed shop—they require at least 85 per cent. of the vote to be in favour. When the Government cannot get a majority of votes to run the country, they insist that 42 per cent. is enough to disregard the majority who disagree with them. When they wish people to exercise their rights—for example, when they are selling off council estates to private landlords—we suddenly find that a mere 15 per cent. in favour, as in Torbay, is enough to carry the day because they count those who abstain as being in favour.
  The only question left is whether the right hon. Gentleman manages to fiddle the unemployment figures down to zero before he contrives to present a nil vote in favour of his reforms as their being carried with acclaim. I know that Papa Doc was satisfied with 99 per cent. for his presidential election, but I wonder whether even that would satisfy the Secretary of State.
  Another aspect of the Bill that is subjected to a strong dose of doublespeak is the winding up of the Training Commission and the new arrangements for ET. If there is one unmistakable sign that the scheme is in deep trouble, it is the fact that the right hon. Gentleman launched it with a big fanfare on 5 September and then, on 30 December, less than four months later, had to relaunch it. With that record of failure, he will no doubt be making taxpayers pay for a third facelift for his pet scheme in the course of the next year. Rather than splashing out £4 million on his glitzy advertising campaign to sell a down-market scheme, the Secretary of State would do better to pay trainees a decent allowance so that they do not have to be tricked into the scheme by clever commercials.
  The truth is that companies have given ET the thumbs down in a big way.
  Mr. Holt: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to listen. I will give him his answer before he gets up.
  Only 18 of the 146 placements that IBM is offering have been filled. Only 22 of Wimpey's 666 placements have been filled. Only 35 of ICI's 121 places have been taken. That means that, in three of our largest companies, only 8 per cent. of the places allotted for ET have been taken up. One would not have thought that the right hon. Gentleman could achieve an even bigger failure than the job training scheme, but he has managed to do so.
  Mr. Fowler: The hon. Gentleman is chancing his luck. He must stop misrepresenting the facts. He has talked about truth, but he is misrepresenting the position, which is that no fewer than 106,000 people are under training on ET. The hon. Gentleman has just made a comparison with

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  JTS. At it height, new JTS had 30,000. In less than four months, employment training has achieved an occupancy of 106,000. Advertising is meant to show that there are places available with some of our leading companies for employing and training unemployed people. It is about time that the hon. Gentleman had the guts to support a programme for training unemployed people.
  Mr. Meacher: The right hon. Gentleman gives the whole game away. Of course the advertisements are being made for places with large companies. The problem is that they are not being taken up. The figures that I have quoted are taken directly from evidence that large companies have given.
  As to the 106,000, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman has put his foot in it. He is saying that two thirds of the way through the first six-month period for ET, only one third of the 300,000 places have been filled. The problem with his lousy scheme is that it is one third to one half underfilled. Many large companies have refused to take part. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will have the grace to accept that.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Meacher: I shall not give way, as I want to get on.
  ET does not measure up to the requirements of many large companies. Many know of the contact that McAlpine has with the Tory party. It has pulled out because it does not believe that trainees will come forward to work for the derisory allowance that is to be paid, and it is right to pull out. I hesitate to say, "I told you so," but we have said this all along, although the Secretary of State would not listen. Of those who have joined ET, a good half are only transfers from the old community programme and it is estimated that about 40,000 of those have dropped out altogether rather than transfer and, in the case of single persons, take a 50 per cent. cut in allowances to less than £40 a week.
  There are four fundamental flaws in the Government's training programme, but the Bill is concerned only with settling political scores. We had the same rigmarole again from the Secretary of State. First, making the new training and enterprise councils employer-dominated and giving employers a 10:1 majority on the new national training task force shows that the right hon. Gentleman has about as much sense of balance as Eddie Edwards. Perversely, that puts into the driving seat the group that has presided over the biggest rundown in training since the war.
  Secondly, there is a crying need for a national skills audit, because only when the gaps and deficiencies in current skill training are systematically exposed can any coherent framework of planning be put in place to remedy them. As a result of these proposals, the Secretary of State is moving in exactly the opposite direction—towards localised fragmentation.
  Thirdly, ET is flawed by gross under-funding, as we have always said, and the policy of paring back allowances is now coming home to roost in the miserably low take-up rate. The signs of underhand compulsion to force people on to the scheme are everywhere apparent, whether in restart interview intimidation of which we keep hearing so much, or in the harsher 1940s "actively seeking work" formula in yesterday's Social Security Bill.
  Fourthly, under this Secretary of State the whole training structure is built on the fundamental error of
  872
  splitting jobcentres from training. The only sensible way to plan training is by linking the collection of information on skill requirements with the provision of training leading to a job. The Secretary of State is now foolishly widening the split by setting up the private sector TECs and by the latest moves to privatise the employment service.
  On the latter point, this is supposed to be a Government Employment Bill, but it does not mention that this year the Department of Employment is to undergo a transformation more fundamental than any since its creation, and one which will fatally erode its capacity to provide efficient and comprehensive employment services. A year from now, the present Department will no longer exist; there will just be a collection of privatised, hived-off agency organisations.
  On 1 April the 41,000 staff of the employment services will be hived off as part of a semi-independent agency under a chief executive not accountable to Parliament. Following the privatisation of training through the training and enterprise councils announced last month, the Department of Employment is effectively removed from public control. It is no coincidence that, at the same time, major cuts will be imposed on staffing, staff grading and services. In the last public expenditure round, the right hon. Gentleman settled for a lower budget for his Department than that recommended by his officials. There can be few precedents for a rat trying to sink a ship before he jumps off it.
  What is not in the Bill is more important than what is. What is not in the Bill is the right hon. Gentleman's proposal to close 43 local benefit offices, without the normal consultation procedures. What is not in the Bill is his proposal to relocate job centres and unemployment benefit offices away from the high street to minor, secondary sites. The policy of integration will mark the end of the public employment service that we have known.
  What is not in the Bill is the sale of the professional and executive register, which was sold to Maxwell six months ago and is about to close up to 12 of its 50-plus offices. At the time, the right hon. Gentleman hailed that sale as leading to a bright and efficient future, but privatisation has turned out to be the first step towards closure. In common with JTS and ET, whatever he touches simply crumbles in his hands.
  What is not in the Bill are the right hon. Gentleman's proposal that the other half of the job clubs that are not privatised should be handed over to the private sector in the spring. That decision is despite a recent internal departmental survey, which showed that public sector job clubs are consistently more efficient at finding work or training for their clients than private sector ones. That has not stopped the right hon. Gentleman laying down a policy that agency job clubs, however badly run, are not to close unless another one opens in the same area. Public sector job clubs, however good they are, may not be increased because of rigid staff ceilings.
  What is not in the Bill are the major staffing cuts now being made at senior grade level throughout the enterprise allowance scheme. The number of higher executive officer managers is being halved, from 66 to 35.
  Mr. Graham Riddickrose—
  Mr. Meacher: I shall not give way.
  This is supposed to be an employment Bill, but the right hon. Gentleman is covetly engaged in the dissolution of public employment services in this country. All his plans

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  are based on the arrogant assumption that unemployment is no longer a problem. Even his own massaged statistics, however, still show unemployment at 2·1 million, which is 60 per cent. above the pre-1979 record high. Independent and reputable estimates, however, put unemployment at more than 2·8 million—nearly two and a half times the previous record high.
  At a time when unemployment is still a major political and economic scourge, when training has been criminally neglected by the Government for the past 10 years, when the economy faces a huge struggle ahead with the coming of the single market in 1992, the right hon. Gentleman, instead of strengthening and consolidating his Department to meet the growing challenge, is to run it down, parcel it up and sell it off. Neither the Bill nor the Secretary of State has remotely shown the vision to face the future, and both should be rejected in the Lobby tonight.
  5.34 pm
  Mr. Jim Lester: I listened with care to the speech of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher). He mentioned "Alice in Wonderland" and those of us who have listened to him on more than one occasion often feel that he is nearer to the Mad Hatter than any other character in that book. Often his flamboyant language does a disservice to his argument. Frequently, when listening to Opposition spokesmen, one gets the impression that we are not talking about the same measure, the same Minister or, indeed, the same country. The hon. Gentleman's speech was short on any constructive suggestions about the Opposition's intentions or about whether they agree with parts of the Bill.
  I am conscious of the importance of ET and I supported restart. I am also aware however, that the Opposition have sought to undermine those measures. We have seen a former Opposition Front Bench spokesman launch a deliberate campaign throughout the country to destroy ET. There have been all sorts of ramifications, and even today the hon. Member for Oldham, West referred to it as a "lousy scheme". His right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, however, went to the TUC conference to persuade it to accept ET. He made a brave and excellent speech in the interests of the long-term unemployed, only to find that he was undermined by Ron Todd and the Transport and the General Workers Union. I admit that lack of training has been a persistent problem, but the Opposition have very little to offer as a solution.
  As my right hon. Friend has said, the Bill contains a wide range of amendments to existing legislation. I greatly welcome the fact that the Bill brings us into line with the European equal treatment directive. The demographic changes and falling school rolls present opposite problems from those faced by the Labour Government in 1978. Indeed the future problems are different from those faced between 1979 and 1988. More open employment practices and the trend to employ more women on an equal basis are important.
  I have some sympathy with the hon. Member for Oldham, West regarding combining Government policy on employing women. There should be co-ordination between the Departments of Health, Social Security, Employment and the Treasury on the philosophy for properly employing women.
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  In fairness to my right hon. Friend, he has set the pattern, because, under the ET regulations, a lady going into training can claim up to £50 for child care costs so that she can gain the qualifications that will get her a job. If she gets a job, however, and carries on paying the same amount for child care, a problem arises. That cost is a heavy premium that is not allowed for when obtaining work as a result of the training and the far-sighted allocations given in my right hon. Friend's scheme. We need to review the total package of support which enables a woman to return to work.
  Mr. Leighton: The hon. Gentleman has made an extremely valuable point. Is he aware that, if that woman went to work for a progressive firm that had a creche, she would have to pay tax on that service because it would be regarded as a perk? Surely that is crazy.
  Mr. Lester: It is a perk in the sense that she is being given something that another women working in a similar job would have to pay for. For that reason, it is important to have co-ordination so that there is equal treatment. There is a common desire to assist women back into work, and that desire must be considered objectively.
  I do not share the fear expressed by the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes). I do not believe that there will be a rush of lady miners into the industry. I suspect, however, that lady mining engineers will now have a chance. In the oil industry, for example, many young women with high qualifications are employed. It is much to the delight of the men on site when they find that the attractive young woman whom they want to wolf-whistle is a highly qualified engineer who knows all about the oil industry and who can make a great contribution to it.
  Mr. Cryer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that if women were employed in the mines there would have to be accompanying regulations—the Minister gave no indication that such regulations would be introduced—to ensure, for example, that toilets were provided? There are no women's toilets down the mines. The travelling time between the coal face and the bottom of the pit shaft is often an hour, which precludes moving from the coal face to toilet accommodation at the head of the mine. For the Minister blandly to abandon the restrictions on women working in the mines without recognising the additional provision that would have to be made is foolish.
  Mr. Lester: I do not foresee many women wanting to work down the mines, but professionally qualified people, including women, will be involved in the mining industry. I had the honour to accompany the Prime Minister down her first coal mine. That was in my constituency, although I am afraid to say that it is closed. She not only travelled the road down to the coal face but, when at the coal face, signed autographs for half an hour. Clearly, ladies can go down mines successfully. We need to ensure that women can play their proper role in the range of technological developments that lie ahead, and I strongly support the remarks that my right hon. Friend made in that context.
  Equally, one must be balanced in one's attitude towards changes affecting young people. The anachronisms and complications of the existing law need to be examined and, where necessary, swept away.
  Equally, we must be careful to move quickly if we see that freedom being misused unscrupulously. I am sure that

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  there is common ground in the House that youngsters of 16 to 18 should be in the YTS or higher education. That is the important thrust of Government policy. It follows that, as fewer young people come into the world of work, the more precious they are and the more important it is to ensure—as we have tried to ensure with the development of YTS—that they have the highest base from which to develop their lives, careers, earning capability and success in society.
  It is a tragedy that, for reasons which we have been unable to overcome, the figures for 16 to 18-year-olds in higher education and training in Japan and America show that we have a long way to go. The hon. Member for Oldham, West can rest assured that it would not be in anyone's interest to look upon 16 to 18-year-olds as a source of relatively cheap unskilled labour.
  I will not comment in detail on the removal of employment protection measures, but I must remark on one measure relating to trade unions and the restriction on the activities of trade union members. We on the Government side of the House must be careful to ensure that, in freeing up the economy and deregulating in the way that has been suggested, we do not become over-bureaucratic in reverse from the point of view of the trade union movement. We must not hedge about with too many restrictions the range of duties for which, for example, trade union officials can officially be paid.
  Those with experience of industry know that industries —this applies to all working concerns—are human places where people interface and work together. It is sometimes impossible to put into legislation the various human reactions which are inevitable if a company is to be successful.
  During the Christmas recess, I visited various employers in my constituency. I discovered that in many instances there is a shortage of high skills. Part of the way to solve that high skill requirement is, with the good will of the work force, to relax many of the old restrictive practices—to multi-skill people who already have skills and to de-skill some jobs where technology can take over, for example where computer-controlled lathes can do the job.
  That can happen in any concern only with the good will of the work force and co-operation of trade union leaders. It is important in all we do to work with the grain, taking the work force with us, so that working practices may be changed. I am not a supporter of macho management reinforced by over-detailed rules and regulations in trying to run any human enterprise. The least one can expect in such a situation is less than full-hearted co-operation, and hon. Members who visit industrial concerns will accept that as valid and important.
  As for redundancy payments, I welcome the move to ensure that employees do not suffer when firms become insolvent and that rapid moves will be made to ensure that they will be paid. Does my right hon. Friend believe that the removal of rebates will make some employers more cautious before declaring redundancies? One has sensed in the past that there has sometimes been a rush to declare redundancies in what one suspected was a short-term regulator aimed at trying to bring down wage costs quickly, and that subsequently that has been regretted. So, in terms of the thought behind the Bill to improve training and training practice, will the Minister explain how, following this change, he sees the pattern of redundancies?
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  My principal remarks are concerned with the dissolution of the Training Commission, which has had a short but not particularly merry life. I admit, having been involved in the business of training and industry since the 1960s, that we have been on a treadmill—that, despite the steps forward and all the Government cash that has been put into it since the 1960s, we still face the problem of our chronic inability to achieve a satisfactory training mechanism. Relative to our major competitors, we still have not improved.
  The Secretary of State has now resumed responsibility for training. We have witnessed the country going through the full gamut of levies, training boards, the Manpower Services Commission, which we have modified, and now the new system proposed in the White Paper. We now have what is really a system of local delivery based on the German principle. That has had a base of at least 100 years of acceptance in Germany. We have a long way to go before we reach that stage.
  What worries me is that the problems and pitfalls remain the same. The first is the whole range of management, management training and management recognition. If we had as high a level of management training and management qualifications as do our competitor countries, management in Britain would be well aware that development and training are an important element in the success of any business at all levels.
  I was talking at lunchtime today at a meeting of the all-party management group to representatives of a chemical company which accepted that policy four years ago. They told me that it had worked incredibly well—that from the top of the management structure down through the firm, there was a successful system of recognising ability, of training and of moving people into areas of higher responsibility.
  While many companies follow this type of policy successfully, unfortunately many do not. My right hon. Friend and his predecessors have constantly exhorted employers to play a bigger role. I hope that with the local delivery system they will not only be required to play but will be seen to play a more important role in delivering the right level of skills.
  The second problem is the freeloader. Such people have been around since the 1960s; they believe not in training but in poaching specialised skilled workers because they think that it is cheaper than involving themselves in proper training. They think it is cheaper to inflate wage demands and to put up costs by poaching skills when they require them. Part of the problem of wages at the moment, particularly in industries in which skills are at a premium, is caused by poaching.
  In my area, I know of a company that is short of up to 300 skilled engineering operators. The only way to get them is by trying to recruit in parts of the north-east in which there have been shipyard closures, or to retrain, or to poach. The company in question is successful and has a full order book, but because of its lack of skilled workers it cannot deliver its orders on time and to the required quality. That is a serious problem and it brings me to my third point, about a local scheme—
  Mr. Holt: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems which the Government must face, and which they have so far failed to face, is that there are enormous numbers of vacancies in different parts of the country but that it is difficult to get companies to move to areas such

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  as mine, however many inducements are offered? That fundamental must be grasped; it will be, perhaps, when we build houses in the right areas so that unskilled people can be trained and moved to them. Equally, the atmosphere in parts of north-east England must be changed. We have shown with Nissan that we can do that. Until those two fundamentals come together, all the fine words will mean nothing.
  Mr. Lester: Yes, and there has been comment about the wage settlement that Nissan has given its workers. The 15 per cent. is on top of a much lower base than the general base paid in the midlands. The percentages make it seem like Nissan has broken the guidelines, but the net sums appear different.
  Under a local scheme of delivery, who will pay for and provide the high-level costly skills that we are critically short of? The value takes a long time to be added. Of course one can provide basic skills through employment training and the YTS, but long-term engineering and construction skills which are so essential and of which there is a shortage are a different matter. I had a great deal to do with the development of the YOP. I hope that my right hon. Friends will take great care over the continued provision of YTS and ensure that, with the pressure of demand for hands, we do not return to the bad old days, thereby losing the whole purpose of YTS and its two-year development. By the bad old days I mean early recruitment from school, partial training and rejection as soon as young people become capable of earning adult wages.
  Those of us who developed the youth training scheme saw it as a permanent measure to assist young people in the transition from school to work and, as the television advertisement shows, to help them find the right future career. It is essential that Conservatives reinforce our commitment to YTS and what it stands for in the context of our future skill needs—
  Mr. Nellist: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the true originator of the YTS was Sir John Hoskyns, who is now director general of the Institute of Directors and who wrote the position paper when he worked for the Prime Minister's policy unit? His words were that the aim of YTS was
  "to increase the differential between youth and adult wages".
  If not £28 or £35 a week, how much does the hon. Gentleman think these young people should be paid?
  Mr. Lester: I do not know where the hon. Gentleman gets his information, but when I was a Minister at the Department of Employment under the then Secretary of State, now Lord Prior, the position papers that we worked on were not prepared by Sir John Hoskyns. They were prepared in exactly the way that I have described. Some who are listening and who worked at the Department at that time will be able to endorse what I am saying. Obviously, the pay during the training period must be continually reviewed, but the hon. Gentleman must recognise that it is not only the cash at the ages of 16 or 17 which is important, but the potential of unskilled lives.
  Part of the problem is that young people who were in YOP and did not get into YTS or a job have no skills and little to offer at 25, 26 and 27—
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Lester: My penultimate point concerns the importance of national standards and systems of accreditation. I noted with some concern that the work and experience of training boards were dismissed in one sentence in the White Paper. That might not have been meant, but that was how it read. In the course of any changes, we should not throw away the experience and depth of knowledge about the major sectors of manufacturing industry that training boards possess. I am thinking especially of the construction and engineering training boards.
  I know that there have been non-statutory successors to some of the training boards and I look forward to reading how they have operated. In this legislation we should give training boards the freedom to develop the marketability of their knowledge and skills commercially. That would be one of the most significant ways in which their talent and inherent knowledge, which have accumulated nationally, could prove themselves. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider that during the passage of the Bill.
  Finally, I turn to the function of employment training now given to the training and enterprise councils. I listened carefully to yesterday's debate. I understand the regional variations that have given rise to the suggestion that people must prove that they are actively seeking work. In most of the regions that I visit there is less work than in the south-east. I know from long constituency experience that there is a real bias against people who have been unemployed for a long time—who have slipped through the three-month net. Many people in personnel departments screen them out and do not even interview them.
  We should do a survey of the personnel practices of companies, many of which are dismissive of people who are seeking work. The letters that they send out are cold, almost un-Christian. They do not recognise how important it is to a person seeking work to know that he has been properly considered. I am a keen supporter of the employment training initiative and I recognise benefit-plus as being one of the ways of giving security to people who have become disillusioned because they have tried to find work so often. Some of my constituents have come to my surgery with 50 letters of rejection in a carrier bag—I am not joking.
  Mr. Holt: They were lucky to receive 50 letters of rejection. Some of my constituents have written 400 letters, of which no more than 80 per cent. were acknowledged.
  Mr. Lester: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reinforcing my point. The problem is certainly widespread. My point is—my right hon. Friend has mentioned the over-45s, women and the long-term unemployed—that recruitment must include the long-term unemployed.
  When Sainsbury's opened a branch in my constituency which needed 400 people, it was only because the jobcentre negotiated with the store that it was willing to take 10 per cent. of the 400 from the register—40 people. If the jobcentre had not negotiated that agreement, all 400 would have been recruited from among people in work who were not on the register.
  I ask my right hon. Friends to consider the scheme put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart) and myself, which used training vouchers for the long-term unemployed as a way of

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  motivating them and giving them back a sense of purpose. In addition to retaining the security of social security, they had a training voucher which could be used in a responsible training establishment to gain a qualification. The voucher was theirs and so was the responsibility to use it. We need a transfer of dignity to the person who is seeking training and work rather than a sense of being directed or sent to a suitable place. I am sure that my right hon. Friend, who will want to go down in history as the Minister who at long last got it right, will look again at this imaginative idea.
  My last plea is directed to the Opposition, because they have a role and responsibility. If they constantly undermine and denigrate every measure that the Government put forward, it will create uncertainty. Our international position on training and in the skills league is critical and 22 per cent. of companies report skill shortage problems. I have described some of them. We cannot keep pulling up the turnip to see if it is growing. If we are to implement this system we need a period of stability and as much certainty as can ever be guaranteed in this world. Unless we give it a chance to take root and operate we shall not begin to solve this persistent, pervasive national hangover of our inability to train.
  6 pm
  Mr. Michael Foot: When he presented his Bill, the Minister pretended that it was a long-term measure and looked forward to the state of the labour market over many years. He told us that that was the kind of spacious outlook that we should adopt when considering the Bill. Of course it is right that the House and the country should consider not only the immediate situation but the situation five or ten years hence. For reasons that I shall seek to underline, the Bill is gravely inadequate for that purpose.
  The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) made an appeal for general backing for intelligent measures to deal with this new situation. If that is what is required, the Minister would have been much wiser not to have studded the Bill with measures that he must have known would be highly objectionable in many quarters. Of course the Bill is objectionable to the trade unions and to many other bodies. It is objectionable to many of the youth organisations, to citizens advice bureaux and to the National Council for Civil Liberties. The Bill is riddled with provisions to which those bodies object, and they have made their objections in consultations. However, the Minister swept them away.
  It will not be easy for the Secretary of State to say, "Let us have an all-nation and an all-party approach to these problems." We all hope that there has been a major change in employment. Not today but on previous occasions the Minister and the Prime Minister have spoken about the new employment position. They try to conceal the fact that unemployment is still extremely serious, especially in many of the regions. But the Prime Minister has said once or twice—no doubt she got it from the Minister's Department—that the number of employed people is higher today than ever before. That is the Government's claim. It is an interesting claim because it means—and it is only in the last few weeks that they have said it—that the total number of employed people has now got back to just over what it was in 1979. We can all remember that that was the year in which the Conservatives came back to
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  power by saying, "Labour isn't working." That was the year in which there were more people in employment than ever before.
  Of course there are many differences between the employment situation in 1979 and the present situation. There are many more people unemployed today, and in calculating the number of people in employment the Minister and the Government count people in part-time jobs as if they were in full-time jobs—and that includes many women.
  Mr. Spencer Batiste: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one of the most significant differences between now and 1979 is that in 1979 the productivity levels of the work force were much lower than they are today?
  Mr. Foot: If many people are put out of jobs, productivity can be increased in certain cases. That is what the Government have done. I am saying that, on the Government's own test of the total number of people in employment, they have just got back to the total number of people employed in 1979—that is, if the Government figures are correct. For those of us who remember the contest of that election, this is a matter of some interest.
  My hon. Friends on the Front Bench will deal with the question of women much more fully than I can. It is absolutely necessary that over the next five or 10 years the Government, of whichever party, should have a plan to make the fullest possible use of women's labour and women's work. The Bill does not do that in any major field. It merely does what I think is the minimum required by European legislation and tries to put that into our legislation. It has no vision of going any further than that and does not deal with the major question of how we should enlarge the opportunities for women in better paid jobs. The Government do not deal with that, although they could have done so if they had wanted to do so.
  An imaginative plan would have foreseen that in the next five or 10 years not only will there be as many women in employment as there are today, but that many more women will be able to get into better paid jobs. One way in which that will have to be done is by protecting the lowest paid workers. That has been the experience in many European countries. Instead of doing that, the Government have done the exact opposite and have attacked lower paid workers, whether they are women or young workers. The Government close their mind to the idea that, if the general standard of wages is to be raised, they must do something about the low paid. Practically all the measures that the Government have taken have injured the position of the low paid rather than improved it.
  I come to the major way in which the Government have approached this problem in exactly the wrong spirit using the wrong method. They have said that they will lift some of the so-called restrictions that injure the employment of young workers. In doing so, they have interfered with some of the rights of young workers. There is no point in the Minister pretending that, if he increases the number of hours that young people may work during the week or during the day or detracts from the other protections that they enjoy, it will not affect their health and safety. The Minister is approaching the matter in quite the wrong way.
  If the Minister thinks that he is putting forward measures that do not touch on these problems, he should

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  listen to the advice from the Health and Safety Commission. It sets out how these regulations should be
  altered, if they have to be altered:
  "the restrictions may be unnecessarily detailed and elaborate, although not an apparent burden on industry".
  It was talking about the present restrictions.
  "they should not be replaced without some form of control of young persons' hours of work in order to safeguard their welfare and opportunities for education, training, and social development."
  That was the advice of the Health and Safety Commission, but that advice has been pushed aside. On other occasions when commenting about the Government's proposals the commission and the Health and Safety Executive, which I am glad to say still exercises some independence in these issues, put their views to the Government.
  However, the Government have gone about matters in entirely the wrong way. They could have introduced a great reform in this Bill if they had said what they would do in the next 10, 12 or 15 years to protect and extend the health and safety legislation, the activities of the commission and the effectiveness of its inspectors, not only for young workers, but for workers throughout industry.
  As the Minister responsible for introducing the original legislation in 1975, I have some interest in the subject. That legislation was placed on the statute book in times of great difficulty, but we carried it through because we believed that it was essential, particularly in a technological age with new industries growing up in different fields, such as chemicals, to have a new range of health and safety provisions for all workers, including women and young people.
  After 10 or 12 years' operation of that Act, it should be reviewed. We should not have to argue about these miserable, squalid, little provisions that will injure the safety protections of many young workers. We should be arguing about how we shall extend the protections for all workers in the hazardous decade that lies ahead of us. If the Minister thinks that there is anything wrong with that, he should read the report of the Health and Safety Commission. I dare say that he has read it, but he has not acted upon it in the Bill.
  The headline of the January supplement of the Employment Gazette—I am glad to see that its contents have not been suppressed—reads:
  "Unsatisfactory year for industrial health and safety".
  The Minister has been directly responsible for that. That
  was the conclusion of the committee that reported to the Department. The article in Employment Gazette stated:
  "Poor safety management in construction, agriculture and quarrying, as well as several major disasters made 1987–88'an unsatisfactory year for industrial health and safety'".
  Unsatisfactory is putting it mildly; it was the worst year
  for 10 years.
  At the same time, the health and safety people, who know what they are talking about, criticise the Government's figures because they say that they do not tell the full story. If the Minister reads his Department's report, as quoted in Employment Gazette, he will see that it claims that the full figures have not been given. We want to have the chance to see those full figures. It has been an unsatisfactory year for industrial health and safety and the full story has not been told to the country.
  People are becoming far more interested in these matters than the Government appear to realise, partly
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  because of the appalling tragic disasters that have occurred and partly because of the comments of the apologists for those disasters, such as Sir Jeffrey Sterling, the chairman of P and 0, who says that such accidents have nothing to do with him. In fact, they have plenty to do with him and his management because poor safety management, as the HSC says, is partly responsible for these accidents.
  The nation's attention is attracted to those terrible tragedies. We must learn from them, although we appear to take a long time to do so. That is another reason for extending health and safety measures. If the Government had had the nerve to introduce such measures, we could have discussed these matters, as they are very topical. It is not only a question of tragedies, crashes and rail disasters. In the construction industry, for example, appalling accidents take place day after day, week after week. More people are killed or maimed in such accidents than in those terrible tragedies.
  I was especially interested to see the reference to agriculture in the HSC's report. I remember trying to push such a measure through Parliament in 1975. We introduced a special clause referring to agriculture because we believed that it was essential that agricultural workers should be protected at a time when agriculture was becoming much more mechanised. However, that measure was thrown out of the House of Lords which mobilised about 500 landowners from the backwoods. That was the largest attendance in the House of Lords prior to the attendance in the move to throw out the measure designed to protect blind and deaf people.
  As the accident rate in agriculture is now much higher than had ever been estimated, it is all the more necessary for the Government to introduce a comprehensive measure to transform the work possibilities of the HSC. The HSC has been manned from the beginning by people who are devoted to the task. It was set up on the advice of the man who had been the inspector of factories for many years. His life was devoted to the idea of transforming all his knowledge and that of his inspectors into legislation for the future. We increased the number of people covered by health and safety provisions from about 1 million to about 5 million, but that process has not been carried through on the necessary scale. Successive Ministers at the Department have not fought the Treasury to obtain the money to enable the inspectorate to do its job. The independent inspectorate is essential for the HSC to do its job. If the Minister was worth his salt, he would fight for that every day and would bring adequate provisions before the House.
  There would have been a very different atmosphere in which to deal with these problems if, instead of having to argue the case about health and safety in the 1990s on the basis in the Bill—for example, whether protections will be withdrawn from young people—we could have learned from our accumulated experience over the past 10 years. We could therefore make the next 10 years the very best years for health and safety welfare legislation and so be ahead of any other country. That is what any decent Government would have done.
  I could deal with the other measures, but this is the most far-reaching. The Government do not have the grace to say that what they are doing is wrong, but I plead with them to come forward in the next Session with a full-scale measure for doing what should be done. We cannot prophesy exactly, but no one imagines that these tragic events will suddenly stop. The number of industrial

