Commons Sitting of 19 June 1989

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  KINGSTON UPON HULL CITY COUNCIL BILL [Lords]
  Read the Third time and passed, with amendments.
Oral Answers to Questions
  WALES

    Orthopaedic Consultants
    Mr. John P. Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the current waiting time for referrals to orthopaedic consultants in South Glamorgan and Wales as a whole.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Ian Grist): I congratulate the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) on drawing pole position for his first Welsh question. However, no figures are available centrally—for South Glamorgan as a whole or for Wales —of the time that patients have to wait for referral to an orthopaedic out-patient clinic. Individual experience varies considerably, with urgent cases being given the priority for treatment that their condition merits.
    Mr. Smith: I recognise that the Minister and many of his colleagues in Wales will not be with us much longer, and I extend my deep sympathy to them, but what does the
    2
    Minister intend to do about my constituent Mrs. Julie Froude, aged 35, who has three young children and suffer from a crippling orthopaedic condition? She has been told that she will have to wait 18 months merely to see a specialist, and wait an indefinite time before she receives medical treatment. That is wholly unacceptable and I ask the Minister to intervene.
    Mr. Grist: If the hon. Gentleman will send me details, I will most certainly intervene. He might like to bear in mind the experience of Fulham and that of a predecessor of his who also graced the Opposition Benches for a very brief time.
    Mr. Denzil Davies: On the question of orthopaedic consultants, will the Minister ensure that the two new consultants who are to be appointed by the east Dyfed health authority are based in the new Llanelli hospital and not at the west Wales general hospital in Carmarthen? Is he aware that if they are based in Carmarthen, the new operating facilities at Llanelli will be under-used and the waiting list will not be reduced?
    Mr. Grist: I certainly take very careful note of what the right hon. Gentleman says. When the Llanelli hospital is finished, which I hope will be later this year, I will consider precisely what the situation should be.
    Mr. Ray Powell: Will the Minister reply to the question? We have had the first question from my new hon. Friend the Member for the Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith). It was on an important matter. Will the Minister talk to the Secretary of State for Wales, who is actually to blame for the result in the Vale of Glamorgan, and his right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) who will get the blame for yesterday's disastrous result? The Secretary of State could then raise the matter at this week's Cabinet meeting, get the blame put on the right person's shoulders and ask her to resign because of what is happening to the country and to the Health Service and— —
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The whole House wishes the hon. Gentleman a happy birthday, but his question must relate to orthopaedic consultants.
    Mr. Barry Jones: Reverting to the question of my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell), does the Minister understand that there is great concern and pain throughout Wales due to the length of waiting lists for hospital treatment? Why does he not admit that our people in Wales want the National Health Service White Paper to be withdrawn and that there is massive electoral evidence for that? I remind him that even the north Wales citadel of his party has fallen. He should take note of that.
    Mr. Grist: The hon. Gentleman has overlooked the fact that the proposals in our White Paper would actually cut waiting times. Of course, everybody accepts that it is a severe problem, but I seem to remember that when the hon. Gentleman was a Minister matters were often rather worse.

    Advisory Body for Higher Education
    Dr. Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, when he last met the Wales Advisory Body for Higher Education and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. Wyn Roberts): The Wales Advisory Body was reconstituted as a single-tier body in March. I chaired the first meeting of the reconstituted body on 7 April.
    Dr. Thomas: I am grateful to the Minister for explaining to the House how the reconstituted body is operating. Will he tell us something about the relationship between the Wales Advisory Body and the sub-committee of the new Universities Funding Council? Surely it is time for us to plan our education in Wales as one.
    Mr. Roberts: First, I am sure that many of us would like to welcome the hon. Gentleman back among us after his arduous campaign. Secondly, in answer to his supplementary question, I assure him that there will be a representative of the Wales Advisory Body on the Universities Funding Council subcommittee relating to Wales. I agree with him—and have always thought—that there should be a close link between local authority higher education and universities.
    Mr. Gwilym Jones: In his next meeting with the advisory body, will my hon. Friend suggest that an appropriate subject for study at the higher education level could be why the Welsh nationalist and Liberal parties were beaten yesterday by the newly emerged version of Militant tendency—the Green party—and why the Conservative vote held up much better in Wales than in almost any other part of Great Britain?
    Mr. Roberts: Aristotle said that politics was not a proper subject for study for a young man, but I am sure that, as my hon. Friend suggested, it would be interesting for any study to begin with the fact that the Conservative vote in Wales exceeded the combined votes of Plaid Cymru and the Alliance by 40 per cent.

    A55, Gwynedd
    Mr. Wigley: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what progress has been made with discussions with local authorities and others on the impact of the A55 on Gwynedd; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Wyn Roberts: Tomorrow, my right hon. Friend and I will meet representatives of Gwynedd and the districts within that county. I have already had discussions with Clwyd and the majority of its local authorities. I have been very favourably impressed by the way in which some authorities have planned to secure the enormous potential economic benefits that the new A55 will bring.
    Mr. Wigley: Some of us are a little surprised that there has been no reference to the fact that one person will no longer be travelling along the A55 to Manchester airport to fly out to Europe, but apparently there are no tears among Conservative Members for the lamented lady.
    If the A55 is meant to be the artery which brings economic development to north Wales and especially to Gwynedd, why has there been so much delay in extending it to Holyhead in one direction and Dwyfor in the other, both of which are areas of high unemployment? Will the Minister now seek additional funds to speed up improvements to those connecting roads to ensure that any economic benefit reaches the areas that most need it?
    Mr. Roberts: From having studied "Roads in Wales 1989" the hon. Gentleman will know that we have co-operated with the counties, and they with us, and that we have devised a strategic road network for Wales, which includes Welsh Office and county roads. We have received a report from consultants about improvements along the A5 in Anglesey and that report is currently under consideration.
    Sir Anthony Meyer: My hon. Friend will be concerned that some of his constituents and of mine who are anxious to ride their bicycles westwards along the A55 are not allowed under the present arrangements to ride through the Penmaenbach tunnel but have to dismount and carry their bicycles across a dual carriageway. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is an unsafe arrangement and will he carefully reconsider what is involved in the proposal?
    Mr. Roberts: I can assure my hon. Friend that I am constantly considering that problem which has been brought to our attention recently, but the proper place to air the matter was at the public consultation stage on the tunnel. There are all sorts of difficulties in enabling cyclists either to use the tunnel or to use their bicycles on the path provided for them.

    Severn Barrage
    Mr. Stern: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales which industries in south Wales are the principal users of ports upstream of the proposed Severn barrage.
    Mr. Wyn Roberts: These ports mainly handle steel, scrap metal, aggregates, agricultural products—including imported fruit and timber—machinery petrochemicals and imported cars.
    Mr. Stern: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that the prospects of those industries can only be improved now that the threat of unofficial industrial action in those ports is, I hope, coming to an end? Does he further agree that, now that those ports can look forward to greater prosperity, the threat of a Severn barrage putting an additional barrier between them and their trade becomes even more serious?
    Mr. Roberts: I agree with the first part of my hon. Friend's question. On the effect on shipping of the Severn barrage, whenever it may come, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy has not yet received the final report from the Severn tidal power group, so it would be premature for me to comment at this stage on that aspect.

    Association of District Councils
    Mr. Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he last met the Association of District Councils in Wales; and what matters were discussed.
    The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Peter Walker): I met representatives of the Welsh counties committee and the committee of Welsh district councils at a meeting of the Welsh consultative council on local government finance on 15 June to discuss local government finance matters.
    Mr. Murphy: The Secretary of State is, of course, aware that the Association of District Councils is in favour of a dog registration scheme. Why, then, does he fly in the face of Welsh public opinion by not agreeing to such a scheme in Wales? Will he give a commitment to the House that he will provide sufficient finance to local authorities in Wales so that there can he proper dog warden schemes in every district in the principality?
    Mr. Walker: When I met the members of the Welsh counties committee and the committee of Welsh district councils, they did not at any time raise the subject of a dog registration scheme. Perhaps they share my view that although it sounds very nice in theory, in practice it would not work.
    Sir Anthony Meyer: When my right hon. Friend met the members of the committee of Welsh district councils, did they express to him their delight at the amount of investment in Wales that my right hon. Friend has been able to secure, largely as a result of Britain's membership of the European Community? Did they, like me, share not only the astonishment and delight that the Labour party has at last come round to accepting the idea of Europe, but the incredulity that the conversion campaign should be led by none other than the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould)?
    Mr. Walker: Again, the two committees did not raise those matters as a major topic of our discussion, but I am sure that they are delighted at the very considerable record of inward investment that Wales has enjoyed over the past few years—towards which, if I may say so, they made an important contribution.
    Mrs. Clwyd: Given the massive public concern about the environment and the decisive rejection of the Government's policies, shown by yesterday's election results, has the right hon. Gentleman discussed with the Association of District Councils the problems posed by the worst industrial polluter in Britain—the Furnacite plant in my constituency? Is he aware that continuing uncertainty about the future of that plant means that people in the Cynon valley are being subjected to unacceptable levels of pollution? Is the right hon. Gentleman also aware that unemployment is still rising there?
    Mr. Walker: The hon. Lady knows better than anyone else in the House that, since I have been Secretary of State, I have had some rather conflicting advice from political
    6
    leadership in the valley as to exactly what it would like to be done about that plant. As the hon. Lady knows, the local authority is currently concerned with certain planning powers on which it has to make judgments.
    Mr. Livsey: How many proposals has the Secretary of State received from the district councils in the past 12 months about low-cost starter homes and low-cost housing to rent? Are not the district councils pressing him hard on this?
    Mr. Walker: Obviously, it is a subject that has come up with local authorities and individuals, but I cannot give the number of actual representations. At present, discussions are going on both with the Housing Corporation in Wales and with district councils to see what sensible and practical plans can he developed.

    A55 (Link Roads)
    Mr. Raffan: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales whether he has yet had discussions with Clwyd county council concerning the need to provide link roads to the A55.
    Mr. Wyn Roberts: I attended a presentation given by the county council on its highway strategy on 14 April. The question of link roads to the A55 was covered.
    Mr. Raffan: Is my hon. Friend aware of the serious concern in Clwyd among members of all political parties that the county council has got its road priorities wrong and their belief that link roads between the A55 and the A548 should be constructed before a third Dee crossing is even contemplated? If the county council refuses to change its priorities, will my hon. Friend do what the former Secretary of State said that he would do and designate such link roads as trunk roads, so that the Welsh Office can build them?
    Mr. Roberts: My hon. Friend is right to say that there is some disagreement about priorities on the development of county roads in Clwyd, but it is up to all those concerned to get together with the county council. I visited my hon. Friend's borough council of Delyn last Friday and urged it to have discussions with the county council. We are talking about county roads which, as far as I know, will remain county roads. This is a local matter on which agreement should be reached, just as it has been reached, I believe, on the link from the A55 through the Rhuddlan bypass.

    Welsh Farming Unions
    Mr. Martyn Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he last met the Welsh farming unions; and what matters were discussed.
    Mr. Ron Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he last met representatives of the Farmers Union of Wales; and what matters were discussed.
    Mr. Peter Walker: I last met representatives of the Farmers Union of Wales on 20 October 1988 to discuss the hill livestock compensatory review.
    Mr. Jones: Given the superb result for Labour in north Wales and the massive rejection in Europe of Tory policies, will the right hon. Gentleman make sure that his colleagues in the Council of Ministers ensures that the

    7
    views of farmers in north Wales are properly represented, as they are not represented among farmers as a whole in Britain?
    Mr. Walker: Nothing delights the farmers of north Wales more than the sheepmeat premium regime, which I introduced and which they now want to save. When I introduced it, I did not receive great acclaim from the Opposition, but I am glad to say that they are now all eager to defend it. I am delighted to say that the sheep-meat regime is working well, with £56 million of benefits to Welsh farmers last year. We have heard of the great pleasure of the farmers' unions at the considerable increase in the beef suckler cow premium.
    Mr. Ron Davies: I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that his office did not manage to comply with the normal courtesies and inform me before Question Time that my question was linked with question No. 8.
    Will he confirm that every county in Wales has had recorded outbreaks of bovine spongiform encephalopathy? Will he publicly acknowledge that Welsh consumers are eating beef products derived from infected cattle? That statement has been acknowledged by the farmers' unions, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the British Veterinary Association. To protect the health of the people of Wales and the economic livelihood of Welsh farmers as stockmen, does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the only effective way of keeping infected animals out of the food chain is by increasing compensation to realistic levels? Will he give an undertaking that he will do just that?
    Mr. Walker: I do not think that Welsh farmers would be pleased at the way in which the hon. Gentleman has endeavoured, totally without justification, to scare the consuming public about Welsh beef. I regret his exaggerated remarks.
    I apologise for the bad mistake that my Office made in failing to inform the hon. Gentleman that his question would be linked. That should have been done.
    As for compensatory arrangements, they are constantly under review.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the anxiety among potato farmers in Pembrokeshire about the possible abolition of the Potato Marketing Board? Will he confirm that the Welsh Office has made representations to the review being carried out by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food?
    Mr. Walker: I can confirm that we have played a full part in the review mechanisms.
    Mr. Geraint Howells: In his discussions with the leaders of the farmers unions in Wales, did the right hon. Gentleman discuss the Government's proposals for financial cuts in research and development establishments in Wales? Will he give farmers in Wales an assurance that the future of the Trawsgoed and Pwllpeirian experimental farms and the Welsh plant breeding station at Gogerddan, Aberystwyth, will be safeguarded in years to come?
    Mr. Walker: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the reviews are currently taking place. We have discussed the matter with the farmers' unions in Wales and stressed the
    8
    importance of ensuring that the grass-growing areas of the United Kingdom, of which Wales is a prominent part, have the appropriate research facilities.