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  accidents involving people in dangerous jobs will increase again in the next 10 years. What will the Government do about that? Will they say, "We dealt with that in the special 1989 Bill, which took away the rights of young workers who had been protected. That was the Bill which said that people had to cough up £150 if they claimed that they were being denied the right to go to an industrial tribunal."
  This is a squalid little measure. It does not deal with the major questions. I shall not refer to all the matters raised by the hon. Member for Broxtowe, particularly in respect of training, but, if what he said is even one quarter true, with regard to what is happening to the long-term unemployed in this country—how they have to fight to get a chance of a job, have to deal with denial after denial and write letters which receive no reply—this measure will link with the one introduced yesterday in an especially malignant manner. They are linked because they will put pressure on the unemployed. The Secretary of State knows all about this. He described what was happening to some of the long-term unemployed. He should have produced a very different Bill. No Conservative Member will be proud to support this Bill tonight.
  I plead with the Government to lift their eyes above this squalid measure. Can we not have a decent, long-term measure to provide genuine training in the decade ahead? Can we not have a long-term measure to ensure that the real risks to health and safety are dealt with, and can we have a Minister who will say to the Treasury that such a measure would not cost the earth? A few hundred million pounds will make all the difference and might stop the tragic accidents. I plead with the Government even now to incorporate some of those measures in this wretched Bill. That might help the House to regain some respect.
  Several Hon. Membersrose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. It is evident that many hon. Members want to speak. I hope that we will now have a succession of short speeches.
  6.21 pm
  Mr. James Paice: I will try to live up to your expectations, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  I want first to refer to the changes in the law on sexual discrimination to bring it into line with European legislation. I listened with great interest to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and that made by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher). I wonder whether the hon. Member for Oldham, West has read the Bill in full. He seems only to have read the clause which deals with mines. I also wonder whether he understands the relevance of Europe in our deliberations.
  We must recognise that dealing with sexual discrimination is as much a matter of changing attitudes as it is a matter of legislation. I used to employ as many women as men in positions of responsibility in management. I have a great admiration of women's competence and ability to do any job that they are asked to do. I recognise that value. A similar experience by businesses will lead to true equality in the employment stakes.
  The case is not helped by the bra-less harridans who have been espoused by the Labour party in whatever
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  activity they undertake, be that sexual discrimination, Greenham Common, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament or the campaign for homosexual rights.
  Ms. Diane Abbott: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Paice: Such behaviour has damaged the true cause of sexual equality to a great extent. The vast majority of women are highly competent and despise the activities which have brought ridicule to the true case for sexual equality.
  The hon. Member for Oldham, West also referred to women going down mines. I listened very carefully to him to discover whether he would substantiate his original statement which was referred to by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State or whether the hon. Member would distance himself from it. However, I listened in vain. As is so often the case, the hon. Gentleman is finding it difficult to make up his mind. It is hypocritical for the Labour party, which has espoused the case for sexual equality, to say that we cannot have it where we do not want it, down the mines. It is difficult to understand that.
  Ms. Abbott: Will the hon. Gentleman give way now?
  Mr. Paice: I will give way in a minute.
  Of course there are physical and practical implications involved in mines, as the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) explained. However, we must still deal with the question of discrimination and the fact that, if women want to work in mines—there is no question of sending them there—they should have the right to do so.
  Ms. Abbott: Perhaps I can enlighten the hon. Member. Sexual equality involves raising standards, not lowering them. We would not enhance the status of children if we sent them down mines, and similarly we will not enhance women's status if we did that. The organisations which the hon. Gentleman described as "bra-less harridans", such as the Equal Opportunities Commission, the National Council for Civil Liberties and the professional women's organisations which have studied sexual equality for many years, are concerned with raising standards, wages and opportunities for women. They do not want to bring back the conditions of the 19th century.
  Mr. Paice: That intervention underlines the lack of understanding. We are not talking about lowering standards. We are talking about increasing opportunities. No one has said anything about sending anyone anywhere. There is no question of children going down the mines as the hon. Lady suggested. I suspect that the reality is a desire to maintain the image of macho man the miner instead of appealing for genuine opportunities for women.
  The right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) expressed a desire to see a long-term plan for training. I endorse that, and the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester): that is the right approach. The demise of the Training Commission was inevitable following the disastrous decision at the TUC conference. However, it would be wrong not to pay tribute to the work of the Training Commission and the Manpower Services Commission. The Training Commission did much to pioneer and improve training programmes, specifically with the youth training scheme. It also developed a range of techniques for assessment and monitoring. I am sure

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  that many of the staff from the Training Commission will continue that work under the guise of the Training Agency or will be seconded to the training and enterprise councils.
  Despite all our efforts across a whole range of activities to stimulate training, industry is still not responding fully. We must understand that there is a great need to encourage employers to control and fund training to a much greater extent. I am sure that TECs will play a major role in that. However, we must ensure that the TECs are truly representative of the businesses in the areas that they serve. I represent a large rural constituency with a massive range of businesses including agriculture, high technology and medical research. It is essential that the TECs represent the full range and do not become the preserve of a small clique.
  I am satisfied with the White Paper's proposal that training contracts should be more based on payment by results in terms of jobs gained and skills gained. That is a useful step forward which I am sure was gleaned by my right hon Friend the Secretary of State for Employment during his visit to the United States of America last year.
  Like my hon. Friend the Member for Broxstowe, I am concerned about the future of the youth training scheme and specifically about Government funding for the scheme. A few years ago research showed that business funding for training in the best cases represented 4 per cent. of the payroll. The average was about 2 per cent., and that causes great anxiety because many businesses were spending little or nothing on training.
  The Government set out to encourage businesses to spend more on training and that has been happening through YTS as grants have been held at cash levels. However, I believe that it would be wrong for the Government to consider its long-term policy to be a withdrawal of funding of the YTS. YTS must remain a broad national foundation for 16 to 18-year-olds on which employers can build future training and on which the employee can build career changes by obtaining the necessary training.
  If the Government pull out of funding the YTS, there is a risk that its framework will disappear and the scheme will become too narrow for the long-term benefit of the people and businesses that it serves. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to give me some hope that the Government do not intend ultimately fully to pull out of YTS funding.
  I have one further regret to express. It concerns an omission from the Bill. I hope that, even at this stage, my right hon. Friend will rectify it by an amendment at a later stage. I refer to the matter of the pre-entry closed shop. Since 1979, the Government have, by a series of staged changes in employment legislation, shifted the balance of power away from the organisation and to the individual. That is the correct and sensible way to progress and it is a change that I have consistently supported. However, we are left with one great anachronism in the form of the pre-entry closed shop. If we are honest, we may suspect that that is because many employers like it. However, that does not make it right, and the House should recognise that the pre-entry closed shop is wrong and is an infringement of the individual's rights.
  I make my case by citing one example. The Select Committee on Employment is currently investigating
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  employment prospects for older workers. One of the organisations from which the Select Committee took both written and oral evidence was Tesco. That company has consciously set out to employ people aged over 50, which is entirely admirable and something that the House will respect. There are three Tesco superstores in my constituency and a fourth just over the boundary. Therefore, Tesco constitutes a major employer in the area.
  One of my constituents, in his fifties and without work, decided to take advantage of Tesco's enlightened approach and applied for a job. Right hon. and hon. Members can imagine his surprise when he found that the company's job application form included, as an integral part, an application form also for membership of USDAW. More importantly, it incorporated the statement:
  "It is a condition of your employment that you become and remain a member of the union."
  There may be good and sound reasons why Tesco and other organisations want their employees to join a union. Certainly it is entirely sensible of people to want union membership so that they may benefit from the services and opportunities that it provides. For employers, it means convenience and greater tidiness. However, my constituent simply wanted a job. As a man in his fifties, he did not want to be told that he was obliged to join a trade union. When he telephoned ACAS, he was advised to join USDAW but, having got the job, then to resign, and that if Tesco dismissed him for that reason he should fight the company through the courts. Why on earth should my constituent be compelled to take such action? Needless to say, he declined ACAS's suggestion and is still looking for a job. It is for that reason that he asked me not to divulge his identity, but I have all the facts of the case.
  Opposition Members have, rightly, expressed concern —as have my right hon. and hon. Friends—about the difficulties faced by the older person seeking employment. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe spoke of the long-term unemployed and of the increasing difficulties resulting from employers' attitudes towards them. I doubt whether even the hon. Member for Oldham, West, with his inventive rhetoric, will be able to justify to my constituent why he should be compelled to join a trade union in order to be given a job. Joining a trade union is not wrong, but making union membership compulsory in order to get a job is wrong. Where are the employee's rights in that?
  This afternoon we have heard much said about the rights of the employee, but where are his rights when he is compelled to apply for trade union membership before he can be considered for a job? I hope that even at this stage my right hon. Friend will consider adding to the Bill the necessary clauses to outlaw a system that destroys a fundamental human right. It is a right that we on the Government Benches have espoused for the past 10 years —the right of choice. I support the Bill but I hope that it will be amended in the way that I have suggested.
  6.35 pm
  Mr. David Blunkett: I follow my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) in clearly spelling out the real dangers posed to young people not only by the implementation of clause 8 in what the Government describe as deregulation—but which most of us describe as the removal of decent protections—but linking it with the clause removing the

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  training commission and establishing the training and enterprise councils and the agency arrangements, which my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West described in terms of the lack of responsibility and accountability resting with the Secretary of State and, subsequently, with the House.
  The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Paice) would do better to turn his mind to the real dangers that already confront 16 and 17-year-olds, which will be magnified with the introduction of the Bill, rather than debating whether people should have the rightful protection of a trade union to ensure that their interests are safeguarded and that employers carry out their responsibilities dutifully.
  I illustrate that point with the case of Derek Cain, who was killed while participating in a youth opportunity scheme on 20 December 1982. His case was pursued by his father, Richard, who is one of my constituents, with the help of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Michie) and other hon. Friends representing Sheffield constituencies, as well as by my predecessor, Miss Joan Maynard. They gave every possible assistance to a man who displayed remarkable tenacity against the establishment and the indifference of the Department of Employment and the former Manpower Services Commission. Mr. Richard Cain used the whole of his redundancy pay to pursue the matter for six years, despite being advised that a case against a Government Department and the Manpower Services Commission would never be successful. Yet he was indeed successful, and in the High Court on 21 December 1988 the Department of Employment was found responsible in lieu of the MSC and the Training Commission.
  That case showed that existing arrangements and procedures for protecting young people are already inadequate. Today's statements by the Secretary of State for Employment are not only woefully inadequate but a negation of his responsibility in suggesting that existing health and safety regulations, together with the proposals outlined in clause 8, are sufficient to protect 16 and 17-year-olds from the fate that befell Derek Cain.
  I shall explain why. Derek Cain's case showed that Manpower Services Commission staff were not trained to understand the Factories Act 1961 and the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974. They did not comprehend either that a factory had to be registered, or the existing regulations concerning dangerous machinery to which the Secretary of State referred when he told the House today that they would not be affected by the Bill. The company itself, which was non-unionised, was in breach of most of what we would describe as basic safety requirements.
  The court found that the placement officer had not checked and did not know that the firm should be registered, and that the officer above him responsible for safety in the Manpower Services Commission had not visited the premises, but had checked on the phone that the management believed that the dangerous machinery in the paper mill conformed adequately with safety requirements for a youth opportunities placement.
  What has really angered Mr. Cain, and should anger every Member of Parliament—and what should not only direct the Secretary of State's attention to removing clause 8, a provision which would increase the dangers to young people, but encourage him to bring forward genuine safety requirements for 16 and 17-year-olds—is this. From that day onwards, despite the indifference shown to Mr. Cain's
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  draconian efforts to draw public attention to what had happened, he has been vindicated by the tragic fact—spelt out already today—that the dangers for those on the youth training scheme have more than doubled. But when the scheme was introduced, Ministers said in the House that it would remove the dangers illustrated by the death of Derek Cain.
  Incidentally, Derek Cain lay undiscovered for two hours after his accident with a baling machine. When the case was heard in the coroner's court, it was discovered that his father had been denied death benefit because Derek had not been an employee, and denied death grant. That was later found to be a further error by departmental civil servants.
  It is not the individuals who are culpable—it is a system that puts deregulation and profit before the protection of young people who cannot protect themselves. They cannot do what a representative of the Institute of Directors suggested earlier this week in a BBC broadcast and get themselves into another job if they consider themselves at risk. If they leave their jobs they will be disqualified from receiving benefit; if they are sacked, under the Bill they will no longer be told why they were sacked, and will lose both their benefit and their credibility when seeking other employment. But they have no redress other than the protection of the courts, and—as was proved by Mr. Cain's six years of dedicated struggle with no one to help him and faced with the indifference of the Department of Employment and the Manpower Services Commission—it is a long and thankless task. Only someone with the tenacity of a Richard Cain would have followed it through.
  That is why we should not only reject the Bill as it is drafted, but demand from the Secretary of State a statement on how he sees the protection that he described earlier being applied—not only to people like Derek Cain but to the thousands of young people who are currently at risk from what Winston Churchill described in 1909 as the irresponsibility of the bad employer that could be matched only by the irresponsibility of the worst. That is the message that we should put across tonight.
  Mr. Nellist: Shortly after the tragic death of Derek Cain, I worked closely in the House with his father Richard to produce a private Member's Bill putting forward his suggestions that the MSC should become more accountable for the health and safety of young people on the youth training scheme. Is not another factor in the truths that my hon. Friend has spoken tonight that the tragic deaths of nearly 50 other youngsters since Derek's death are testimony that the Department ignored all that Richard said?
  Mr. Blunkett: Regrettably, my hon. Friend is right. The increase of over 100 per cent. in fatal and serious injuries is a tragic testament to that. Procedures are needed for which we as elected Members of Parliament are accountable, so that some redress is available outside the expensive and difficult court system—before and not after the tragic deaths of youngsters like Derek Cain. If such procedures are to come about, the Secretary of State must take on board both the recommendations drawn up after Derek's death and the suggestions made in the High Court judgment.
  There ought to be proper liaison between the careers departments and the new training and enterprise councils.

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  There ought to be independent monitoring, training for staff in basic safety requirements and protection for youngsters—the sons and daughters of all of us—who would expect us, as responsible Members of Parliament accountable to those whom we represent, to have the honesty to admit that employers will not do the job for us and that young people cannot do it on their own. This is our responsibility. If the Secretary of State ducks it he will, tragically, be responsible for further incidents in the future.
  6.45 pm
  Mr. David Evennett: I am pleased to be able to contribute to the debate, as I served on Standing Committees considering two employment measures in this and the last Parliament and fully supported both. The vast majority in the country also supported them—as, it should be noted, did the majority of trade union members. I believe that this Bill, when enacted, will likewise command widespread support across the political spectrum, in industry and in the trade unions.
  The speech by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) was a total disappointment: it was negative and patronising to the young people of this country. So, too, I regret to say, was the speech of the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot). Conservative Members need no lectures from a former Employment Secretary whose tenure of office was such an unmitigated disaster.
  Mr. Wareing: The Conservatives are the party of unemployment.
  Mr. Evennett: I always come to employment debates with some optimism, hoping that there will be constructive discussion from both sides of the House, but I am always disappointed and amazed at the over-emotional reactions from the Opposition. They seem to glory in unemployment, and they always try to ignore the constructive side and go for the negative.
  Mr. Janman: I heard an Opposition Member say that this was the party of unemployment. Is my hon. Friend aware that all Labour Governments since the war have left office with unemployment higher than when they came in?
  Mr. Evennett: My hon. Friend makes a good point. I should have thought that in a debate on a minor Bill it would have been constructive to look to the future rather than giving a history lesson on the past—particularly when the Opposition's record in office was so bad.
  In 1979, so much was wrong with the laws governing employment and industrial relations that much reform was required. Over the past decade we have seen piecemeal reforms in the areas where they were necessary. I welcome the Government's commitment to continuing that reform and to updating our employment laws, not in a doctrinaire way but practically and pragmatically. As society changes, the law must be reformed to meet or reflect that change; that is as true in employment as in every other service. We have an obligation to reform the law so that unnecessary and outmoded provisions are removed, enterprise is able to flourish and the maximum unhindered opportunity is given to individuals.
  In this day and age it cannot be right that our employment laws allow discrimination against women. In
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  the last 20 years the law has rightly been changed. It requires that generally there should be equality of treatment and opportunity for the sexes, apart from specific and necessary safeguards of the kind that one would expect in a decent and civilised society.
  Against such a background, I fully support the provisions in the Bill which aim to extend the general principles contained in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 so that discriminatory provisions that have no valid purpose are overridden. That must be a logical and reasonable reform. It recognises the fact that in modern society women are not helpless victims in a Victorian melodrama, as certain Opposition Members would have us believe, and in need of patronising over-protection. It recognises that they are individuals capable of making rational choices and decisions for themselves. We believe that they should be given more opportunities to make decisions for themselves.
  I am a firm believer in equal opportunities. It is not often that I welcome what the EEC Commission does. We have had many late-night debates on its deliberations. However, on this occasion I believe that the Commission's equal treatment directive is right. To widen freedom of choice for the individual is an obvious way in which to promote equal opportunities. By so doing, the House will do much more for equal opportunities than merely empty gestures. The Bill is practical and effective.
  I mentioned earlier that it is very easy to be over-patronising towards the young. The Opposition Front Bench and some Opposition Back Benchers have been almost unbelievably so. The young must not be treated in that way. They represent our nation's future. They want and expect both opportunities and choice. They do not want to be smothered by outdated regulations and restrictions. There is a new spirit among the young people of this country. It has been fostered and encouraged by Government action during the past few years. Young people want to take up opportunities and challenges and go forward, and we must allow them to do so.
  By their education and training reforms, the Government have done a great deal to ensure that young people are better equipped to deal with life and work in the adult world. All hon. Members listened with considerable distress and concern to the description by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) of that tragic case six years ago. We can always cite individual tragic cases and make them into something far more important, but we cannot legislate for the future of all our young people just because of one very tragic incident.
  Mr. James Wallace: The hon. Gentleman says that it is just one case, but he must have heard the intervention by the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) who said that since that tragic case there have been reports of 50 deaths on youth training schemes. Do not such tragic deaths require our serious attention?
  Mr. Evennett: The hon. Gentleman misrepresents me. Of course every tragedy of this nature deserves serious consideration, but the Bill is attempting to provide young people with more opportunities. That is what they want and that is what they need. Furthermore, that is what the Bill will provide.
  Mr. Paice: Does my hon. Friend agree that, despite a great deal of work by a number of organisations that have

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  looked into accident levels on youth training schemes, there is no evidence that, however bad or good those levels may be, they are any worse than the accident levels that apply to the same age group who are in full employment? It is not, therefore, something that should be thrown at the door of YTS.
  Mr. Evennett: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. He is right to back up his assertions, as he always does, with his considerable experience.
  Mr. Martin Flannery: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Evennett: I should prefer to finish this point and then give way.
  The reforms must he viewed in conjunction with the Government's major education reforms and the expansion of training opportunities as a comprehensive widening of freedom of choice for the young. Legislation that restricts the working hours and conditions of young people obviously had a very big part to play when the school-leaving age was lower, when there was greater dependence on heavy manual labour and when the young were less well prepared to deal with life in the adult world than they are today. The average 16-year-old today is far more mature than his or her predecessors ever were. I grew up in the 1960s. The 16-year-old today is far more mature than 16-year-olds in the 1960s. At that time the legislation had a clear and necessary role to play in preventing exploitation, but times have changed. We have to look to the future as well as to the present. The law must be reformed in line with those changes.
  Modern working conditions in most sectors are far better. Today's young people are far more capable of standing on their own feet, developing their talents and taking the opportunities that are given to them. We must allow them to do that.
  Mr. Flannery: The hon. Gentleman suggested that the Opposition wanted the legislation to be based on one case. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) knows, I was in from the beginning on the case of Derek Cain. As soon as that tragedy occurred and was publicised, numerous cases from all over Britain were drawn to Mr. Cain's attention. They all related to young people who had been killed. The hon. Gentleman has just said that, at the age of 16, young people can stand better on their own feet than they could a short time ago. By that he implied that working practices are safer. However, under the youth training scheme, more and more cases are coming to light of young people being killed. It is not true that young people can stand better on their own feet as a result of this Government's measures. They are in great danger from this Government.
  Mr. Evennett: The hon. Gentleman is fundamentally wrong. Modern training and education means that today the 16-year-old is better equipped to deal with life than he has ever been. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Paice) said only a few minutes ago that the facts do not bear out that assertion.
  Small businesses have an important role to play in our economy. They have proved to be the way forward in many sectors of industry and commerce. Small businesses are efficient, dynamic enterprises that can respond rapidly to market changes. It is that flexibility of operation which
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  has made many small businesses extremely successful and which, in turn, has done a great deal for employment opportunities.
  Many enterprises in my constituency are small businesses and I often hear loud complaints from them about red tape and the need to remove unnecessary administrative burdens. In addition to the shortage of skilled staff and school leavers, administrative burdens are the other major bugbear of the small business. For large industrial companies, there is an obvious need for clearly understood disciplinary procedures to be applied. By their very nature, large companies tend to be impersonal. A formal disciplinary procedure often provides the only effective machinery for resolving the problems that relate to an individual's work performance.
  For a small employer, the situation is completely different. The existence of such a procedure is unlikely to be of benefit either to employer or to employee. We must not forget that small businesses are exactly that—they are small. The employer is often one person who combines the role of line manager and personnel officer and who also, more importantly, knows each employee individually. Formal rules serve little purpose because problems are invariably resolved informally. For small employers, the existence of a formal disciplinary procedure adds nothing, apart from additional administrative work and possibly increased solicitors' bills.
  I am not for one moment suggesting that all small business men are paragons of virtue, but such employers are unlikely to change their attitudes merely because of the existence of a formal disciplinary procedure. Small business men who treat their staff badly are subject to a far more effective system of control—market forces. A bad employer soon finds that his reputation means that he cannot recruit or retain high calibre staff. In small firms with under 20 employees, the loss of a few key personnel will often have a profound effect on profitability. In such circumstances, the existence of a formal disciplinary procedure has no useful place. For the majority of small business men who operate fairly and decently, it is another bureaucratic hurdle that is placed in their way. There are other areas that we would like the Bill to cover but Conservative Members believe that this is another step towards improving employment opportunities in this country and bringing the law up to date.
  We should welcome and support the Bill and its modest reforms, but we also need to look towards further reforms in employment law. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will take note of that because we have already heard that there are several areas where Conservative Members would like to see further legislation in the next Session—for instance, on the abolition of the national dock labour scheme and the pre-entry closed shop. We should also be looking at providing a statutory framework for no-strike agreements, particularly for those employed in vital services. No doubt those are matters that my right hon. and hon. Friends will bear in mind in the next Session.
  The deregulatory measures in the Bill, though minor, will improve employment conditions in this country. Surely, we all want more employment, a better work force and training and more opportunities for workers to enable them to maximise their potential. Although the Bill goes a long way towards achieving that, we should look for more radical measures from the Government in the next Session.
  7.1 pm
  Mr. James Wallace: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "this House declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which, whilst it makes welcome provision for the ending of sexual discrimination in employment matters and seeks to remove anomalous regulations with regard to the employment of young people, nevertheless fails to provide for adequate protection for employed young people, seriously erodes the rights of individuals in employment, and contains no adequate measures designed to secure employment for the long term unemployed or the training of the workforce in the skills required by industry to meet the industrial challenges of the 1990s and beyond."
  When he introduced the Bill, the Secretary of State tried to give the impression that it was part of a grand design to meet the demographic challenges of the 1990s and to embark on a course of deregulation. I confess that when I first read the Bill it reminded me of nothing more than —as Scottish Members will recognise—a Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Bill. It seems to be a basket of measures with no one particular theme. Some of the provisions are not too bad. Some are neutral. For example, there is no comment on the storage of celluloid film. Some are downright bad. Most of the Opposition's comments relate to the bad themes.
  The provisions in the Bill that are designed to end some discriminatory practices against women have proved controversial. We welcome those, not least those which assimilate redundancy rights for males and females. We also welcome those which give more equal access to certain categories of jobs.
  It is strange that in this day and age the many Labour Members who have spoken have needed to conjure up the ogre of the 19th century to voice opposition to this measure. That reveals a narrow approach that does not strike a chord of sympathy with those women whose employment prospects and opportunities have to date been frustrated by legislation.
  A constituent's mother wrote to me last year about her daughter who was a second-year mining engineer undergraduate at Newcastle university. She said:
  "This coming summer vacation she is expected to have employment in the industry, since this work will be considered next year as part of her final examination. Needless to say she is finding it difficult to achieve this …
  I am sure she realised that when she decided to do mining engineering she would have to break into what was a 'male' stronghold. However with hard work and a fair chance she felt she would be able to achieve her ambition…
  The University of Newcastle has indicated its progressive attitudes by opening the department to young women. It's about time the country as a whole accepted the fact that young women are going to want to work in industries that have previously been barred to them, and whilst it will take some time to break down social barriers, there is no place in modern society for legal constraints."
  She is the type of person engaged in mining engineering whom this provision is intended to help and we welcome that.
  We acknowledge that there are provisions in the Bill that seek to rationalise the working hours of young people and remove some anomalies. That is not something that I criticise. I imagine that many young people would be surprised to learn about some of the anomalies that exist and I wonder how many of them are actually policed. The points that have been made about the need to maintain some protection for young people in employment are however, important.
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  I resented the implication of the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Evenett) that, in taking up this issue, the Opposition were patronising young people. The number of accidents involving young people in employment speaks for itself and to state those facts is not patronising. Mention has been made of the number of fatalities and serious accidents involving people on youth training schemes. The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Paice) thought that he was coming to the aid of his hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford when he said that the level of accidents was just as high for young people in other forms of employment. That simply underlines the point. If there is an increased likelihood of young people being involved in accidents in employment, and if they are likely to be working longer hours—inevitably, the longer one works the less vigilant and alert one becomes—some protective provisions should be put in place. The absence of such provisions in the Bill to accompany the removal of many anomalies is a serious omission.
  Mr. Batiste: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a distinction between the appropriate legislative framework around which safety requirements should be established—that should be the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974—and the enforcement of that legislative framework? If safety legislation is too varied, too self-contradictory and too restrictive, one defeats one's objectives.
  Mrs. Audrey Wise: There are not enough inspectors.
  Mr. Wallace: That is an important point. The number of inspectors does not need to be addressed by legislation but through resources. However, that has not been done. As the CBI recognised in the quotation given by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) in a measure that opens up the possibility of exploitation by unscrupulous employers, some additional protective measures are required.
  Many Conservative Members have said that the Bill is intended to support small businesses. However, the removal of the 35 per cent. rebate for redundancies by companies with fewer than 10 employees is regretted by many small businesses. It has been opposed by the National Federation of Self Employed and Small Businesses. The Government said that £9 million will be saved by that measure, and no doubt that means a cost of £9 million for the small business sector. When small businesses are thinking of closing down or are passed on when someone reaches retirement age, the removal of that rebate could hamper the efforts that are sometimes made to ensure continuity of employment rights.
  I shall now deal with the clauses concerning individual employee rights. This Administration seem to dwell on myths. They act in the name of deregulation and easing the burden on small businesses, but that is often not supported by hard facts. The hon. Member for Oldham, West mentioned the Department's own document entitled "Unfair Dismissal: Law and Employment Practice in the 1980s" which says that there was
  "little sign that employment protection legislation was inhibiting industrial recovery or contributing to the high level of unemployment by discouraging employers from taking on new people."
  In October 1988 the British Institute of Management found, from a sample of its 70,000 members, that only 11

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  per cent. thought that there was too much employment protection legislation and 78 per cent. thought that the current level was about right. One strongly suspects that there are many other more important factors which determine the possibilities open to small businesses and to enable them to expand.
  Clause 11 disentitles an employee from receiving a statement of reasons for dismissal if he or she has been employed for under two years. As the law stands, he or she cannot make any claim for unfair dismissal without having been employed for two years. Therefore, there is no perceived advantage in terms of labour flexibility if this measure is enacted. However, it would prejudice the rights of that individual. It may prejudice the right to claim benefit if there is no statement of the reasons why someone is without work. It may prejudice the right or ability to seek other employment if there is no reference or no apparent reason why the previous employment was ended.
  A product of the Government's approach, which sees industry as a battlefield with one side gaining rights at the expense of the other, is the lack of comprehension that employment protection measures can be conducive to good industrial relations. Clause 9, which removes the requirement for particulars of disciplinary procedures to be given when there are fewer than 20 employees, is a good example of that. The British Institute of Management, in a letter which was circulated to all hon. Members, states that it is good management practice that employees should have a clear idea of where they stand, and makes the point that it is more important in small businesses where there is a close personal link between employers and employees than it is in larger businesses. It argues that, in small businesses, verbal communication does not carry the same weight as written instruction. It is important that employees know where they stand, and the Government have advanced no good reason for such a change.
  One of the most mean-minded provisions of the Bill relates to industrial tribunals. When the Government first proposed the £25 fee, it met blanket opposition and there was scarcely a good word to be found for it anywhere.
  Mr. Foot: Until they made it £150.
  Mr. Wallace: But when the Bill is brought forward, the Government made it £150, as the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) says. That seems to be the compromise. However, it is fair to say that it is not a compulsory levy for all; it is at the discretion of the chairman at a pre-tribunal hearing.
  The Bill gives the Secretary of State power to make very wide regulations. Obviously that will have to be examined in detail in Committee. Nothing has been said in the debate to suggest that a vast number of frivolous cases are clogging up the industrial tribunal system, yet the Bill contains a threat of a fiscal barrier to justice. When many of us believe that the legal aid system should be extended to people who wish to take cases to industrial tribunals, the Bill provides a new imposition.
  There is an analogy with what used to happen in Scotland in regard to criminal legal aid for summary cases. At that time, one had to apply to the sheriff who had to be satisfied that the financial qualifications of a person being prosecuted for a crime entitled him to legal aid and that it was in the interests of justice that he receive legal aid. That met widespread disapproval, particularly in smaller areas where the sheriff who was to judge the case was making a
  896
  preliminary decision as to whether it was in the interests of justice that someone should receive legal aid. To their credit, this Government removed that provision because they were aware of the anomaly that could arise. We are reintroducing that approach in a different form.
  The Bill attacks individual employment rights. That is totally out of step with our European partners. We understand that it was very much to the Prime Minister's chagrin that Jacques Delors told the TUC in September that 1992 probably meant great advances for social rights and for the rights for people in employment. One cannot believe that when we seek harmonisation in employment practices our European partners will want to level down to us. We shall be looking to level up to them with greater entitlements for employees.
  Mr. Janman: The hon. Gentleman has raised a very important point by taking the deregulation of our labour market in a European context. Does he not agree that the more we liberalise our labour market the more investment we shall attract from the rest of Europe, from the Pacific area and from across the Atlantic, and our partners in the European Community will realise that deregulation is the way to go and will follow our lead?
  Mr. Wallace: I do not accept that that will be the pattern of events. Significant benefits are enjoyed with very constructive industrial relations in places such as West Germany, which, as the Prime Minister recognised yesterday, has a very stable, thriving economy. I do not think that they need to take lessons from us. We need to take lessons from them in social service provisions such as creches and nursery facilities.
  Mr. Janmanrose—
  Mr. Wallace: I have given way to the hon. Gentleman already. I must try to make progress.
  The Bill also abolishes the Training Commission. I do not wish to dwell on the history that led to that, except that it was the view of my right hon. and hon. Friends that, although the employment training scheme was not satisfactory, it was the only one we had, so it was better to try to make it work than to try to defeat its objects. The Government are now abolishing the Training Commission and intend to replace it with training and enterprise councils, going back almost 20 years by putting the burden on industry. They are taking a great gamble, because over the years industry has not been particularly conspicuous for what it has done to improve training.
  The Scottish Office White Paper, "Scottish Enterprise" frankly admits:
  "Efforts to date to persuade the private sector to take great interest in and responsibility for training have had disappointing results. Far too many firms take little interest in assessing and training for their own future needs, assuming that supply will always be there to meet demand."
  Therefore, the Government are taking a great risk in putting the responsibility back into the private sector. One is entitled to be sceptical. So many employers are afraid to spend money on training employees in case they are poached by another firm. In a recession, training is regularly one of the first things to go. A revolution in attitude is needed and we do not have much time.
  Many figures have been produced about skill shortages and the need to train people, particularly in skills requiring a relatively high level of educational attainment. Nothing in the Bill seems to foster that, or to try to amend the fact

  897
  that only 13 per cent. of young people between 16 and 18 go into full-time education in Britain, while 58 per cent. of their counterparts in France do. Only by tackling that educational aspect will we start to make some progress in filling the skill shortages that undoubtedly exist.
  Finally, nothing in the Bill gives any hope to the long-term unemployed. The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) made the point eloquently, and the hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) in his intervention underlined the fact that many letters are not even answered. Many people try to dismiss the long-term unemployed by suggesting that they are workshy or lack motivation. Research undertaken by the Campaign for Work showed that employers discriminate against those who have been unemployed for one, two, three, four or more years, not in any wicked or malicious way but they receive applications and say, "This person has not had a job for the past two years so there must be something wrong with him." But research has shown that when they are given a chance to return to employment their motivation returns very quickly.
  It would have been a much happier situation if tonight we had been debating a Bill which contained proposals to guarantee employment for those who had been unemployed for more than two years as is done in Sweden. The Government promised to find a training place on the YTS for all youngsters leaving school who had not found employment. Some of us are sceptical as to the extent to which they have achieved that but to give the Government credit, they set themselves a target and made efforts to achieve it. Something similar for the long-term unemployed would be a very welcome measure. There is nothing in the Bill to give them that hope. Therefore, my right hon. and hon. Friends cannot support the Bill tonight.
  7.17 pm
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: I welcome the Bill as yet another step towards developing the labour market in Britain and providing job opportunities for working people. I take issue with the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) in respect of the long-term unemployed. If he were to look at recent figures, he would see that unemployment is dropping much faster in that category than it is in general. The employment training schemes that are now being introduced will only accentuate that process.
  During the past few years, there has been a major expansion of employment in Britain, and there are well over 1 million new jobs in the economy. As opinion poll after opinion poll shows, unemployment is dropping as a priority for British people. Obviously it is dropping as a priority for Labour Members, as shown by their attendance this evening.
  In my constituency of Gravesham, in Kent, which was an unemployment black spot, unemployment is now half what it was at the peak of unemployment and it is falling fast. The growing problem in Gravesham is not unemployment but skill and labour shortages. If we are to sustain the exceptional level of growth in our economy that we have achieved, it is vital that the people coming into the labour market should be fully trained. The Government deserve to be congratulated on the success of
  898
  the youth training scheme. In my constituency, about 80 per cent. of young people leaving the YTS are obtaining jobs. Many are now on employment training.
  The Bill represents a milestone, in that it records the passing of the old Manpower Services Commission in its transitional guise as the Training Commission. I was here at the beginning of the debate and heard the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), who has been absent for most of the debate, enjoying mocking the dear departed. He failed to mention that the dear departed MSC was stabbed in the back by the Trades Union Congress.
  In the hour in which the TUC could have achieved something, it betrayed the young unemployed by saying that it would not work with the employment training scheme and the YTS. Those schemes represented hope and opportunity for the young unemployed and the TUC was found lacking. That proved the growing irrelevance of the TUC to the economic life of this nation.
  Those of us who are interested in education have been concerned in recent years about the problems of falling rolls. There has been a sharp drop in the number of young people in schools, which reflects the drop in the birth rate about 20 years ago. That trough in the birth rate is now working its way through the labour market and will present us with considerable problems unless certain steps are taken now. That is one reason why I welcome the measures in the Bill: it seeks to sweep away many of the restrictions on the employment of young people.
  Young people—and other hon. Members—would resent the suggestion that the measures will increase the danger for young people. We have heard clearly this afternoon from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that safety measures are remaining in place in industry and that there are no changes in working protection for youngsters under the age of 16. An attempt to keep the limitations on young people's work is patronising in the extreme. The younger generation today is far more capable than earlier generations and resents the patronising restrictions.
  I am equally encouraged by the way in which the Bill will sweep away a number of restrictions on women. I was amazed to hear the snobbery of the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott) when she suggested that being a miner was to be of a lower status. It is a shame that the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) is not here to put her in her place on that subject.
  The Bill will continue the process of freeing the labour market, but there is one glaring omission. The Bill requires a clause to bring about the abolition of the national dock labour scheme, including within it compensation for the few remaining registered dockers. The national dock labour scheme represents the last of the great restrictive practices so dear to the heart of the departed Labour party. Those of us who represent port areas are fed up with the damage that the scheme is doing to employment prospects there.
  Mr. Andrew Rowe: My hon. Friend spoke of the few remaining registered dockers. One of the more alarming features of the scheme is that a considerable number of dockers remain registered. What is even more alarming is that a growing percentage of them are under 25.
  Mr. Arnold: I am concerned about the few remaining dockers. That is best exemplified by remembering that, at the end of the war, there were 73,000 registered dockers, whereas there are fewer than 10,000 today. Although a few new dockers are coming in at the bottom, the great majority of dockers are, on average, 43 years of age or more. The national dock labour scheme is withering on the vine as dockers die or retire, but so are the employment prospects in traditional dock areas, which are mainly in the best places in this country for the unloading of goods and their transport. A recent study shows that there would be 50,000 extra jobs in the registered dock areas without the hampering constraints of this scheme.
  I wonder why the Government have not put a clause in the Bill on that. It is fair to say that the Government may be concerned about the possibility of a national dock strike and the damage that that would do to our economy. We can perhaps look forward with some relief to the Lord Cardigans of the Transport and General Workers Union, who are working hard at the moment, not to make the docks a success, but to bring about a national dock strike. If the union is successful and brings about a dock strike, the Government's best response would be to table a clause further to improve the labour market by getting rid of the national dock labour scheme.
  I support the Bill, in particular the way in which it seeks to get rid of the restrictions on young people and women in the workplace. I hope that our traditional dock areas will equally be set free.
  7.27 pm
  Mr. Ron Leighton: The Bill, in addition to dealing with training, has a hotch-potch of mean, nasty, half-baked ideas and prejudices. It seeks to strip away all protection for young people on the hours that they can work. As a result, 16-year-olds could be forced to work ten-and-a-half-hour days and more than 48 hours a week, start before 7 am or finish after 8 pm and work night shifts. But they will do all that without getting the adult wage. That is supposed to be liberating the young. This return to Victorian working conditions for a weak and vulnerable section of the work force is the new Government recipe for rescuing the economy. None of this reactionary nonsense was in the Government's election manifesto.
  The Bill makes it easier for employers to dismiss workers. In small firms, employers will no longer have to give details of disciplinary procedures and in all firms workers will not be given a written statement of reasons for dismissal. That will make it more difficult for a worker to take a case to an industrial tribunal where, in any case, he or she, under the Bill, might have to pay a deposit of £150 before he or she could apply for access to industrial justice. Simultaneously, the Government have given notice that they propose further restrictions on—or the abolition of—wages councils, which deal with the weakest, poorest, least organised and most vulnerable workers. It is only three years ago that the Government legislated on wages councils, saying that they had got the balance right. Now they are going back on their undertakings and attacking the councils again. The Secretary of State should know that, in the last Parliament, the Select Committee on Employment inquired into wages councils and recommended against their abolition.
  900
  I want to touch on three points in my remarks—unemployment, pay and training. There has been a fall in unemployment and a growth in employment, although much of it is part-time. That has happened because the Government have reflated the economy but, unfortunately, they have done it in a wrong and unsustainable way. They are now moving to choke off the expansion with high interest rates. Originally, the Chancellor of the Exchequer pumped billions of pounds into the economy through tax cuts and a huge expansion of private credit. The extra demand began to bring down unemployment—as Labour always said that it would—but it was done in the wrong way. The Budget message was, "Happy days are here again, so let the good times roll." With tax cuts officially lavished on them and a sense of well being from inflated house prices, many of the better-off went on a credit-driven spending spree.
  Now the Chancellor is desperately trying to put the engines into reverse. The misjudgment was to give the tax cuts to the very rich, who spent the money on imported goods, and to encourage huge private sector borrowing, which was also spent on imports. That has led to the biggest balance of payments deficit in British history. It is revealing that some Conservative Members find that a joke. The Chancellor now seeks to squeeze billions of pounds out of the economy by punitive interest rates. That will lower living standards and threaten the fall in unemployment.
  That is the point in which the Secretary of State should be interested. The Chancellor should have given the tax cuts to the less well-off, who would have spent more in the domestic economy, and allowed borrowing not so much in the private sector as for investment in industry, research and development, education and training, transport, housing, schools, hospitals, increased social provision and the environment.
  Mr. Janmanrose—
  Mr. Leighton: The hon. Gentleman has intervened too often. I think that the House wants to get on with the debate.
  The actions that I have described would have boosted the domestic economy, not imports, and the result would have been more employment. Moreover, the growth would have been sustainable and it would have strengthened our competitiveness for the future. Instead, we shall all suffer pain in 1989 to pay for the mistakes of the 1988 Budget, and I fear that prospects for employment will be damaged.
  The Secretary of State has taken to lecturing us repetitively about pay. I thought that the official monetarist dogma held that pay had nothing to do with inflation, that, if the money supply was held steady, money spent on pay could not be spent on anything else, so things would be held in a steady state. I thought that monetarists believed that pay was a matter to be dealt with freely by consenting parties—a matter for employers and employees who know best—and that the Government should keep their nose out. I thought that Thatcherism spelt the end of incomes policies, but no—we get constant ministerial exhortation on the subject.
  After four anti-trade union Acts, presumably the Secretary of State cannot blame the unions for currently rising inflation. Nor are rising costs the cause, particularly in manufacturing. The costs of fuel and materials bought in by manufacturing industry fell last year due to lower

  901
  commodity prices. The increase in unit labour costs was about 1 per cent. last year because labour productivity in manufacturing rose by 7 per cent., largely offsetting the growth in earnings. Nevertheless, manufacturers' prices rose by 5 per cent. last year. Why? One reason is the rising profits being taken as growing demand, fuelled by credit, comes up against capacity and supply restraints, which themselves are the result of previously deficient investment in plant and training.
  This is a classic case of "demand-pull" inflation—wage rises being the consequence, and not the cause, of it. If the Secretary of State is worried about inflation, he should speak to his Cabinet colleagues who are pushing up public sector prices. Rail and Underground fares are increasing by more than twice the rate of inflation and there are large increases in the price of electricity, water, local authority rents and rates. He should also consider how increasing interest rates are forcing up mortgage repayments.
  The nine increases in interest rates since last spring's disastrous Budget have triggered increases in mortgage rates from 9·75 per cent. to 13·5 per cent. That means that a £30,000 mortgage now costs £50 a month more and a £50,000 mortgage costs nearly £100 a month more. Millions of people thus enter 1989 with between £1,000 and £1,500 of pre-tax income wiped out at a stroke. In short, the Secretary of State should examine Government policy, not wages, for the cause of rising inflation.
  Does the Secretary of State not realise that the example being set at the top is very important? Has he noticed that Britain's top bosses and executives are laughing all the way to the bank? There is no question of restraint there. What does he say about that? He will have seen the survey conducted by Hay Management Consultants, the Saatchi and Saatchi subsidiary, which reported on a bumper bonanza which gave a 30 per cent. increase to top executives. With tax cuts and perks such as cars, pensions, medical insurance and share options, a director on £87,500 a year saw his income rise by 31·5 per cent. The employee on £12,750 a year, however, got only 3·8 per cent. If the Secretary of State is in the business of giving lectures, when will he give lectures to some of the people at the top about the example that they are setting?
  The Secretary of State also knows that the first thing that directors of industries which are privatised do is double their salaries. This greed at the top—the grab what you can as quickly as you can attitude—is the very essence of modern Thatcherite Britain. If we are to have more homilies from the Secretary of State, perhaps he will devote his mind to some of those matters.
  The basic facts about training are well known. Britain does it abysmally, and historically always has. I suspect that the reason is that, by an accident, the industrial revolution happened here first, giving Britain an initial lead. It was not brought about by the Governments of the day. Indeed, they were probably unaware of what was happening.
  Other countries, such as Germany, consciously set up training programmes with the express aim of catching up with Britain. They succeeded more than a century ago and kept on training while we did not. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research has just told us that France produces three times as many mechanical and electrical engineering craftsmen and three times as many
  902
  building craftsmen as we do. In the German furniture industry, nine out of 10 workers have a vocational qualification based on a three-year apprenticeship course with examinations. In Britain the figure is only one in 10. There is not just a skills gap—it is a yawning skills chasm.
  The Government have been in office for nearly 10 years. Their policies have failed. They have made things worse. Our skills handicap in relation to other countries has got much worse, not better. In Britain, the intellectual elite get a first-class education and are a match for their international peers. What we neglect so badly are the educational needs of the mass of the population.
  The White Paper talks in foolishly glowing and extravagant terms about YTS, but YTS does not close the skills gap and cannot be compared with the German dual system of apprenticeships. The Secretary of State knows that German companies in Britain are so unimpressed by YTS that last month they set up their own vocational training school in Britain. Nor can anybody pretend that the under-funded employment training programme is equal to its task when it provides only two days a week directed training for six months and reaches less than one tenth of the client group.
  A couple of weeks ago, the Select Committee on Employment took evidence from Professor Charles Handy on the changing nature of skills which will be needed in the work force in the late 1990s. He told us that between 70 and 80 per cent. of all jobs will, by the end of the 1990s, be "knowledge" jobs—jobs which require more brain than muscle. Half of those—35 to 40 per cent.—will require brain skills of the order of a higher education degree such as a university or polytechnic degree or a professional qualification. The percentage for the new jobs that will emerge in the 1990s is even higher.
  To survive and cope in this new world, we need to more than double the percentage of our young people who go into higher education. Is there any prospect of that? The Secretary of State knows full well that under this Government, with their present policies, that will not happen. Not only are we falling behind other European Community countries: we are falling behind Taiwan and Korea. Unless that is changed—and changed drastically—we shall either be bypassed and wealth production will go elsewhere, or we shall have to import brains and witness much of our industry being taken over by our competitors.
  In the United States and many other countries such as Canada, Sweden and Japan, young people who leave school before they are 18 are termed drop-outs. They do not have to worry about health and safety regulations for that age group as they are still in school. On those terms, the majority of our younger generation are dropouts. We are the only country in the world where the majority of 16 and 17-year-olds are not in full-time education or training. In a world of exploding technology, we should aim to double the number of young people who go into higher education.
  We should bring married women, many of whom have qualifications, back into the labour market. That will mean a complete overhaul of child care provisions. It is crazy that the Chancellor penalises workplace creches. I appeal to the Secretary of State to use his influence in the Cabinet to see that this is altered, I hope in the next Budget. It also means that we need comprehensive skilling and reskilling of existing workers, including those aged 50 to 60, who cannot get a job at the moment.

  903
  What do the Government propose to do? They have abolished the Manpower Services Commission and its successor the Training Commission, although the former was originally set up by a Conservative Administration with all-party support. The Government did not like the MSC because it was a tripartite body, as the Secretary of State quite frankly told us. It was set up in that way so that it would be independent of Government—something that the Government do not like. First, they put Conservative nominees such as the present Lord Young in charge of it, then they gave it orders, which made it a tool of Government, and finally they swamped it with employers' representatives. They they abolished it.
  To fill the void, the Bill proposes a major transfer of responsibilities. Training is to be handed over to the employers. This is the new idea, the new way to do things. The so-called training and enterprise councils which are to be set up are to be dominated by employers. One's heart sinks when one reads that this will take four years. It is all explained in the White Paper. Paragraph 6.20 says:
  "Developing training through life is not primarily a Government responsibility. Employers must take the lead."
  Paragraph 4.45 says:
  "The system must be planned and led by employers, because it is they who are best placed to judge skill needs".
  As you, Mr. Walker, above all Deputy Speakers, will know, this is a triumph of hope over experience. That policy is a major and crass mistake.
  Of course we must involve employers—that is vital and essential—but to imagine, on British experience, that we can leave things to the employers is a dangerous lunacy. If employers could take the lead, why have they not done so before? What has prevented them? If they are willing to train, what has stopped them so far? The training boards were set up precisely because employers were not doing enough. If employers have not invested in training in the past, why should we suppose that they will do so in future without Government intervention?
  British employers spend on average 0·15 per cent. of turnover on traning. Overseas, it is more like 2 to 3 per cent. or more—in other words, 20 times as much. British companies too often regard training as an unwelcome on-cost and many prefer to poach rather than to train. The sum total of employers' perceived needs for their individual companies does not add up to to the national need.
  Pious hopes, such as those in the White Paper, are not enough. It is time for effective Government action and a statutory back-up in the wider long-term interests of the economy. The market mechanism alone will not deliver the requisite training. It is necessary to involve the trade unions, but the White Paper, and the Bill, are motivated by animus and hostility to the trade unions—another crass mistake. The trade unions and the local authorities must be equal partners. Any programme that is not based on consensus and agreement with the unions and the local authorities is crippled at the outset and is doomed to failure.
  ET will not be the success that the Secretary of State has wanted, because he did not use his intelligence enough and was neither able nor prepared to make a few concessions to get the support of the trade unions and the local authorities. It is essential to do that. [Interruption.] I hear animal noises from Members on the Conservative
  904
  Benches. They will be pleased to know that I shall end with some constructive proposals and suggestions for the Government.
  First, the Government should examine the French legislation, which obliges firms to spend a certain amount on training—currently 1·4 per cent. of turnover. Firms' accounts are examined and if they have spent the money, that is fine, but if they have not it is taken in tax. The attraction for the Government is that they can get companies to spend on training without setting up bureaucracy to do so. I hope that the Secretary of State will look at what the French are doing. Secondly, the Secretary of State should look at an educational maintenance allowance to encourage youngsters to stay on at school. Thirdly, employers should be required to release all 16 and 17-year-olds for training at least one day a week.
  The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) was the Minister dealing with the first Employment Bill on whose Committee I served. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) discerned a slight difference between that Minister of State and the current incumbent of that position. My fourth suggestion is rather similar to his. It is that all workers should have a passport—he called it a voucher—giving them an annual entitlement to a certain amount of training throughout their lives. Lastly, companies should have training committees in the same way that they have safety committees. What is required is a partnership between all concerned, not freezing out the unions and leaving it all to employers.
  7.47 pm
  Mr. Andrew Rowe: After that wide-ranging survey of the state of the British economy and many other matters from the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton), I shall drearily confine myself merely to the Bill. I shall start with the employment of women.
  One of the many talents among the constellation of talents that is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is his ability to act where others posture. We have heard from two Opposition Members the predictable neanderthal voice about the employment of women. In a way, that is surprising, because as I understand it, most neanderthal men lived underground, and would probably have been glad of female companionship. However, by obliterating the prohibition on women going underground should they so wish, we have sent a clear message that there should be no no-go areas in equal opportunity. No-go areas simply perpetuate the opportunities for the malign or the careless to continue discrimination against women.
  Where others go on posturing, the Government act. For example, they have removed the extraordinary and anachronistic system of taxing married people, after years of talk.
  Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse: Does the hon. Gentleman have any experience of what it is like to work down a coal mine in hostile conditions? Coal mines should be no-go areas for females. There are no adequate toilet facilities on coal faces. It is hard work lifting coal, and a female would not be able to cope with it, although I have seen in America women who work in coal mines. I support women's rights, but I have never come across a women's rights organisation—I ask whether he has—who wanted its members to be able to work as coalminers.
  Mr. Rowe: I understand that the National Council for Civil Liberties has no objections, but I do not know whether that counts as an organisation looking after women's rights.
  The intervention by the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) demonstrates the extraordinary obtuseness of those who believe, in the teeth of the evidence, that women are somehow frailer and less robust than men. All the evidence, whether it is longevity, the ability to handle more than one job or whatever, suggests that, on the whole, women are better equipped than men for a number of jobs in difficult circumstances. It has already been mentioned that a significant number of opportunities in high-technology employment in mining and similar occupations are now open to women as a result of the Bill. Without it, they would not have been available to them.
  I believe that it is a scandal that it has taken so long to recognise the abilities of women at the highest level. The proportion of women on company boards, holding senior posts in businesses or in this place is still disgracefully low. Now, there is an unstoppable tide towards change. It is extremely appropriate that that change should be backed by demographic pressures. It is an insult, however, for the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) to suggest that, somehow, women should be used merely to plug the gaps in the labour market. That has been the traditional Labour party view for far too long.
  We are already aware of the existence of the 300 Club, the British Association of Women Entrepreneurs and the new campaign, Women into Business, which is supported by American Express among others and which was dreamed up by the long-established Small Business Bureau. Those organisations are practical and they are achieving a great deal more than the posturing rhetoric of the Opposition Benches.
  More women than men are now establishing their own businesses. If capable, women should be at the top in their own right and it would be surprising to discover how many would reach the top if given the opportunity.
  Existing statistics demonstrate that we cannot do without women. Some 80 per cent. of those needed to make up the short fall in school leavers will need to be women.—[Laughter.] It is interesting that this is a source of derision for Opposition Members, considering that they constantly talk about opportunities for women.
  Great changes must be made in working arrangements and they must be made quickly. Some changes have already taken place. Dixons, for example, has started to offer jobs to married women in term times only. That is a flexible response to the changing nature of the labour market and it should be emulated by others.
  Job sharing has taken off far too slowly because of the blind prejudice of many employers. My right hon. Friend is aware of a constituent of mine who, for the past two years, has been participating in a highly successful job share, which has been praised by the employers. When the job-sharing partners decided to apply for a promotion within the National Health Service they each received a telephone call from the management of their health authority to ask them whether they would be prepared to apply as an individual for the post. My constituent was told that if she applied as part of a job share she would be at a serious disadvantage. That type of reaction to a perfectly satisfactory method of fitting into the working environment is wholly unacceptable and must be changed.
  906
  More and more we need to talk to people around the globe whose work takes place outside the conventional hours and to those firms whose machinery operates throughout the 24 hours. The ordinary working arrangements in this country are simply not good enough.
  The right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) derided the employment figures because he said that they contained so many part-time jobs. Those people who were working when he was a boy would describe the current working week as equivalent to a part-time job. We do not need to argue any more about hours because the concept of the normal working week is on its way to the cemetery. We need to create working packages that, to a hitherto unparalleled extent, fit the lives of workers. That change from fitting the worker to the job to fitting the job to the worker is the revolution to which the Bill makes a modest contribution, but if it is to succeed much more must be done.
  What is involved goes to the heart of one of the great dilemmas facing British society. How do we create conditions that allow for greater family stability and cohesion while simultaneously allowing for equal opportunities for men and women to work where they want? In the end we can only provide the opportunities and leave it to those who have two wage packets to make satisfactory arrangements for child care. Such arrangements must increasingly rely upon husbands taking their full share of the responsibilities. Until there is a greater acceptance of such arrangements child care arrangements at work must be expanded.
  Private companies are beginning to meet that need, and I do not believe that such arrangements should be widely subsidised. In the short term, however, more help is needed for low-income couples and for the single parent, male or female. I hope that we can decide upon a sensible provision so that it is possible to give those on the edge of the labour market and those for whom it is only marginally worth going to work if they must provide their own child care, the incentive to take work. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider that. I look forward to the report on women that will emerge from the inter-ministerial group.
  I am encouraged to learn that the upper limit for applications for a place on ET is not set in concrete. The over-50s are the most deprived and the most discriminated against group in today's labour market. I do not believe that to suggest that for a member of that group to get a place on ET is somehow exceptional, is the best way to promote that scheme. The scheme should be marketed in a different way to appeal to that group.
  I do not believe that we should discourage applicants who believe that they have a genuine grievance from going to a tribunal and I hope that we can rely on the Secretary of State's assurances about that. I believe that the Bill plays a useful part in sending a signal to the labour market that there are no no-go areas for women any more, and that they should be encouraged to play their full part in that market.
  8 pm
  Mr. Ken Eastham: It is fascinating to hear Tory Ministers introduce Bills such as this. They use such glowing terms. We are told that the measure will widen opportunities for women and young people, and some Conservative Members are in raptures at

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  the thought of women working down the pits. I predict that, if we do see women down the mines, they will not be the wives and daughters of Conservatives.
  The Department of Employment has issued a glossy document describing the proposals in the Bill. This is the season for glossy documents. Hon. Members are being bombarded with glossy brochures from employers pleading for special treatment from the Chancellor in his coming Budget. They think that they should be given special consideration. Glossy brochures are never produced urging a better deal for poorly paid workers.
  Mr. Janman: The hon. Gentleman has spoken of receiving glossy brochures from companies pleading for consideration in the Budget and he implied that ordinary working people should benefit from Conservative Budgets. Is he aware that in the last Budget working people benefited greatly from the tax cuts? Why, then, did his party oppose those tax cuts and would it undoubtedly oppose other cuts that the Chancellor might wish to make in future Budgets?
  Mr. Eastham: I have never heard such rubbish in all my life. I wish that some of the remarks made by Conservative Members were reported in the newspapers so that the general public might understand their degree of ignorance. Is the hon. Gentleman really comparing the tax concessions made to ordinary working people with the mountain of refunds made available in various ways to the boss class?
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett: The hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Eastham) voted against the 2p reduction to 25p in income tax for working people in Britain.
  Mr. Eastham: That is correct, and since then my hon. Friends and I have been describing the suffering that working people have endured as a result, for example, of declining standards in the National Health Service. That 2p would have been better spent on improving the quality of life for our people.
  I served on the Standing Committee which examined the last measure of this type, the Employment Act 1988. Indeed, there have been half a dozen pieces of legislation of this kind since 1979. When the legislation is being prepared, the civil servants, acting on behalf of the Government, describe in fancy terms what is proposed. It is all sweetness and light, as if the Government are doing working people a favour. But when we read the small print we find that some villains are operating in the Government, depriving working people of their rights and entitlements. The erosion has gone on throughout the last 10 years.
  This measure virtually does away with protection for women and young workers. It permits unrestricted hours of work, and various complications are likely to arise over hours of work and split shifts. We shall see people going to work in the morning, being sent away in the middle of the day and returning in the evening to make up their time. There will not be any straightforward arrangements; all sorts of conditions—night shifts and the like— will be introduced as part of new working conditions.
  Restrictions will also be imposed on trade unions, and redundancy entitlements will be curbed. The Bill is completely flawed because it does nothing to ensure that
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  employers take action to improve production, to enhance the prosperity of the nation and to create fairness and justice for the people.
  Let us not forget that there are two sides to society. We do not want an us-and-them situation. I fear that that state of affairs is applauded by the Government, who take a brutal attitude towards ordinary working people. This. state of affairs does not exist in other countries. Employers in Sweden, Japan and Germany adopt a different. philosophy from the view in Tory Britain. We should learn some lessons from them. After all, they have been far more successful than us.
  The word "barriers" crops up in, among other places., the Department of Employment's glossy document. The Tories imply that these so-called barriers are creating problems for working people, and they want to relieve them of these barriers. We in the Opposition do not regard some of them as barriers. We claim that they are protecting decent working conditions. It is clearly a matter of interpretation whether something is a barrier or a protection.
  Rates of pay can be described as a regular old favourite of the Tories. We are witnessing the final throw in their efforts to abolish wages councils. Those councils affect 2·5 million low-paid workers, people receiving from £74·44 to £92·82 a week. It is clear that, in the view of Conservative Members, those rates are too high, so they are removing any protection the low paid have received through wages councils.
  Are Conservative Members concerned at all about the pay received by employers? There seems to be no limit to or shame about what one section of the community can get, even though it might be excessively greedy. Consider what some newspapers have said on this issue recently:
  "Bosses hit the jackpot with big pay rises".
  "Britain's bosses accept a pay bonanza in 1987".
  "Top pay up 30 per cent."
  The Times reported in December:
  "Perks help lift executive pay by 30 per cent."
  The Guardian reported:
  "Top executives' pay up by nearly a third."
  That newspaper revealed:
  "Executives' pay shot up by more than 30 per cent. during the past year, dwarfing the 3·8 per cent. average increase for ordinary workers."
  Despite that, the Government are not satisfied. They remain determined to remove any protection given to the low-paid, people receiving £70 or £90 a week. The newspapers seem to applaud people whose greed gains them rises of 30 per cent. or more. Conservative Members seem to think it respectable that they should be allowed to do that.
  An article in one newspaper last month described
  "How Britain's bosses fuel the wages fire."
  It said:
  "Fifty per cent of executives that get a performance related bonus are taking an extra 21 per cent. of their salary in a cash lump sum, according to a report from pay consultants Noble Lowndes.
  Not only have these top employees benefited from a reduction in the highest rate of tax—cut by a third in the last Budget—but they are also getting more and more perks."
  At the same time, there is ever increasing poverty. Last week I attended a meeting in Manchester on the grave problem of poverty. We were told that one third of the city's population live in poverty. In the Greater Manchester area, 48 per cent. of workers receive less than the European decency threshold. That is the wealth that