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Roy Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what are the latest unadjusted figures for unemployment in (a) Newport, (b) Gwent and (c) Wales; and if he will give the equivalent figures for 1979 on the most nearly comparable basis.
    Mr. Peter Walker: On 11 May 1989, the number of unemployed claimants in the Newport district, Gwent and Wales were 5,293, 16,156 and 97,818 respectively. Unadjusted figures for 1979 are not available on a basis which enables a valid comparison to be made. In the last 12 months, Wales has experienced a larger fall in the percentage rate of unemployment than any other region of the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Hughes: Is this to be the Secretary of State's last hoorah? Does he appreciate that no amount of trumpeting on his part can hide the fact that unemployment in Wales is 8·3 per cent., bottoming out at double the figure that it was under Labour, the country faces a massive balance of payments problem, interest rates are 14 per cent. and the inflation rate is 8·3 per cent. and rising? Surely, far from being a success, the Government's record is a disaster of the first order. That has been recognised by the electorate in the past few days.
    Mr. Walker: If this were my last appearance, my one regret would be that I should no longer be getting questions from the hon. Gentleman, who is always helpful. I am grateful to him for continuing to ask this question and I hope that he will go on doing so. He considered that unemployment was bottoming out at 150,000, 140,000, 130,000, 120,000, 110,000 and 100,000. I am glad to say that as it goes down to well below the average for the European Community, the hon. Gentleman remains consistent in putting questions which show that last year Wales had the best record in falling unemployment of any region in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Rowlands: Is the Secretary of State aware that within the past week there have been announcements in my own community of 150 possible redundancies at Thorne, 600 at the Merthyr Vale colliery and more than 100 at Hoover? According to the company, the job losses at Hoover were as a direct result of interest rates. In those circumstances, what does the Secretary of State say to his Cabinet colleagues about the impact of high interest rates on the mature manufacturing sectors in our communities?
    Mr. Walker: There is another question on this matter, but if the hon. Gentleman wishes, I can list a set of good announcements which took place last month. In the hon. Gentleman's constituency, there is much investment and expansion— —
    Mr. Rowlands: We are losing more than the new jobs coming.
    Mr. Walker: That is not true and the hon. Gentleman knows it. Merthyr has a very good record on unemployment, and continues and will continue to do so. The impression that the hon. Gentleman seeks to give that there is some great depression in Merthyr is not the case.

    9
    We are about to embark on the biggest derelict land clearance programme in Wales in Merthyr, and the sites are all sites that the local authority wishes to use for further industrial development.
    Mr. Raffan: Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the dramatic reduction in unemployment in Delyn in the past two years—a fall of 50·1 per cent. between May 1987 and May 1989? Does he agree that this remarkable achievement is due to the fact that the Government gave my constituency the highest development area status, which the Labour party never did, and gave it the Delyn enterprise zone, which the Labour party opposed?
    Mr. Walker: Yes, I am delighted with the developments in Delyn. I recently visited it and saw what was taking place. I was also delighted the other day to hear the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) say how staggered he was at the speed of the transformation of the Deeside economy.
    Mr. Wigley: In view of the possibility of the Toyota engine plant coming to Clwyd, will the Secretary of State take advantage of his opportunity tomorrow to tell Gwynedd county council what steps will be taken to ensure that any spin-off jobs associated with the development, which we greatly welcome, come to areas such as Gwynedd, so that the benefits arising from the scheme are spread as much as possible?
    Mr. Walker: I never predict investments which may or may not come to an area, and no decisions have been made —[Interruption.]—I have never predicted the investments that might come to any part of Wales until the deal is completed and signed because it would be silly to do so. One of the main purposes of my discussions tomorrow will be to see how we can take advantage of all the considerable economic developments in the county.
    Mr. Barry Jones: The right hon. Gentleman must not be complacent about unemployment in Wales. How will the privatisation of the four remaining skill centres reduce skills shortages in south and north Wales? Does he still believe that the economy has been mismanaged? Does he agree with the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer) that the Government's Euro-campaign was disgraceful?
    Mr. Walker: I am delighted to say that during the course of the next 18 months we shall be getting the new training and enterprise councils into place throughout Wales. They will involve considerable Government investment and will use all the training facilities that are available. So training in Wales in the coming years will, to a greater degree, meet the needs of a new and diversified economy; this will be greatly beneficial to the whole future economy of Wales.

    NHS Reform
    Mr. Rogers: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has had welcoming the Government's proposals for reform of the National Health Service.
    Mr. Grist: My right hon. Friend and I have received a substantial number of representations welcoming the Government's objectives, as outlined in the White Paper
    10
    "Working for Patients", to build on the achievement of record levels of patient care which our record levels of investment in the NHS have made possible, so as to bring all areas of the NHS up to the standards of the best and provide even better health care for all.
    Mr. Rogers: I find it extraordinary that the Secretary of State has received
    "a substantial number of representations"
    welcoming these proposals. That is almost as vague as his answer to the first question this afternoon, when he said that it was impossible to obtain ordinary statistics within the National Health Service. I wish the Minister would give us a precise figure rather than talking vaguely about "substantial". Opposition Members have received large postbags against these proposals. I want to know who sent these letters to the Minister.
    Mr. Grist: The hon. Gentleman complains about the weight of letters that he may have received. Like other hon. Members, he has passed many of them on to us. We, too, are constituency Members, and we also receive letters directed to the Welsh Office from members of the public and the various professions involved. To count them all out and dissect them would involve a waste of money which would be better spent elsewhere. Had Opposition Members not wilfully gone around scaring people we should not have had to waste so much time answering so many letters.
    Mr. Gwilym Jones: Given that the Government spend almost half as much again on the Health Service in Wales in GDP terms as compared with their average European counterparts, does my hon. Friend agree that it is essential that he pursue his discussions on the improvements to the Health Service, so that what we all want to happen will happen and average performances will be brought up to the level of the best?
    Mr. Grist: I very much agree. Apart from the White Paper, there is also the GPs' contract, the aim of which is to ensure that we in Wales, who do not always receive the best of treatment by certain parts of the Health Service, receive the very best treatment. I should have thought that that was the desire of the constituents of every hon. Member.
    Mr. Win Griffiths: Would the Minister care to name any doctors or consultants who approve of the Government's proposals? Will he admit that doctors and consultants across Wales are far more typically wholly opposed to them? A doctor wrote to me saying that he believes in three quarters of what the Government are doing and usually votes Conservative in general elections, but he believes that these proposals are, to quote him, "dishonest".
    Mr. Grist: I think that that doctor will find, as will many other people—perhaps including Opposition Members, as they learn a little more during the passage of the legislation and see the results of the consultations that have taken place—that our proposals will form the basis of the Health Service well into the next century—a modern Health Service, which is not based on the 1940s.
    Mr. John Marshall: Does my hon. Friend agree that these proposals will lead to greater efficiency and choice in the Health Service and should be warmly welcomed? Does

    11
    he agree that it is high time that the vicious and misleading propaganda campaign by the BMA was brought to an end?
    Mr. Grist: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our proposals are based on choice for those who work in the Health Service and for its patients. They should all be aware of the opportunities that are open to them as professionals and as patients. At the moment, too many people do not know what is going on and do not have freedom of choice. That is what Conservatives stand for, unlike the blinkered witness of the Opposition.
    Mr. Michael: Does the Minister not accept that his proposals are based not on choice but on secrecy? Will he tell us what has happened to the papers similar to those for England which the Secretary of State for Wales personally promised during the debate on 1 March? I stress that the word used was "similar" and not "identical". Will he also tell us when we are to have the subsequent papers on specific Welsh proposals which he promised in column 303 during the same debate? When will the Minister start debating the Government's proposals?
    Mr. Grist: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will shortly make a statement on the detailed programme for implementation in Wales.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Does my hon. Friend recall that all last year and the year before the Labour party complained that the Health Service was deteriorating and that it was just a matter of spending more money on it? However, when the Government bring forward positive proposals to make the Health Service more businesslike, the Opposition appear to have no policies whatever. If they do not agree with the Government is it not incumbent on them to say what they would do?
    Mr. Grist: They are an empty vessel making a great deal of sound. That is the truth of the matter.

    Expenditure
    Mr. Alan W. Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the outturn figure for total expenditure within the Secretary of State's responsibility for 1988–89; what was the outturn figure for 1987–88; and what is the growth in the budget (i) in money terms and (ii) in real terms after adjustment for the gross domestic product deflator for 1988–89.
    Mr. Peter Walker: The outturn for 1987–88 was £3,338 million. The estimated outturn for 1988–89 is £3,658 million. This represents a cash increase of 9·.6 per cent. and a real increase of 2·2 per cent.
    Mr. Williams: I am grateful to the Minister for those figures. He says that there has been a 2·2 per cent. increase in real terms. That bears out what Lord Crickhowell said on the eve of the Vale of Glamorgan by-election, which was that there has been no new policy, no new initiative and little change in the scale of public spending during the right hon. Gentleman's tenure of office. The people of Wales have rumbled that and the Secretary of State has lost both the Conservative seats that he has had to defend during his tenure of office.
    Mr. Walker: As always, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman because whether it is a case of statistics or
    12
    Conservative posters he is always a great help to my party. An increase in real terms of 2·2 per cent. is in very sharp contrast to a decrease of 3 per cent. per year that took place in the last two years of the last Labour Government.
    Mr. Alan Williams: Is it not correct to say that that 2·2 per cent. is virtually entirely accounted for by the increase in nurses' pay which applied over the whole country? Is it not a fact that over the rest of the budget for Wales there has at best been standstill and in some cases cuts?
    Mr. Walker: I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman of all people should mention nurses' pay. One of the reasons for the 3 per cent. reduction in each of the last two years of the Labour Government was the appalling treatment of nurses' pay by that Government. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is ashamed of that. I am glad to say that, for example, the budget of the Welsh Development Agency, which has an important economic impact on Wales, has increased by 53 per cent. in the last two years.

    Operations (Waiting lists)
    Mr. Rowlands: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales whether he will make a statement on the waiting lists for (a) hip and (b) ear, nose and throat operations in Welsh hospitals.
    Mr. Grist: I am pleased to note the reduction in the number of people waiting for urgent treatment in the orthopaedic and ear, nose and throat specialties across Wales as a whole, but, naturally, it is disappointing that the number of people waiting for non-urgent treatment has increased slightly. Health authorities have the primary responsibility to reduce waiting times for patients. The Welsh Office is seeking to ensure that district health authorities address the issue through the record level of resources made available to them, by insisting on energetic management action and by specific central funding of particular local initiatives.
    Mr. Rowlands: Is the Minister not aware that in my community people have to wait for months even to be referred to hospital, let alone receive treatment in them? They have tried the Government's suggestion of looking at neighbouring hospitals only to find that waiting lists there for hip and ENT treatment are equally long. Is not the idea behind all this to drive many of our people into the private health service? As we saw in a dramatic case described in one of the national newspapers, a young child was charged about £800 for treatment for a nose bleed. Is that the sort of Health Service that the Minister wants?
    Mr. Grist: The hon. Gentleman has overlooked proposals such as treatment centres—He may be aware that one of the health authorities in Wales is likely shortly to bring proposals for one of these to the Welsh Office —the increase in the number of consultants, and the fact that there are shorter waiting times for different areas in Wales. At the moment, many doctors and patients know nothing about such places, and they might be prepared to use them if they knew about them. All these and other aspects of our health proposals will shorten waiting lists and spread choice for patients. The hon. Gentleman should also be aware that there is a problem of referral by doctors even within one health authority, in which one

    13
    consultant may have a waiting list of a year and another may have one of only three months. Patients should be aware of such knowledge and we want to spread it.

    Cardiff (Manufacturing Industry)
    Mr. Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what progress he is able to report on the attraction of new manufacturing industry to the Cardiff employment exchange area.
    Mr. Peter Walker: Seven manufacturing projects have been secured for the Cardiff travel-to-work area over the past year, compared to three in the previous 12 months. Cardiff will also benefit substantially from the major projects taking place in neighbouring areas by firms such as Ford and Bosch.
    Mr. Morgan: Is it not a desirable objective that the economy in the Cardiff area should be developed in a balanced way, without an undue preponderance of service industries? Therefore is it not vital that a wide range of training opportunities for young people is provided? One can do that only if there is a healthy spread of manufacturing industry, and it may be necessary to review the development area status of the Cardiff area, to ensure that it can compete fairly to get new manufacturing industry. Since the closure of East Moors in 1978, we have not had one solid, large metal-cutting engineering employer in the area.
    Mr. Walker: Seven new manufacturing firms coming in over the past year is not a bad record. Having major investments of the magnitude of Ford and Bosch very near is of considerable advantage to Cardiff. I agree that we need a balance, but I know that the hon. Gentleman strongly welcomes the enormous expansion of the financial service industries in Cardiff. Training is required for that as well as for manufacturing industry, so we must see both. I am also pleased to say that the Cardiff bay development programmes are considerable programmes for manufacturing and industry as well as for service industry.

  CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

    Senior Clergy (Programme)
    Mr. John Marshall: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, as representing the Church Commissioners, whether the Church Commissioners have considered helping to fund and initiate a programme for senior clergy similar to the Industry and Parliamentary Trust.
    Mr. Michael Alison (Second Church Estates Commissioner, representing the Church Commissioners): The commissioners' funds are not available for in-service training of the clergy. I am, however, passing my hon. Friend's suggestions to the General Synod's board for social responsibility, which is sponsoring a debate in the next month about the Church's ministry in industry, and commerce and to the advisory council for the Church's ministry. My hon. Friend will know that industrial chaplains are the main link between industry and the Church, and already, 57 full-time industrial chaplains are on the commission's payroll.
    Mr. Marshall: Would it not be useful if the leaders of the Church had a greater understanding of the ethos of the decision-making process by major British companies?
    Mr. Alison: I agree with my hon. Friend that such inside knowledge would be desirable for the Church that has to have its feet firmly planted in the world. Many of the Church of England's committees connected with the assets of the Church include senior clergy on them. For example, the management of the Church of England's property placed it in the top 10 per cent. of the league table of 43 funds, worth £10 billion or more. In property, it has performed extremely well. As to the stock exchange, in the league table consisting of 1,450 pension funds, the Church of England management of its assets placed it ninth in a percentile scale of 100. That again shows that the Church of England's feet, although other-worldly in many respects, are firmly planted in commercial reality.

    Incumbents (Emoluments)
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, as representing the Church Commissioners, what he estimates to be the value of the emoluments of the average incumbent; how these are calculated; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Alison: The present average stipend of an incumbent is estimated to be £9,500 per annum. In addition, an incumbent enjoys free accommodation and a non-contributory pension and death benefit scheme which together are worth on average £5,750 per annum on the most recent estimate.
    Mr. Greenway: Does my right hon. Friend agree that those figures show that a good clergyman is seriously underpaid? Will he estimate the value to clergymen of the free emolument that has been brought to Britain by the great preaching of Dr. Billy Graham?
    Mr. Alison: It is difficult to estimate the figure that should be placed upon Dr. Graham's preaching. I am sure, however, that his mission will produce many additions to the occupants of the pews in the Church of England. Unfortunately, the average donation made by those who worship in the Church of England is only £2·19 a week. There is considerable scope for an increase in voluntary giving.
    Mr. Frank Field: Would not one way of increasing the amount that the laity gives be for the right hon. Gentleman to ask at the next meeting of the board of governors that it sets a timetable for a 50 per cent. increase in clergy pay, and to ascertain how much the laity would have to increase its giving each week to meet that bill? Would not that be an appropriate target to meet over the next five years?
    Mr. Alison: That is a good and constructive idea. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear in mind the extent to which we have succeeded in overtaking inflation in many respects in increasing clergy stipends. On average, and taking emoluments in kind into account, the incumbent receives £15,000 a year, plus help towards, in effect, a free car.