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  the workers are enjoying. In spite of that, the Government are not satisfied. They are hellbent on reducing rates of pay even more in the name of the so-called free market economy.
  If we are talking about barriers, let us examine the barriers facing working people. Let us take the problem of equal pay for women, who are still paid about 72 per cent. of men's wages. It is believed that they will not achieve parity until the year 2086, assuming that they continue to make progress. It takes up to four years to settle the claims of women who have a grievance. The burdensome procedure entails 15 different stages; that is what women must go through to pursue their quest for equal pay.
  Women face other barriers, too. They have to cope with young children, but employers do not provide support for them. If we are to sweep away the barriers, as the Government say they want to do, children must be looked after. I have seen in Sweden that providing for the protection and care of the children of married women workers is a practical proposition, and it has not made that nation bankrupt. The Swedish economy is one of the most successful in the world, and unemployment there is 1·7 per cent.
  The other day I picked up a Department of Employment notice, from which I want to quote a sentence that refers to the Employment Act 1988:
  "It ensures that union members have rights which they both want, and are fully entitled to expect in a free society."
  The Government are always harping on the word "free". Increasingly, people are becoming worried about this so-called free society. I cite the example of the Economic League in the context of taking away workers' rights. The league is a private secret service, not answerable to anyone, which does away with the rights of men, women and families to a job. There should be an inquiry into the barriers erected by the Economic League. There may be resistance in the Select Committee on Employment to such an investigation, but there should be one. The league has been exposed on television and in the newspapers. We may have to wait for an inquiry, but we shall hold one when the Labour party is returned to power—[Laughter.] Conservative Members are laughing because they are not interested in people's rights. These sinister organisations are being encouraged, and the Conservative party is not prepared to do anything about that.
  Conservative Members sneer about the Economic League. I want to read an excerpt from a letter sent to me by a constituent. After they have heard it perhaps they will not find it so funny:
  "Having gone through the Burma Campaign during the war and on receipt of the Burma Star—1939–45 Star—the defence medal and the 1939–1945 medal, on my return to the UK having done my stint against Fascism I thought I had earned the right to democratic free expression.
  You can imagine my dismay when I got a phone call from a journalist informing me that my name and my daughter's name, along with many others, is on a Black List held by the Economic League and has been for some years.
  Since my return from the Far East at the end of the war I have committed no crimes, Rape, Murder, Robbery. I have, however, been guilty of fighting for peace, against the Vietnam war, for democratic rights in Iraq, representing my union at all levels both locally and nationally and as shop steward convenor fighting to improve the wages and conditions of the workers in industry. For these activities I am not ashamed. At the moment I am working with the most deprived section, the unemployed, in a voluntary capacity"
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  [Interruption.]—I heard a Conservative Member call out, "Communist." That shows the sort of people who sit on the Conservative Benches. It shows what is going through the minds of some of the young Tories who have just arrived in the House, at a time when people are expressing concern about freedom in Britain and about totalitarianism.
  Barriers face handicapped people as well. Again, I quote:
  "Six million people in Britain suffer… from some form of disability. Disabled people constitute 12 per cent. of the working population… many have valuable skills. Their job prospects depend, however, not so much on their abilities and performance as on the good will and farsightedness of their employers."
  That sort of barrier is not mentioned in the glossy documents, in which there is no balance. That is what upsets us about them.
  Another barrier facing working people is created by the continued lowering of standards of health and safety. Some of my hon. Friends have already mentioned this problem. The Employment Gazette for January 1989 says that there were 500 fatal accidents and 33,000 serious injuries at work in a 12-month period. There were probably more, but they were not all reported.
  Trade union representation has been further curtailed, and that ties in with the question of health and safety. It is important that there should be trade union representation for workers.
  A working man seeking compensation for injury can usually go only to his trade union. He cannot go through the courts and get barristers to represent him. Another curtailment is the Government's further restrictions on the trade unions.
  I should like to suggest what we might do, if we are sincere, to improve the industrial performance of Britain. We could introduce cheaper loans for industrial investment. Interest rates are going through the ceiling. Britain has the highest rates in Europe. When I was in Japan with the Select Committee on Employment I learned that the rate of interest on bank loans was 4⅛ per cent. That gave an incentive to improve productivity and to make industry competitive. In Britain the interest rate is probably 16 or 18 per cent. now. How can we compete when we have such high rates?
  When I was in Japan I found that the philosophy there was quite different. It seems to be that the employers do not buy labour and workers do not sell it. They all join the company and their total philosophy is different from ours. We must get over the idea of "us and them". I shall return to the theme of brutality, the brutal attitude that seems to be encouraged by the Government, the "smash-all" thing. They tell everybody to knock the workers about and they call it progress. It is not progress; it is a disaster and will continue to be a disaster.
  One of the threads in the debate is skill training. We ought to consider better skill training. Over the past 10 years the Government have done many things to destroy training. They have abolished most of the industrial training boards and two or three years ago they closed skill centres. The Minister boasted that we presently have more than 100,000 people in training. Two or three years ago the Select Committee on Employment received a firm promise that over 300,000 people would be in training. Lord Young made that promise, but at that time he was running the Manpower Services Commission. The Minister boasts that

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  100,000 people in training is a great achievement, but it is one third of what the Government prophesied three years ago.
  The Financial Times in November 1988 contained an article about skill training. It said:
  "In electrical skills, France trained 32,000 young people to craft level in 1984, compared with 7,000 in Britain; 13,000 to craft/technician level compared with 7,000 in Britain, and 14,000 to technician/higher technician standard, while Britain trained 9,000 to that standard."
  If we are honest with ourselves, those are the comparisons that we must make. Even The Daily Telegraph, which cannot be said to be a great supporter of the Opposition, said last month:
  "If evidence were needed, we need only point to the chilling differentials between the levels of British training and those of our most successful competitors. In Japan 95 per cent. of young people are in full-time education up to the age of 18, compared with 32 per cent. in England. Thirty-eight per cent. of Japanses enter higher education and 48 per cent. of north Americans, against only 15 per cent. of Britons."
  Surely there are some lessons to be learned. We keep on telling the Government that, but they keep on fooling themselves, like the king with his suit of clothes, and nobody seems to recognise that fact. Until there is more honesty and proper reports that will show us the kind of scientific balance that exists between employers and workers and investment and banking, we will never see any real progress or prosperity.
  We shall not make progress by making working conditions worse. If we want examples of the truth of that we should look at what is happening in Germany, Sweden and Japan. We compare very badly with other industrialised nations. When it comes to the crunch, we are probably near the bottom of the pile. Governments are elected to serve all the people and not just the privileged few. Regrettably, over the past 10 years that has been the Conservative's philosophy.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Several hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. I understand that the Front Bench speakers will seek to reply to the debate in 55 minutes. The arithmetic is obvious, and I am afraid that unless speeches are much shorter some hon. Members will be disappointed.
  8.25 pm
  Mr. Tim Janman: I support the Bill and welcome it as, I hope, a first step to future major deregulation of the labour market. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is to be congratulated on sweeping away outdated regulations and restrictions that impair opportunities for women in various parts of the labour market and form barriers to young people.
  Given the Opposition's philosophy of life, one can understand their attitude to some parts of the Bill. Their reaction to this part of the Bill and their ranting and raving is quite laughable. To hear them going on one would think that the Government were about to round up women at gunpoint and force them down the mines. Clearly, that is not the case and the British people will see right through the political posturing of the Opposition over this part of the Bill.
  I welcome the amendments to the employment protection legislation of the 1970s but I fear that they do not go far enough. I remind my hon. Friends and the Secretary of State that we still have a huge plethora of
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  legislation that interferes with the way in which companies recruit, dismiss and pay their employees. Even after the Bill becomes law we will still have sex discrimination legislation, race relations and equal pay legislation and wage councils and many parts of the Employment Protection Act 1975 remaining on the statute book.
  It is disconcerting that even this Government will bring forward in Northern Ireland a Bill, the Fair Employment. (Northern Ireland) Bill, that will add to the huge plethora of regulations that employers have to put up with in that part of the United Kingdom. However, the Government have recognised this problem. The 1986 White Paper entitled "Building Business … Not Barriers" said:
  "Regrettably, it is those regulations designed to offer security of employment that have done most to persuade employers that they should not recruit unless absolutely essential."
  Although I criticise the existence of much of the legislation that I have mentioned, or major components of much of it, I agree that much of the legislation is well intentioned. In certain instances it will genuinely help some employers in the short-term. However, when one takes the picture as a whole one sees that this legislation which was brought upon us layer upon layer in the 1970s, reduces the willingness of firms to risk recruiting and impedes their ability to react quickly to market conditions and to labour market conditions specifically. It creates the need for unnecessary staff and therefore extra costs and management overheads.
  In the 1970s unemployment under the Labour Government was going up, but one junction within industry that was continuing to recruit and expand were personnel departments because companies had to take on many extra professsional staff to keep up with the layer upon layer of legislation that was hitting them, telling them who they could recruit, how they recruit them and many other things.
  Obviously, those increases in overheads and management costs reduce companies' cost-effectiveness and, therefore, their competitiveness both in domestic and world markets. That reduces their ability to sell their goods and services to those markets, which in turn reduces their turnover and their profit. That in turn undermines job security for employees in the company and reduces companies tax contributions to the Chancellor. In other words, this impedes wealth creation and, although in some instances much of the legislation may be in the interests of some employees, it is clearly not in the national interest because it impedes wealth creation and the flow of revenue to the Chancellor.
  Time is short this evening and I wish to make some brief comments about three other parts of the Bill—training, paid time off for union officials and industrial tribunals. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is right to bring forward his proposals that relate to industrial tribunals. Some people—they may well be in a minority—bring cases out of pure spite or just to cause trouble. It is interesting to note—I believe that I am right in saying this—that the area of employment protection legislation and industrial tribunals is the only area of the law where the accused person is guilty until proven innocent. That is the basis from which a company starts. In the rest of our legal system, a person is innocent until proved guilty.
  It is right to introduce at the chairman's discretion the maximum £150 deposit, which will act as a deterrent against people bringing cases unless they have a good and

  913
  genuine case under employment protection legislation. I have worked in personnel and I know that companies take industrial tribunals seriously because, clearly, it is not good for a company's PR image if it is found wanting in this area and to have treated one or more of its employees unfavourably. This measure will protect companies so that their time is not wasted by individuals who act irresponsibly.
  The current regime whereby some trade union officials have a licence to go round stirring up trouble at their workplace or at other people's workplaces and being paid for doing so by the employers for whom they are supposed to be working is clearly ridiculous. Again, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is right to bring forward proposals that will tighten this up. My only fear is that the tightening up will not be quite tight enough, but it is a start and a step in the right direction.
  I welcome the abolition of the Training Commission. Centralised bodies are not the answer. The hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) said earlier that, 100 years ago, Germany was having to have to catch up with this country in respect of the level of training. One hundred years ago, there was not that much state interference or centralised bureaucratic control in the way that training was delivered in this country. Tonight, we have heard Opposition Members admit that this country was very much in the lead in these natters at that time.
  The responsibility for training must ultimately lie with the employers. There are many reasons why it is in the employers' interest to acknowledge and implement that responsibility. The new training and enterprise councils will catalyse a return to such a way of operating with regard to training.
  One of our weaknesses in many instances is the inability of technical colleges to adapt to the training needs of companies in the locality. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) spoke about training vouchers. It is worth considering a voucher system for individuals and companies vis-a-vis technical colleges so that, rather than simply offering what is convenient for them to offer to local companies, they have a financial incentive to offer training courses to those companies that are relevant to their needs in a modern, thriving economy.
  The Bill will go some way to relieving small firms of unnecessary regulations and it will, in some small degree, liberalise the labour market. The Government believe in the free market. I hope that the Bill is only the first step down the road of a deregulated labour market which is, of course, a major and fundamental component of the wider free market.
  8.36 pm
  Mr. Keith Vaz: Employment Bills should be about creating the climate and conditions for employment. They should be carefully drafted measures designed to define the rights of the employed, to enhance and clarify them and to support good industrial relations and, in so doing, to aid national prosperity. By those criteria, this Bill fails miserably, eroding rights, restricting the advances of a century of experience, eroding good industrial relations and undermining them, not helping them.
  914
  The Government's hypocrisy—they pretend to care for the young and promise legislation to prevent child abuse yet propose to pass legislation that is, in effect, a charter for the abuse of young people by wicked employers—is clear for all of us to see, sweeping away a century of protective rights for young people, giving a green light to the greedy employer and allowing the exploiter to excel.
  I started work when I was 16, exactly 16 years ago. I had to go out to work because one of my parents had died. I worked in a shop from the age of 16 until the age of 21 to help my mother pay her mortgage. I did not know that these rights existed and that this protection was given, but, looking back, I and millions of young people are grateful for the fact that we have this protection.
  The Government are now proposing that we go back to the 19th century. The Bill proposes the removal of virtually all protection of young persons against long hours of work, shift work and night work. The Government are to do away with statutory meal and rest breaks for youngsters and rights to holidays and days off. The Minister is to give himself wider powers to repeal any other protective legislation, including laws protecting children under school-leaving age. Coupled with the proposed abolition of wages councils and the Government's blind eye to abuses of the YTS and similar courses, it is obvious that these proposals are made solely to help unscrupulous employers exploit young workers without hindrance or concern for health, safety and welfare.
  As my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) pointed out, the Bill ignores the recommendations made to the Government by the Health and Safety Commission. The hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Evennett) said that Opposition Members glory in the level of unemployment. As he is not present in the Chamber, I say to other Conservative Members that, if we glory in unemployment, they glory in the death and injury of so many young people under the YTS and other schemes. The Health and Safety Commission accident figures show that 16 to 24-year-olds are more at risk of accidents than older workers. That is partly due to inexperience and immaturity. Young people need more protection. The Government have accepted that in other aspects of policy, but not in employment.
  The proposal to abolish restrictions on night working set out in the Employment of Women, Young Persons, and Children Act 1920 would be a clear breach of article 7(8) of the European social charter. The Bill is about removing rights. The Government's aim is to make life as difficult as possible for those who leave their employment for whatever reason. That is why they are raising the qualification period for a written statement of reasons for dismissal. It is obvious that employees who do not have a written statement will find it very difficult to obtain further employment.
  Yesterday one of my constituents telephoned me to tell me that she had been dismissed from her employment, having worked there for six months. She asked her employer to provide reasons for her dismissal. He refused, and when she went to press him again he called the police.
  In some cases young people will not be entitled to benefit because there will be an allegation that they have been dismissed for misconduct. The Government's proposal removes the right to a written statement from an estimated 5 million workers. In 1986, 44 per cent. of all cases arising under jurisdictions other than unfair

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  dismissal and discrimination received by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service concerned the employer's failure to provide a written statement on dismissal.
  The Bill is about undermining trade union rights. The Government claim that current legislation can result in employers having to pay lay union officials to take time off for activities unrelated to the terms on which the employer recognises the union. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that time off for trade union duties adversely affects employers. The duties of an official may require him or her to participate in the planning of strategy as well as negotiating sessions where groups of workers other than those he represents are involved. Under the Bill, shop stewards would not be given time off to attend those meetings.
  The removal of the requirement for companies with fewer than 20 employees to provide written disciplinary procedures is absurd. Why should a distinction between different responsibilities be placed on different sized establishments? Employees do not learn the procedures any better because their workplace is smaller. It is in the interests of employees and employers to ensure that there are clear grievance procedures to allow everyone to understand the position.
  The Minister justifies his proposal by claiming that, in small firms, employees clearly know their roles and responsibilities. That view contrasts sharply with that of ACAS. In November 1985, ACAS produced a consultative document which argued for a new draft code of practice on disciplinary and other procedures in employment. It argued that
  "in every organisation there should be clearly understood procedures, however simple, which are consistent with the general principles and intentions of the code."
  Before I was elected to this House, I worked as a solicitor for a law centre in Leicester. I had to advise many people about taking claims to an industrial tribunal. The introduction of the deposit order for industrial tribunals will be a major obstacle for an employee seeking justice. Industrial tribunals were set up in 1964. Since then, through complex legislation, their work has grown enormously. It is now very difficult for employees to understand the complexity of the law.
  In this Bill the Government should have ensured that there was ready access to industrial tribunals. Instead, they want to deter potential applicants. Although under the terms of this Bill employees can request deposit orders, in practice that is highly unlikely. Between 1986 and 1987 there were 594 applications for industrial tribunal pre-hearing assessments from employers, as against only 15 from employees. The sifting mechanism of the ACAS conciliation stage already exists which, in 1986–87, resulted in 11,129 ACAS conciliated settlements out of 39,000 industrial tribunal applications. In the same year, a further 14,149 cases were settled privately or withdrawn after the conciliation stage.
  The deposit requirement will have a disproportionate impact on unemployed and low-paid litigants. Seventy-five per cent. of claims before industrial tribunals come from unemployed people who simply cannot afford to pay the £150 deposit which might be ordered by the chairman of the tribunal. Once the deposit is ordered, it prejudges the outcome of the case. The Government should have ensured that legal aid was available at industrial tribunals so that people could be properly assisted.
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  So much good could have been done through a new Employment Bill. The Minister could have used it as an opportunity to correct the mistakes that the Government have made in employment policy over the past 10 years. At the heart of the Bill is a desire to turn the equal partnership that has developed in industry between employer and employee into one of master and slave. That destroys the real need for both parties to a contract of employment to respect each other. The Government should be ashamed of themselves.
  8.46 pm
  Mr. David Martin: Unlike Opposition Members, I interpret the Bill as another example of the way in which the Government are prepared to carry out measured reform where that is necessary and desirable. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe), I want to concentrate on the parts of the Bill which advance the principle of equal treatment for men and women in vocational training, promotion and working conditions.
  I have always been surprised at the resigned and docile way in which so many women, having carried out virtually every conceivable task in factories and elsewhere during the last war, then resumed in the main the traditional roles in the home and bringing up children. That is fulfilling, needs to be done and is in no way to be devalued, but for so many it was considered to be a "woman's place" without choice or relief and leading to absolute dependency regardless of inclination or ability, intellectual or physical.
  There has been a tremendous advance since 1945 in the number of women in work and more recently in the number of women in top jobs, but the docility of women after the war created an attitude which still prevails about what women do and how successfully they do it. The regulations that were originally designed to protect women have become discriminatory, and these were and have been tolerated to a remarkable extent.
  Perhaps the most ambitious attempt in recent years to promote equality of opportunity between men and women was the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 which had all-party support. Even that legislation allowed obvious inequalities to continue, not to protect women from harm but to protect and preserve jobs of male union members from women. That was the burden of much of the protection in that legislation and why it did not go far enough. I recall that in 1975, when the Conservative party was in opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sir I. Gilmour) referred to the few genuine arrangements to remove the discrimination incorporated in that legislation, particularly in relation to matters which this Bill addresses with regard to working hours and the employment of women in mines and elsewhere.
  Those restrictions are to be swept away at last in a long overdue reform. It is easy to misrepresent the reforms by stating that there are no suitable arrangements for women working in places like mines. That has always been used as an excuse as to why women should not, in respect of many activities, do that of which they are plainly capable.
  The proposed legislation will not deal entirely with those women who have no wish to take wider employment opportunities but who require assistance because they are not willing or able to work and who wish simply to stay at

  917
  home to look after their families in the traditional way. In my view, their preference should always be respected and supported.
  I refer finally to the Equal Opportunities Commission, which was created by a Conservative Government. Its duties were increased by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, when the commission was given its present wider role. On Second Reading of that legislation, the then Home Secretary gave the commission not a permanent life but a life
  "for however long that continues to be necessary."—[Official Report, 26 March 1975; Vol. 889, c. 521.]
  He therefore envisaged that at some time there would be an end to the Equal Opportunities Commission, and so do I. I hope that this Bill will hasten its redundancy.
  I do not expect that view necessarily to be shared with enthusiasm by Opposition Members. I remember the hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) making a speech on the Loyal Address on 22 November in which, far from looking forward to the end of such catalysts as the Equal Opportunities Commission, she envisaged a Ministry for women
  "which will…have the power and the duty to examine all Government policies for their impact on women and ensure alterations when necessary. For this purpose, it will have outposts in each Government Department. The Treasury will no longer reign supreme. Such a Ministry will inform women about Government actions and ask for their views, and, for these purposes, will set up regional offices."—[Official Report, 22 November 1988; Vol. 142, c. 39.]
  I suspect that the hon. Lady will have a hard task persuading her right hon. and hon. Friends to implement such arrangements, particularly in meeting the kind of union objections that stopped the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 going much wider. In any event, we have been warned by the hon. Lady that her intention is that commissarial busybodies would be set to work in every central or regional Department.
  If a Labour Government are ever returned in the distant future, I hope that by then women will take for granted equal status, rights and opportunities and will view with contempt such patronisation as something belonging to an older and unenlightened age. I hope that we may continue with measures such as the Bill to advance the cause of women until such time as there is no distinction whatsoever in their opportunities.
  8.52 pm
  Mrs. Audrey Wise: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Martin) for his free advertisement for Labour party policy. He may be interested to learn that the trade unions support our policy for a Ministry for women and will be pleased to see the impact of Government policies on women examined in the way that I described.
  The Bill is presented as something that will improve women's opportunities. We are told over and over again that it will open doors, and that it introduces no element of compulsion. Plainly, that is not true. The factors that prevent women enjoying equal opportunities have nothing to do with the protection offered by the Factories Act 1961. It is not that Act which ensures that 93 per cent. of Members of Parliament are male. It is not that Act which ensures that 87 per cent. of gynaecologists—of all things—are male. It is not the Factories Act 1961 which ensures
  918
  that the majority of managers in retail distribution are male, although the majority of their employees are female. That Act has nothing to do with such inequalities—and I could go on and on, describing many more examples.
  The Factories Act 1961 offers women some protection. Women are not, in practice, queuing up anxiously to do jobs that will involve them in constant night work in factories. Men put up with many conditions of work that they should not tolerate. We could do with a levelling up of some working conditions, to improve those of men. What we are being given in the name of equality is a levelling down of working conditions—so that, for example, women will be permitted to clean moving machinery. Nobody should be expected to clean moving machinery —it should first be turned off.
  We are not bowing or curtseying with gratitude for the provisions of the Bill. It is no big deal. Instead, we view it alongside the Social Security Bill which was before the House for its Second Reading yesterday—and it is here that the element of compulsion is introduced. Under existing legislation, it is illegal for women to undertake certain jobs—but with this Bill, they will risk being deprived of social security benefits if they refuse them in future. The two Bills between them will deprive women of the right to say whether certain work is suitable for them. It is an insult to our intelligence and to our common sense to suggest that the Employment Bill has anything to do with equality.
  One can say the same of the so-called advances for young workers. One hon. Member said that work should fit the worker and that the worker should not be forced to fit the job. I entirely agree. I am waiting to hear which young workers need to be permitted to work 50 hours a week!
  What protection do young workers have? Forty per cent. of 16 and 17-year-olds work in shops. They are given magnificent protection. They must have a 20-minute break after working five or five-and-a-half hours, whereas adults have that entitlement only after working six hours. There is little help there for the young person. Young workers may not be employed for more than 48 hours per week but there are exceptions in times of unusual or seasonal pressure. In general, young people may not work between 10 pm and 6 am, and they must be allowed an interval of rest of 11 consecutive hours in every 24. Those are the extravagant restrictions and protections that are being swept away by the Conservatives. I am sure that young people will hardly be extraordinarily grateful to them.
  In factories young people at present may not work for more than nine hours a day or possibly 10 or 10½ with overtime in five-day factories, or 48 hours a week exclusive of breaks. They cannot start work before 7 am or after 8 pm, and they must have a half-hour break after four-and-a-half hours' work. Those are the protections that are being swept away with the excuse that the obligations on employers make them wholly resistant to the idea of taking on young people.
  I think that the employers who will take advantage of the lifting of such restrictions are employers whom we do not want in this country. I would prefer that they all went bankrupt and left the way clear for the good employers—or at least better employers—who will be undermined by the Bill. The Bill is a charter for the worst, most scurrilous and most exploitative employers.
  We talk loosely about 16 and 17-year-olds, but these young people can be as young as 15 years eight months.