    Office Accommodation
    Mr. Thurnham: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, as representing the Church Commissioners, if he will list all the office accommodation used by the Church Commissioners in central London.
    Mr. Alison: The commissioners have one main administrative office at No. 1 Millbank. Apart from this, they have only a small amount of office space integral to the administration of their London residential estates and archive depository.
    Mr. Thurnham: Given the high valuation of over £25 million that has been placed on No. 1, Millbank, will my right hon. Friend urge the commissioners to see whether they can find cheaper accommodation elsewhere? It occurred to me that there might be a little room at Lambeth palace.
    Mr. Alison: There is plenty going on already at Lambeth palace without the additional distraction of the lay members of the Church Commissioners. My hon. Friend has raised a serious and constructive issue. We want always to seek the most efficient use of Church resources. If there were evacuation from No. 1, Millbank, the costs of removal and the taking of comparable and reasonably centralised accommodation in London would be likely to be very high.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMISSION

    Sleeping Accommodation
    Mr. Barry Field: To ask the hon. Member for Berwick upon Tweed, as representing the House of Commons Commission, how many beds are available for members of staff in and around the House, how they are allocated; what is the average occupancy rate against the number of sitting days; and what is the total cost of (a) attendance, (b) laundry and (c) cleaning of staff bedrooms.
    Mr. A. J. Beith (On behalf of the House of Commons Commission): Excluding official residences such as your own Mr. Speaker, there are 94 beds provided for staff of the House whose duties require their attendance for late sittings. These beds are also available for use in emergencies. Of this total, 42 beds are personally allocated and the remainder are available on a first-come-first-served basis. Precise details of occupancy rates and associated costs can be provided only at disproportionate expense.
    Mr. Field: One is tempted to ask precisely what an emergency would be. Given the considerable amount that is paid out to hon. Members for their accommodation allowance in London, which is over £9,000 a Member, will the hon. Gentleman consider handing over this valuable accommodation either to one of the many seaside landladies in my constituency, who could produce a reasonable profit from it, or to a hotel company that is experienced in managing property of this nature, so that the taxpayer can have full value for money?
    Mr. Beith: If the hon. Gentleman waits until Wednesday he may get an idea of what constitutes an emergency need for overnight accommodation. The
    16
    accommodation is not used by hon. Members, with one or two exceptions such as your Deputies, Mr. Speaker. It is used by members of the staff, some of whom live beyond the mileage limit of late-night transport. The hon. Gentleman raises reasonable questions about how account can be taken of the best way of providing the service and I shall ensure that the Commission is made aware of his comments.

    Crown Immunity
    Mr. Allen: To ask the hon. Member for Berwick upon Tweed, as representing the House of Commons Commission, what assessment he has made of the effect of the application of Crown immunity in the Palace of Westminster on the adequacy of health and safety provision for staff working in the House of Commons; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Beith: Although, as I understand it, neither the enforcement provisions nor those relating to the prosecution of offences in the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, apply to the Palace of Westminster, it is nevertheless the policy of the House to endeavour to comply fully with the requirements of the Act and with all other relevant statutory provisions, subject only to such specific exemptions provided for in legislation that arise from the constitutional position of the Crown.
    Mr. Allen: Is it not outrageous that in this day and age the House of Commons and the Palace of Westminster are not covered effectively by the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 and that Crown immunity still exists in respect of people who work and often are injured in this place? Will the hon. Gentleman take steps to ensure that although the Health and Safety Executive is invited into this place on a grace and favour basis, there is a proper monitoring system by the House of Commons Commission to ensure safety conditions affecting people who live and work in the Palace of Westminster are improved to the standards that they would have to meet were the 1974 Act applicable?
    Mr. Beith: It is misleading to suggest that health and safety at work requirements for the staff working in this place are not covered. It is the object of the authorities of the House to ensure that they are observed in every respect. It is also misleading to suggest that officers of the Health and Safety Executive or other bodies must be invited here. They are admitted at their own request if they wish to come at other times. Nevertheless, it is important that we should be fully satisfied that the House is complying, so far as the limits of this building permit, with the legislation and that its monitoring should take that into account.
    Mr. Alan Williams: Does not the present situation deprive the people who work here of their rights because under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, in the last resort, they have recourse to law in the event of a dispute between them and the employer? That right is not available to employees here. Our employees are at a disadvantage in relation to people outside this place.
    Mr. Beith: The right hon. Gentleman will know that it is not possible to prosecute the Crown. However, it is the policy of the House to try to ensure that its employees are not placed at a disadvantage and to meet liabilities where

    17
    any can be shown. If the right hon. Gentleman is aware of circumstances in which he feels that a dispute has not been properly resolved, I hope that he will draw it to my attention, because I am sure that the House of Commons Commission would not want that to happen.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS

    Chamber (Blinds)
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will issue guidance as to when it would be appropriate to draw the blinds in the House of Commons Chamber; and if he will make a statement.
    The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Wakeham): The blinds on the west side of the Chamber are raised as requested by right hon. and hon. Members, or on the judgment of Officers of the House on duty in the Chamber.
    Mr. Greenway: Does my right hon. Friend agree that Opposition Members rarely see the light and that to draw the blinds can only make matters worse? Does he also agree that sunlight can only enlighten our proceedings? Can we have much more of it?
    Mr. Wakeham: I agree with much of what my hon. Friend has said. However, of course my hon. Friend has had no experience of sitting on the Opposition Benches, although he has been a Member of this place for quite a long time. I very much hope that he will not have that experience. I believe that the present system, left to the judgment of right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches, is the best way to deal with this.
    Mr. Winnick: Is it the Lord President of the Council's job or that of some other Minister, to draw the blinds on the current Tory electoral anguish?
    Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman is always hoping for preferment in the Labour party. One day he may be in charge of deciding whether the blinds should be raised or lowered.
    Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that future guidelines will not state that the blinds must be drawn to satisfy the requirements of the television authorities?
    Mr. Wakeham: Obviously, we shall consider how the television experiment will work. I do not believe that the blinds will be any part of a television experiment, but we shall see how we get along.

    Early-day Motions
    Mr. Allen: To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will bring forward proposals to establish a system to allow debate of the early-day motion with the most signatures.
    Mr. Wakeham: No, Sir.
    Mr. Allen: The Lord President of the Council will be aware that the original intention of early-day motions was to provide hon. Members with the possibility of debating issues of topical importance and relevance at an early day. Will he seek some reform of the system so that where a number of hon. Members, perhaps a percentage of
    18
    Conservative Members and Opposition Members, want to debate a matter, it can be debated perhaps once a week on a Friday morning? On that basis, over the past few weeks, there might have been debates on, for example, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report on the brewing industry, which is of importance to hon. Members on both sides of the House, the sexual abuse of children and perhaps the legal profession and its current efforts. This week the Lord President of the Council may receive an early-day motion requesting a discussion on the possibilities of an early election. Those debates might be very helpful to the House.
    Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman's proposal would fundamentally alter the whole early-day motion system. It is a means of enabling right hon. and hon. Members to express their views on a matter when there is no expectation that time will be available for a debate, and it serves the House well. I do not wish to see motions being touted around for signature, simply to secure a slot for a debate. Other channels are available to right hon. and hon. Members who wish to raise a matter in the House, including Adjournment debates and private Members' motions.
    Mr. Brandon-Bravo: While I welcome my right hon. Friend's reply to the original question, I might have had some sympathy with the question but for the fact that there is another side to the coin. Motions appear on the Order Paper day after day, week after week and month after month with but one signature—that of the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), who wants £100,000 for his own personal publicity campaign. Should not the House find time to debate that outrageous suggestion?
    Mr. Wakeham: What Leicester did in the last Parliament, Nottingham seems to do in this Parliament. I shall content myself with saying that I spent a very happy day in Nottingham on Friday.

    Palace of Westminster (Map)
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: To ask the Lord President of the Council what maps or plans of the Palace of Westminster are available for guidance of new members; and if there is any plan to commission a new map or plan.
    Mr. Wakeham: A plan of the principal floor is included in the Serjeant at Arms' leaflet "Accommodation and General Facilities for Members, their Private Secretaries and Research Assistants", which is issued to all new hon. Members. Similar plans are included in a variety of other publications and guides. There are no plans at present to commission a new map or plan.
    Mr. Bennett: Does the Leader of the House accept that the plans that are available are inadequate for any new hon. Member who wants to find his or her way around the four floors of the House and the other buildings? Would it not be a good idea to make available an accurate map, so that right hon. and hon. Members can find all the offices within the House that they need to locate?
    Mr. Wakeham: Any decision on the need for the House authorities to provide further information for new hon. Members, including the commissioning of maps, would

    19
    initially be a matter for the Services Committee. I understand that such an approach has already been made to that Committee, which will consider it in due course.

  WALES

    NHS Reform
    Mr. Livsey: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the National Health Service White Paper, "Working for Patients", as it affects Wales.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Ian Grist): Chapter 11 of the "Working for Patients" White Paper describes the detailed programme of action for Wales. Since the publication of the White Paper, my hon. Friend and I have engaged in discussions with key interests to ensure that the programme is implemented so as to secure better health care for all. My right hon. Friend intends to make a statement on the details of the next steps of implementation in the near future.
    Mr. Livsey: Does the Minister not agree that the NHS White Paper will be disastrous for the rural areas of Wales, that general practitioners will have fewer resources available to cover their areas, and that the creation of NHS hospital trusts will take resources away from community hospitals in rural areas, creating a wholly unacceptable two-tier Health Service?
    Mr. Grist: The hon. Gentleman overlooks the fact that the rural payments section of the GP's contract is still under consultation, so he is leaping ahead with yet another scare story.
    The possibility of having self-governing hospitals, or any other units or doctors, in Wales will rest in the first instance on their choosing to be self-governing and on acceptance by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. There will be no second status for anybody under our proposals.

    Lending Rate
    Mr. Denzil Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the effect of the recent increase in the minimum lending rate on the development of the economy of Wales.
    The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Peter Walker): I am pleased to say that since interest rates have been at high levels two recent major surveys have both shown considerable confidence in the level of investment and job
    20
    creation within the Welsh economy. In the first five months of this year the excellent record of Wales for inward investment continued. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, in 1988 Wales achieved the record both for jobs and for finance for inward investment. Unemployment continues to fall, and last year's 2·5 percentage point reduction in the Welsh rate was the largest of all the United Kingdom regions.
    Mr. Davies: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that inward investors might in the short term be able to cope with interest rates of 14 or 15 per cent. but that 95 per cent. of the Welsh economy is indigenous and is not concerned with inward investment, and that that sector has been damaged by high interest rates? Does the Secretary of State agree that it would be better to have a monetary and fiscal mix and to restore some of the cuts made in higher-rate taxes two years ago, thereby taking pressure off interest rates and to some extent redistributing wealth from the more prosperous regions of Britain to the less prosperous, such as Wales?
    Mr. Walker: A great deal of the investment activity in Wales is very much concerned with the indigenous industries, and that is true in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. A recent survey carried out by the Institute of Directors in Wales showed that the majority of firms there expected an increase of 10 per cent. or more in their labour forces in the coming 12 months. Another factor of considerable importance to Welsh industries is the level of company profits that has enabled those investment programmes to take place.

    Welsh Development Agency (Property Development)
    Mr. Knox: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what was the level of expenditure in property development by the Welsh Development Agency in 1987–88 and in 1988–89.
    Mr. Peter Walker: At £45·8 million, the Welsh Development Agency's property-related expenditure in 1988–89 was 43 per cent. higher than the £32·1 million in the previous financial year.
    Mr. Knox: Does my right hon. Friend agree that that expenditure has played an important part in helping to reduce unemployment in Wales? Does he expect expenditure to be even higher this year?
    Mr. Walker: I am glad to say that both the agency's factory building programme and its derelict land clearance programme are at record heights.

Student Top-up Loans
3.30 pm
The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Baker): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the arrangements for administering top-up loans for students.
The House will recall that on 9 November I announced the Government's proposals for introducing non-means-tested top-up loans. I said that from 1990, in addition to their grant, all home students in full-time higher education —except postgraduates—would be eligible for a top-up loan averaging over £400 in a full year. I explained that it would be offered at a real interest rate of zero, and that repayments would be deferred when a graduate's income is low.
In that statement, I made clear the Government's view that the top-up loan scheme would be best administered by the financial institutions. The scheme will of course be subject to the necessary legislation and, as I told the House, the Government will bring forward a short Bill to provide legislative authority for it. I am glad to be able to tell the House that, following discussion with representatives of the Committee of London and Scottish Bankers, a scheme has been designed which is agreed to be a cost-effective and feasible means of introducing top-up loans in September 1990 as planned.
Under the scheme there will be a private sector loan admistrator, in the form of a company established and wholly owned by participating financial institutions, under contract to the Government. Participation in the company will be open to a wide range of financial institutions. It is clear from my discussions with members of Committee of London and Scottish Bankers that—subject to the satisfactory outcome of the contractual negotiations—a sufficient number of financial institutions will wish to participate from the outset to ensure that the company will be viable.
Under the arrangements students who wish to benefit from top-up loans will obtain a certificate of entitlement from their university, polytechnic or college. The certificates can be presented to the branches of the banks and other financial institutions that own that company, or to the company itself, which will make the resources available to the student and maintain a record of the transaction. The Government will fund the company for the administrative costs of the scheme and, of course, for the loans themselves.
The Government have carefully considered the repayment system, in the light of the responses to the White Paper "Top-up Loans for Students". We have concluded that repayment should be on the basis of equal amounts, adjusted annually for inflation, being repaid over a standard period. The obligation to repay will be deferred when a graduate's income falls below given levels in relation to average national income. Deferment will be arranged with the company on the basis of self-certification of income and subject to audit. In order to minimise any default on repayments, there will be a financial incentive under which the company will earn a proportion of its fee through securing a high repayment rate.
The Government will meet the costs of detailed preparatory work by the Committee of London and Scottish Bankers and by the company in the period from now onwards. Parliamentary approval will be sought in an
22
additional Supplementary Estimate, to be presented shortly. We shall start immediate negotiations with the interested financial institutions to conclude a contract to cover the operation of the scheme, and that will of course be conditional on the Royal Assent to the Act. The range of costs indicated in the preparatory work is from £8·3 million to 11·5 million for start-up costs, and from £10·4 million to £14 million for annual operating costs. I am glad to say that those are many times smaller than the amounts that I have been reading about in the press over the last few months.
It is right that this scheme should be administered in the private sector, as our financial institutions possess skills in information and banking systems that are not readily available in the public sector. I am satisfied that the arrangements offer an efficient scheme and good value for money, and I commend them to the House.
Mr. Jack Straw: If this is good news, as the Secretary of State appears to suggest, why did he hide away this announcement from the voters until after the European elections? Why did he consistently block all our requests for statements and why have the Government welshed on their promise of a debate?
Is the Secretary of State aware that under this grotesquely incompetent scheme the nation ends up with the worst of all worlds, in which the taxpayer pays much more while the student is given much less? Will he confirm that with inflation at 8 per cent., instead of the 3 per cent. forecast in the White Paper, and with the abolition of housing benefit, almost every student will be worse off from next year?
The right hon. Gentleman's statement says, in carefully crafted weasel words, not that there has been an agreement with the financial institutions but that a scheme has been designed
"which is agreed to be a cost-effective and feasible means of introducing top-up loans".
Will the Secretary of State say precisely what has been agreed with the financial institutions, or has nothing bankable been agreed with those institutions?
Will the Secretary of State confirm that he has come close to giving a false impression about costs by specifying costs which relate only to the early years of the scheme when there are relatively few debtors? What will be the cost per student and the cost per outstanding advance once the scheme is fully operational? What figure was advised by Price Waterhouse? Why is there no reference to interest rate subsidy in the statement or, indeed, to its cost, in the White Paper? What are the costs of the preparatory work that the taxpayer is now supposed to meet?
Is the Secretary of State aware that on the most conservative estimates, the administrative set-up and write-off costs, once the scheme is fully operational, will not be less than £100 per debtor? What kind of bloody-mindedness is it that persuades the Secretary of State to give £100 to moneylenders, bureaucrats and bailiffs when instead he could use that £100 per student to restore the real value of the grant? Is he aware that in the United States the cost of defaults on loan schemes such as this is now running at $1·8 billion, one third of the total cost of the scheme? What does the Secretary of State expect the defaults cost of this scheme to be? Will he confirm that it will cost the Exchequer more while giving

23
students less until decades into the next century and that there is even a prospect of this scheme never breaking even?
Why has the Secretary of State said nothing this afternoon about his earlier grand claims that a loans scheme would increase access and opportunities—I thought that that was the argument in favour of the scheme—or has he now accepted, in the light of the 95 per cent. of representations that he received against the scheme, that it will put students off going into higher education and damage the opportunities of those from low-income homes?
Is the Secretary of State aware that his ministerial career is littered with wheezes and gimmicks which seemed a good idea at the time but which turned out to be half-baked and unworkable? Does he intend to see this barmy loan scheme through, or is he going to cut and run to another Department and leave the mess to someone else —as he did with his previous great invention, the poll tax?
Mr. Baker: I am delighted that the spirit of the hustings still survives. I advise the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) not to be too cocky about last Thursday's results. We shall expose the fact that the Labour party, despite its new proposals in its new manifesto, is still Socialist in tooth and claw, and that its proposals on education are totally negative, in that the hon. Gentleman wants to abolish schools and reverse our reforms. [Interruption.] I do not know whether this is the first skirmish in the opening campaign for the general election in two or three years' time, but I am quite confident that if it is we shall eventually win. [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us get back to the scheme.
Mr. Baker: I was provoked shockingly, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Gentleman said that next year students will be worse off, but that will not be the case. We estimate the disentitlement to benefit next year to be about £65 million and the increased additional resources available through top-up loan schemes will be £167 million. [Interruption.] I wish that the hon. Gentleman would listen for a minute. In addition to the £167 million there will be £15 million of access funds.
The hon. Gentleman asked me about bank participation. We have had discussions with a number of banks and other financial institutions. I am clear that there will be substantial interest in participation in the scheme, subject to the negotiation of the final contract. In particular, it is clear that major clearing banks will be ready to participate in the scheme. It is for individual banks and other financial institutions, including building societies, to say whether they will take part in the scheme. That must be their decision, but I am confident, from assurances given personally to me, of substantial interest in participating in the scheme.
The hon. Gentleman talked about those students who will be worse off. As a result of top-up loans, 120,000 students who currently receive no maintenance grant whatsoever, because they are means tested out of it, will have the availability of a top-up loan of about £400 a year on average. Similarly, 160,000 students who receive a reduced grant as a result of parental contribution, but whose parents do not make it up, will also benefit from the
24
top-up loan facility. In addition, some 50,000 students in higher education who have no entitlement to an award at the moment will benefit from top-up loans.
The hon. Gentleman asked me about default. We always include provision for the cost of default in our arithmetic. Annex E of the White Paper on top-up loans shows an illustrative figure of a default rate of 10 per cent. Some default is inevitable, but I do not expect it to be as high as 10 per cent. Some default is inevitable by the nature of the scheme. For example, we will require the loans to be made available to all students who are taking higher degree courses, irrespective of their credit rating. If a graduate unfortunately dies after graduation, the debt of that person will not be taken into his or her estate; it will be written off. Similarly, the scheme allows any outstanding debt to be written off by the age of 50. Those are unusual characteristics of a banking operation, so we have to meet them.
We have always assumed that the Government will have to stand behind the cost of default, as illustrated in the White Paper, but the operating company will earn a proportion of its fee through securing a high repayment rate.
The hon. Gentleman asked about default rates, particularly in America. I remind him that the rate of default in Norway is 1 per cent. and 2 per cent. in Sweden and Japan. In America, the default rate is high for two reasons. First, there are no proposals for deferment while American graduates are earning, so those on low incomes are expected to repay and they default. We are allowing for the obligation to pay to be related to income. Secondly, in America the loan scheme has been extended to those whom we would call further education students and it has proved very difficult to track them as they move all over America.
As I said in my original statement, costs will be between £8 and £12 per student account. In 1995 we estimate that the operating costs will be between £10·5 million and £14 million. That gives the £8 to £12 per student account in 1995. As for what that represents as a percentage of the money outstanding, by 1995 we estimate that there will be an outstanding amount of £1·2 billion and administrative costs of £10 million to £14 million, which is a very small proportion—about 1 per cent. That is all set out in the original White Paper in annex E—[Interruption.] I wish that the hon. Gentleman would read the White Paper and be familiar with his figures. Once again he shows that he has not done his homework. He has no ideas; he does not even have ideas about our ideas.
Mr. James Pawsey: Does my right hon. Friend accept that his statement will be widely welcomed by Conservative Members and by the country? It will increase the degree of access to higher education by providing a source of cheap funding. Will he confirm that it will be just about the cheapest money in town?
In response to the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), I should like to draw two further points from my right hon. Friend. First, will he confirm that the incidence of default in Scandinavia is between 1 and 2 per cent.? Secondly, on access funds, the original figure quoted in the White Paper was £15 million. Does my right hon. Friend agree that many Conservative Members consider that £15 million is inadequate and would like him to endeavour to improve that figure?

25
Finally, when we introduce legislation in this matter, is it intended also to have some reference to the funding of student unions and to freedom of speech in higher education and in universities?
Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend asked various questions. I can confirm that the default rate in Norway is 1 per cent. It is 2 per cent. in Sweden and 2 per cent. in Japan. My hon. Friend asked also about the level of access funds. The access funds in the White Paper were stated to be about £15 million—that is, £5 million for the universities and polytechnics, £5 million for postgraduates and £5 million for the FE sector. There have been representations during the consultation process that those figures should be higher. I note carefully what my hon. Friend has said. Those decisions will be taken next year in the PES round.
My hon. Friend asked whether it is the cheapest money in town. Certainly, it does not bear a real rate. It is a real rate of zero. It means that the outstanding amount is uprated by the rate of inflation each year. Many students will find that an attractive deal.
My hon. Friend asked about student unions. I recognise the concern on behalf of those students who do not wish, through their own student unions, to be affiliated to the National Union of Students. I am considering various options for change in the present arrangements, and I will bring forward proposals in due course. I will also publish shortly the report of the survey on the student unions and the NUS.
My hon. Friend asked also about freedom of speech. I recognise a real concern that some visiting speakers have been unable to secure a fair hearing, or any hearing at all, on certain campuses. I have consulted the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, the Committee of Directors of Polytechnics and the Standing Conference of Principals on how best to strengthen the provisions of the 1986 legislation. I am now considering the way forward, and I will bring proposals forward in due course. If necessary, we shall consider further legislation.
Mr. Simon Hughes: Does the Secretary of State deny the statement by one of the bank officials whom he met last week to the effect that they were still all at sea about who would pay for the scheme, who would run it, and so on? Does he deny that he cannot say today that anybody has unconditionally agreed to participate in the scheme?
Is it not already the case that, on previously projected figures, it would cost £750 million over 10 years, on the Secretary of State's basis, before the scheme breaks even at the end of the decade? That is on the basis of a 3 per cent. rate of inflation, which is clearly, under his Government's administration, a wildly inaccurate estimate. The additional costs announced today will total at least £150 million. Is it not the reality that the scheme will cost at least £1 billion or more to the Treasury? At the moment, that is not a cost that the Government are having to finance at all, but will involve extra Government money under their scheme of public expenditure.
Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman must refer to annex E in the White Paper. I am sure that he is familiar with the figures. He will know that it will cost the Government money until the break-even year. As a result of the outlined cost figures that I have given today, it is possible that the break-even year may move about half a year forward, from 2001 to 2002—no more than that. The
26
Government are committed to reducing the rate of inflation. That remains the Government's unremitting target.
Mr. Robert Rhodes James: As my right hon. Friend and the House are aware, I am not exactly an enthusiastic supporter of the scheme, either in principle or in practicality. Although, of course, I shall look carefully at my right hon. Friend's statement, in view of what happened last November, I advise the House to look at the statement carefully and to question some of the figures. As it is now grimly evident that the cost of the scheme will primarily be borne by the taxpayer, before drafting legislation will my right hon. Friend consider whether the figures could be rather more precise, whether the implications could be made rather clearer, and whether the House could have a debate on these matters?
Mr. Baker: The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) referred earlier to the question of a debate. I should welcome such a debate and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who is in his place, has registered my expectation that there will be one because it would be helpful. I am happy to give the figures. Indeed, the figures that I put forward this afternoon take us much further forward in our discussions with the banks. Coupled with the figures set out in the "Top-up Loans for Students" White Paper and in annex E, they mean that the figures are before the country and the House. I am happy to consider what my hon. Friend has said. I do not know whether I can convert him to support this scheme, but I believe that he has something of an open mind.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: Is the Secretary of State aware that I have not needed to read the White Paper or to listen to the statement about this type of loan because it was available before the last war? Indeed, I went to university on such a grant and paid it back out of my gratuity at the end of the war. Therefore I understand the nature of the grant and its effect on students without guessing about it. When I read in the White Paper that the aim is to save public expenditure, that reinforced my view—which is strongly felt because I represent an inner-city area where practically nobody goes into higher education—that all that this will do is to make it doubly difficult for the sort of people that we want to get to university actually to get there. If that is dyed-in-the-wool Socialism, count me a dyed-in-the-wool Socialist.
Mr. Baker: It is just as well that the right hon. Gentleman does not live in Australia these days, where the Socialist Government have introduced charging for tuition costs and fees at universities. I am not implying that the hon. Member for Blackburn would seek to follow that, but simply wish to point out that, associated with that proposal in Australia is the graduate tax, a proposal that has won support from some Labour Members. Indeed, the Labour spokesman in the House of Lords favours a graduate tax and I believe that the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice), the immediate predecessor of the hon. Member for Blackburn, also favours a graduate tax. There is a lot of new thinking in the Labour party in this area— —
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Robert Jackson): Some new thinking.
Mr. Baker: Well, as my hon. Friend has said, there is some new thinking.
The right hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) raised the question of access. We are the only developed country not to have some form of loans system for students. In the other countries that have top-up loans alongside grants, a higher proportion of the population of young people goes to college, university or the equivalent of polytechnics, especially in America, where there are extensive loans systems. I am often told that such a system will discourage women, but in America women now constitute well over half the student population. The system has not proved a deterrent.
I advise the right hon. Gentleman that I am committed to the expansion of higher education. The Governments of whom he has been a leading member, and Conservative Governments, have always been constrained by the high cost of higher education in our country. The right hon. Gentleman served in the Cabinet that cut higher education significantly, both in numbers and in capital. Student loans will represent a new flow of funds into higher education and will broaden the financial platform.
Mr. David Madel: How will discretionary grants fit in when the scheme is under way? Will my right hon. Friend assure me that when all the details have been worked out the greatest care and sensitivity will be exercised towards those students with long courses, such as medicine or veterinary medicine?
Mr. Baker: Discretionary grants will, of course, continue, as will the normal mandatory grants. It will be up to the local authorities to decide exactly what the position is and whether they give grants. Those people who are not successful in obtaining a discretionary grant—there are many tens of thousands each year—will be eligible for top-up loans, which will be non-means tested. That represents a guaranteed and assured source of extra available funds.
Mr. Peter Shore: The Secretary of State should know that his announcement will have been greeted with great disappointment, if not dismay, by the great majority of students in British universities who were hoping that the Secretary of State's statement this afternoon would announce that he had had second thoughts about this mean, paltry and damaging scheme.
Is the Secretary of State not aware that medical students, who have five-year courses, three of which are taken up with clinical studies, lasting 46 weeks of the year, have had and will have no opportunity of supplementing their inadequate grants with extra earnings during the long vacation and other periods? Is he not aware that the average medical student today in London is having to borrow from banks up to £3,000 over the length of his course to meet the present deficiencies in his student grant? What effect will this additional burden of loan have upon medical students and especially upon those who have been recruited from rather less affluent circumstances than the Secretary of State normally considers, and on women students, who now form so large a part of our total student intake for medical purposes?
Mr. Baker: I will take no lectures on inadequate grants and general expenditure on higher education, from a right hon. Member of the House who was a member of the
28
Labour Cabinet that substantially cut higher education. In general, there were substantial cuts in higher education in 1976, because the Labour Government ran the country so badly. I believe that many students will welcome the proposal for top-up loans. I have already indicated the large numbers of students—the 120,000 who receive no grants at present; the 160,000 who have their grants reduced and the 50,000 who are or who are not on discretionary awards in higher education—who will benefit by having an available source of money, at a cost lower than the costs that the right hon. Gentleman suggested medical students would pay.
Medical students can look foward to a high income but, if they do not achieve that high income, they will be protected by the deferment arrangements. I recognise that the medical students' extra years of study will lead to extra debt, and the repayment term may need to be extended for them.
Sir Philip Goodhart: Can I press my right hon. Friend on the question of medical students? In the United States the average doctor starts his medical career with a debt of $50,000. We do not want to see that happening here.
Mr. Baker: It is highly unlikely that there will be any figure of that scale. If my hon. Friend looks at the figures, the average loan is £400 a year in the first year, building up slowly over a period of years. We do not, therefore, envisage that scale of indebtedness for medical students. The point I would make again is that, if there is extra debt, the repayment period, which we have envisaged would be five years for a normal student, could be extended to recognise that fact.
Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas: If the Secretary of State was meditating on the statement during his sponsored walk in my constituency on Friday, I doubt whether it has done him any good. Will he address himself specifically to the effect of the scheme on mature students? Is he arguing that the introduction of such a top-up loan scheme will benefit and increase access? Where is the evidence of that in the statement beyond that which he was saying in the White Paper?
Mr. Baker: I very much enjoyed going on a sponsored walk in a very beautiful part of the hon. Gentleman's constituency on a lovely day. I thought that it was quite a good day for a leading Conservative politician to be walking in the Welsh hills.
If the hon. Gentleman looks at the availability of student support in other developed countries as compared with this country, he will see that what stands out in this country is its very high level of student support, and that has had an inhibiting effect on the expansion of higher education over the years. In the United Kingdom, for example, in 1984 prices, student support per student is £750; in West Germany £70; in France £180 and in Japan £30. We believe that it is reasonable to expect students to make some contribution towards their upkeep costs while they are studying.
Mr. Anthony Nelson: In acknowledging that my right hon. Friend has worked extremely hard to come forward with a viable scheme, may I put to him the concern that perhaps some of us have, which is that unless one means-tests the availability of the loans, they may end up as a subsidy to middle class families? The people who