  919
  According to the Library, the age is between 15 years eight months and 16 years seven months, depending on the relationship between a pupil's birthday and the statutory school-leaving age. Just in case people do not realise this, let me point out that that person of 15 years eight months will be an adult in employment law, working in adult conditions but not for adult wages. If that person is a girl, however, and is unfortunate enough to give birth to a baby, in social security law she does not exist at all. Although she is a mother she cannot claim for herself or her child through the social security system. She is entirely dependent on the attitude of her parents.
  Young people of 16 or 17 have had their entitlement to income support removed. It is not simply that they are not treated as adults in connection with rates of entitlement; they are treated entirely differently in principle. Social security law says, "You are not an adult," but employment law says, "Oh yes you are: stand on your own two feet." Hon. Members have used that expression in the Chamber tonight. When we object, we are told that we are being patronising to young people. But it is not their young people who find themselves working in grotty jobs in shops or factories, and who will suffer from these employers. Their young people, in fact, will grow up to be such employers, if their parents are anything to go by.
  I believe that we are speaking not only in the best interests, but with the full support, of today's youngsters—when they realise what is happening. We want more opportunities for women and for young people. We want access to training. We want child care provision and humanity at work. What we do not want is this charter for scurrilous and exploitive employers. A Conservative Member has said that times have changed: they certainly have. Every day, with every Bill that Conservative Members bring forward, times change for the worse.
  9.1 pm
  Mr. Graham Riddick: Time is running a little short, so I shall not make all the comments that I hoped to make. Let me say, however, that I am pleased that the Government are able to call on the National Council for Civil Liberties for support on the relaxation of regulations relating to women.
  The NCCL is accusing opponents of the lifting of restrictions on women working in mines of stereotyping. The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) refused to answer my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who asked where he stood on that provision: did he or did he not support women being allowed to go down the mines? I hope that whoever winds up for the Opposition will make it clear exactly where the Labour party stands, but having listened to Opposition Members it seems to me that by and large the party is very much opposed to the new provision.
  It must be somewhat embarrassing for the TUC and the Labour party, because the Labour party did not really know which of its lines of dogma to abandon—its opposition to all forms of deregulation or its obsession with anything vaguely connected with equal opportunities. Conservative Members believe that women should at least have the freedom to choose whether or not they wish to apply for jobs down the mine.
  Mr. Eric Heifer: Rubbish.
  Mr. Riddick: I hear an Opposition Member shouting, "Rubbish." It sounds to me like good old-fashioned Labour chauvinism coming to the surface. Women should be free to apply for those jobs. Then it is up to managers to decide whether an individual is capable of doing the job.
  It is interesting to note one major difference between this Employment Bill and previous employment Bills introduced by the Government. This Bill is not primarily concerned with trade unions. There is now a proper equilibrium between trade unions and employers, between trade unions and their members and between trade union activities and the law, but the law on the closed shop remains glaringly inadequate. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Paice) has already referred to that fact. Like him, I believe that the omission of any reference to the closed shop must be remedied before the Bill completes its passage through the House.
  The closed shop, in any shape or form, is a denial of personal freedom. Every individual should have the right to belong or not to belong to a trade union. In the 1970s, the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) gave the unions carte blanche to ride roughshod over the rights of ordinary working people and to force millions of them to belong to trade unions, whether or not they wished to do so.
  My right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench believe that clauses 10 and 11 of the Employment Act 1988, which made it unlawful for trade unions to take action to maintain closed shops, and which made it unlawful for employers to sack employees for not belonging to trade unions, will effectively result in the demise of the closed shop. I realise that those two clauses have been in force only since July of last year—about six months—but so far as I can ascertain from my inquiries those provisions have made no difference whatever to the closed shops that were in existence then. They are still in existence; they are still alive and well. My right hon. Friend announced recently that he intends to review the operation of the pre-entry closed shop. I welcome his announcement. I hope that his review will be completed shortly so that appropriate amendments can be included in the Bill.
  About 3·7 million people are estimated to be captive within the closed shop arrangements. That information was provided by the Labour party's research department. [Interruption.] The fact is that a host of Labour-controlled councils—such as Sandwell, Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, Darlington and my own local council of Kirklees—continue to hoodwink their employees into believing that they must belong to a trade union.
  Kirklees metropolitan district council does everything in its power to operate a closed shop and to hoodwink its employees into belonging to a trade union. A Kirklees council employee recently sent to me a copy of his contract
  of employment, which says:
  "this authority is party to a trade union membership agreement and it is a condition of your employment that you join one of the appropriate signatory trade unions for your employment group within 13 weeks of commencement of your employment".
  In addition, every job advertisement in the local press states that Kirklees council operates a union membership agreement. The final proof is that Kirklees attempts to operate its closed shop by allowing unions to use its own

  921
  mailing facilities, reminding Kirklees employees that a closed shop operates and that they should therefore join a trade union.
  There can be no doubt that Kirklees council is operating a closed shop, yet that closed shop has no legal standing whatsoever. If it were challenged in a court of law, it would be thrown out in a matter of minutes because there has been no ballot of employees to approve the closed shop. The vast majority of existing and new employees believe, and will continue to believe, that union membership is compulsory—in the absence of any information to the contrary from their employer, or in the absence of legislation which make it abundantly clear that all closed shop arrangements are unlawful.
  I believe that there is a solution to the problem and that it would not be too difficult for the Government to provide that solution. They should write into the Bill that it shall be unlawful for any person to maintain a union membership agreement. I moved an amendment to that effect to the Employment Bill last year.
  I realise that Ministers are concerned that disgruntled individuals might make malicious or erroneous claims stating that they failed to obtain a particular job because they refused to join a trade union. The way to overcome such problems is to give any person who believes that a union membership agreement exists the right to draw it to the attention of the commissioner for the rights of trade union members. The commissioner will investigate the claim and, if it is substantiated, he will apply for a court order banning the trade union membership agreement. If the employer or the union failed to comply with the court order, they would be in contempt of court, with all the serious implications that that involves.
  Since the Government took office, they have enacted four major pieces of trade union legislation. It is time for them to stop skirting around the vital issue and legislate to make the closed shop illegal.
  I heard the noises made by Opposition Members when I talked about the closed shop. They talk about trade union rights, but they are not interested in the rights of trade unionists. They want to see people in a union whether or not they want to be there. We should make the closed shop illegal so that British trade unionists and employers know where they stand. Once we have done that, we shall have achieved a massive extension of personal freedom.
  9.11 pm
  Mr. Dave Nellist: There is an aphorism that things mellow with age. That is not true of this Government or the Prime Minister in their attitudes to women and working-class youth. The Bill is the sixth major attack on workers' rights in the past 10 years. It is nasty and vindictive and follows the pattern of the past decade. Time will prevent me from turning my attention to all the clauses, but if I am fortunate enough to be selected to serve on the Committee I shall deal then with those that I am unable to mention now.
  One clause increases from six months to two years the service needed before an employee is given written reasons for his dismissal. There are clauses attacking the right of people to take time off for trade union duties.
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  Clause 18 deals with the dissolution of the Training Commission. I am not too upset by its demise, but I am not happy with the Government's plan to hand over to the private sector almost all aspects of industrial training. I am also unhappy about the new training task force set up to advise the Government on training—it is a successor to the Training Commission—on which employers will have two thirds of the seats.
  My feelings on the axing of the Training Commission have been coloured by nearly six years as a Member of the House. During that time I have campaigned on health and safety, particularly as it affects young workers on youth opportunities programmes or youth training schemes. Safety is currently the responsibility of the Training Commission. The House may remember the debates I have initiated on the number of deaths that have occurred. It may remember the delegations I have led to Ministers and the correspondence I have had with the MSC. I do not apologise for repeating some of the points made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett). He referred to the senseless and tragic death of Derek Cain, a 17-year-old Sheffield lad who died in December 1982 at the waste disposal firm of Plumb and Son in Sheffield. That death has national implications, and so has the Bill.
  Derek Cain's father, Richard, helped me to draft a private Member's Bill on health and safety and on the role of the MSC. Derek died from a massive injury caused by the revolving blades of a paper shredding machine. His father was not satisfied with the derisory compensation offered by the MSC. As a single parent he was offered £52. The other parents I have met after similar bereavements have received £78 when there are two parents. His father was also unhappy with the MSC's abdication of its responsibility for health and safety. He spent six years taking court action against the MSC which concluded a few days before Christmas.
  The MSC's main argument—it is reflected in the contributions made by Tory Members to this debate—is that health and safety is the responsibility of the provider of training schemes. An MSC official in the court said that once the MSC had passed the scheme as being safe, it was up to the sponsor to keep its end of the bargain.
  The MSC's other main argument was that Derek was partly responsible for his own death because he should not have been on a baling machine in a paper shredding factory. Fifteen MSC officials attended that trial. They were so sure of winning that—this was reported to me—the solicitor representing the MSC was grinning like a chimpanzee before the trial began. What he found funny about the fact or the circumstances of the death of a 17-year-old escapes me.
  Richard's solicitor was able to find letters from other former YOP trainees confirming that every young worker in that plant was asked to work on the baler. He was able to prove that the MSC checked the premises only from the outside of the factory. When the MSC was asked why it did not even write to the factories inspectorate to find out whether Plumbs was on its list —and it was not—the MSC official responsible responded in court by saying, "It would have meant too much paperwork." A lad of 17 was killed because of a lack of paperwork. The Bill is full of similar excuses such as paperwork being a burden on business. Perhaps when the Minister replies to the debate he would like to tell Derek's father Richard about paperwork.

  923
  In summing up, the judge said that he was appalled at the number of deaths and injuries on YTS, and so am I. More than 50 families have been bereaved over the years. In the past three months, YTS was the most dangerous occupation in Britain—outranking construction or shipbuilding. The judge also said that the MSC had been negligent in placing the young lad in those premises. I agree. That is another reason why I am not too upset about the abolition of the ineffectual Training Commission.
  In 1972 Richard was offered £52 compensation. In deciding the outcome of the case, the judge awarded £20,000 compensation and costs against Plumbs, which could run to £100,000. That case has major national implications. Because it happened in the same week as the Lockerbie disaster, the press were rightly engaged in other matters, but surely the other 50 families should be told about the level of compensation and other firms throughout the country who have acted in the same cavalier way should know that they face the risk of incurring costs of £100,000 if found guilty in court.
  The Bill should have contained what Derek's father got me to put into the private Member's Bill three years ago. Time prevents me from reading it out, but it made the MSC legally responsible for checking. It meant that no scheme would have gone ahead unless the health and safety inspector and a trade union health and safety steward had seen the premises. In answer to the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick), may I say that had it become law instead of the Bill we are discussing tonight, no scheme would have gone ahead unless it was in a workplace approved by the trade unions. The hon. Gentleman may call it Victorian dogma. I call it saving the lives of 50 young kids and stopping the maiming of thousands more.
  The Bill is riddled with attacks on the conditions of workers. A recent study in the Labour research department's bargaining report showed that particularly after the Bill is passed working conditions in Britain will become some of the worst in the EEC. If the Bill becomes law, it will be virtually impossible for workers to establish why they have been dismissed from jobs unless they have been employed for two years. It will make it much harder for trade unions to represent workers. Workers will be discouraged from challenging gaffers dismissing them, and it will be a sweetener and an encouragement of employers to dismiss workers on a whim. It is very bad news indeed for workers. If they are dismissed with no written reason of dismissal, under the most recent social security legislation they face a cut in unemployment benefit for up to 26 weeks.
  The Secretary of State talked about industrial tribunals and the £150 pre-tribunal deposit. He said that that was a maximum and not necessarily a fixed amount. When I asked the Secretary of State for Social Security how many workers had lost social security for 26 weeks, he said, "I cannot tell you. We do not keep statistics." I know why the Department does not keep statistics. Virtually every case I have come across has been on the fixed level of 26 weeks. The pre-hearing assessment industrial tribunal deposit will be similar.
  The Bill refers to the concept of freedom. The Secretary of State made an attempt sarcastically to list the current regulations affecting young workers. Those regulations restrict the starting time for young workers to no earlier
  924
  than 7 am and the finishing time no later than 8 pm. They restrict the working day to nine hours, and limit weekend working and the total hours worked in a week to 54 hours.
  Instead of removing them, if the Government had any respect, understanding or compassion for young workers, they would extend the rights of young workers or all workers and produce such measures as a maximum working week of 35 hours to share out employment, the elimination of systematic overtime and bringing retirement down to 55 for all workers so that, unlike me, some youngsters could grow up and see both their grandparents instead of seeing one die down a pit at 52 from lung disease without the chance of reaching a retirement age of 60 or 65.
  The Secretary of State and some of his acolytes among the younger Tory Members seem, from their echoes of humour, to think that those are Victorian attitudes. but they have no concept of the causes of accidents and no understanding of what tiredness means. A standard ergonomics textbook, entitled "Fitting the Task to the Man", says:
  "Our physiological knowledge and present-day experience point to the conclusion that a working day of eight hours cannot be exceeded without detriment."
  As my right hon. Friend the member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) said, the evidence of the Health and Safety Executive to the Government in March last year said:
  "In relation to hours of work, a broad measure of control should be retained to safeguard young people's welfare and opportunities for their education and social development."
  Those are difficult aims to achieve for young people if, through tiredness, they are maimed or dead.
  I cannot view the attacks in the Bill in isolation from other similar measures. Time precludes me from talking about them in detail. No doubt by the time we get to Report the Government will table amendments for the abolition of the wages councils because the period of statutory, but superficial, consultation finishes on 3 February. We already know that 2·5 million workers—mainly women—on a few pounds either side of £80 a week face cuts in wages if the wages councils are abolished. In the past 10 years, more than 88,000 factories were found to be under-paying their workers under old and existing wages council settlements. How many were prosecuted? Only 56. This is the Government of law and order, but do they enforce existing laws? When they affect their mates, they abolish the laws and get away with under-payment.
  The Bill is rife with such points. Clauses 1 to 7 deal with the repeal of what the Government call unnecessary obstacles to employment, particularly for women. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson) will deal with that subject better than I, so I shall make only one point about it. The Government say that the rationale for clauses 1 to 7 is to comply with European Community legislation on sex discrimination, but there is an alternative. Instead of equalising down to comply with European legislation, they could equalise up and raise the rights of men to those of women where protective legislation has been deemed necessary in the past.
  Time prevents me from examining properly all the issues. Tory Members may think that it is being kind or considerate to give 16 to 18-year-olds the freedom to work longer hours and the joys of unlimited overtime. They may be surprised to learn that young people do not see the matter in that way. The 16 to 18-year-olds are conscripted into the youth training scheme on pain of losing benefit. One lad in Coventry tried to join a YTS scheme for the

  925
  eight weeks before his 18th birthday at Christmas. He was turned down because every employer asked why they should take him when they could take on a 16-year-old for two years. He was told by the Department of Social Security to go to the Salvation Army hostel for eight weeks. So even when young people try to get on a scheme, the loss of benefit works against them.
  The abolition of wages councils for under-21s has pressurised youth wages down, and the Bill will make their life harder. Shops will increase their use of part-time young workers, especially if the Government allow Sunday and late evening opening. Many employers will use the Bill to threaten the wages and job security of their permanent staff through substitution. National pay bargaining, which is anathema to the Secretary of State, will be further undermined and accidents will increase as the Government legislate to allow the bosses to get away, literally, with murder.
  But pressure will also increase from another direction. The trade union and labour movements will campaign for decent training and safe working conditions for young workers and for minimum wages that reflect the cost of living—not the cost of existing. The Secretary of State should widen his reading on European matters and should ask his officials to make an analysis of the Spanish press during the past four weeks. On 14 December, inspired by the elan and enthusiasm of young workers, apprentices and school students in their campaign against training schemes which are modelled on the YTS, Spain was rocked by a general strike of millions of workers for the first time in 50 years. Politicians there said that it could never happen, as they have said here. [Interruption.] The Spanish Government are termed a Socialist Government.
  One can stretch a piece of elastic only so far. This clutch of proposals on safety, training, hours and conditions of work may yet be the catalyst for a similar movement among young people in this country. I hope to fight the Bill line by line in the House, without any expectation of changing the minds of Tory Members who may serve on the Committee. Perhaps more important, I hope to spread the message outside the House about the draconian implications of the Bill and to warn workers, young and old, male and female, of the Government's absolute and sustained contempt for them.
  9.25 pm
  Ms. Jo Richardson: When the Secretary of State opened the debate, he waxed quite lyrical about his commitment to equality for women. He recounted the number of women in the work force as if we did not know; he talked about the projected number of women in the work force in the 1990s, as if we did not know; he talked about the need to update legislation such as the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, as if we did not know; and he spoke of the need to sweep away prejudice and to open up opportunities for women, as if we did not know.
  We have been saying all that for years. I have to remind the House that the Secretary of State abstained when the House voted on whether to give what became the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 a Second Reading. I do not know where he was, but his commitment to women was obviously not very great on that occasion.
  926
  I would have been impressed by what the Secretary of State said earlier if I did not know what was in the Bill. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) said, the Bill provides a golden opportunity to grasp the nettle. I have never heard so many Conservative Members make speeches about the need to improve conditions for women. I am truly amazed. I have spoken from the Dispatch Box and from the Back Benches for many years and have been laughed at—as have been my colleagues—when I have spoken of the need to improve conditions.
  Anybody who listened to the Secretary of State would think that he and the Government would tackle low pay, introduce universal child care, outlaw sexual harassment at work, provide proper and affordable transport, introduce decent maternity leave and maternity benefits and bring in parental leave. A combination of all those is needed. What do we have instead?
  The Bill is split into four bits. The first apparently affects women, the second affects young people, the third affects employees and the fourth concerns training. I have news for you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The whole Bill is about women—as employees, trainees, trade unionists and young workers. Even the clauses which seem to concern women alone will, in practice, affect the whole of the work force.
  The Government are introducing a mixture of measures. Some they do not want to do but have been forced to do, and others they have always wanted to do but have not had the nerve to do before. They have, as usual, delayed acting on rulings made in Europe until they can delay no longer, and they have drowned the progressive aspects from Europe in a sea of ideas entirely of their own imagination.
  I welcome the decision to repeal section 51 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 insofar as it concerns employment and vocational training. It has been clear for a long time that it is ridiculous that women can be discriminated against by laws which predate 1975, but it has taken the Government until now to do something about it.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) said, the Government have been in office for 10 years. They could have acted before, but they have dragged their heels until Europe said, "Enough." Once again, the Government have done the very minimum. Why not repeal section 51 altogether? That is what a genuine commitment to ending discrimination entails—not the introduction of a new section 51A. What is the Minister's objection to the Equal Opportunities Commission's proposal of a full repeal of section 51 with limited exceptions reviewable every five years? After all, that is a sensible way forward.
  I welcome the Government's acceptance of positive discrimination, by allowing the appointment of women to certain academic posts. I know that they do not call it positive discrimination, but it is that in all but name. It is designed to correct the under-representation of women. What a pity that the Government did not accept this principle when they outlawed contract compliance in last year's Local Government Act. The Government's commitment to the employment of women is confined to just four Oxbridge colleges, and I should like to know why.
  A large amount of media and Chamber attention has been concentrated on the provision of the Bill that will allow women to go back down mines. I do not know whether the Secretary of State realises that on this issue

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  both the National Union of Mineworkers and British Coal are united. Neither wishes women to go down mines. Conditions in the mining industry have improved dramatically since the last century, and must be judged as either fit for women and men or not fit for anybody. For these improvements, no organisation deserves more praise than the NUM. For decades it has struggled against hostile Governments and employers to make the health and safety conditions as high as they can be in such a dangerous industry. The NUM and the Trades Union Congress have borne the brunt of the Government's decimation of our coal industry. They have first-hand experience of the Government's policies and have done more than anybody to offset them. That is why I listen to, and respect, their opposition to women returning underground. However, on balance, I disagree with them, provided that the conditions for women working underground are right.
  Mr. Lofthouse: If it were possible, I would agree with my hon. Friend. However, after a lifetime in the industry, although I recognise the improvements that have been made, I know that it is still impractical, inhuman and indecent for women to work in coal mines. I hope that we shall never see that. I know that some Conservative Members say that it will never happen. I want to know the Government's motive for putting in this clause. The Bill comes in the lead-up to privatisation, and I wonder whether the motive for this clause is cheap labour for a privatised coal industry, if that should ever happen.
  Ms. Richardson: My hon. Friend has a point. He is an ex-miner and speaks with great experience. If the conditions below at the coal face are bad, I agree that women should not work down there, but neither should men. We should ensure that the conditions for men are right in such a way that women are enabled to take their place there if they so wish.
  It is patronising to talk about women not being capable of working underground because they are not physically capable of doing the job, as some Conservative Members have done. They are physically capable of doing the job, so that suggestion is monstrous. I want to know what negotiations the Government have entered into with British Coal to ensure that conditions are right for women to go down the mines if they so wish.
  Have the Secretary of State and his Department had discussions with British Coal—I understand that it is opposed to women going down the mines—to ensure that it provides proper changing rooms for women and that all the health and safety conditions are satisfied? Has the Secretary of State, who has made recent speeches about the need for employers to provide child care at the workplace, had discussions with British Coal about providing workplace nurseries at the pithead? The right hon. Gentleman should do such things before he comes to the House and talks as though it is an easy option, under present conditions, for women to go down the mines to work. We want to see opportunities available to women in traditional non-female employment, but the conditions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) has said, must be right for men as well as for women. We would then be satisfied.
  Women play a role in the mining industries of countries such as the United States and Sweden, and there is no
  928
  reason why they should not do so here. British Coal must end its list of feeble protests and create the conditions to ensure that women can work in the mines.
  Clause 16 will allow an industrial tribunal to charge a deposit of £150 before certain cases can proceed to a full hearing. A number of my hon. Friends have already referred to this. The tripartism of the pre-assessment hearing is to give way to Diplock-style "pre-hearing reviews" with just the chair hearing the case. When the Minister replies I hope that he will tell us what is wrong with the current procedure. When the Secretary of State discussed clause 16, he did not give the reasons behind the change.
  Presently, costs can be awarded when the tribunal decides that a case is frivolous, vexatious or otherwise unreasonable. Therefore, why do we need the new provision? It has nothing to do with eliminating half-hearted complaints, but everything to do with reducing the incidence of those complaints. The simple truth is that many people will either be deterred from or just unable to afford to bring a case. Some 75 per cent. of cases heard by industrial tribunals relate to unfair dismissal claims. If a claimant is unemployed, how can she afford the deposit? In Committee, do Ministers plan to introduce any financial assistance for those on social security who wish to proceed with a claim? Are there any plans to introduce guidelines to assist the chair of the tribunal to decide what is a reasonable claim?
  Equal pay and sex discrimination claims are already notoriously difficult to pursue. Will the Secretary of State draw up special guidance to assist in those cases? Above all, will the Secretary of State see to it that more women are appointed as chairs to industrial tribunals, because, presently, out of about 80, only about three are women?
  The deposit of £150 is a logical complement to all the Government's actions during the past decade. First they got rid of as many rights as they could and now they dispense with the channel of complaint. That is a classic piece of totalitarianism by the back door.
  The House should also note that clause 16(3) allows the Secretary of State to change the £150 deposit from time to time. The right hon. Gentleman's movements will be more akin to perpetual motion rather than time to time. The House should remember that it is only two and one half years since the Government in their document "Building Businesses… Not Barriers" suggested a fee of £25. Obviously, at this rate of increase, the fee will be more than £1,000 by the next general election. I suppose that that is what the Government want, because the more the price goes up, the fewer will be the people who will be able to afford to take cases to tribunal.
  Most employer organisations did not care for the £25 charge, but a change to six times that figure has an appeal. Employers will be able to flout the law and each time they are summoned before a tribunal they will merely ask the complainant to place a deposit.
  Mr. Riddick rose—
  Ms. Richardson: I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not giving way; little time remains for the Front Bench closing speeches.
  I come to the question of deregulation. The limiting of paid time off, the proposals on dismissal and disciplinary statements and the changes for industrial tribunals were all trailed in the document "Building Businesses … Not

  929
  Barriers." I recall the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act 1986, which was in part a result of the fundamental philosophy that underpinned the White Papers to which I have referred. In debating that measure, the Minister claimed time and again that he was ridding businesses of the burdens that were prohibiting the creation of jobs, and on each occasion we asked for proof to substantiate his claims.
  The trouble was that neither the Minister nor his colleagues nor his civil servants could produce one small scrap of evidence to support his dogmatic assertion, for that is what it is—an almost ritualistic, parrot-like assertion to be repeated three times a day —and taken, as we always must take legislation introduced by the present Government, with a pinch of salt. Even the Government's own research paper, "Unfair Dismissal Law and Employment Practice in the 1980s" found
  "very little sign that employment protection legislation was inhibiting industrial recovery or contributing to the high level of unemployment by discouraging employers from taking on new people."
  I have recently received a copy of the response to the Bill by the British Institute of Management. It describes an October 1988 survey—so it is only three months old—of a representative sample of its 70,000 members which shows that only 11 per cent. thought there was too much employment protection legislation. That is a significant and telling figure.
  We have reached the stage when many bodies, organisations and individuals feel that the Government's proposals are not the right way to go about it, and I could spend all night describing the evidence that is available to counter the claims being made by the Government. The Government are disregarding all advice that is offered to them.
  This could have been a golden opportunity to introduce a Bill on employment, which would have tackled properly the whole question of women's low pay, their under-representation at all levels in the work force and in decision making, the whole field of child care—not just the question of workplace nurseries provided by employers but the wide provision that is required—and the outlawing of all discrimination. That would not have been costly because much of the discrimination is based simply on prejudice.
  What an opportunity the Bill could have presented to a decent Government, who, unfortunately at present we do not have. The Bill will disadvantage young people, will deregulate across the board and, in so doing, will disadvantage women. I invite my hon. Friends to join me in the Lobby in opposing it, and in Committee we shall fight it line by line.
  9.43 pm
  The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. John Cope): This has been a wide-ranging debate in which hon. Members have made a great number of suggestions about what might be added to the Bill. Some thoughtful speeches have been made, particularly by my hon. Friends the Members for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) and for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) and others on topics touching almost the whole of our responsibilities in the Department of Employment.
  930
  The Bill is about the creation of opportunities for employment. It sets out to reduce discrimination, to remove restrictions and to help improve our training arrangements. Many of its provisions involve sorting out old legislation. Many of the individual provisions will have only small effects on their own, but collectively they will help to reduce the tangle of legislation governing employment. Any hon. Member who has read the consultative document that we issued in 1987 will have seen the necessity to examine all these issues. We have looked at every law and regulation affecting young people and women to discover which of them we still need. Our aim is to get rid of every one that we do not need.
  The first group of clauses is all about discrimination against women in employment. Anyone who heard some of the Opposition speeches might have thought that few women were able to work in this country. The fact is that women are taking full advantage of the economic upturn. Since 1983 the number of women in paid work has increased by nearly 1,500,000. A higher proportion of women are active in the labour force in Britain than in any other country in the European Community except Denmark. I recognise that women are still underrepresented in senior jobs and over-represented in less skilled ones. Only about 6 per cent. of senior managers are women, but I believe that that is changing. More women and girls are obtaining higher level skills and qualifications, and more are training for and working in occupations traditionally regarded as men's work.
  The Government have an excellent record on equal opportunities for women. The growth of women's employment and the fact that this country is unique in the European Community in having lower unemployment among women than among men is evidence of that. On an EEC standardised basis—for those sceptical about our statistics—women's unemployment is 13·3 per cent. in the other countries of the Community and 7·4 per cent. in the United Kingdom—only a little over half that rate. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) thought that we should take lessons from our European partners, but I think that they can look to us in this matter.
  This Bill takes the promotion of equal opportunities further. As I said, our record as a Government is already good. We have made many changes that help women—the removal of restrictions on women's hours of work, extending the sex discrimination and equal pay legislation to offshore employment, equalising retirement ages, and freeing single sex training from bureaucratic intervention. All Government Departments are committed to ensuring that all their policies avoid discrimination against women.
  Clause 1 gives priority to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 over all other legislation except for specific provisions in employment and training, such as safety risks, that specifically affect women. The right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) pointed out that general protection is now given to all employees under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. So general protection for women, as for all other employees of all ages, is covered by that. Extra protection is no longer required, but specific extra protection for women—for instance, pregnant women—is retained in the Bill in clause 4 and schedule 1.
  As was only to be expected, we heard a great deal today about women in mines—
  Mr. Joseph Ashton: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Cope: There is little time, and the hon. Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson) did not give way.
  We have heard conditional support for this clause from the hon. Member for Barking, and I welcome that—it was more than we managed to get from the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher). Of course, all the usual conditions will apply, especially to the health and safety side—
  Mr. Ashton rose—
  Mr. Cope: Clause 7 and its attendant schedule 2 are not only about mines. They also give greater freedom—
  Mr. Ashton: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Cope: I shall not. I have a lot to say and little time in which to say it.
  Clause 7 and schedule 2 also give greater freedom to women in cement and pottery works, in tin plate and textile factories and elsewhere. The Bill also removes anomalous restrictions on the employment of young people. There is a large and complex body of old legislation, and that is ineffective. It places an unnecessary administrative burden on employers and authorities alike. It hampers flexibility in business, not so much because of what it says but because people do not want to unravel it all to see what they can do. It inhibits jobs even when it does not affect the hours. Ninety per cent. of young people work fewer than 44 hours at present and will be totally unaffected. Of course, they could be required to work 48 hours and, as the House will know, in some cases they could be required to work up to 60 hours.
  In view of what has been said in the debate I must emphasise what we are not doing. We are not removing or relaxing in any way the restrictions on the employment of children under the age of 16. We are retaining protection for young people by preventing them from working in betting shops, selling alcohol or working with dangerous machinery. We are not removing any of the provisions regarding health and safety which protect 16 to 18-year-olds and which the Health and Safety Commission said needed to be kept.
  The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and some other hon. Members spoke about the tragic case of Derek Cain and the recent court case. As the hon. Member for Brightside said, the Department of Employment took over the legal responsibility from the Manpower Services Commission and became joined in the case. We are presently awaiting the written court judgment and I promise the House that we shall carefully review everything that arises from it. The safety regime in the YTS is quite different from the regime that existed in the YOP six years ago when that tragic case occurred.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Cope: I shall not give way because I want to finish. Since 1983 the regulations for trainees have had the full protection of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. It is an absolute requirement now, but it was not in 1983, that before a contract is signed the managing agents must satisfy us on health and safety conditions. We have staff in every training agency region and an expert adviser, often an ex-factory inspector and two officers with qualifications
  932
  from the Institute of Occupational Health. Every accident is reported and every fatal accident is immediately reported personally to Ministers.
  Mr. Nellist rose—
  Mr. Cope: No, I shall not give way because I have much to deal with.
  The hon. Member for Brightside and others seem to think that the possible conversion of the training agency into what is known as a next-step executive agency weakens control. Ministerial control now is more direct than it was when the Manpower Services Commission existed. A next-step agency, if that is what happens to the training agency, will remain in the public sector, and its resources and policy framework will be set by us. It will still be accountable for its actions to Ministers and, through them, to Parliament.
  I know that it is possible to misread the figures of YTS accidents. Independent research corroborates that YTS trainees do not have more accidents than other young people employed in the same type of job. Ninety-nine per cent. of trainees do not have an accident. Of course, we have tightened the definition of a major injury to include wrist and ankle fractures which were previously classified as minor injuries. That affects the figures. We also know that, because of the tighter control of YTS, there is a higher standard of accident reporting. I repeat that independent research has shown that young people on YTS are as safe as other young people.
  I can tell the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) that in the public expenditure White Paper the Health and Safety Commission has been given the resources that it asked for and that the number of inspectors is being increased. Of course every accident, whether on YTS or elsewhere, is one too many and we shall continue to do all that we can to prevent accidents. Many hon. Members have spoken about training, and I shall come to that in a moment.
  Among several runners for the most misunderstood clause, clause 16—about deposits before industrial tribunal proceedings—appears to be the most misunderstood. In response to the point raised by the hon. Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson), I should point out that it is on a quite different basis from the £25 proposal. We are not talking, as some hon. Members appear to be, about a deposit being ordered for every case that goes to an industrial tribunal. In fact, the reverse is true; we expect deposits to be the exception and not the rule. Tribunals will have adequate powers to deal with the minority of people who abuse the system by bringing ill-founded claims.
  Either party will be liable to pay a deposit if it appears to the tribunal chairman to be bringing or defending the case vexatiously, frivolously or otherwise unreasonably. The sum of £150 is the maximum deposit that may be ordered. In most cases, the level of the deposit, even when it is required, will be considerably below that.
  Mr. Cryer: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Cope: I must get on.
  We have been accused in the debate of neglecting our responsibilities for training. In fact, total Government expenditure on training has increased from less than £500 million per year in 1979 to £3,000 million per year now. That is a tremendous increase on any basis. Employers

  933
  have also been attacked, but we know that they spend £18 billion a year on training. Of course we want to increase their commitment to training.
  There is only one small clause and some technical pages in the schedule which relate to training. Clause 18 provides a kind of legal epilogue to the work of the Manpower Services Commission, renamed the Training Commission under last year's Act. It had some excellent work to its credit, but as the House knows, it became impossible to continue with an arrangement for decision making when one of the parties concerned, the TUC, became mandated to oppose the commission's largest programme.
  Hon. Members can try, as they have done this evening, to rewrite the history of the end of the Training Commission, but despite the last-minute pleas of the Leader of the Opposition and others—excluding the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher)—the congress voted massively against ET, knowing the likely and, as my hon. Friend the member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Paice) said, inevitable consequences of that vote.
  Of course, some unions and union leaders realise the importance of training and are prepared to act accordingly. We want to work with them but, much too often, whatever they say, unions act against training. We have seen this in the YTS, most recently in the Civil Service. We have seen it in ET and on some area manpower boards. The training of outsiders is regarded as potentially damaging to existing members, and trade unions can sometimes be as restrictive as any mediaeval guild. That is why, although we want unions interested in training to join employers on the training and enterprise councils, we will not give them an automatic place.
  Labour Members have argued today both that the Bill does not go far enough and that it goes too far. I can understand the Labour party's distaste for the Bill. Labour Members like regulations; they are wedded to regulations. The exaltation of regulations is the unwritten clause of the Labour party's constitution. It is almost the stuff of the party's constitution. In its view, regulation is the staff of life and the prop of politics.
  Mr. Cryer: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Cope: No, I will not. I can well understand the dislike of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues for the Bill. The Bill reduces the total weight of legislation in force because regulations are the enemy of job creation. It is essential to retain safeguards on health and safety and we have done that. Every regulation that is necessary makes it more important to get rid of those that are not. That is what the Bill does and why I commend it to the House.
  Mr. Nellist: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. David Waddington (Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury)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 amendment be made:
  The House divided: Ayes 190, Noes 290.