29
will benefit are those parents on good incomes, with high tax rates, who will make sure that their children apply for the grants, which will be at very low cost, because it is money that they would otherwise have to find. Far from encouraging access from students from low-income familes, it could end up being a subsidy for those who, perhaps, have lesser claim.
Mr. Baker: I certainly would not introduce means testing for these loans. One of the attractive features of our scheme is that the loans are not means tested. The parents of about one third of students—for example, middle class parents—who have their grants reduced because of means testing do not make up the full entitlement that their children would have if they were not means tested. This system will he of considerable benefit to that group.
Mr. Win Griffiths: Will the Secretary of State name the banks and financial institutions that have been in negotiation with him? Exactly what are their terms in respect of the costs that they are prepared to bear in the administration of this scheme? Was the White Paper the basis of their discussion? If so, is not the whole thing bogus, because the inflation rates used in the White Paper were 5 per cent. in 1989–90 and 3·5 per cent. in 1990–91 and the succeeding inflation rate was 3 per cent.? The figures in the report cannot form the basis of a real estimate of the cost of administering the scheme. What is the present estimate of the real inflation rate in the years ahead for the administration of this scheme?
Mr. Baker: I have said that the Government's clear intention is to reduce inflation, and we are pursuing economic policies that will secure that end.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether the White Paper was the basis of discussions with the banks. We said that there were certain features that any loan scheme would need to have. One was universal accessibility to all students, irrespective of their position. That is not a normal banking function. We said also that there should be deferment if, after graduation, a graduate has a salary or wage a certain percentage below the national average wage. Again, that is not a characteristic of a normal banking repayment scheme. We have ensured that both factors are built into the scheme as discussed.
I reiterate that it is up to individual banks and other financial institutions, including building societies, to say whether they will participate, but assurances, given personally to me, show that there is substantial interest from the clearing banks in participating in the scheme.
Several Hon. Members rose— —
Mr. Speaker: Order. I should like to call all the hon. Members who are now standing. This is an Opposition day, the subject of which has been chosen by the Social and Liberal Democrats. I shall allow questions on the statement to continue until 4.15 pm. If questions are brief, I shall be able to call all those hon. Members who wish to speak.
Mr. Harry Greenway: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the average student borrows £370 a year and is required to repay it at commercial rates, so this scheme will lighten the load? Will he cost the increase in the number of students in higher education over the past 10 years? There are now 266,000 more
30
students in higher education, and we are moving towards one in five of the eligible population before the turn of the century.
Mr. Baker: I cannot confirm the precise figure, but the average indebtedness of students is of that order. Various surveys on the subject have been carried out. My hon. Friend asked me to cost the increase in the number of students. We have allowed in annex E to the White Paper for the increase in the number of students. Since we have been in office there has been an increase of about 200,000 in the number of students. This has been one of the most rapid periods of expansion, most of which has taken place in the polytechnics, although the universities are begining to expand again. The financial arrangements that I made in respect of universities and polytechnics, and which I announced about a month ago will stimulate polytechnics and universities to expand their numbers. The funding is changing so that it is very much a matter of the money following the students, and that is a demand-led expansion.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Is not today's statement a way for the Secretary of State for Education and Science to try to convince the taxpayer that he will use taxpayers' money to introduce the scheme as a first step so that, later on, the Government can spread the idea abroad that student loans will provide a much greater part of the grant than at present? In other words the Government are using taxpayers' money to get across the idea and will then hammer the students. Will the Secretary of State confirm that Johnson Matthey is one of the banks with which he is having discussions—or is it the Abbey National? When students decide to protest against this evil scheme and come to the House of Commons to do so, will he rejoice in seeing Kate Adie, Brian Barron and other journalists infiltrating picket lines of police who are trying to block the students on Westminster bridge?
Mr. Baker: I am sure that if there is a group of militant students waiting to protest, the hon. Gentleman will be at the head gingering them up. I doubt whether his leader would sanction that action. I am not prepared to name any individual bank but neither I nor, as far as I am aware, any of my officials have had discussions with Johnson Matthey.
The hon. Gentleman also said that we were trying to persuade foreign sentiment abroad. I do not follow his argument.
Mr. Skinner: No, I did not. I said that a sprat was being used to catch a mackerel.
Mr. Baker: I do not follow the hon. Gentleman's argument. It would be foreign sentiment if it were abroad, and I thought he said that. The hon. Gentleman should re-read the White Paper, which makes it clear that from 1990 we shall introduce top-up loans, the grant will be frozen and the loan will go up over a period. We have not disguised our intentions about this, which has been an essential part of the proposals announced in November. Instead of coming in here and shouting at my right hon. and hon. Friends all the time, the hon. Gentleman should do his homework and read the White Paper.
Mr. Tim Smith: Does my right hon. Friend agree that those student graduates entering the job market in the 1990s will be doing so at a more favourable

31
time than for many years? In those circumstances, it is not unreasonable to transfer part of the cost of student maintenance from the taxpayer to the employer? Most students will have very little to lose and a great deal to gain from the introduction of the scheme.
Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend is right. It is incontrovertible that there is to be what statisticians call a demographic trough and that there will be a dramatic drop in the number of 18, 19 and 21-year-olds in the course of the next five to 10 years. Graduates will find that they are moving into a buyers' market when they leave college. There is very little graduate unemployment today, and there will be even less in the four or five years ahead. My hon. Friend raises the interesting point that in those circumstances, companies may tend to pay off student debts. That is now becoming a regular feature of American schemes in which, if an employer wants to take on a particular person, as part of the employment package he is prepared to write off the debt or provide favourable repayment terms. It may be that various employers in various parts of this country, both in private and public sectors, will want to move towards such arrangements.
Mr. Donald Anderson: Is the Secretary of State going to freeze basic grants or progressively reduce the basic grant using the loan as cover? Has he seriously considered the effect on women? I heard what he said about women's experiences in the United States. The scheme is bound to give women not only a negative dowry, but a disincentive to return to work at a time when the Government are trying to encourage teachers to return to work after basic training. Is the Secretary of State aware that this scheme contradicts other Government policies?
Mr. Baker: I do not accept that. Some of the other student loan schemes across the world do not include deferment for a woman graduate who goes off to have a family. It is expected that while she is not earning she will repay some of the debt, but that is not so under our scheme. When people cease to be in employment they fall below the threshold level, so the obligation will be deferred.
As regards the structure of the scheme, I confirm that under the proposals in the White Paper the grant will be increased again next year. Its level will be resolved in the PES round for 1990. It will then be frozen in cash terms over a period of years. It will not be reduced in cash terms. The top-up loan will begin and increase yearly thereafter.
Mr. Peter Thurnham: To the extent that disabled students have additional needs, will my right hon. Friend consider adapting his excellent scheme so that they can have extra funds and, when they can earn enough, will he consider helping with easier payments by increasing their thresholds?
Mr. Baker: I shall certainly look into that. Disabled students who graduate and take jobs may well qualify for some of the deferment arrangements. There are allowances in the grants for certain aspects of disability.
Mr. Max Madden: How will students be credit-rated in future? Will loans be liable to attachment for non-payment of the poll tax; and will loans be available to students who are overseas nationals?
Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman's question is about the civil debts of students, not about this particular scheme. A student's credit rating will depend upon whether he repays his debts. We envisage, as I said today, that a loan facility will be available through the loan administrator, a company which will be set up to provide the loan. The banks will be able to bring their considerable expertise, through the branch network, to the recovery of debt.
Mr. Graham Riddick: Despite the fact that loans will not have to be paid back until students have completed their courses and are earning a living, does my right hon. Friend agree that their introduction will have the psychological effect of concentrating the minds of aspiring students on choosing courses which will be useful and worthwhile in later life?
Mr. Baker: Yes, one of the things that we discovered when my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State and his predecessor visited various countries was that in Sweden, for example—radical, Left-wing Sweden—where there has been a loan scheme like this for years, it was said that the scheme had concentrated students' attention and often increased their motivation.
I agree with my hon. Friend that the scheme will make many students think. I do not believe that it will be harmful to any course of study. More and more young people aged 18 and 19 in the student world recognise the enormous return which they will earn from higher education. There has been great increase in their numbers, about 200,000, in the past 10 years. That encouraging figure is welcomed on all sides of the House.
Economic analyses have shown that the return to a student from higher education is an estimated 25 per cent. on the amount spent on that education. The return to society for that amount is between 5 and 8 per cent. It is a good investment.
Mr. David Winnick: It is not too difficult to know what the Secretary of State would have said about the scheme if he had remained on the Back Benches. Is he aware that this is the sort of Thatcherite discriminatory nonsense that the electorate rejected so decisively on Thursday?
Mr. Baker: Is it Thatcherite of Sweden, Norway, Germany and Japan to have a loan scheme? Of course not. That was empty, windbag oratory.
Mr. Alan W. Williams: I was one of seven children from a very modest background; each of us had the benefit of six years in higher education. That was only possible with adequate student grants. Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the continuing devaluation of the student grant, and his student loan proposals, will cut off millions of people from modest backgrounds who possess the talent that the country needs, and will make higher education more and more a middle class preserve?
Mr. Baker: First, there is no evidence abroad that this happens and secondly, as he knows and about which I am constantly chided, the real value of student grants in the United Kingdom has fallen since 1979.
Mr. Straw: It has been deliberately cut.
Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman says that it has been deliberately cut. That confirms what I say, that it has fallen.
Since 1979 the number of students has gone up by

33
200,000. That includes full-time and mature students. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that part-time students are wrong, he has no policy at all for the expansion of higher education.
Mr. Andrew Smith: Does not the patent inadequacy of the Secretary of State's responses show the latest instalment of a saga of breathtaking incompetence concerning the whole scheme? It can only be implemented by a dogmatic determination, not to bring in top-up loans but to destroy the basis of the grant system. Did I hear the Secretary of State right when he said that all students are now to be credit rated as part of the scheme? Will he come clean and tell us the true administrative costs in the later years? On many occasions he referred to annex E. Will he give an undertaking to publish an amended version of annex E showing the true administrative costs, including the default rate cost and the interest rate cost?
Does not his statement unforgivably overlook the effect on those students and institutions whose courses are longer? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) said, that applies to medical students. Do the proposals not also deal a body blow to the traditions of Scottish higher education, whose needs have been as contemptuously ignored in the statement as they were in the White Paper itself? What about the effect on teachers and on their training? Is not the statement a body blow to the prospects of successfully addressing the teaching crisis? Above all, will not this shameful statement deny access to higher education to the very students whom we ought to be attracting and who are presently denied that opportunity? Does the Secretary of State realise that his kamikaze determination to go down in history as the man who brought free access to higher education to an end will be opposed with the utmost vigour by the Labour party, the students and, and I am sure, by the public at large?
Mr. Baker: Methinks the hon. Gentleman "doth protest too much". The hon. Gentleman should appreciate that under this Government there has been a substantial expansion of higher education. I have proposals to expand it even further. I have provided money for expansion in the last three years and I shall strive to do so in the coming years. The hon. Gentleman asked about teachers. He well knows that I am bringing forward proposals which will probably mean that many teachers will not do the fourth year. I think that the hon. Gentleman has supported a policy which suggests that the course for a bachelor of education degree should no longer be a four-year course, but a three-year course with one term in school. I do not think that I misinterpret the proposals. In that case they stand equal with other students. The hon. Gentleman asked if I would publish a revised version of annex E. I am quite happy to consider that and if it is helpful I shall do so. [Interruption.] I am free with information because there are no secrets in my Department. The hon. Gentleman started his attack on me by questioning my competence. I can be accused of many things but I am not usually accused of being incompetent.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &C.
Ordered,
That the draft Restrictive Trade Practices (Services) (Amendment) Order 1989 he referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Alan Howarth.]

OPPOSITION DAY
  13TH ALLOTTED DAY

    Transport
    Mr. Speaker: I must announce to the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
    Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order. I do not know whether you are aware, Mr. Speaker, but last week when the business statement was made and in subsequent discussions—you know how they talk in this place—people said, "What is on the agenda for Monday?" They were told that it was the SLD Supply day and that its members would decide. They were told, "We can tell you on the record that it is about Hong Kong." I thought, "That sounds attractive and it might mean about 2 million or 3 million votes in the Euro elections if, perhaps, we can bring a few back." Since then, there has been a change and here we are about to discuss transport. I am not knocking that, but this place has to be regulated in a proper fashion.
    Very shortly, the television cameras will be coming in and the television people will want to know on Thursday what is to be debated. They will not be satisfied with this "anything will do" approach by people who are disappearing from view. They will want to know. They will ask, "What's on?" They will be told that it is Hong Kong and they will not be very happy when they find out that it is transport. I am giving some advice for future debates.
    Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me. As I told the hon. Gentleman last week, we are regulated here by the Order Paper and not by rumour.
    4.20 pm
    Mr. Richard Livsey: I beg to move,
    That this House condemns the lack of adequate investment in public transport, which has resulted in severe congestion and low staff morale leading to the current misery for commuters; and calls for a national transport strategy which invests in the public transport network, encourages a move from road to rail travel and ensures that benefits of new investment in projects such as the Channel Tunnel are shared by the regions and nations of the United Kingdom.
    Given the impending chaos that will arise on Wednesday on the public transport system, especially in London, and that the transport crisis with which we are confronted is a major environmental problem, our debate today should be welcome.
    The lack of investment by the Government in public transport is deplorable. In particular, the neglect of the rail system in comparison with the investment in the road system beggars belief. In the time that they have been in power, have the Government built any new railway lines? Given their admiration for Victorian values, they should be aware that the Victorians would find the Government's achievements in this respect laughable. What new rolling stock have they provided on the railway lines? What assistance has been given to staff?
    This discrimination against the railway system is compounded by the loaded methods of investment criteria against the railway system in comparison with the road system. The Government only started to wake up to the problem of investment in our railways in 1983. Investment was in the doldrums from 1975 to 1983, and, at 1989–90 prices, investment dropped from £546 million in 1975 to