  Division No. 29]

  [9.59 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Allen, Graham

  Gordon, Mildred

  Alton, David

  Gould, Bryan

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Grocott, Bruce

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Hardy, Peter

  Ashton, Joe

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Haynes, Frank

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Henderson, Doug

  Battle, John

  Hinchliffe, David

  Beith, A. J.

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Bell, Stuart

  Holland, Stuart

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

  Home Robertson, John

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Hood, Jimmy

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Howells, Geraint

  Blunkett, David

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Boateng, Paul

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Boyes, Roland

  Illsley, Eric

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Ingram, Adam

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Janner, Greville

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Buchan, Norman

  Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)

  Buckley, George J.

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  Caborn, Richard

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Callaghan, Jim

  Lambie, David

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Lamond, James

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Leighton, Ron

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Canavan, Dennis

  Lewis, Terry

  Cartwright, John

  Litherland, Robert

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Livsey, Richard

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Clay, Bob

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  McAllion, John

  Cohen, Harry

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Coleman, Donald

  McCartney, Ian

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Cox, Tom

  McKelvey, William

  Crowther, Stan

  McLeish, Henry

  Cryer, Bob

  Maclennan, Robert

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  McNamara, Kevin

  Cunningham, Dr John

  McTaggart, Bob

  Dalyell, Tam

  McWilliam, John

  Darling, Alistair

  Madden, Max

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Marek, Dr John

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

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Dewar, Donald

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Dixon, Don

  Martlew, Eric

  Dobson, Frank

  Maxton, John

  Doran, Frank

  Meacher, Michael

  Douglas, Dick

  Meale, Alan

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Michael, Alun

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Eadie, Alexander

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

  Eastham, Ken

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  Morley, Elliott

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Fatchett, Derek

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Faulds, Andrew

  Mowlam, Marjorie

  Fearn, Ronald

  Mullin, Chris

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Murphy, Paul

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

  Nellist, Dave

  Flannery, Martin

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Flynn, Paul

  O'Brien, William

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Parry, Robert

  Foster, Derek

  Pendry, Tom

  Foulkes, George

  Pike, Peter L.

  Fraser, John

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Fyfe, Maria

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Galbraith, Sam

  Radice, Giles

  Galloway, George

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Reid, Dr John

  935

  Richardson, Jo

  Strang, Gavin

  Robinson, Geoffrey

  Straw, Jack

  Rogers, Allan

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Rooker, Jeff

  Turner, Dennis

  Rowlands, Ted

  Vaz, Keith

  Ruddock, Joan

  Wall, Pat

  Salmond, Alex

  Walley, Joan

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Sheerman, Barry

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Sillars, Jim

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Winnick, David

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

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

  Wray, Jimmy

  Snape, Peter

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Soley, Clive

  Spearing, Nigel

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Mr. James Wallace and

  Stott, Roger

  Mr. Alex Carlile.

  NOES

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Alexander, Richard

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Cope. Rt Hon John

  Amess, David

  Couchman, James

  Amos, Alan

  Cran, James

  Arbuthnot, James

  Critchley, Julian

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Curry, David

  Ashby, David

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

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Day, Stephen

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Devlin, Tim

  Batiste, Spencer

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Dicks, Terry

  Bellingham, Henry

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Bendall, Vivian

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Dover, Den

  Benyon, W.

  Dunn, Bob

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Durant, Tony

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Dykes, Hugh

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Body, Sir Richard

  Evennett, David

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Fallon, Michael

  Boswell, Tim

  Favell, Tony

  Bottomley, Peter

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Bowis, John

  Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Brazier, Julian

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Bright, Graham

  Forman, Nigel

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

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

  Forth, Eric

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

  Franks, Cecil

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Freeman, Roger

  Budgen, Nicholas

  French, Douglas

  Burns, Simon

  Gale, Roger

  Burt, Alistair

  Gardiner, George

  Butcher, John

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Butler, Chris

  Gill, Christopher

  Butterfill, John

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Carrington, Matthew

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Carttiss, Michael

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Cash, William

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Gow, Ian

  Chapman, Sydney

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Chope, Christopher

  Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

  Churchill, Mr

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

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

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Gregory, Conal

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Grist, Ian

  Colvin, Michael

  Ground, Patrick

  Conway, Derek

  Grylls, Michael

  936

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Mellor, David

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Mills, Iain

  Hannam, John

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

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

  Mitchell, Sir David

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Moate, Roger

  Harris, David

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Hayes, Jerry

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Moss, Malcolm

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Heddle, John

  Mudd, David

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Needham, Richard

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Neubert, Michael

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Hill, James

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Hind, Kenneth

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Norris, Steve

  Holt, Richard

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Howard, Michael

  Page, Richard

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

  Paice, James

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Patnick, Irvine

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Patten, John (Oxford W)

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Pawsey, James

  Hunter, Andrew

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Irvine, Michael

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Irving, Charles

  Portillo, Michael

  Jack, Michael

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Jackson, Robert

  Price, Sir David

  Janman, Tim

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Jessel, Toby

  Redwood, John

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Renton, Tim

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Riddick, Graham

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Key, Robert

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Kilfedder, James

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Rost, Peter

  Knapman, Roger

  Rowe, Andrew

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Knowles, Michael

  Ryder, Richard

  Knox, David

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Lang, Ian

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Latham, Michael

  Shelton, Sir William

  Lawrence, Ivan

  (Streatham)

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Lightbown, David

  Shersby, Michael

  Lilley, Peter

  Sims, Roger

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Lord, Michael

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Lyell, Sir Nicholas

  Speller, Tony

  McCrindle, Robert

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Squire, Robin

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Maclean, David

  Stern, Michael

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Stevens, Lewis

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Madel, David

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Sumberg, David

  Malins, Humfrey

  Summerson, Hugo

  Mans, Keith

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Maples, John

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Marland, Paul

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Marlow, Tony

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Thorne, Neil

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Thurnham, Peter

  937

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Whitney, Ray

  Tredinnick, David

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Trippier, David

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Wood, Timothy

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Yeo, Tim

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Waller, Gary

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Walters, Sir Dennis

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle and

  Ward, John

  Mr. Tom Sackville

  Wheeler, John

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Main Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 60 (Amendment on Second or Third Reading):—
  The House divided: Ayes 290, Noes 216.

  Division No. 30]

  [10.15pm

  AYES

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Alexander, Richard

  Couchman, James

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Cran, James

  Amess, David

  Critchley, Julian

  Amos, Alan

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Arbuthnot, James

  Curry, David

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

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

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Ashby, David

  Day, Stephen

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

  Devlin, Tim

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Dicks, Terry

  Batiste, Spencer

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Bellingham, Henry

  Dover, Den

  Bendall, Vivian

  Dunn, Bob

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)>

  Durant, Tony

  Benyon, W.

  Dykes, Hugh

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Evennett, David

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

  Body, Sir Richard

  Fallon, Michael

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Favell, Tony

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Boswell, Tim

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Bottomley, Peter

  Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Bowis, John

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Forman, Nigel

  Brazier, Julian

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Bright, Graham

  Forth, Eric

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

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

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Franks, Cecil

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Freeman, Roger

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

  French, Douglas

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Gale, Roger

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Gardiner, George

  Burns, Simon

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Burt, Alistair

  Gill, Christopher

  Butcher, John

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Butler, Chris

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Butterfill, John

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Carrington, Matthew

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Carttiss, Michael

  Gow, Ian

  Cash, William

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

  Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Chope, Christopher

  Gregory, Conal

  Churchill, Mr

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

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

  Grist, Ian

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Ground, Patrick

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Grylls, Michael

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Colvin, Michael

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Conway, Derek

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Hannam, John

  938

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

  Moate, Roger

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Harris, David

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Hayes, Jerry

  Moss, Malcolm

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Heddle, John

  Mudd, David

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Needham, Richard

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Neubert, Michael

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Hill, James

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Hind, Kenneth

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Norris, Steve

  Holt, Richard

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Howard, Michael

  Page, Richard

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

  Paice, James

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Patnick, Irvine

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Patten, John (Oxford W)

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Pawsey, James

  Hunter, Andrew

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Irvine, Michael

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Irving, Charles

  Portillo, Michael

  Jack, Michael

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Jackson, Robert

  Price, Sir David

  Janman, Tim

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Jessel, Toby

  Redwood, John

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Renton, Tim

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Riddick, Graham

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Key, Robert

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Kilfedder, James

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Rost, Peter

  Knapman, Roger

  Rowe, Andrew

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Knowles, Michael

  Ryder, Richard

  Knox, David

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Lang, Ian

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Latham, Michael

  Shelton, Sir William

  Lawrence, Ivan

  (Streatham)

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Lightbown, David

  Shersby, Michael

  Lilley, Peter

  Sims, Roger

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Lord, Michael

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Lyell, Sir Nicholas

  Speller, Tony

  McCrindle, Robert

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Squire, Robin

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Maclean, David

  Stern, Michael

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Stevens, Lewis

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Madel, David

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Sumberg, David

  Malins, Humfrey

  Summerson, Hugo

  Mans, Keith

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Maples, John

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Marland, Paul

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Marlow, Tony

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Thorne, Neil

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Thurnham, Peter

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Mellor, David

  Tredinnick, David

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Trippier, David

  Mills, Iain

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Mitchell, Sir David

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  939

  Waller, Gary

  Wood, Timothy

  Walters, Sir Dennis

  Yeo, Tim

  Ward, John

  Wheeler, John

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Whitney, Ray

  Mr. David Heathcote-Amory

  Widdecombe, Ann

  and Mr. Tom Sackville.

  Wiggin, Jerry

  NOES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Crowther, Stan

  Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

  Cryer, Bob

  Allen, Graham

  Cummings, John

  Alton, David

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Anderson, Donald

  Cunningham, Dr John

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Dalyell, Tam

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Darling, Alistair

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Ashton, Joe

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

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Dewar, Donald

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Dixon, Don

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Dobson, Frank

  Barron, Kevin

  Doran, Frank

  Battle, John

  Douglas, Dick

  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

  Faulds, Andrew

  Blunkett, David

  Fearn, Ronald

  Boateng, Paul

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Boyes, Roland

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

  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

  Callaghan, Jim

  Galloway, George

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Canavan, Dennis

  Gordon, Mildred

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Gould, Bryan

  Cartwright, John

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Clay, Bob

  Hardy, Peter

  Clelland, David

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Cohen, Harry

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Coleman, Donald

  Henderson, Doug

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Hinchliffe, David

  Corbett, Robin

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Holland, Stuart

  Cousins, Jim

  Home Robertson, John

  Cox, Tom

  Hood, Jimmy

  940

  Howells, Geraint

  Parry, Robert

  Hoyle, Doug

  Pendry, Tom

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Pike, Peter L.

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Illsley, Eric

  Prescott, John

  Ingram, Adam

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Janner, Greville

  Radice, Giles

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Redmond, Martin

  Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  Reid, Dr John

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Richardson, Jo

  Lambie, David

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Lamond, James

  Robertson, George

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Robinson, Geoffrey

  Leighton, Ron

  Rogers, Allan

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Rooker, Jeff

  Lewis, Terry

  Rowlands, Ted

  Litherland, Robert

  Ruddock, Joan

  Livsey, Richard

  Salmond, Alex

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Sheerman, Barry

  McAllion, John

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  McCartney, Ian

  Short, Clare

  McCrea, Rev William

  Sillars, Jim

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Skinner, Dennis

  McGrady, Eddie

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

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

  McKelvey, William

  Snape, Peter

  McLeish, Henry

  Soley, Clive

  Maclennan, Robert

  Spearing, Nigel

  McNamara, Kevin

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  McTaggart, Bob

  Steinberg, Gerry

  McWilliam, John

  Stott, Roger

  Madden, Max

  Strang, Gavin

  Marek, Dr John

  Straw, Jack

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Turner, Dennis

  Martlew, Eric

  Vaz, Keith

  Maxton, John

  Wall, Pat

  Meacher, Michael

  Wallace, James

  Meale, Alan

  Walley, Joan

  Michael, Alun

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan

  Morley, Elliott

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Winnick, David

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Mowlam, Marjorie

  Wray, Jimmy

  Mullin, Chris

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Murphy, Paul

  Nellist, Dave

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Mr. Frank Haynes and

  O'Brien, William

  Mr. Jimmy Dunnachie.

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

  Rating Reform (Scotland)
  10.27 pm
  The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Ian Lang): I beg to move,
  That the Rate Support Grant (Scotland) (No. 2) Order 1988, dated 28th November 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 30th November, be approved.
  I understand that it would be for the convenience of the House if we were to debate at the same time the second motion on the Order Paper:
  That the Revenue Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1988, dated 28th November 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 30th November, be approved.
  Mr. Speaker: If the House agrees, so be it.
  Mr. Lang: The revenue support grant order, the first of its kind, marks the final stage of the revenue support grant settlement for 1989–90, first details of which were announced by my right hon. Friend to the House on 27 July. As my right hon. Friend stated at that time, public expenditure provision for the coming financial year has been fixed at 8 per cent. more than provision in the current year, and 4·6 per cent. above authorities' adjusted budgets for this year. It includes full provision for the extra administrative costs of operating the community charge. The increase in aggregate Exchequer grant for next year is 5·5 per cent., but after making provision for specific grant payments, the increase in revenue support grant, over the level of rate support grant for the current year, is 9·8 per cent. That is the relevant point for tonight's debate and I shall return to it later.
  The grant settlement is, of course, in respect of the first year in which domestic rates will be replaced, in Scotland, by the community charge. This leads us in turn to a simplification in the system of grant support to local authorities, and the ending of the old rate support grant with its three separate apportionments into needs and resources elements and domestic rate relief each of which then required regular adjustments in subsequent years. We shall, of course, have the legacy of the old system in the continuing need for rate support grant orders for some time, in respect of years up to 1988–89, but I am glad to say that the new revenue support grant arrangements will be simpler.
  In the first place, I propose to have only one revenue support grant order a year, and that will be a fairly short document, like the one we are considering this evening, dealing only with the year ahead. The order sets out how much grant each local authority will be paid in the following year, and the report on the order describes how these figures are arrived at. Once approved, each authority's grant will be fixed and the authority can be certain of precisely how much it will receive. There will, in general, be no subsequent adjustments, either for the various technical reasons that have required adjustment in the past or in respect of grant penalties. The effect of the community charge will be to make councils much more responsive and accountable to their electorates for their spending levels and for that reason the Government feel able to abandon the system of grant penalties.
  It is worth mentioning at this point the other Significant change which will begin to make its impact on local government next year and that is the introduction of the competition provisions in the Local Government Act 1988. The effect of competition will be to make the local
  942
  authority operations to which it applies more efficient and to reduce their costs. This will be so irrespective of whether the successful bidders for business are outside contractors or the authorities' own direct labour organisations. The introduction of the community charge and the new competition provisions should between them bring considerable benefits to local charge payers, both in respect of the payments required of them and of the services with which they are provided.
  When my right hon. and learned Friend announced in July the terms of the revenue support grant settlement for next year, he said that, if councils were to keep their expenditure increases within the present level of inflation, there would be no reason for community charge levels next year to be higher than they would have been if councils had been required to raise the same amounts as domestic rates this year. We published figures at the time showing that that would mean, for most community charge payers, payments in the range £200 to £300. Last month, we published our detailed estimates of what, on this basis, each community charge ought to be next year.
  The matter has been one of lively discussion since then and my right hon and learned Friend and I have been accused by local authorities of almost every crime in the book. May I say this evening that I do not withdraw a word of what we have said on this matter. Underlying our prognostications are a few simple facts. Local authorities have three main sources of income with which they finance their expenditure. These are non-domestic rates, grant and, from next April, the community charge.
  Mr. Dennis Canavan: In calculating the amount of revenue support grant, what estimate did the Government make of the number of people who will refuse to pay the poll tax?
  Mr. Lang: The provision for non-payment is broadly similar to the provision that exists under domestic rates, although in that instance it is more a question of reliefs than of non-payment. Under the community charge, the reliefs and exemptions are likely to amount to about 2·3 per cent. compared with 6 per cent. of reliefs.
  Mr. George Foulkes: Is it not the case that the Government have said to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities that the non-collection rate will be 5 per cent? Is it not also the case that everyone in local authorities and all others who make any reasonable judgment of the matter think that that is a gross under-estimate, and that the figure will be well in excess of 5 per cent? Local authorities will not, therefore, raise a substantial sum of money through the poll tax this year, as the Government expect.
  Mr. Lang: The record of those who have estimated the success or failure of the various processes in preparation for the community charge is such that I think that our own figures are rather closer to reality than those of the others. The figure is broadly the same for shortfall, which is a total of around 7 per cent., as under the domestic rating system, and that includes reliefs and non-payment.
  Under the provisions of the 1987 legislation—
  Mr. Harry Ewing: I want to ask the Minister a simple question. What on earth has the level of the poll tax got to do with the Scottish Office? Was it not the case that, when the legislation was introduced, the Government argued that they introduced it to create a

  943
  situation in which the matter was between the local authorities and their electorate? What has it to do with the Scottish Office?
  Mr. Lang: It will be such a matter. Accountability is one of the central underlying themes. But throughout last year we heard various Labour councillors and directors of finance estimating outlandish figures such as £529, which was the figure that the finance director of Glasgow estimated. Curiously enough, that estimate emerged in the middle of the local government elections. We have waited until the facts were available to us and then, on the basis of the facts that I am describing now, we have said what the level of community charge would need to be if there was no volume increase in spending by local authorities.
  Under the 1987 legislation, authorities now know the inflation-related increase in their non-domestic rate income next year. They also know, subject to the agreement of the House this evening, their increase in grant income. The increase in revenue support grant for local authorities as a whole is 9·8 per cent. over the rate support grant first payable in respect of the present year. Many authorities will gain a much higher increase than that, and for the high-spending authorities that have incurred grant penalties this year, the actual increase in grant next year, by comparison with what they are receiving this year, will in some cases be very substantial.
  Mr. John Maxton: In view of what he has said about grant penalties, why does the Minister not, even now, write off all the penalties for last year? The Secretary of State for the Environment has said that he will not impose any penalties in the coming financial year simply to allow a better run into the poll tax.
  Mr. Lang: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the systems are not the same. It is important to maintain downward pressure on local authority spending. That is why we made it clear at the outset that penalties would remain this year. The English have decided to close down their grant system. The effect of that is that there can be no adjustment, so they will not benefit, as we will, if authorities bring their spending into line, from grant adjustments of some £89 million.
  All that is left for authorities to fix for themselves is the income that they can expect from community charges. It is absolutely clear, therefore, that if authorities propose to maintain the same volume of spending next year as they are planning this year, they ought to charge the level of community charge that my right hon. and learned Friend announced last month. If their charges are higher, the answer is simple—they are increasing the volume of their spending. Their electors are entitled to know that, and that is why we published our estimated figures when we did. As the House will see, the revenue support grant order is a very simple and straightforward document which simply sets out the amount of grant that we propose to pay to each authority. The basis on which these sums have been arrived at is set out in the report. This is in accordance with the provisions of schedule 4 of the 1987 Act.
  First, an amount has been distributed among authorities on the basis of their assessed needs. This is a process akin to the distribution of the needs element of the present rate support grant, and the basis of distribution is to equalise for different per capita needs. The rest of the available grant is then distributed on a straightforward per capita basis. The result of this process is to increase
  944
  substantially the share of grant going to some authorities by comparison with the present rate support grant arrangements, and correspondingly to reduce the share going to other authorities. There are various reasons for this, but the most notable is that under the old system an authority could actually gain grant by setting a high rate poundage. This encouraged overspending, so in our new grant arrangements it is of no benefit to a local authority to have a high non-domestic rate poundage.
  Mr. Foulkes: The Minister wil know that Cumnock and Doon Valley has been a responsible authority. At a meeting in Lugar, when the Secretary of State visited the area recently, he said that he would bend over backwards to assist Cumnock and Doon Valley because of the high level of unemployment, the poverty and the deprivation in the area. Why has assistance to the authority been reduced by £500,000? That is surely not bending over backwards to help.
  Mr. Lang: I shall gladly look into the matter if the hon. Gentleman would like to give me details of his anxieties. The authority benefits from the safety net, both in terms of the district and as a district in Strathclyde region, to the extent of some £19 a head.
  Mr. Dick Douglas: How does the Minister respond to COSLA's assertion that safety-netting goes against accountability and that, if we really want to tackle accountability, we should try to direct the tapering device towards the individual?
  Mr. Lang: Not since Saul set out for Tarsus has such a blinding flash of light led to such dramatic conversions to the principle of accountability such as we now hear from the Opposition. I shall answer the hon. Gentleman's question by saying exactly what I was about to say on safety-netting. The legislation provides that, having carried out the allocation process, the Secretary of State may then alter the resulting figures. That is the so-called safety-netting power. Its declared intention is to allow damping of swings in grant entitlement.
  I understand the concern, but there is nothing new in this arrangement except that we are now starting to do away with it. I am glad to hear that there is a welcome for that from the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes). For years past there have been arrangements to modify grant entitlement to moderate fluctuations in any one local authority from one year to the next. Last year, for example, in distributing the needs element of rate support grant, each authority was guaranteed a minimum increase of 4 per cent. over the present year, and that was financed by imposing a 10 per cent. limit on gains. Last year, the precise detail of the arrangement was suggested to us by COSLA in the course of a meeting that it had with my right hon. and learned Friend and myself.
  So there is nothing new or unusual about that sort of arrangement. Indeed, it was a feature of the old grant system that, through the operation of the resources element, some high-spending authorities attracted more grant by virtue of their high rate poundages. The new arrangements for the distribution of revenue support grant will give no such advantage to high spenders. It is only now, under the greater transparency and accountability of

  945
  the new arrangements, that we can see more easily the unacceptable degree of cross-subsidy of the high spenders by the low spenders that has existed in the past.
  The Green Paper on local government reform assumed that the cross-subsidy would be carried over 100 per cent. into the first year of the new system. Legislation was enacted against the background of that assumption and all illustrations of community charge levels that the Government have published until recently have been based on it. I take the view—I am glad that some Opposition Members agree with me—that it is unacceptable—
  Mr. Douglas: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Lang: I would rather that the hon. Gentleman hear me out. When he has done so, I shall give way to him.
  Mr. Douglas rose—
  Mr. Lang: If the hon. Gentleman will hear me out, I shall give way to him. [Interruption.]
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order.
  Mr. Douglas: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am willing to read Hansard and analyse what I said earlier, but I ask the Minister to respond to that which COSLA has said. I am willing to use my own phraseology. The Minister is prepared—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he is raising a matter for debate and not a matter on which the Chair can rule.
  Mr. Douglas: It is all right—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Mr. Lang.
  Mr. Lang: I am in the process of responding to the question of the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) about COSLA. If he will bear with me, I shall give him the rest of the answer. The Green Paper on local government reform assumed that the cross-subsidy would be carried over 100 per cent. in the first year of the new system. The legislation was enacted against the background of that assumption. We take the view that it is unacceptable to continue with this situation for other than the short term. That is why my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and I have taken steps to remove 38 per cent. of the cross-subsidy or safety net at once. We plan to withdraw the rest within the next three years or so.
  We must recognise, however, that for community charge payers in some authorities, especially in Glasgow and Strathclyde, too sudden a change in the grant arrangements would have had dramatic consequences as we move to a completely new and fairer system. The safety net merely reflects temporarily, and on a declining basis, the advantage that some authorities had under the old grant system to enable such authorities to adapt.
  The authorities that are most vociferous in their complaints about the temporary continuance of a cross-subsidy should reflect that they are the direct beneficiaries of the change to the new system of grant distribution that gets away from the resource element contribution. They are benefiting further from the already substantial phasing out of safety nets, and they are the
  946
  recipients of the largest increase in grant under the new system. For example, the Borders region stands to gain 13·5 per cent. more next year than this, and the Grampian region 14·6 per cent. more—more than double the rise in the cost of living—and many districts are receiving still larger increases.
  The Revenue Support Grant (Scotland) Order before us tonight, represents an extremely good deal for both local authorities and domestic taxpayers. Every regional and islands council is receiving a grant increase well in excess of the rate of inflation. Taken together with the sums of grant being returned to authorities in respect of earlier years, there is every reason to expect community charges to be set at moderate levels. I commend the orders to the House.
  10.45 pm
  Mr. John Maxton: I can understand why the Minister kept his head down and read every word of his dreary speech. If he had lifted his head and had happened to catch the eye of anyone on either side of the House, I doubt whether he could have kept a straight face. He would have broken into fits of laughter because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) has said, he was talking nonsense.
  Tonight we are debating for the first time the new grant arrangements under the poll tax legislation that the Government are imposing upon the Scottish people, despite almost total opposition to it. The levels of poll tax to be imposed will depend upon the Revenue Support Grant (Scotland) Order and I intend to limit my remarks to that.
  The Minister tried to imply that this is a simple matter. Of course the order is simple, because it is simply a list of figures representing what each local authority will receive. The idea that the process by which those figures have been arrived at is more simple than past methods is absolute nonsense. Consider the document put to COSLA by the Scottish Office about how the safety netting is arrived at, which stated:
  "Column 28 is calculated as follows:
  For an area with no safety net community charge (column 27) over £275, and with a no safety net charge (column 27) greater than the fully safety-netted charge (column 26), column 28 is the greater of £275 and column 26, its fully safety-netted charge,"
  etc., etc.
  Mr. Henry McLeish: That is simple enough!
  Mr. Maxton: Oh yes. If anyone believes that the method is simple and is anything other than gobbledegook, he is a con man. Perhaps that is exactly what the Secretary of State and the Minister are.
  The Secretary of State and the Minister have tried to claim that the settlement is generous and that the levels of poll tax are much lower than we had estimated. The Minister made much play of that in his speech. He forgets that our objection to the poll tax is not the level imposed on any individual, but the fact that it is grossly unfair that the tax can be imposed on someone who is just above the low rebate scheme and that the same level of tax is imposed on the wealthiest in the land. That is our moral objection to the poll tax:no matter the level, the tax is grossly unfair.
  I accept that the settlement under the poll tax is more generous than past settlements, but that is not saying a

  947
  great deal for it. Equally, that generosity does not stem from the Government's munificence to the Scottish people, but is part of cheap political opportunism and sheer accident.
  The accident which increases the settlement to 9·8 per cent. is the £70 million that the Government, somehow or other, managed to con the Treasury into allowing them to keep. Normally they would have lost that money to the Treasury. The Secretary of State may smile, but I hope that he will be able to guarantee that that £70 million will not be clawed back by the Treasury next year, thus putting an extra burden on the Scottish poll tax payers.
  The percentage of grant to relevant expenditure remains at 55·4 per cent., exactly the same as it was last year. It is worth saying again and again that, in 1979, the percentage of grant was 68·4 per cent. If that same figure of grant was being given by the Secretary of State today, the average poll tax in Scotland—based on the Secretary of State's formula—would be not £275 but £180.
  Mr. Lang: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will extend his arithmetic and say what it would be if the level had not been reduced from 75 per cent. to 68·5 per cent. by the last Labour Administration.
  Mr. Maxton: Nobody has denied that it was reduced by the last Labour Government, but the massive major reduction in grant has occurred under the Tories. The hon. Gentleman should admit that. It is his problem. The Conservatives have been in power for 10 years and he must accept responsibility for what they have done.
  Mr. Harry Ewing: Perhaps my hon. Friend should remind the Minister that the rate support grant level was at 75 per cent. to compensate local authorities in Scotland for the reorganisation of local government imposed on them by the outgoing Conservative Government, who left the Labour Administration to pick up the tab. It was always understood that it would be reduced to 68·5 per cent.
  Mr Maxton: My hon. Friend has explained the position as fully as I would have expected him to do. This is not a particularly generous settlement, so let us not get carried away into believing that the Minister is a late phoney Father Christmas.
  Grant is given against the relevant expenditure figure that the Secretary of State claims each Scottish local authority should spend next year. If that figure is wrong, then so is the grant less generous than would appear to be the case. On the surface, as the Minister has tried to claim, there appears to be an increase of 8 per cent. in the level of relevant expenditure. But against this year's adjusted budgets it is only 4·3 per cent., and that is well below the level of inflation as estimated by the Government. It includes—but the Minister did not mention this—an extra £13 million for the implementation and administration of the poll tax, an admission that the Government got it wrong in terms of the cost of the poll tax all along.
  If local authorities cannot live within that 4·3 per cent. increase—which, as I say, is well below the estimated rate of inflation and almost certainly well below the local government rate of inflation—the poll tax figures will be well above the guesses put out by the Secretary of State. It is difficult to see how local authorities will be able to maintain existing services within that figure, let alone meet the new burdens that have been placed on them—the
  948
  revised staffing standards in schools, the introduction of school boards, the development of compulsory tendering and the pay awards for police and fire services that, as we know, will be well above 4·3 per cent.
  When loan and interest charges are added, the total level of expenditure supported by grant is £4,505 million. But the sum for loan charges is based on an interest rate of 10·2 per cent. and no hon. Member believes that that is remotely realistic in the present economic climate. The Minister must give a guarantee to the House now that he will bring forward variation orders to take account of the changes in interest rates that have been imposed by the Government in recent months. If he fails to do that, the poll tax payer will again have to carry that burden.
  The Government are arriving at their estimated poll tax figures assuming that exemptions and non-collections will be the same as for rates. Nobody, apart from the occupants of the Government Front Bench, believes that to be true. Everybody believes that the level of poll tax non-payment and the problems of collection will be so much greater that the poll tax figures for those who can and will pay will be that much higher.
  I accept that if the Government had continued the trend since 1979 and reduced the support grant yet again., and if the safety net system based on the unrealistic £275 Scottish average had not been introduced, the poll tax in many authorities, particularly in the west of Scotland, would have been much higher. For instance, but for the safety net, the combined Glasgow and Strathclyde rate would have been £55 more than it will be. The deliberate depressing of the poll tax figures is not an attempt by the Government to be generous to the poll tax payers of Glasgow and Strathclyde; it is a desperate attempt to reduce the political outcry on 1 April when the poll lax bills go out.
  Mr. Douglas: This is governmental corruption.
  Mr. Maxton: That is why my hon. Friend speaks in such terms, although I perhaps would not; but he is right. This is an attempt to hide the great hatred for the poll tax in Scotland. At long last the Government seem to have realised that the poll tax is deeply unpopular among the vast majority of Scottish people. Knowing that they will have to take full responsibility for the tax and the level at which it is set this year, they have attempted to reduce its impact by these devious means.
  I assume that over the next few years the Government will resume their reductions in grant to local authorities. The Minister has already said that they intend to run down the safety net procedures. By doing that they hope that the resultant increase in the poll tax will be blamed on what they call spendthrift Labour-controlled authorities, not on the Government.
  Let us examine the safety net procedures. Non-domestic rates are now paid into a common pool and redistributed on a per capita basis to local authorities. That means that authorities such as Strathclyde and Glasgow, with high levels of non-domestic subjects and high domestic rate poundages, contribute more, and authorities with low levels gain.
  So the Government decided in their wisdom, against the advice of COSLA, to ensure that the enormous disparities that this would create should be compensated for by a safety net. But this safety net does not help the poorer, as opposed to the richer, poll tax payer—as it