    35
    £347 million in 1983. One result of this failure has been congestion, especially in the south-east, where a massive growth in passenger traffic has resulted in misery for commuters. The Government have failed the nation with their transport policies and the congestion on Britain's roads is a direct result of the Government's failure to invest in public transport.
    Daily, harassed commuters travel in overcrowded, tatty rail coaches that are a misery and, in some cases, no better than cattle trucks. These are overloaded, and it is no wonder that staff on the London Underground and Network SouthEast are at their wits' end. Only a massive investment in rail, both in the cities and in main-line electrification, will alleviate these horrendous problems. Meanwhile, behind the wheels of millions of cars and lorries, drivers are stranded in traffic.
    Mr. John Bowis: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Livsey: I will give way in a moment. I am trying to say something important.
    Drivers are stranded in traffic jams. In London alone, this costs the economy £15 billion a year, and the cost to the environment and people's health is also enormous. My party believes that the Government must plan now for the future, for much more investment in public transport.
    Mr. Bowis: I agree that it is important to invest in public transport and rail transport in particular, not least in the capital city. However, can the hon. Gentleman tell me which major rail schemes were started and implemented during the period when his party was in cahoots with the then Labour Government? That is the period that he has condemned as having seen no investment whatever.
    Mr. Livsey: The hon. Gentleman is referring to only two years in that period, and the question is irrelevant in the context of the debate.
    I understand that this afternoon British Rail will seek a High Court injunction to outlaw Wednesday's planned 24-hour strike by the National Union of Railwaymen on the ground that the union did not properly conduct its strike ballot. The ballot of 70,000 rail workers turned on the rejected 7 per cent. pay offer and the abolition of national pay bargaining. The NUR will argue that it acted entirely within the law. With inflation running at 8 per cent., the loss of national pay bargaining is an important issue. The case for arbitration is extremely strong.
    Last Friday, Mr. Paul Watkinson, British Rail's director of employee relations, said that BR had received information that several hundred of its employees had not had the opportunity to vote in the ballot. That is a claim that requires close examination. There is considerable frustration among British Rail staff, and that is understandable when so many trains are overcrowded. I believe that wiser counsels should resolve the dispute.
    Mr. Donald Anderson: Whatever one's views on the merits of the strike, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the action of the British Rail management, in intervening in such a way at such a sensitive time during the course of negotiations, was crass and wholly inept?
    Mr. Livsey: I agree that its actions were extremely inept and not an example of good personal management. If it was serious about finding a constructive resolution of the dispute, it would not have behaved in such a way.
    There is misery for commuters. Our motorways are jammed because of lack of investment in the railway system. It is not surprising that the motorways are overcrowded, because the number of cars on our roads has doubled in the past 12 years. An additional 2 million cars per annum are being sold and driven on British roads and as a result the environment is deteriorating rapidly. Indeed, the countryside has been laid to waste and there is increased air pollution. I understand that delays in the south-east alone cost about £15 billion.
    Mr. Gerrard Neale: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the reasons why considerable disdain has been shown for his party over the past few days is that people such as himself say one thing when it comes to investment in infrastructure and then vote in exactly the opposite way when it comes to activating decisions? Does the hon. Gentleman accept that his late colleague, David Penhaligon, fought tooth and nail to get the road system improved in the west country on a scheme backed by the Government? There was total support for his campaign in Cornwall, as well as support from David Penhaligon's colleagues—candidates and Members alike—but when the issue was brought before us in the Chamber and we were asked to support the scheme, two of his hon. Friends voted against it—the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Steel) and the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes).
    Mr. Livsey: I accept that the late Member for Truro, Mr. David Penhaligon, campaigned for an improved road system in the west country. I listened to his speeches and I supported him when the issue came to a vote, as did many of my colleagues. It was a good scheme, which led to better access to the west country. That is why I supported it.
    This Government, previous Governments and planners have demonstrated over many years a lamentable lack of vision and an inability to diagnose what is happening in the movement of people and goods. Things were done rather better during the previous century. No significant new railway lines have been built during the 20th century.
    Mr. Robert Adley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Livsey: No, not now. I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman later. I have given way too often already.
    We are now entering a new era of investment in our infrastructure, including transport. I have no doubt that the lack of infrastructure will be the biggest internal problem facing Britain over the next 10 years. The decisions taken now will be absolutely crucial.
    Mr. Adley: The hon. Gentleman has stated that the number of cars has doubled over the past 12 years. Does he believe that that has happened because the economy has been prosperous? He also said that we are building fewer railway lines than the Victorians. Does he believe that the invention of the internal combustion engine has had anything to do with that?
    Mr. Livsey: I am certain that the invention of the internal combustion engine has everything to do with that.

    37
    However, many people are turning to private transport because of the inadequacies of public transport. They are forced to get into their cars because the public transport system is unable to provide a proper, efficient or effective alternative.
    The choices in transport confronting us at the moment should be incorporated in the provision of an integrated transport system which would combine rail, road, air and sea transport. We should be planning for a grand design which will link the regions of this country with each other and with the continent. We should cut congestion and pollution.
    We need environmentally friendly investment, which means that we must invest more in rail than we are doing at the moment. The statistics show that, of the investment in road and rail, only a quarter goes to rail. I challenge the Minister to give us a commitment today that he will raise the level of rail investment to at least the same level as that on roads.
    When we consider infrastructure, we must also consider the integrated approach. Any new road or rail investment should be subjected to an environmental audit. Cost-benefit analysis and the social implications of investment should also be taken into account for both road and rail investment. We should invoke a major 10-year infrastructure programme which should set priorities for roads and rail. The Government have proposed a scheme for a further 900 miles of road investment. Some of that is necessary. However, as we look towards the year 2000, such investment on the roads should be set against similar criteria for investment in rail.
    The Government and the Department of Transport are undoubtedly too road-orientated when it comes to transport investment.
    Mr. John Redwood: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Livsey: No, I will not give way now.
    Was the £12 billion road investment announced by the Government approximately three weeks ago compared with the possibility of investing that sum in improvements in rail infrastructure? Was that investment appraisal made?
    The provision of an additional 900 miles of roads will mean the loss of 25 acres of land for every mile of motorway. That will mean a massive loss of our countryside in certain parts of the country.
    Mr. Redwood: Is it right that the original intention of this debate on transport was to encourage stronger links to Europe in the light of the federal manifesto of the Social and Liberal Democratic party, and particularly to strengthen the links between the borders of Scotland and central Italy in the light of the election campaign by the right hon. Member for Tweedale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Steel)? Is it true that he is now concentrating on national issues because we saw what happened both to the federal manifesto here in England and to his right hon. Friend in Italy?
    Mr. Livsey: The hon. Gentleman is correct, and I shall refer to 1992 and to the European Community in the latter part of my speech.
    Rail is far too low on the list of priorities in respect of new track, rolling stock and staffing. There is no objection in principle—certainly not from us—to private investment
    38
    in track and to obtaining private finance for our infrastructure if it cannot be obtained from the Treasury. The wrong investment criteria are being used for British Rail. The one-off, return-on-capital criterion of 7 per cent. needs to be questioned.
    Mr. Peter Snape: Perhaps it will assist the hon. Gentleman if I mention that that figure has been increased from 7 per cent. to 8 per cent.?
    Mr. Livsey: About a month ago, I participated in a debate in which I said there was a danger that the figure would increase to 9 per cent. Perhaps that debate served at least to reduce the increased figure by 1 per cent.
    The calculation must take into account a cost-benefit analysis, which is done as a matter of course on the continent; France uses cost-benefit analysis for its rail system. All main lines should be electrified, yet by the current investment criteria they cannot show the return demanded by the Treasury. Through services must be provided to the Channel tunnel and to such formidable places as Italy. There must be direct links between all regions and countries.
    We are living through an era of immense change— —
    Mr. Nicholas Soames: Hear, hear.
    Mr. Livsey: Just because the hon. Gentleman is green with envy.
    The United Kingdom will one day be plugged into Moscow, Istanbul, Madrid and Rome by thousands and thousands of miles of rail. That involves a wholly new dimension and requires fresh thinking. As I said in the previous debate, I should like to see a London rail bypass running alongside the M25— —
    Mr. Soames: So would I!
    Mr. Livsey: —so that commuters who are stuck in their cars in the constituency of the hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) will be frustrated to see high-speed trains overtaking them at twice or three times their speed of progress. That would provide a very worthwhile contrast.
    The imposition of high fares to fatten up British Rail for privatisation is deplorable. British Rail fares are already the highest in Europe, and are almost double those of SNCF. Clearly, more freight needs to be moved from road to rail and there is a case to be made for repealing section 42 of the Channel Tunnel Act 1987 to allow public investment in some schemes. The priorities must be new rail links for commuters, main line electrification, and direct links with the Channel tunnel.
    There must also be direct links between the major London termini, especially from Paddington to King's Cross and to Waterloo, and better use made of the west London line. Links to the Channel tunnel bypassing London via Gatwick and Heathrow are also needed. Roads should be evaluated on the basis of better criteria, and there should be disincentives for people to use cars in cities. My country of Wales has little transport infrastructure and considerable investment is needed, particularly in the electrification of the north and south Wales railway lines.
    In 1992 we shall join a single European market of 270 million people on mainland Europe, and we shall have tremendous problems providing transport to and from the Continent. At present, 50 million passengers and 40 million tonnes of freight travel from Britain to the

    39
    continent each year. We need an integrated transport system, and cheaper and more efficient public transport to attract people away from the roads. We need better pay for railway staff, and an immediate settlement of the current disputes. We must create an awareness of bottlenecks, and we need better promotion of the importance of public transport. We need public and private investment in our infrastructure, and an independent assessment and forecast of traffic growth. The woeful inadequacy of such forecasts in the past is the cause of many of our current problems.
    Mr. David Martin rose— —
    Mr. Livsey: I will not give way: I am about to finish.
    We need more investment in the railways: I challenge the Minister to come up with at least a doubling of current investment. The Government must face up to the transport crisis that confronts us. When, in the near future, people are decanted from the Channel tunnel into London, I believe that an already clogged city will come to a complete standstill.
    4.41 pm
    The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. Michael Portillo): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and add instead thereof:
    "congratulates the Government on the record levels of capital investment in all forms of transport infrastructure since 1979 while at the same time reducing the burden on the taxpayer; welcomes their plans to increase this investment further over coming years with both public and private money to meet the forecast growth in demand which is the result of the economic success of this country under the Conservative Government; welcomes the Government's success in creating the conditions in which the private sector could both finance and build the Channel Tunnel; congratulates the Government on its determination that the whole of the United Kingdom shall share in its benefits; applauds the high priority that they give to all matters of safety on transport; and welcomes their recognition of the importance of environmental conditions in transport policy."
    I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) on his courage in coming to the House today. It is brave indeed to appear on the day after what was described by his hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) as "a blinking awful result".
    I was delighted to learn that today's debate was to be about investment in transport—delighted, but slightly puzzled. It is usual on Opposition days for the Opposition to pick a subject on which they can point to their own strength and find something that is embarrassing to the Government. The subject of transport investment, however, does not fall into that category by any stretch of the imagination.
    I do not want to pretend that everything in the transport garden is lovely; it is not. We have plenty of problems to contend with. There is the perennial problem of maintaining and improving safety standards. There is the threat posed to air transport by international terrorism. There is the problem of congestion on Europe's air lanes, on our key motorways and in our city centres. There is the problem of catering for rapidly growing demand for transport while respecting our environment. All those are real problems, and the solutions are not easy.
    40
    The level of investment, however, is not a problem. There is no question of investment in any form of transport, public or private, being inadequate.
    Mr. Neale: Can my hon. Friend confirm that he is astonished—his astonishment is reflected on the Conservative Benches—that, having seen the massive exodus from the Social and Liberal Democrats to the Green party in the elections over the past few days, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) did not once mention environmental considerations? Will he also confirm that, whenever a new scheme is launched, the Government take major steps to ensure that the environment is catered for—in terms of tree cover, for instance?
    Mr. Portillo: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I intend to make a number of references to the environment, because it is very much at the forefront of our thinking on transport.
    The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor asked me to say something about investment levels. Let me start by giving some of the bald facts. Since 1979 the Department of Transport has completed 264 road schemes, adding 900 miles to the national network. Last year, our expenditure on motorways and trunk roads totalled more than £1 billion. This year we have a budget of £1·3 billion, which represents a real increase of more than 60 per cent. since 1978–79—in other words, a quantum leap in investment since the hon. Gentleman's party last participated in government at the time of the notorious Lib-Lab pact.
    Mr. Anderson: The Minister has presented the figures for real investment in roads over the past decade as an increase of 60 per cent. Will he give the comparable figures relating to a real increase in rail investment?
    Mr. Portillo: I shall come to them in due course, and they will be just as uncomfortable for the hon. Gentleman.
    The road investment figures take no account of the further increase in investment foreshadowed in our White Paper "Roads for Prosperity", which has proposed more than doubling the roads programme; nor do they take account of our investment in maintenance—making good the backlog of neglect that we inherited—of local authority investment in local road schemes, or of the growing role of the private sector. It simply is not possible to sustain the argument that road investment is being neglected.
    The dramatic increase in road investment has been accompanied by increases in other investment. For example, British Rail has invested £2·5 billion over the past five years, and 31 major schemes have been approved since 1983. It plans to spend more than £3·7 billion over the next five years. It is in the middle of the biggest renewal programme since the transfer from steam to diesel, and investment is at the highest level in real terms since 1962 —well above the levels of the late 1970s.
    Mr. Redwood: Drawing on his experience of the pressures affecting the choice of the new Kent rail link for the Channel tunnel, can my hon. Friend confirm or deny the Liberal suggestion that planning new railway lines across country or near houses is environmentally easy, whereas planning new roads is environmentally difficult? Has he received any submissions from the Liberal party nominating routes across green fields or near people's houses for new railway lines?
    Mr. Portillo: My hon. Friend has made a good point. As I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor, it passed through my mind that it would be interesting to look at the manifesto commitments of all the SLD candidates in Kent for the county elections. I suspect that we should find that they are not quite so strongly in favour of new railway lines as they would claim when there is a specific proposal before the country.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: Before the Minister leaves the subject of relative investment in rail and roads, will he confirm that, although there has been substantial investment in the road network, there has been a real decrease in investment in the rail network since 1979? Why is that, and why will the Government not ensure the investment of a similar amount in the rail network?
    Mr. Portillo: I have already made it clear that we are now investing more than was invested in the late 1970s. There is an upward trend from year to year, and the amounts already earmarked for the years ahead are higher still. The current level of investment in the railways has not been seen since the early 1960s, and certainly far surpasses any amount invested in the late 1970s.
    Mr. Adley: My hon. Friend will know that I always take a fair and objective stance on these matters. Can he confirm that the figure that he gave for the proposed level of investment for British Rail, over the next five years—sanctioned by the Government, although British Rail will be spending its own money—is about the same as the figure for West Germany's investment this year?
    Mr. Portillo: I do not have the figure for West Germany. Perhaps I can address that point when I wind up the debate, as I am not sure that my hon. Friend is correct. Certainly our current investment levels are historically extremely high. I have said that they are the highest since the early 1960s, and, as my hon. Friend will know better than anyone else, the rail network at that time was very much larger than it is today. Even the same amount, spread around a smaller system, would today imply a much higher level of investment.
    This year, £300 million is being invested in London Underground, which is double the level under the last year of GLC control. There is also investment in the Channel tunnel. Moreover, there is a host of schemes for light rail transit systems up and down the country, to which I shall refer in due course. I do not see how any of that can be represented as under-investment in our infrastructure.
    Mr. Bowis: Will my hon. Friend be very wary, though, of the suggestion by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) that the west London line should be used increasingly for Channel tunnel freight? Many people in south London will note that that is SLD policy. They would much rather that the freight that is destined for the north-west and elsewhere should go on the Reading line and bypass London altogether.
    Mr. Portillo: My hon. Friend will no doubt want to point out to his constituents that that is SLD policy. In due course, the Government will see what proposals British Rail makes for its services direct from the regions to the continent.
    There is no under-investment, either, in airports. Heathrow has acquired a fourth terminal. Stansted is
    42
    being developed as London's third airport. New terminal capacity is being added at Birmingham and Manchester airports. The Civil Aviation Authority has a major investment programme to increase air traffic control capacity. There is no shortage of new investment in our ports. Bus operators have also been investing heavily— witness the rapid growth in the total size of their fleets.
    Wherever we look, there is no shortage of investment in transport. It is buoyant. The charge of under-investment today is plain silly. Furthermore, in the hand of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor, the charge is a boomerang because we are recovering from years of under-investment when the Liberals and the International Monetary Fund shared power with Labour.
    However, it is not just the total level of investment that matters: it is also the way in which the money is spent. Our aim is perfectly simple. We want to do all that we can to accommodate the rapidly growing demand for transport —safely, efficiently and with proper respect for the environment.
    Mr. Richard Holt: Does my hon. Friend not agree that our ports are very badly treated by the Government? Light dues are still imposed on them. None of our continental competitors has to pay light clues. It would be far better if we could compete freely with Europe. We could do so if light dues were abolished.
    Mr. Portillo: I am sure that we should all welcome free competition, but it is a moot point whether we should ask taxpayers to bear charges that really ought to fall on those who make use of the services or whether we should try to persuade our continental partners to come into line with us. I am sure that my hon. Friend welcomes the greatest gift that the Government have given to our ports industry —the abolition of the national dock labour scheme. That will help our ports industry to be competitive.
    There are other approaches to transport policy. The Green party, for example, clearly takes the view I hat environmental considerations must lead us to a shrinking economy, with less for everyone, rather than an expanding economy. The car, the lorry and the plane must go and Britain must become dependent on transport by rail and inland waterway. Even judged on its own terms, the Green party's policy is not very sensible. Anyone who imagines that the construction of a new railway line can be achieved with zero impact on the environment should speak to my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) or to any of my hon. Friends with constituencies in Kent. They will quickly put him right about that.
    To forgo investment in new infrastructure, with resulting increased congestion, is not an environmentally sensible policy. On our roads, slow-moving, stop-start traffic generates more pollution than free-flowing traffic. If we asked those who suffer from traffic jams day and night outside their homes whether we should close our minds to relieving their plight by building new roads, of course they would say that we should not do so. As I have trespassed into this area, perhaps I should say that the recent European Community decision on vehicle emissions shows that we are determined to reduce the damage to ourselves from vehicle fumes.
    It is against that background that I intend to give some practical examples of investment in transport and to explain how they have helped to improve the quality of life. We have targeted expenditure on road schemes that