  949
  should. It helps all local authorities and all poll tax payers in individual poll tax areas. Moreover, the safety net makes a complete mockery of the whole Government case for the poll tax. That case is all about accountability. We have heard time and again—and again from the Minister tonight—that the poll tax is about accountability. We heard that on Second Reading, in Committee and on Report and Third Reading of the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Bill. Local authorities were to be made accountable for what they did. Now, under the sham that the Government have introduced, Strathclyde and Glasgow will not be accountable this year for the sums that they will raise in poll tax. [Laughter.] The Government have destroyed their own case, and all they can do is laugh.
  There will be no accountability in Strathclyde and Glasgow because the local authorities there have not decided the level of the poll tax: the Government have. Accountability goes out the window as a result of this order. The fact that the Government have felt it necessary to introduce it illustrates the sorry mess of the new system. Something had to be done; otherwise the Strathclyde ratepayers, particularly the poorer ones, would have had to pay much more.
  Under the crazy scheme that the Government came up with, Sutherland district council would have received £30 for every poll tax payer in its area. There would have been no district poll tax payment by the council. It would have been able to reduce the regional poll tax by £30, too. How absurd! As the poll tax is phased out, so accountability disappears. Glasgow, Strathclyde and other local authorities will have to increase their poll taxes merely to stand still. Even if they reduce their expenditure or maintain it at the same level, their poll taxes will inevitably rise. [Laughter.] The Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth), who is the architect, the evil mind, behind this whole ridiculous affair, is laughing. He knows that is what he has wanted all along.
  Strathclyde has reduced expenditure but the poll tax will go up in every one of the local authority areas that benefited this time. However, those who have lost this year will find that they can both increase expenditure and reduce their poll tax at the same time. Where then is the accountability? I thought that this was supposed to stop local authorities from overspending, from increasing their expenditure. Authorities that keep expenditure at the same level will be penalised and those that increase it may well find that they will be all right.
  This is an unfair system and makes nonsense of the case for local accountability. The settlement has little to do with the real needs of the people of Scotland or with the services that local government provides. It has all to do with the desperate political plight of the Secretary of State and his party. They know that they are in deep trouble over the poll tax and that the people of Scotland do not want it. Luckily, the people of Scotland are not stupid. Since 1979 they have shown that they know where to put the blame in local government matters. In election after election they have rejected the Conservatives and will continue to do so despite transparent misuses of political power such as this.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Many hon. Members want to participate in the debate. Therefore, I appeal for brevity. I hope that the House will respond to my appeal so that I can call all those concerned.
  11.1 pm
  Mr. Allan Stewart: Much of what the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) said was clearly predictable. It seemed that he had some difficulty in complaining about the details of the settlement and the orders that are before the House. I listened with particular interest to what he said about safety nets in Glasgow because I shall be a community charge payer in Glasgow. He delivered his speech with a great deal of verve and enthusiasm, but at the end of it I was wholly unclear about whether he and his party were in favour of the safety net provisions. As he represents Cathcart, he should have made it unequivocally clear that in the context of the new system the safety net provisions are sensible. I shall come back to that.
  I emphasise that this is clearly a generous settlement with an increase of 9·8 per cent. in total grant. The grudging comments from the hon. Member for Cathcart were just about as near to a recognition of that as the Opposition will dare to go. The hon. Gentleman gave the impression that safety nets were a new concept and that somehow they had been introduced because of particular problems that had arisen at the last minute over the introduction of the community charge system. Nothing could be further from the truth.
  If one goes back not to the Bill or the White Paper but to the original consultation document, the Green Paper, one sees that on page 64 it says:
  "to move directly to the new grant arrangements would entail unacceptable disruption".
  That is why there will be safey net provisions. There is nothing at all new about the introduction of safety net provisions for the first few years of the community charge system.
  Mr. Douglas: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Stewart: No. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman but I am conscious of what you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have said about the amount of time available.
  The settlement has evoked different reactions from different authorities. Perhaps unusually, I should like to congratulate Strathclyde regional council on its provisional budget because it has come out to within one pound of the Scottish Office estimates which are constantly derided and abused by the Labour party as being wholly unrealistic, fatuous and wrong. They were certainly not so in the case of Scotland's largest and overwhelmingly Labour-controlled local authority.
  Of course, there have been different reactions elsewhere. The Lothian reaction has been to take the figures out of thin air and constantly revise them. We have heard the complaints from Borders and Grampian about safety nets, but it is worth emphasising that, after the safety net provisions, the grant increase for Grampian is 14·6 per cent. and for Borders 13·5 per cent. I do not know what is happening about the Grampian budget. No one appears to know what is happening about the administration of the Grampian region these days. Perhaps the hon. Member for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh) or the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) can tell us whether there is still an administration. However,

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  we know that Borders appears to be intending to increase its expenditure by over 11 per cent. in the forthcoming year. That is a quite unreasonable increase and puts into context the complaints about the grant system that have emanated from that area.
  You have asked hon. Members to be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. I therefore conclude by saying that the grant settlement is a fair and reasonable settlement. It was important that the Government obtain a just settlement for the introduction of the new community charge system. All the evidence is that the system is going ahead and will be implemented. The campaigns of non-payment and registration about which we have heard so much from Labour Members will clearly be a complete and utter failure.
  11.6 pm
  Mr. Torn Clarke: If it were not for the fact that I sought to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, on a specific point involving my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith)—it is an immediate problem concerning Strathkelvin district council—it would be tempting to enter into the mainstream debate.
  The Secretary of State might recall that I was present at several meetings in another capacity when rate support grant settlements were debated. Hon. Members see a colossal amount of Government interference in local government matters which are not for the Government at all. There is more than a degree of unreality when we see clearly—COSLA has not been mentioned very often, although the Government have a statutory duty to consult it—that the inflation rate, for example, is well above the 4·3 per cent. that the order recognises.
  We also see that, although the Government are forced to recognise the reality of increasing public expenditure, for example, in the Department of Social Security, they are pouring money into private residential homes which have arisen as a result of the strain on the health services. The Government do not recognise that those same strains apply to the social work departments of Scottish local government.
  May I turn briefly to the specific problems of Strathkelvin district to which I referred. My concern is shared by my hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden and is known to the Minister. I thank the Minister and his staff for the attention that they have given to the matter. There has been a error in the calculation of the Strathkelvin rate support grant settlement. That is rather serious, because Strathkelvin district council will be underpaid by between £300,000 and £350,000 in 1989–90. The situation has arisen as a result of an incorrect figure supplied to the Department by the regional council in connection with non-domestic rating in the next financial year. As a result, the grant was calculated based on Strathkelvin receiving £2·731 million from non-domestic rates in 1989–90. The actual figure available is £2·273 million. I understand that the Scottish Office has told Strathkelvin that, although a recalculation cannot be made immediately, it has agreed that the amount underpaid will be recalculated during December 1989 and will be repaid then.
  I invite the Minister to confirm the figures for the record, if only because Strathkelvin is concerned about its budget. When does the Minister think that any payment
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  might be made? I hope that I will not sound churlish when I state that I recall on a previous occasion, when something similar happened to Monklands district council, my distinguished predecessor, the late Jimmy Dempsey, advocated the need for adjustments. The Government did meet his request in due course, but only after several years, and they did not meet the full amount. I hope that Strathkelvin will not endure the same experience.
  11.10 pm
  Mr. Bill Walker: I have noted your comments, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I promise to be brief.
  The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) clearly finds it difficult to suggest that there should not have been a safety net when there is a 9·8 per cent. increase. He suggests that there is something odd in having a safety net, but he knows full well that cushioning is essential in any transition period. I can only speak for myself in these matters, but I believe that my view reflects Government policy. I have stood at all elections on a platform of prudent Government expenditure and the control of Government expenditure and the reduction of taxes. I do not apologise for that.
  The present position, with the community charge pending, is very interesting. Tayside regional council has been sending out a delightful blue form. I wonder about the legality of a form from a body that has been set up by statute and which operates under statute. That body is sending out forms carrying references to a tax that does not exist. The forms have been about the poll tax. There is no poll tax, and I believe that the forms are probably therefore illegal. It will be intesting to see what the local authority auditors say about that.
  It was also interesting to note that the Scottish National party in Angus is not adopting the policies—as we understand them—of non-co-operation and non-payment of the community charge because it is actively collecting it. More importantly, the SNP provost of Perth and Kinross, Alex Murray, has stated publicly on more than one occasion that the SNP policy is not to break the law. It seems that again we have the humbug and hypocrisy to which we have grown accustomed from that quarter.
  It seems that those who are in office and have responsibility behave properly and responsibly. Those who have little hope of ever gaining office behave irresponsibly—[Interruption.] Opposition Members should not laugh. They aspire to office but have little hope of achieving it. They should think very carefully about their attitudes in this matter. My advice to them is that this is a unitary Parliament. They should not be associated with the funny lot who represent the Scottish National party. Their views are quite clear. They are out to destroy the link that Scotland has with this place. Labour Members have a different view and I hope that they will adopt the view that one day they might be in government.
  Mr. John McAllion: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that I will not associate myself with the Scottish National party in Tayside, which recommended that those who pay the poll tax promptly should be given a discount by Tayside regional council.
  Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman and I find the antics of the Scottish National party on Tayside amusing. We have witnessed the activities of the SNP and its so-called

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  leaders and the actions of the tiny minority of its representation in this Parliament. We have also seen the activities of those in the Angus and Tayside regions. The hon. Gentleman and I look at those people, and we both realise what a bunch of hypocrites they are and what humbug comes from that quarter.
  11.14 pm
  Mrs. Ray Michie: The Minister indicated that the rate support grant measure makes provision for increases of grant to Scottish local authorities, which total £19·8 million and refer to the five financial years 1984 to 1987–88. The Government will probably take it as evidence of the success of their policy of forcing reductions in local government spending that they are able to return that sum to Scotland's hard-pressed rate and poll tax payers. However, any impression of success is bogus, because the Government's own information shows that between 1975 and 1980, the average domestic rates bill in Scotland fell by 17 per cent. Since 1979–80, when the Tories dashed in on their white charger to rescue the domestic ratepayer, Scotland's average domestic rates bill increased by 81 per cent.
  As to the Revenue Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1988, some may have hoped that one small benefit of poll tax would be that the system for calculating central Government support to local authorities would be made easier to understand. The Minister says that it is simpler, but he is wrong, because that is far from the case. The revenue support grant system is just as complicated, arcane and fundamentally irrational as the rate support grant that it replaces.
  The first point to be made about calculating expenditure needs, which underlines the order, is that the new system perpetuates the false and unrealistic assumptions the Government have made over the past nine years about the money required to maintain local government services in Scotland at a tolerable level. Some like to pretend that the Government's estimate of expenditure needs is lower than local authority budgets because local authorities are profligate. Let us look at areas when the Government consider that local authority expenditure is excessive.
  In the financial year now drawing to a close, the Government consider that Scottish local authorities, regional and island councils, should have spent about £100 million less than they did on education. The Government wanted £28 million less spent on social work—on providing for the elderly, dealing with the needs of children at risk, and of the physically and mentally handicapped, coping with the menace of AIDS, and combating the drugs problem. Those are all social work responsibilities, on which the Government want less money to be spent.
  The Government also wanted £5 million less spent on the fire service, a reduced amount for school crossing patrols, and £7 million less on roads and road lighting. They wanted £1·3 million less spent on sheltered workshops for the mentally and physically handicapped and the disabled, and £1 million less on registering electors. And so it goes on and on.
  Over the past nine years, the Government's policy has been to transfer burdens from the Treasury to local authorities. It is a particularly pernicious policy with the
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  move from rating, with all its drawbacks and disadvantages, to poll tax—with its central disadvantage that everybody who is not entitled to rebate pays exactly the same, regardless of their means. It is thus a transfer of tax burdens from a graduated system of taxation to a flat-rate system, and—as we have said often enough in the House—a deliberate exercise of unfairness.
  I am disappointed that the Government have still done nothing about business rates. There are huge discrepancies in different parts of Scotland, to say nothing of the United Kingdom. As I think the Minister knows, in my own constituency, Argyll and Bute district council has expressed deep concern about the possible non-implementation of the uniform business rate. The council considers that any failure to arrange a single rate and harmonised valuations would have a devastating effect on its fragile economy, which depends considerably on tourism. I understand that the Minister is to make a keynote speech on 27 January. If he is going to say anything significant about business rates, I would have preferred him to do so on the Floor of the House rather than at a conference later in the month.
  By continuing to fiddle with the level of revenue support grant and thereby with that of the poll tax, the Government have demonstrated that, in the new system as much as in the old, the most important determinant will be not the spending needs of local authorities but the whims of central Government in manipulating the grant. I believe that these proposals are fundamentally flawed.
  11.21 pm
  Mr. Adam Ingram: I endorse the criticisms by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton). It is important that the debate should not be about individual council settlements. However, I want to refer particularly to my own council, which has suffered significantly.
  The Secretary of State has so manipulated revenue support grant as to deny much-needed support to one authority in order to give it to another. That has been done against the best advice of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which has rightly criticised it. I should like the Minister to comment on COSLA's advice and to say why he felt it necessary to reject it.
  East Kilbride district council, having been, as I say, particularly badly affected, has, I know, expressed its extreme concern in a letter to the Minister. Over the years, the council has had a reputation as a responsible local authority: it has never been criticised by Ministers for being irresponsible or a high spender, or for acting "out of synch" with the interests of ratepayers and the community that it represents. Traditionally it has been among the three lowest-rating councils in Strathclyde region. But, owing to reasons largely outwith its control and over which it has no influence, it is heading for a personal poll tax of about £99 per head. That will be among the highest poll tax charges—possibly the highest—in Scotland's district councils.
  As the Minister will know, as part of the Government's proposals for the distribution of revenue support grant among local authorities, East Kilbride was classified as a benchmark district authority. Accordingly, the district council is to receive no proportion of grant for expenditure needs. Consequently, poll tax payers will lose to the extent of £8 per head of support grant.

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  The unwanted safety-netting procedures that the Government have imposed will result in a further loss of support amounting to £12 per head of population. That represents an overall loss of grant to East Kilbride district council of 91£3 per cent. In both money and real terms, the district council will receive only £107,000 in revenue support grant compared with £1·3 million for the current year. That is the effect of these orders on East Kilbride district council.
  I understand that Cumbernauld and Kilsyth district council is to suffer a loss of grant amounting to 27 per cent. —a significant loss, but it has to be set against East Kilbride's loss of 91·3 per cent. There can be no justification whatsoever for such a punitive measure being taken against East Kilbride. It has always acted responsibly over the years.
  The district council's main concern relates to the basic figures, which generate a likely base community charge of about £85·1 per head, before any contingency and growth items are taken into account. That has to be compared with the Government's suggested figure of £76 or £77 per head.
  I remind the Minister of the letter he received from the East Kilbride district council requesting a meeting. I ask the Minister to agree to that meeting and to listen to the council's detailed arguments. I seek a further assurance from the Minister that the revenue support grant assessment, which has worked so punitively against East Kilbride in all aspects, will be reviewed in the light of outturn information on rate products, community charge yields—and other relevant data.
  11.26 pm
  Mr. Dick Douglas: The order forms part of a political fraud. I use those words carefully. The hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) referred to the differences over terminology. He prefers to call the poll tax the community charge.
  Mr. Bill Walker: That is the legal definition.
  Mr. Douglas: All right, but if it is a charge it should be used to provide local authority services.
  Is any hon. Member prepared to say that the services provided by local authorities in Fife are in any way inferior to those provided in Strathclyde—or that they are superior'? Having thought of a figure—about £275—the Government asked themselves how they could cook the books so that that figure could be applied throughout Scotland.
  The hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) sits there smirking. He should re-read his speech of 9 December 1986 when he spoke about accountability. This proposal flies in the face of accountability. His speech in that Second Reading debate bears re-reading. It was made by a Member who never thought that he would be the Minister running the Scottish Office. Many hon. Members know that he is the man running the Scottish Office. The Secretary of State is not here, but we know that the hon. Member for Stirling is the real guy running the Scottish Office.
  The orders fly in the face of accountability. This is a transitional arrangement in advance of the regional council elections which it is hoped will placate public opinion. If we really want to talk about the imposition of a tax, we should consider how we got into this mess in the
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  first place and the measures that the Tory Government took to provide transitional arrangements for the domestic ratepayer. They did not say that there should be safety netting for the regions but for the individual ratepayer. Why do we not have the same provision now? The answer is that it does not suit them.
  The Minister has tried to put words into my mouth in relation to the Confederation of Scottish Local Authorities. COSLA is opposed to safety netting per se. However, if there is to be safety netting, it should be for individual ratepayers and it should be related to ability to pay. Despite all the obfuscation over the minimum level of rebate, the tax will be a heavy burden on those least able to pay.
  I have received letters from the chief executive of Fife district council about what might be expected from the revenue obtained from the poll tax. We know that the downturn in rates is less than 1 per cent. A prudent authority in Fife will calculate the downturn in revenue expected from the poll tax as between 5 per cent. and 10 per cent. If we find ourselves in that position, we have made a farce of accountability and local government finance.
  It was hurtful for the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker), with his knowledge of the aircraft industry, to talk about prudent local government services. The hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) is sitting in a somnolent position. A tragedy occurred in his constituency and the people performing vital public services never asked about ability to pay. No one made the repulsive statement that the Prime Minister made in relation to the good samaritan-that he only provided his services because the person he helped had the ability to pay.
  Vital public services must continue to exist and should not relate to ability to pay. Those services are important and are what the Labour party stands for. When we cease to stand for good public services, we cease to be a Socialist party and should not receive the support of the Scottish people. The Scottish people know what the Tories represent. They rejected them in 1987 and will continue to reject them.
  11.33 pm
  Mr. Andrew Welsh: We are saying goodbye to the rate support grant system and hello to the revenue support grant system. The old and vastly complicated rate support grant was driven beyond the limits of toleration by Governments determined to use it for purposes for which it was never intended and as part of their battle to do down local authorities. I have the feeling that the revenue support grant will be just as complicated and misused. Already, before its implementation, we are seeing complications, adjustments and anomalies. I predict—it is easy to do so—that the new system will quickly adopt the flaws and inadequacies of the old.
  When I was a local government councillor I could see at first hand the treatment meted out by the Government to local authorities. Now I am operating at the other end of the spectrum and the view is just the same. Local authorities are crucial to the economic well-being of Scotland in the daily provision of basic services. However, local authorities have never been properly financed or

  957
  allowed the autonomy necessary to enable them to get on with the job of providing services without hindrance. The orders simply confirm that.
  Central Government have never considered local government as a complete entity. When finance was reformed, the structure and status of local authorities were simply ignored. Now the Conservatives are apparently planning to take yet another short at structural changes which, no doubt, certainly on past form, will totally ignore the necessary finance and status required to produce a better local government system.
  It is easy to pick out individual anomalies in the orders which, financially, will disadvantage some local authorities to favour others. I do not intend to pick out particular examples. It would be all too easy to bemoan the transfer of resources from other regions to Strathclyde region, but to do so would play the Government's no doubt intended divide and rule game. It would miss the fundamental point that it should be a question not of robbing one regional council to pay another, but of ensuring that the extra resources required to fund every region and district are supplied.
  Is it true that, as COSLA states, an estimated £100 million of essential expenditure has been ignored by the Secretary of State in these orders? If extra cash is required to finance essential services, surely it is up to central Government to play their part in ensuring that the services and duties they place on local authorities are properly and adequately financed.
  In introducing the new system of revenue support grant, will the Secretary of State address the points raised by COSLA? Why has an increase of only 4·3 per cent. been allowed for when the RPI has risen by 6 per cent.? At the very time when, as a consequence of school boards, competitive tendering, higher police and fire pay awards and new staffing standards in schools, new burdens have to be met by local authorities, what allowance have the Government made for the RPI increases? The 10·2 per cent. allowed for loan repayment interest looks vastly optimistic as the Government's economic policy is committed to higher interest rates. We seek an assurance that extra cash will be made available to meet further increases in interest rates over and above the 10·2 per cent. allowed for; otherwise services will suffer and the people of Scotland will lose by that system.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer is committed to ever higher interest rates which are hammering Scots industry, small businesses, agriculture and fishing. Now it appears that, because of these orders, local government taxpayers will also suffer.
  Mr. Brian Wilson: Hurry up; enthuse us.
  Mr. Welsh: I would find it difficult to enthuse the hon. Gentleman, given his record on the subject.
  The Secretary of State continually made the claim of high spending by local authorities. We heard it again tonight from the Minister. In terms of volume, local government expenditure has not changed since 1979, yet local authorities are being forced to take on additional responsibilities. Government propaganda is saying one thing, but the reality is quite different. It is reasonable for
  958
  us to ask why there is no grant penalty in England and Wales in the year preceding the introduction of the poll tax and why Scotland is not receiving similar treatment.
  COSLA is rightly concerned about finance and the whole future of Scottish local government. I share its concern. I ask the Minister to understand why councils and local authorities feel that way. I ask the Minister to answer the specific questions posed by COSLA on behalf of its member councils. COSLA is worried because ultimately local authorities have to supply services to their customers which we take for granted, yet they are not being adequately financed to do so. Councils should be helped financially and not hindered, which is precisely what the Government are doing.
  11.38 pm
  Mr. Alexander Eadie: I shall be very brief as I should have liked to say some of the things that have already been mentioned. As the debate has progressed, the smiles have disappeared from the faces of Ministers on the Government Front Bench. In all the debates in the House in which I have taken part for the past quarter century, I have never seen a Government get such a thrashing as they have on the whole principle of the revenue support grant that they are presenting tonight.
  Listening to the debate I was reminded of the story of the little boy who was leaving a village. As he was leaving he said, "Cheerio God, I'm going away to live in another village." The presentation that the Government are making is, "Cheerio rates, we have now gone over to the poll tax." I have never heard a more unconvincing explanation of why we should do it.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) was on to a good point when he talked about the safety net. There was no possibility of the Government being able to respond to the question of the safety net, as was shown in one of the most disgraceful episodes in Parliament—I am referring to the Mates amendment. That was based on the ability to pay, but what happened? The whole House was incensed by the fact that ability to pay would not be considered for the poll tax and we had the disgraceful situation in the other place in which Members were wheeled in—although they did not even know that the House of Lords existed£to defeat the equivalent of the Mates amendment. So there was no question of a safety net for the individual.
  The financial burdens with which people are being confronted today are nothing to smile about. Already this month, the financial burden of the average family has increased by about £50 a month. As time goes on, as a consequence of the increase in mortgage payments and the terrific strain on social services, problems will fall on the backs of local government. Where in the Government's proposals can one find any contingency plan to take care of that?
  The Minister made two specific points about the statement from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I do not want to repeat them, because he spelt them out in detail, but one noted that the figure of 4·3 per cent. was mentioned when we know that the retail price index is running at 6 per cent. at the moment. No hon. Member would be boastful enough to say that interest rates will remain stable. Increased interest rates are a

  959
  burden that will fall eventually on local government. The Minister also dealt with the question of 10·2 per cent. for next year.
  In his opening speech, the Minister dealt with the COSLA document in a hilarious manner and treated this thoughtful document, which we should be debating in detail tonight, as something that was not worth considering. I wish that we had more time to debate the points put by COSLA. The Government are obliged to answer in their defence the points made by COSLA about their proposals. It is a sham debate when we do not have sufficient time to deal with all the points in the COSLA critique of the Government's proposals.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: The hon. Gentleman could have had twice as long if he had wanted it.
  Mr. Eadie: The hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) does not know what she is talking about.
  Yesterday, a resolution was passed by Lothian regional council which said:
  "That the Council expresses its concern to the Scottish Office that documents and statements from the Scottish Office indicate a disturbing lack of understanding of many aspects of the present and proposed systems of local government finance; in particular, Council:

  (1) reaffirms that it fulfilled its commitment to reduce its budget by £23 million and calls on the Secretary of State to withdraw his unjustified statement that Lothian had promised to reduce its expenditure (not its budget) by £23 million;

  (2) calls on the Scottish Office to withdraw its list of estimated poll tax figures because of errors in the calculations, such as ignoring the effect of Councils' deficits or credit balances and giving the wrong figures for legal non-payers;

  (3) calls on the Scottish Office to revise its method of apportioning Expenditure Need for items such as concessionary travel and nursery education; and

  (4) calls on the Scottish Office to abandon the Safety Net provisions, for which there are no logical justifications and which destroy the elements of fairness and accountability claimed for the Government's tax system."

  Some of these points have already been made, but I felt it right that the resolution passed by Lothian regional council should be put on the record. I hope that the Minister will answer our questions.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Am I not right in thinking that, if Scottish Ministers had wanted three hours of debate, they could have had it, but some of them were here at the beginning of the debate and decided not to have three hours?
  Madam Deputy Speaker: I think that all hon. Members who are now in the Chamber have been here throughout the debate.
  11.45 pm
  Mr. John McAllion: If the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) had been here throughout the debate—
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I have.
  Mr. McAllion: If the hon. Lady had been here from the beginning of the debate, she would have realised how
  960
  unable Conservative Members have been to sustain their argument. Indeed, only two Conservative Back Benchers have been prepared to speak.
  Mr. Bill Walker: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind the fact that Conservative Members made short speeches because we were asked to be brief and because we thought that it would be helpful to the Opposition to enable as many hon. Members as possible to speak?
  Mr. McAllion: I am not complaining about the brevity of Conservative speeches, but about their scarcity. The fact that the Government can muster only two Back Benchers to speak shows the weakness of their case.
  The hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart). who is gesticulating, made the rash statement that this is a generous settlement. Such an inaccurate statement can only be the result of his ignorance and the complexity of the way in which the settlement was arrived at. I have spoken to the convenor of finance for Tayside regional council and the director of finance for Dundee district council, and both confirm that the councils are receiving less grant than they expected. I suppose, as has already been said, that, the hon. Member for Eastwood can be excused on grounds of diminished responsibility, if nothing else.
  We are dealing with the first order made under a new system of local government finance for Scotland. The new system is being tested on the people of Scotland. I say that advisedly. We are dealing with something that can only be described as an experiment. Unfortunately, we have a mad scientist who masquerades as the Prime Minister of Scotland and who has a habit of carrying out experiments. Rashly, she at one time promised to abolish the rating system. She considers herself a conviction politician and is determined to see the thing through, but she needs to see how she can deliver what she promised.
  The Prime Minister realised that the trouble with experiments is that they sometimes go wrong, so she had to find a part of the United Kingdom where it would not matter to the Tories if things went wrong. Scotland is such an area. The Tories are already doing so badly there that it is difficult to see how they could do much worse. That is the conclusion that the Prime Minister reached. It might not suit 10 Conservative Members, but that does not matter—the Prime Minister does not care what they think. She knows that she can stay in office without their votes, and she is quite prepared to sacrifice them on the altar of the poll tax which she thinks will deliver votes in the south of England.
  If we look for evidence which suggests that the poll tax system will work, we look in vain. The Minister promised us that a register of poll tax payers would be available for public inspection on 1 October, but there is still none. In the meantime, authorities have been burdened with extra expenditure on the buildings and staff needed to administer the poll tax in Scotland. The arguments about increased accountability which the Minister advanced have now been contradicted by the safety net measures which have been introduced to lessen the impact on poll tax payers in Scotland. Huge resentment at this hated tax has been stirred up among the Scottish people. There is complete disagreement between the local authorities, regional councils and district councils on the one hand, and the Government on the other, about the likely impact of the poll tax.

  961
  The published figure for Dundee is £274. Apart from a few Tory yes-men who still survive in Dundee, the Secretary of State is unable to find anyone prepared to agree with that figure. The administration in the Tayside region expects the Dundee figure to be £330. If the poll tax had been introduced last year, it is estimated that the charge would be £291 in Dundee for the current year. The conclusion of the finance convenors of Tayside region and Dundee district was that the figures produced by the Secretary of State were nothing less than a stunt to promote party political propaganda. They have been presented to confuse Dundee's poll taxpayers when they come to decide who is to blame for the charge that they will have to pay in the coming year. It is clear that the Government wish the blame to lie with local councils.
  I can understand why the Tories believe that the poll tax is a great wheeze. First, Scottish Ministers will make a great deal out of its introduction. If the Secretary of State's figures are accurate for Edinburgh, he will benefit by nearly £800 a year when a comparison is made with the sum that he pays in rates. That is probably one of the main reasons why the right hon. and learned Gentleman was able to support such a hated measure in defiance of the wishes of those whom he claims to represent. Conservative supporters in Scotland will benefit from the poll tax. That is another reason why the Government think that it is a good idea to introduce it. Their supporters are in the better-off and more highly rated areas and more likely to benefit from the poll tax when it is introduced.
  More importantly for the Tories, local authorities will be inhibited from providing services when the mechanism of the poll tax takes effect. In the main, the burden of the tax will fall on the poor and those who are average working class. Those are the people who cannot afford to pay the tax. That is the main reason why the Government have introduced it.
  The position in Scotland is "Heads the rich win, tails the poor lose." That is why the Tories are introducing the poll tax, and that is why they will lose the next general election.
  11.53 pm
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths: Today's announcement means that Edinburgh's residents will be paying £200 more in poll tax than the sum that should be required of them. The Government have prised money from Edinburgh to give to other parts of the country. The Secretary of State for Scotland, an Edinburgh Member, has done nothing to help the city. Indeed, the opposite is the truth. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has calculated that each poll tax payer in Glasgow should receive £336-worth of local services, but he expects every Edinburgh payer to get by on £214-worth. Why is Edinburgh to have £122 less per payer than Glasgow to have its streets cleaned, its housing estates kept in order, its libraries stocked, its bins collected, its roads repaired and its schools equipped and staffed? The answer is that the Secretary of State has sold out the people of Edinburgh to ingratiate himself with the Prime Minister.
  I am not saying that Glasgow should receive less than Edinburgh. I am merely saying that Edinburgh should receive its fair share, not the unfair share that the Secretary of State has given it. He is a Secretary of State who is more
  962
  concerned about the furtherance of his own career than in standing up for the capital city of Scotland. Of the eight Secretaries of State for Scotland who have held office in my lifetime, the present incumbent has done the most damage to Edinburgh. It is little wonder that he is ashamed to stay in his place throughout the debate and to speak for himself. He should be ashamed of his record. The greatest service that he could perform now for Edinburgh and Scotland generally would be to resign.
  11.54 pm
  Mr. Lang: With permission, I shall reply to the debate.
  Given the speech of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths), one would not think that the increase in revenue support grant to Edinburgh next year, as compared to rate support grant this year, is no less than 17·1 per cent. The increase over the figure, after the imposition of penalties on Edinburgh as a result of its budgeted programme last year, is no less than 44 per cent. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that that is unfair to his constituency, he must have a curious idea of fairness.
  Before I attempt to answer some of the detailed points that have been made tonight, it is worth repeating the main features of the settlement—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh no."] Opposition Members have tried hard to lose sight of the fact that public expenditure provision is 8 per cent. more than provision in the current year when measured on a comparable basis.
  For the revenue support grant, the specific grant payments translate the increase in aggregate Exchequer grant to a 9·8 per cent. increase in revenue support grant. Even the president of COSLA described that as reasonable and realistic. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) although he choked on the words, almost said that the settlement was generous.
  I must reply to the serious point raised by the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) on his own behalf and that of his hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith). I have already said that, in general, the Government propose to make no subsequent adjustments to the revenue support grant. There are, of course, some exceptional cases. This year, the grant apportionment to Strathkelvin and Bearsden was £306,000 less than it should have been. That was the result of faulty figures submitted by Strathkelvin and Bearsden regional council, which under-estimated the empty property relief element. It is our intention that the council's mistake should not be allowed to penalise the district, and we shall put that right next year. We have given a written assurance to the district council about that.
  Mr. Sam Galbraith: When the Minister says next year, does he mean the next calendar year or the next financial year?
  Mr. Lang: When we introduce the next Revenue Grant Support (Scotland) Order we shall make the necessary adjustment. There will be time within the financial year for the payments to be made to the district council. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that those payments do not all come at the beginning of the year, but are phased over the year and will be adjusted so that the council receives the full £306,000.
  There is limited time left, but it is important to try to reply to some of the points raised in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) was

  963
  absolutely right to congratulate Strathclyde region on showing considerably more realism in its approach to the community charge than some Opposition Members. That council's figures are within £1 of our anticipated figure for the community charge. My hon. Friend was also right to point out that Borders regional council's plan to increase its spending by 11·1 per cent. has more to do with the likely community charge level in that area than anything to do with safety-netting or revenue support grant. Its revenue support grant is to be increased by 13·5 per cent. —more than double the rate of inflation—and for districts within that region the increase will be between 8·5 per cent. and 41·5 per cent.
  Most comment this evening was about safety nets and that represents no more than the phasing in of grant changes. The large gains in some areas are being phased in gradually to protect other areas, but it is important that, as soon as possible, we should get away from the safety net figure so that there is complete accountability and that is our intention.
  The major contributors to the safety net have been the recipients of the largest grant increases, even after safety-netting. Those grants range up to 14·6 per cent. for regional councils and up to 81 per cent. for district councils. Strathclyde regional council is the major beneficiary of the safety net. In some of its districts£
  It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted Business).
  The House divided: Ayes 203, Noes 146.

  Division No. 31]

  [11.58 pm

  AYES

  Alexander, Richard

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Conway, Derek

  Amess, David

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Amos, Alan

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Arbuthnot, James

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Cran, James

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Ashby, David

  Curry, David

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

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

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Batiste, Spencer

  Day, Stephen

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Dicks, Terry

  Bendall, Vivian

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Dover, Den

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Dunn, Bob

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Durant, Tony

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Boswell, Tim

  Evennett, David

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

  Bowis, John

  Fallon, Michael

  Brazier, Julian

  Favell, Tony

  Bright, Graham

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Fishburn, John Dudley

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

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Forth, Eric

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Burns, Simon

  Franks, Cecil

  Burt, Alistair

  Freeman, Roger

  Butler, Chris

  French, Douglas

  Butterfill, John

  Gale, Roger

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Carrington, Matthew

  Gill, Christopher

  Carttiss, Michael

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Cash, William

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Chapman, Sydney

  Gow, Ian

  Chope, Christopher

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Gregory, Conal

  964

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Moss, Malcolm

  Grist, Ian

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Needham, Richard

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Neubert, Michael

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Hannam, John

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

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

  Norris, Steve

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Harris, David

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Hayes, Jerry

  Page, Richard

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Paice, James

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Patnick, Irvine

  Heddle, John

  Patten, John (Oxford W)

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Pawsey, James

  Hind, Kenneth

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Holt, Richard

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Portillo, Michael

  Howard, Michael

  Powell, William (Corby)

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

  Price, Sir David

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Hunter, Andrew

  Redwood, John

  Irvine, Michael

  Renton, Tim

  Jack, Michael

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Jackson, Robert

  Riddick, Graham

  Janman, Tim

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Key, Robert

  Rost, Peter

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Ryder, Richard

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Sackville, Hon Tom

  Knapman, Roger

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Knowles, Michael

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Knox, David

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Lang, Ian

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Latham, Michael

  Sims, Roger

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Speller, Tony

  Lightbown, David

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Lilley, Peter

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Stern, Michael

  Lord, Michael

  Stevens, Lewis

  Luce, Rt Hon Richard

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Lyell, Sir Nicholas

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Summerson, Hugo

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Thurnham, Peter

  Malins, Humfrey

  Trippier, David

  Mans, Keith

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Marland, Paul

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Whitney, Ray

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Wood, Timothy

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Mills, Iain

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle and

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Mr. David Maclean.

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  NOES

  Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Allen, Graham

  Blair, Tony

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Blunkett, David

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Boyes, Roland

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Bradley, Keith

  Ashton, Joe

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Barron, Kevin

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Battle, John

  Buchan, Norman

  Beckett, Margaret

  Buckley, George J.

  Beith, A. J.

  Caborn, Richard

  Bell, Stuart

  Callaghan, Jim

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  965

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Home Robertson, John

  Canavan, Dennis

  Hood, Jimmy

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Howells, Geraint

  Clay, Bob

  Hoyle, Doug

  Clelland, David

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Illsley, Eric

  Cousins, Jim

  Ingram, Adam

  Cryer, Bob

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Cummings, John

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Cunningham, Dr John

  Lambie, David

  Dalyell, Tam

  Lamond, James

  Darling, Alistair

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Lewis, Terry

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

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

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Dewar, Donald

  McAllion, John

  Dixon, Don

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Dobson, Frank

  McCartney, Ian

  Doran, Frank

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Douglas, Dick

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  McKelvey, William

  Eadie, Alexander

  McLeish, Henry

  Eastham, Ken

  McTaggart, Bob

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  McWilliam, John

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  Madden, Max

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Marek, Dr John

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

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

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Flynn, Paul

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Foster, Derek

  Martlew, Eric

  Foulkes, George

  Maxton, John

  Fyfe, Maria

  Meale, Alan

  Galbraith, Sam

  Michael, Alun

  Galloway, George

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Morley, Elliott

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Mowlam, Marjorie

  Henderson, Doug

  Mullin, Chris

  Hinchliffe, David

  Murphy, Paul

  966

  Nellist, Dave

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Steinberg, Gerry

  O'Brien, William

  Strang, Gavin

  Parry, Robert

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Pike, Peter L.

  Wall, Pat

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Wallace, James

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Walley, Joan

  Redmond, Martin

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Reid, Dr John

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Robertson, George

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  Rogers, Allan

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Wilson, Brian

  Ruddock, Joan

  Winnick, David

  Salmond, Alex

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Sillars, Jim

  Wray, Jimmy

  Skinner, Dennis

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Soley, Clive

  Mr. Frank Haynes and

  Spearing, Nigel

  Mr. Jimmy Dunnachie.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Rate Support Grant (Scotland) (No. 2) Order 1988, dated 28th November 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 30th November, be approved.
  Resolved,
  That the Revenue Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1988, dated 28th November 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 30th November, be approved.—[Mr. Lang.]

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

  MERCHANT SHIPPING
  That the draft Merchant Shipping (Safety at Work Regulations) (Non-UK Ships) Regulations 1988, which were laid before this House on 1st December, be approved.—[Mr. Lightbown.]
  Question agreed to.

  Waste Disposal (Planning Regulations)
  Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lightbown.]
  12.9 am
  Mr. Robert Key: On 22 December, I tabled a written question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. I asked
  "on how many occasions in the last year for which figures are available were proceedings taken against contractors and developers under sections 3 and 16 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974; and if he will make a statement."
  My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley), in reply, told me:
  "proceedings were taken in England and Wales in 130 cases under section 3 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, and in eight cases under section 16."
  I also asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State
  "whether he will review the enforcement powers available to local authorities under current planning and pollution control legislation;"
  My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, South-West told me that the Department had
  "appointed Robert Carnwath QC to review local authorities' planning enforcement powers. His report is expected in the new year. An announcement will be made shortly afterwards. We have also announced proposals which should make local authorities' enforcement powers more effective in relation to air pollution and waste disposal."—[Official Report, 22 December 1988; Vol. 144, c. 434.]
  I urge a speedy announcement following receipt of the Carnwath report. Believe it or not, I have read the lengthy material which has been collected over about two years and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, South-West on their work, which I greatly welcome.
  I also asked the Secretary of State for the Environment
  "if Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution has inspected the site used by contractors acting on behalf of Tesco Stores at Petersfinger near Salisbury."
  I tabled that question because something had gone wrong there. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the meadows had been buried. My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey,
  South-West told me:
  "Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution has not inspected the site but is aware of the situation. The matter is one for local planning and waste authorities, both of which are taking the necessary action."—[Official Report, 10 January 1989; Vol. 144, c. 505.]
  If the necessary action was being taken, what had happened in Salisbury to cause such anger by so many people and community organisations? The Tesco store in Salisbury is in a cramped part of the town and is very popular. It was decided to move the store out of town, unfortunately to land designated for industrial use. Objections were made by Wiltshire county council and Salisbury district council because they could not recommend a breach of their own structure plan. That decision was overturned on appeal by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, with costs being awarded against Salisbury district council. The store is now under construction.
  On 18 December I received a letter from Mr. Andrew Christie-Miller, the county councillor for the ward involved. He said that the contractors had completely ignored the request by the county council to cease operations and apply for planning permission. As a result,
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  by Saturday 17 December their work was complete, and about five acres of valuable water meadow lying not only within a special landscape area but also within the landscape setting to a historic town had been lost. He said that the action of the contractors was totally unacceptable and that their flagrant disregard for the statutory planning system was nothing short of scandalous.
  Salisbury civic society and the south Wiltshire branch of the Council for the Protection of Rural England also wrote today:
  "So valuable are these meadows, it is absolutely imperative that any development or alteration of them should be allowed only after careful consideration. It is intolerable that a developer should, by working non-stop with masses of heavy equipment, be able to make a major alteration in part of them without permission and before anything can be done to stop him.
  It is especially galling that the developer doing this at great haste at the moment is building an out-of-town superstore which was strongly opposed by the District and County Councils and members of the public at the planning appeal Inquiry, but nevertheless sanctioned by the Minister responsible."
  On 19 December Wiltshire county council issued a statement saying that it regretted what had taken place. It said:
  "it is quite clear from the evidence that, on December 8, the agent for the company carrying out the tipping was made aware that planning permission was required and that, pending an application for planning permission, tipping should stop. This advice was confirmed in a letter to the company in which the company was invited to act responsibly and to cease tipping."
  The county council went on to say:
  "On a general level, local authorities faced difficulties in preventing such activities because some companies, while fully aware of the legal position, flout the law on the basis that time is on their side and not on the side of the local authorities."
  The county council said that it would pursue that matter vigorously.
  Salisbury district council acted impeccably throughout, reporting what was happening to the south-east planning sub-committee on 7 December. I visited the site on the afternoon of Saturday 16 December. The site manager and I had an amicable and detailed discussion in the course of which he said that, with the wisdom of hindsight, it would have been better to apply to the relevant authorities. It was clear that the whole operation had been meticulously planned by the developers. The highway authority and the police had been consulted about the transporting of the waste from the site of excavation on one side of the road to the meadows on the other, the road in question being the A36 main trunk road between Bristol and Southampton. Arrangements had been made for clearing the mud off the road and no objection had been received from the police. "Why not?" I asked myself. I have to say that I was horrified.
  I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to have words, during the course of her busy life, with our hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley), the Minister for Roads and Traffic, because huge earth-moving trucks, normally associated with motorway development, were trundling around the site. It was dusk. Those vehicles were not lit in accordance with any highway regulation. They were operating around a roundabout on a busy public highway. Were they insured? What would have happened if there had been an accident? Was the diesel oil taxed for highway use?

  969
  The police told me that they are powerless to stop this sort of highway use by those vehicles as a result of a court judgment some years ago involving a little dumper truck which had to transport bricks from one part of a building site to another across what was technically a public highway. This is another aspect of waste dumping, but what is waste? After all, one man's waste is another man's profit.
  The outcome of this saga to date is that the owner of a few acres of second-rate agricultural land, sandwiched between a sewage works and a commercial development and which, in a few years, will be unhelpfully cut off by a likely and welcome bypass of Salisbury, has gained a great deal of new top soil. That is true, but is definitely not the point. The point is, why do we have a Department of the Environment, local planning authorities, dedicated councillors on planning committees and professional planning officials if our statutory planning regulations can be ignored with such impunity? At a time when the Government are making such good and welcome progress on environmental matters, it is tragic to see irresponsible developers ignoring local sensitivities in the name of progress.
  Of course, developers have clever lawyers who now argue that it was really agricultural improvement all along, so they did not need planning permission. That is significant. If Tesco was so sure that it did not need any planning permission or other agreement, why did it not go through the usual channels which, as an experienced developer, it knows very well? If it had thought of agricultural improvement as a legitimate reason for dumping before this row, why did it disregard Wiltshire county council, Salisbury district council and Wessex water authority, take no notice of them and ignore their officials and their letters? I hope that the newly knighted Tesco chairman, Sir Ian MacLaurin, in his shining armour, will at the very least knock together the heads of those of his employees who are in danger of besmirching his escutcheon. This is no pleasure to me because Tesco has a good record on health food in its stores. It is good on environmental matters such as the introduction of unleaded fuel for its fleet of vehicles.
  Early on, Wiltshire county council and Salisbury district council were criticised for acting so slowly, but, if they had rushed into an enforcement order and issued a stop notice, or had, after that, sought a slow and costly High Court injunction, the developers could have subsequently argued agricultural improvement as a justification and been awarded substantial costs against the county and district councils. I have been told that, in a recent similar case in the south of England, the costs were a quarter of a million pounds against a planning authority.
  Local planning authorities are increasingly inhibited from taking enforcement action because, as the District Planning Officers Society says in its response to the Department of the Environment review of planning control enforcement powers,
  "The Planning Control system is intended to control development in the interests of the community, with fairness to the developer."
  The community may reasonably ask that that should be done effectively, efficiently and economically. The present system of enforcement has failures in respect of each of those aims. In particular, it is slow, uncertain, expensive
  970
  and potentially dangerous for the enforcing authority. At least one reported case has dragged on for six years without the enforcement notice coming into effect.
  There is a conflict of authority between completing detailed statements of development control policy contained in local plans and the published ministerial statements and guidance. That gives great scope for legal arguments about which should be followed in a particular case. The powers of enforcement and penalty tend to be ineffective when used against a determined or well-resourced contravener. Of course the costs incurred in a semi-judicial appeals procedure are well out of proportion to the costs considered reasonable in the original development control decision-making process.
  In the Salisbury case, an informal request to a developer's contractor to act reasonably and stop dumping waste failed, as it usually does. I am sure that many hon. Members have discovered that the public are speechless when told that works carried out without consent are not illegal. Opinion is steadily concluding that penalties should be imposed for carrying out development without planning permission. In other words, it should be criminalised. I understand that the Royal Town Planning Institute still opposes that course. However, tomorrow the Association of District Councils will hold a crucial meeting to reconsider its position on opposition to criminalisation. Previously it had said that it was opposed to criminalisation. Tomorrow's decision will be very significant. Perhaps when my hon. Friend the Minister addresses the District Planning Officers Society later today she will have something to say about that.
  Apart from the fact that the law is often breached too lightly in the belief that an appeal is likely to succeed and in the knowledge that there is no penalty, unauthorised development can cause irreparable ecological damage. The fear that magistrates courts would be unable to deal with the complex issues involved in enforcement procedures is unfounded. If the offences were criminalised, the evidence is that penalties like those for contraventions of building regulations which are imposed successfully by magistrates courts would not be needed frequently. That procedure actually cuts down the number of offences.
  There are far fewer cases of serious contraventions of building control regulations than there are breaches of planning control. That is a good argument in favour of criminalisation. The penalties imposed by the courts in practice often do not reflect the potential profit to the contravener arising from his contravention or, in many cases, the damage to the environment or—and this is crucial—damage to public confidence in the system. That confidence is very important. I was distressed to see the low morale of district councillors serving on planning committees and the general public's disbelief about the planning process in recent years. Penalties should therefore be related to public confidence and damage to the environment.
  The water authority is a crucial partner in the Salisbury case. This is a crucial issue which the Department of the Environment should bear in mind as the Water Bill is before the House. The general manager of Wessex Rivers wrote to me on 22 December. He informed me that, in this case, the authority was advised of the situation by Salisbury district council early in the morning of Wednesday 7 December 1988. It contacted the contractor during that morning and informed him that, because the River Avon is a main river, the dumping of waste requires

  971
  consent in accordance with land drainage byelaw No. 28. Consent had not been applied for, and the contractor was verbally advised to cease operations and make application for consent.
  That telephone conversation was confirmed by the authority's letter dated 7 December 1988. It contained a notice to stop work as prescribed by the Land Drainage Act 1976. The contractor ignored both the water authority notice and its advice and disposed of all the material on the site. He submitted a retrospective application for consent, which is being considered.
  On 10 January, Wessex Rivers received a retrospective planning application. However, the developer is not off the hook yet. Because the dumping used up flood storage capacity, that volume must be restored in another way. The ecology and the geomorphology of the River Avon basin is very delicate. For about 300 years, it has been subject to a complicated system of controls by which water flow is restricted so that little flooding occurs downstream. Crucial to that control is flood storage capacity. In this case, the developer has removed that capacity. It will not be easy to lower the flood plain close to the dumping site. The geology is not simple. More significantly, the site is close to a sewage works having a system of main drains that must not be disturbed.
  Another aspect is the Nature Conservancy Council's statement that significant flora and fauna have been lost beneath the tipping. It wants the developer to provide an alternative area with the plants protected. A decision on that will be taken as soon as possible. So we have seen 300 years of English history and of English countryside buried. Salisbury fought and lost the battle to prevent the construction of an out-of-town retail development on scarce agricultural land. A public inquiry into another superstore development at Netherhampton road reopens on 21 February. That site is also on meadowland, in sight of the cathedral.
  Not only are planning authorities unable to foresee the kind of irresponsible dumping that I have described, but they have no authority to prevent it. It is doubtful that a section 52 agreement on dumping is appropriate. Not only Salisbury will be watching future development like hawks.
  I beg my hon. Friend the Minister to step up the monitoring of the operation of local authority enforcement. How can the community protect its environment in the present circumstances? Salisbury is a thriving commercial centre, and has been for 700 years, having adapted to changing patterns of retailing over those centuries. But it is also the country of Constable, Isaac Walton, Handel, Augustus John, William Golding and V. S. Naipaul. Above all, Salisbury is one of our great medieval cities, crowned by our cathedral. Does that count for so little when weighed at the grocery counter?
  Often my hon. Friend the Minister has shown her true mettle in her ministerial job in caring for our environment. What advice will she give our elected councillors and the House tonight?
  12.28 am
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mrs. Virginia Bottomley): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) on once again taking the opportunity to raise subjects of great and serious concern to his constituents. They are fortunate to have a Member of Parliament who represents their
  972
  interests so forcefully, assiduously and ably. My hon. Friend raises a matter of serious concern and a particularly regrettable case.
  Many right hon. and hon. Members will be familiar with the splendid landscape setting of the historic town that my hon. Friend represents. In this matter, there are distinct roles for each level of local authority primarily responsible. The district council has responsibility for enforcement action in matters of local planning control. As to waste disposal in England, the county council generally has responsibility for deciding planning applications, and is the waste disposal authority under the Control of Pollution Act 1974. That gives the county council responsibility for preparing a waste disposal plan for controlled waste and for issuing disposal site licences where planning permission has been granted.
  The county council should also be responsible for enforcement in cases of possible contravention of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, including any suggeston of the illegal dumping of controlled waste on unlicensed land.
  As my hon. Friend said, in the chapter of events that unfolded during December both district and county councils rapidly become aware of what was happening and took steps to inform those concerned of the implications of their actions. I understand that Salisbury district decided on 4 January not to take further action at this stage in it; capacity as local planning authority, but the planning and countryside panel of Wiltshire county council is meeting later this month to consider what action it might take. The county council has already stated that it will pursue the matter vigorously, within the limits of the law.
  This is essentially a local matter, albeit an extremely serious one: it is rightly and properly the concern of the local authorities. My hon. Friend will therefore understand that it is not appropriate for me to comment specifically any further at this stage. I think that it would help, however, if I described the range of available powers in planning and waste disposal enforcement which are relevant in this and similar cases.
  Our planning system is of long standing. It seeks to balance the rights and interests of developers with those of the community. My hon. Friend rightly referred to the. important question of public confidence, and we are looking at that very carefully. The administration of such matters rests essentially with the local planning authority, which is primarily responsible for deciding on planning applications, enforcing decisions and taking steps when faced with possible offences under the Town and Country Planning Acts. The Secretary of State has a range of appellate functions under that legislation, which include rights of appeal against enforcement action. The provisions have been criticised at times for being slow and cumbersome; local authorities themselves have been concerned about the opportunities for delay afforded by procedures for appealing against such action.
  My hon. Friend referred to the Carnwath inquiry. An action plan and the report of an efficiency scrutiny of enforcement notice appeals were published in May 1988. Following that, Robert Carnwath was asked to undertake a review of planning enforcement powers. My hon. Friend rightly said that enforcement should be effective, efficient and economical, and that too often it is slow, uncertain and expensive.
  The terms of reference of the review are to examine the scope and effectiveness of provisions in parts V and XII of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 relating to

  973
  enforcement of planning control—including appeals to the Secretary of State—and to make recommendations for improvements to the present provisions, or for alternative provisions. As part of the review Mr. Carnwath has consulted the local authority associations, the professional bodies and many other organisations concerned with planning control, and is now considering their comments.
  My hon. Friend referred to the suggestion that development without planning permission should be made a criminal offence, to dispense with the need for lengthy enforcement actions after the event. Whether or not the Association of District Councils decides to take up that suggestion, it will be a matter for Mr. Carnwath's consideration, and we shall await his report with interest.
  My hon. Friend also referred to enforcement of the provisions of the Control of Pollution Act. Again, these are primarily matters for the relevant waste disposal authories—mainly county councils in England and district councils in Wales. Section 3 of the 1974 Act makes the deposit of controlled waste without a licence illegal except in certain prescribed circumstances. Those circumstances are if a waste is not within the definition of "controlled waste", or if the operation is specifically exempted by the Collection and Disposal Regulations 1988—for example, the deposit of waste on agricultural land as fertiliser, or if the waste is being treated in ways specifically exempted from licensing requirements. Prosecution of an offence under this section brings a maximum penalty of £2,000 and a two-year term of imprisonment, or unlimited fine on indictment.
  In addition, steps can be taken by the authority under section 16 to serve a notice on the occupier of the land requiring removal of any illegally deposited waste, and action to eliminate or reduce the consequences of such a deposit. There are penalties for anyone failing to comply with such a notice.
  It can be seen that there are existing powers for local authorities to act on the deposit of wastes. It is for them to consider the various issues; whether controlled waste is involved; whether the operation is or is not exempted by one route or another and to take into account the local circumstances of any particular incident.
  In general terms, we should like local authorities to take more rigorous action over prosecutions under the Control of Pollution Act 1974. I put that strong message to waste disposal officers at a waste disposal conference in 1988. It is very important for public confidence that the regulations are seen to be enforced and for it to be seen that when cases have been properly prepared and firmly represented, prosecutions have every chance of being successful and of being particularly effective in improving disposal standards, reducing fly tipping and dealing with similar problems. My hon. Friend referred to the figures which I had already supplied to him.
  Waste disposal authorities are further supported by Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution. We have recently increased the number of inspectors dealing with waste matters from five to 14. That will put them in a particularly effective position for the systematic audit of waste disposal authorities and for conducting a progressive review of and adding to the 26 waste management papers that are already available. It must be recognised, however, that the inspectorate is not there to inspect and control each
  974
  individual disposal site. That is the function of the waste disposal authorities. Their task is to provide an audit function and to advise on and set standards.
  I hope that I have clearly spelt out many of the powers that are already available to waste disposal authorities to ensure the safe disposal of controlled waste. However, we believe that there is scope for improvement. The Department has made proposals and has consulted relevant groups with a view to strengthening the law that governs waste management.
  In essence, we want the controls to be extended to cover not just the actual disposal of waste, as is the case now, but the whole process from the time that the waste is produced, through its transportation and disposal to the time when a landfill site can finally be certified as being safe.
  We propose to introduce a duty of care on producers and holders of waste to take all reasonable steps to ensure the legal and safe disposal of that waste. It will not then be possible for a producer simply to hand over his waste to a contractor and forget about it without first satisfying himself about the contractor's competence.
  Carriers of controlled waste will have to be registered with a waste disposal authority, with powers for authorities to refuse or revoke registration if the carrier is convicted of a pollution offence. A waste producer, to exercise his duty of care, will need to check that his carrier is licensed. Equally, the carrier will have to check on exactly what he is carrying to avoid committing an offence himself.
  We also propose that, when considering applications for disposal licences, authorities will be able to take account of relevant convictions of the applicants in the previous five years, their technical competence and their financial stability. There will be powers for authorities to impose pollution control conditions to apply to a site after the deposit of waste at that site has ceased. Sites will thus have to be monitored until we can be satisfied that they are safe in the long run.
  In addition, we envisage the imposition of charges, both for licences and for carrier registration. That will not only provide resources for authorities but, even more important, will ensure that, through the price mechanism, the polluter really does pay.
  My hon. Friend has raised a very important constituency case, about which, rightly, both he and his constituents are deeply concerned. Salisbury is a historic town. It is situated in the midst of fine countryside and is surrounded by areas of great natural significance. The local authorities are still considering these matters. The Government are committed to the provision of the highest possible standards and procedures for licensing, for the disposal of waste and for regulating and enforcing licences.
  To support the proposals that I have outlined there is a range of other, less dramatic but nevertheless significant changes that we plan to introduce as soon as the legislative programme permits. In total, they add up to a comprehensive overhaul of the system that has generally served us well over the past 10 to 12 years. The package that we are assembling will provide for a coherent system of waste management that will last us well into the 21st century. I shall, of course, bear in mind the example that has caused so much concern to my hon. Friend and his constituents.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes to One o'clock.