    43
    bring the maximum benefit to both road users and the local community. In particular, we have concentrated on plugging gaps in the existing motorway network and on schemes to take traffic around built-up areas. These range in scale from short stretches of bypass around small towns and villages to major orbital motorways round London and Manchester. Across the board, every £1 that we spend on roads now yields £2 in measurable benefits to road users and the local community. That has to be a good investment, judged by any standards.
    One element in the tally of benefits is the improved safety of new roads. In the recent report on road safety in the European Community, the Belgian Institute for Road Safety cited the high quality of Britain's roads as one reason why we have the best safety record of the 12 member states.
    Mr. Livsey: If the Minister can quantify the benefits of investment in roads, surely he should be able to do the same for investment in railways and say what the pound-for-pound benefit would be if the rail system were improved.
    Mr. Portillo: I partly blame myself for this. Over a period, the hon. Gentleman has consistently misunderstood our investment criteria for the railways. I intended to allude to that matter later in my speech. He believes that we apply a commercial rate of return to all investment decisions relating to the railways. That is absolutely untrue. We do not apply a criterion of that sort to investment in the non-profit making and non-commercial sectors, such as the provincial sector. There we are concerned with cost-benefit analysis and with what investment will yield the best results in terms of keeping the railways functional.
    We never consider the possibility of closing the railways down. When we assess investment in provincial railways, we give a benefit over and above what we give to roads. Roads have to pass the cost-benefit test, whereas we assume that the provincial railway service will continue. We are simply trying to find a means by which renewal can be achieved most efficiently. In that respect, the railways have a considerable advantage over road schemes.
    Mr. Snape: I congratulate the Minister on the artful nature of his reply, which covers only a very small proportion of the railway network. Is he unable to tell us whether British Rail has to justify investing its own money in InterCity and freight transport? The hon. Member for Brecon `and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) was suggesting that a very different picture would emerge if the same criteria that are applied to roads were to be applied to those two parts of the railways industry.
    Mr. Portillo: Those sections of the railways that are commercial—including rail freight and InterCity—have to meet, for their new investment, a rate of return criterion, but the hon. Gentleman will recall that I have just said that for every £1 that we spend on roads we get a £2 yield. He will recognise that that is a different order of magnitude from the rates of return that I am talking about on the railways. There is no shortage of road schemes that would qualify, using the cost-benefit basis.
    Mr. Snape: The £2 benefit for £1 expenditure includes the saving of motorists' time—which is regarded as more
    44
    important than the saving of time for those who travel on public transport—and also a calculation of the number of road deaths that have been saved as a result of constructing new roads. The problem with the railways is that they do not kill enough passengers to justify expenditure on the same basis as roads.
    Mr. Portillo: The hon. Gentleman refuses to recognise that roads and railways are different and that they have to be assessed on different bases. However, we try to make the basis of assessment as similar as we possibly can. I believe that we have achieved our aim. The hon. Gentleman's tasteless remark about deaths on railways and roads does not help us forward with that argument.
    Mr. Richard Shepherd: I am interested in my hon. Friend's argument about orbital or circular routes. Why, after six years, has the Secretary of State thrown into the air the Birmingham north orbital route? Ten million pounds have been spent on engineering investigations and a public inquiry, the report of which has been delayed. Its planning has taken six years. Why has there been this delay when the benefits to be derived from additional roads have been spelt out? When will the Birmingham north orbital route be completed? This is also a cause of concern to the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape).
    Mr. Portillo: I am not convinced that there will be a delay. If there is, I hope that the delay will not be long. The time and effort that have been invested in planning the route will not be wasted. The Birmingham northern relief road, as proposed by the private sector, might easily follow the same route as the one that was proposed at the public inquiry. Although we have received the inspector's report, there is normally a considerable delay before the Department is able to respond to a report. I hope that we can now establish a timetable for the competition for that private sector road to minimise delay and to minimise any nugatory expenditure.
    Mr. Adley: My hon. Friend is very generous to allow me to intervene again. He takes great trouble to answer questions and the fact that he is taking so many interventions means that we can have a discussion with him on these important matters.
    I should like to echo the question asked by the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape): why are road and rail assessed in different ways? Can my hon. Friend justify one piece of information that his Department has given me? As he knows, I have pursued the criteria employed by his Department in assessing the costs and benefits of road schemes. I was informed that 7 per cent. of the cost of a traffic warden is assessed as allowable to the cost of building and running our road schemes. Where on earth does the other 93 per cent. go? If a traffic warden is not 100 per cent. costed to the roads, how on earth is the other 93 per cent. costed?
    Mr. Portillo: My hon. Friend is very generous in his opening remarks. As far as possible, we try to make the criteria equivalent between road and rail. It is not possible to make them 100 per cent. equal because they are different. I do not know the answer to his other question, but I shall write to him about the 7 per cent. and the 93 per cent. of the traffic warden. However, I very much doubt

    45
    that the costing of a traffic warden is the critical factor in most investment decisions. I had better make progress if I am not to take up too much of the time of the House.
    Let me give an example of the way in which road investment can be beneficial. Last summer, we completed the Blackwater, Okehampton and Saltash bypasses, and there are plenty of further improvements to the three trunk roads into Cornwall—the A30, the A38 and the A39. That improvement in road communications is vital for the Cornish economy. That would be appreciated by the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) if he were in the Chamber. It has also benefited local communities by taking traffic from town centres—making them cleaner, quieter and safer places in which to live, work and shop. In the case of the controversial Okehampton bypass, for instance, the 1,200 trees which had to be felled to make way for the road are being replaced by 100,000 trees—all of them indigenous species—which will restore the valley to its original splendour, making good the damage done over generations.
    There is no doubt in my mind that we must invest in road and rail. There are few cases where one is a direct substitute for the other. It is simply not right for Opposition Members to pretend that there is a realistic prospect of relying on rail transport for the movement of goods and passengers, when over 90 per cent. of passenger transport and 60 per cent. of freight transport is currently carried by road. If we were to assume that, overnight, by some miracle the traffic on our railways doubled, that would remove less than 10 per cent of traffic from our roads. Given that road traffic increased by 6 per cent. over the past 12 months, it would not take long for that additional road capacity to be used up.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: Can the Minister give the House his Department's projections for the maximum capacity of the rail network in terms of its percentage of passenger traffic? He said that it is 10 per cent. at the moment and I accept that. What could it be if more investment were made?
    Mr. Portillo: I suppose that that would depend on what investments were made. Many railway lines are currently very close to capacity, as the hon. Gentleman will know, but, particularly if freight trains were to operate around the clock, there is clearly scope for substantial increases in the amount of freight. Those opportunities will be opened up by the Channel tunnel, and if that comes about it will be interesting to note the attitude of the hon. Gentleman's party.
    Congestion in central London is a key target. It has come about because of an unprecedented reversal in the long term declining trend of commuting to London. The economy in our capital has prospered and London has proved to be still one of the most magnetic cities for international business. Curing congestion is expensive, takes a long time and is disruptive. But the Government have not hesitated to set the necessary work in hand. On London's Underground, major station improvements are under way, many more are planned and the Central line is to be upgraded at a cost of more than £700 million. The central London rail study has recommended further renewals to the present system which would cost about £1·5 billion, and new lines running from east to west and north to south. Consultation with affected interests on the east-west crossrail have begun so that a Bill could be presented to Parliament in November.
    46
    Another welcome symptom of the attractiveness of London to world business is the development of docklands. Its phenomenal expansion qualifies it to be regarded as a city in its own right. It must have the transport links that such a city merits and we are determined to ensure that it is readily accessible by road and rail and by air and water.
    A committee which I chair now co-ordinates the work of the London Docklands development corporation, the London boroughs, the developers, contractors, statutory undertakings, and representatives of local business. We work together with a single purpose to provide the new infrastructure while minimising disruption to traffic, to business or to local communities. Our efforts are presently focused on three objectives: to maintain progress on the Limehouse link and other vital road projects; to improve and to expand the docklands light railway and to see a new Underground line built to docklands and east London.
    The east London rail study is in its final stages and we are expecting the consultants' final report shortly. They will be recommending as the best option for improving rail access from central London to docklands an extension of the Jubilee line via London bridge and the Isle of Dogs and ultimately to Stratford. In central London, the study has established that two alternative routes are technically feasible: an extension of the Jubilee line via Westminster and Waterloo, or a continuation of the existing line from Charing Cross via Ludgate Circus.
    The Government will be considering that report, and further work will be required before decisions can be taken. Approval of the new line and decisions on its alignment and phasing will depend on how it would be financed and in particular on the negotiation of satisfactory contributions from the developers who strand to benefit. Subject to those considerations, the Government would wish to see a Bill for a new line deposited in November. To facilitate preparation of a Bill, I can announce today that London Regional Transport will, without prejudice to final decisions, begin consultations immediately with local authorities and others directly affected by the alignments being examined.
    In case I should be accused of any bias as a London Member, let me add that there are many other city projects up and down the country. The plans for Manchester Metrolink are well advanced. On Friday evening, in the west midlands, I heard more of how the passenger transport executive there is working hard on its proposals for a light rail network centred on Birmingham and the black country. It hopes to obtain powers soon to permit construction of the first line between Snow Hill and Wolverhampton, and I am sure that it will not be long before it is knocking on my door with a proposal for grant towards the new system.
    Mr. Snape: I am anxious that my colleagues from Birmingham should not embark on yet another wasted journey by being turned away by the Minister when they knock on his door. As he has just changed the rules for urban transport, to get the go-ahead for the Midlands Metro it will be necessary to prove its benefit to non-users of the system, which is directly contradictory to the system that appertained until a few weeks ago. Will the Minister assure the House and those who are responsible for planning the Metro that that last-minute change in the rules will not unduly delay that worthwhile project which has been sought for so long?
    Mr. Portillo: I cannot make any comment on a scheme that I have not yet received.
    Mr. Snape: What about the rules?
    Mr. Portillo: This afternoon, I was able to announce to the House that we have taken a further step forward on the south Yorkshire super-tram project, where the aim is to get the new system in place in time for the world student games in 1991. I have decided to make a 50 per cent. grant available now, so that the evaluation of this project can be completed as quickly as possible. If the evaluation confirms the PTEs' initial calculations, and if the financing and other issues are satisfactorily resolved, I see every hope that this project will benefit from our financial assistance. As many hon. Members will be well aware, there are many other light rail projects in the pipeline.
    Mr. Snape: Is that the plan?
    Mr. Portillo: The hon. Gentleman will be able to read in Hansard what I have said. I said that there will be a 50 per cent. grant for the feasibility study and that I see every hope that the project will benefit from our financial assistance.
    I now turn to rail freight. The key factor is the Channel tunnel. British Rail's Railfreight business has already substantially improved its performance, of course, but the tunnel is the new factor in the freight transport equation which is causing customers to look again at the rail option.
    Last Friday, my right hon. Friend was in Cleveland to open a new Railfreight depot—a joint venture between British Rail and ICI. From that depot, the tunnel should allow British Rail to offer a direct freight service to destinations such as Paris and Brussels, taking less than 24 hours. A direct rail service like that, straight to the heart of the European Community, will be an enormous boost to business throughout Britain. So let me, yet again, stress that there is no question of the tunnel being a perk for the south-east, with businesses elsewhere ignored. British Rail estimates that 75 per cent. of the freight carried through the tunnel will originate from points beyond London. As far as freight through the Channel tunnel is concerned, the regions are not the tail but the dog, and the dog will wag the tail.
    British Rail is now engaged in detailed consultation on the direct services that it will offer. The British Rail freight network will stand comparison with the best in Europe, and I have no doubt that British Rail will be able to deliver the service that its customers demand. It will publish its plans at the end of the year, as required by law, and I regard that timing as absolutely right.
    The area where there is a clear case for a new line is in Kent, where a high-speed rail link will be needed at some stage to ensure that Britain makes the best possible use of our access to the European railway network. That line will be for passenger traffic, but it will, of course, free capacity on other lines to handle freight. The House will have an opportunity to consider the case for this line and British Rail's detailed proposals in due course. I have no wish to pre-empt that debate, but I think that, even now, it is clear that British Rail's proposals show a willingness to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on protecting the environment—vastly more than is being committed on the other side of the Channel.
    Nor is British Rail neglecting what may appear to be the less glamorous but important provincial sector. As I
    48
    said, the SLD sometimes misunderstands the investment criteria that apply. We certainly do not apply the commercial-rate-of-return rule to investments needed to maintain a subsidised service. As a result, the proof of the pudding being in the eating, it is planned that, by 1991, 82 per cent. of provincial rolling stock will have been renewed over an eight-year period. All the moneys that I have talked about are over and above what our two railways are spending on safety.
    Over a three-year period, London Underground is spending £226 million on safety matters arising from the Fennell report. British Rail has been considering the installation of automatic train protection for some time. Unfortunately, we cannot buy such a system off the peg, but the Government have approved the installation of pilot schemes. If they are successful, the Government will give sympathetic consideration to a national scheme, if a satisfactory scheme emerges.
    Before I leave the subject of railways, let me confirm that the Government are examining how and whether to privatise British Rail, sensibly recognising that decisions on how and whether must be taken together. Our consultant's analysis is progressing well, but that work is not yet at a sufficiently advanced stage for us to reject any options now. All five options set out in speeches made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State remain on the table.
    It pains me to say that there is a fundamental dishonesty underlying the policy of the SLD. This motion refers to under-investment today and calls for greater investment tomorrow, yet, as every one of my hon. Friends knows, so often, when any specific road or rail scheme is proposed, the local Liberal or SLD candidate is against it and allies himself with any protest group determined to stop the development. If there are roads, railways or runways unbuilt today that are needed, the SLD is probably much to blame.
    In transport today, there are clear issues. One is whether we follow policies for economic growth, without which heavy public sector investment is impossible. The second is whether, by relying on ever greater subsidies, we pauperise our transport operators, or whether we encourage them to operate more commercially, to attract passengers and so to generate the revenue for new investment. Between those two clear policy approaches, the SLD vacillates and prevaricates. It is now reaping its just rewards at the polls.
    5.13 pm
    Mr. Peter Snape: The concluding paragraph of the Minister's speech, with its ringing phraseology, was about seven days too late. His speech was obviously written with the European elections in mind. It ended with a ringing plea for support at the polling stations. Regrettably, his speech was no more successful a week later than it would have been last Thursday. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that the election is over. For all the resounding phrases that we heard, on Thursday evening the electors in this country gave a thumbs down with a vengeance to the Government and, sadly, to some of those who are responsible for the motion.
    I do not want to intrude on the private grief of the SLD. I do not want to be accused either of promoting or attacking the future career and prospects of the the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey), but,

    49
    looking at the motion, I find a lot more relevance coming from the SLD or the alliance, or whatever they call themselves in the wake of Thursday evening's drubbing, than in the amendment tabled by the other losers of the election on Thursday night, Her Majesty's Government. If there are two words that sum up our transport industries after a decade of Thatcherism, they are "chaos" and "congestion". They apply to road, rail and air and, to a certain extent, other problems. Regrettably there is not congestion, but there is certainly plenty of chaos in our merchant shipping fleet.
    The air of smug self-congratulation with which the Minister surrounded himself was somewhat unreal. He made great play of what he called the Government's progress in transport over the past decade. He trotted out the usual, largely false, statistics about justification for road building compared with public transport. Opposition Members and, to be fair, one or two more knowledgable Conservative Members will continue to press for fairness in the evaluation of public transport schemes. Not for the first time, we pray in aid the conclusions of the Leitch committee back in 1977, which asked that such schemes be treated in a comparable fashion. It pointed out that there was no real reason why public transport investment should not be treated in exactly the same way as investment in our road network. Nothing that I have heard this afternoon or previously from the Minister shakes my belief that the Leitch committee was right 12 years ago, and it is right now.
    The Minister may have felt that my remark about the number of deaths within the railway industry being considerably less than those on our roads was tasteless. That was the word he used. It is a fact, anyway, and it is also a fact that, when putting forward financial justifications for road schemes, the Department of Transport justifiably and understandably points to the reductions that can be made in the number of deaths and serious injuries. Of course it is impossible to put forward similar savings for the rail network. Thankfully, with a few tragic exceptions, some of which have taken place in recent months, travelling by train in this country is probably the safest mode of transport in the world. Therefore, it is impossible to quantify the number of lives that will be saved by increasing the frequency, reliability or number of services of that mode of transport.
    British Rail should be given at least a notional financial benefit for its success in carrying passengers millions of miles a year in perfect safety. Without such a notional monetary advance being made to BR, dependence on the newly revised investment rules—the 8 per cent. return on capital—means that all too often British Rail does not put schemes forward. Of course, Ministers—not just this one —and their colleagues in the Department say to the House time and again that there are no investment proposals before them. The Minister's predecessor often said that, under this Government, investment proposals were dealt with and agreed faster than under any previous Government.
    We all know that talks take place between the Minister's officials and British Rail's investment committee. It would be a strange world in which British Rail put forward schemes that did not meet the previously laid down criteria of Her Majesty's Government. Life is not like that. If investment schemes were continually put forward and rejected by the Department of Transport because they did not meet those investment criteria, one
    50
    could well imagine, at the start, a few irritated telephone calls between the Department of Transport and British Rail headquarters. Following that, there might be a strongly worded missive saying that something was amiss and that the schemes were being put forward without meeting the laid-down investment criteria. Finally, one can imagine an ascerbic telephone call with the demand that someone be fired for being silly enough to put forward such schemes in the first place when the Minister was unable to accept them because they failed to meet the criteria. We all know, accept and acknowledge that. That is how things work in the modern world.
    The reality is that many of the more marginal schemes—those that approach the laid-down investment criteria —are not put forward because of British Rail's misgivings that a way will be found to reject them and that if they are rejected odium will somehow fall on those who put them forward. That is amply illustrated by the experience, if I may again be parochial, of my own part of the world and of the Birmingham cross-city railway line. It does not run through my constituency, but it covers the west midlands from Redditch to Lichfield. We have been hearing and have read in regional newspapers for the past two years, that the go-ahead for the electrification of the line is anticipated at any moment. Much of the line, such as the central core around Birmingham New street station, is already electrified. In a written answer only last week the Department told me that no such scheme had been formally presented to it. When asked what discussions had taken place about the scheme, the reply was—it has appeared in Hansard and I am paraphrasing it to save time —that unofficial discussions had taken place twice but that the scheme had yet to be formally submitted.
    Those unofficial discussions will presumably take place for as long as the Department likes and while they are taking place the Department will repeat its parrot cry, "No formal investment scheme has been submitted." Like many people in the Birmingham area who are concerned about the scheme, I find such conduct unacceptable. I am sure that that example could be repeated for other schemes across the country. It illustrates the difference between two years of unofficial consultation about a railway electrification scheme that is relatively minor in the financial sense but which is significant to us in the west midlands, and the out-of-the-blue £10 billion White Paper "Roads for Prosperity"—its title is a misnomer to many of us—that was produced from under the Secretary of State's desk, a few days ago, much to the surprise of many of us, and probably to him as well.
    Mr. Adley: Will the hon. Gentleman ask the Minister to comment on the policy of "bustitution", that revolting word? Will he ask the Minister to deny that British Rail has been asked to find 20 or 30 routes where it might be possible to close railways and to replace them with buses? Will he also ask the Minister to deny that, while that is going on, no investment is being put into the lines by British Rail, which means that those lines are becoming less attractive as the weeks go by?
    Mr. Snape: I would, if I thought that I could ask questions as perceptive as those of the hon. Gentleman. He has asked a relevant and valid series of questions that I am delighted to pass on. We can all guess the reply—that the Government have no intention of demanding that certain lines be put forward for what is meant by that dreadful

    51
    word "bustitution". Of course, there is no such intention because what will happen is that the same unofficial talks that have taken place about cross-city electrification will take place about certain railway lines. Across a desk, or perhaps even over a good lunch at L'amico restaurant down the road or at somewhere expensive—certainly not in a Traveller's Fare restaurant in a provincial station—some highly placed person in the Department of Transport will say to someone from British Rail, "Look here, old chap, what about bustitution?" They will order a round of brandies and once the PR man has got over that, he will be told that although the Minister does not want to say anything formally, "We in the Department feel that there is scope for just that sort of thing for some of the less well used routes."
    As the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) has just said, while those unofficial discussions and that series of lunches are taking place—costing the taxpayer a great deal of money—there will be no investment of any sort in that line. Indeed, the position might even be worse. Other lines might well see a repeat of the Settle-Carlisle line experience. Although British Rail and the Department will say that no such discussions are taking place, minor adjustments will be made to the timetable to ensure that connections are missed here and there. Early morning trains will be withdrawn because "They're not particularly remunerative, you know" and in no time at all, over yet another lunch, perhaps at Lockets on this occasion if the two participants have become bored with the menu at other restaurants, it will be suggested that the lines are so unprofitable that bustitution may be the only answer because it is not possible to run an economic service on the existing railway line.
    Mr. Peter Fry: I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument carefully. As I understand it, like the proposer of the motion, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey), he is in favour of an integrated transport system, which would seem to imply that investment should be made where it will have the greatest return. If that is the case, does it not make sense to invest in British Rail routes with more passengers instead of concentrating on routes with few passengers?
    Mr. Snape: The hon. Gentleman seems really pleased with himself. He has sat back with a wonderfully smug look on his face as if saying mentally, "That has put one over the Opposition."
    To a certain extent, the hon. Gentleman is right. The problem about defining the right place for investment is that, like the hon. Gentleman, with whom I have crossed swords on these matters for a good many years, the Government believe that the only place to put money is where the 8 per cent. return is readily achievable. The Opposition believe that investment in public transport, especially in a railway network, brings environmental and energy-saving benefits, as well as the not readily quantifiable benefit of not killing on the roads the number of people that we kill at present. The problem with the hon. Gentleman is that he is obsessed with the contents of his and the Government's wallets rather than with the environmental realities of public transport, which are enormously beneficial in terms of these other not readily quantifiable matters.
    Mr. Anderson: Does my hon. Friend remember the unhappy precedent of this symbiotic relationship between the Department of Transport and British Rail? When the Department of Transport said that it would like InterCity to break even within five years, British Rail rolled over like a lapdog and said, "No, we can do it in three."
    Mr. Snape: British Rail's likeness to a lapdog has been referred to in the House many times before, but my hon. Friend is quite right. It is a matter of pride for the InterCity management that it is now running a profitable railway. To an extent, the management of that sector of the railways known as provincial services feel an understandable pride that they are not losing as much money as they used to and that they are expanding some provincial services in a way that I, and I think the House, regard as entirely creditable.
    Mr. Alan Amos: Hear, hear.
    Mr. Snape: The hon. Gentleman says, "Hear, hear," but the problem with that success is that railwaymen and women want to share in it. They know that the number of passenger journeys is increasing— —
    Mr. Portillo: Privatise.
    Mr. Snape: The Minister says, "Let us privatise." That is a parrot cry. We have not got round to that yet. His advisers have not yet done their sums. Railwaymen and women must pay today's bills with yesterday's money, without tomorrow's promises coming to reality. Their problem is that they are continually being told how successful the railway network is. It is much more profitable now than it used to be. Then those railwaymen and women say, "We work considerably longer hours than most people." They work considerably longer hours than most people in the House.
    Mr. Amos: That is not true.
    Mr. Snape: The hon. Gentleman says that that is not true. I do not know the hon. Gentleman particularly well, but he should be careful. If he clocks up some of the hours that I know are clocked up by signalmen and drivers, he is working far too hard and should go and have a lie down.
    Railwaymen and women say, "If we are doing so well, surely we should be allowed to share in the prosperity." Instead, they have been told, "You are taking the 7 per cent." They have been told not to take it or leave it, but that it will be put in their pay packets regardless of the view of their negotiators. They have been told that, before any industrial action, there must be a ballot. They have held a ballot, and a majority—not a massive one, but one larger than that enjoyed by many hon. Members in the popular vote—voted for some sort of industrial action. During supposed last-ditch talks at ACAS only last Saturday, they were told by the same management, which has been boasting of its economic success on running the railway industry, that it would apply for a court injunction to prevent any industrial action next Wednesday.
    Mr. Adley: Would it help if the hon. Gentleman mentioned his interest?
    Mr. Snape: If it is necessary, my declaration of interest has been in the Register of Members' Interests since I was elected to the House. I do not think that it is necessary for me to say when I am at the Dispatch Box that I am a member of the National Union of Railwaymen. At this

    53
    Box I speak not for the National Union of Railwaymen but for the Labour party—[Interruption.] No, it is not the same thing. Conservative Members constantly and deliberately misinterpret the relationship between the Opposition and the trade union movement.
    I believe that most fair-minded people would think that those who have delivered in terms of economic performance on the railways deserve a better reward than that offered them at present. The feeling among those who work in the railway industry is one of widespread dissatisfaction with the way they are being treated.
    If I might have the attention of the Minister for a moment, I should like to put to him a number of points about the railways. I make no apology for asking him to explain to us once again the reason for the differences in the criteria that he uses to judge the merits of road and rail schemes. Although he attempted partially to answer that point earlier, I ask him to reconsider the recommendations of the Leitch committee in 1977 and, in some subsequent debate, to give us detailed answers as to why the Government have not implemented those recommendations. Before he says that the Labour Government did not either, I should tell him that I asked them to do so at the time. Of course, then the transport team was led by those well-known raving moderates, Messrs. Bill Rodgers and John Horam, who, of course were most highly regarded by the popular press. One of those has since found his rightful home in the Conservative party, by way of the Social Democratic party, and the other has left politics altogether —which is a tragic loss, I must say. I did my best at that time to convince them that the recommendations should be accepted, although they were not.
    Will the Minister look again at the cross-city electrification scheme in Birmingham and tell us if and when a decision is likely to be forthcoming? Perhaps he can jog the elbows of those responsible in his Department for the unofficial talks that are taking place about that scheme.
    The Minister said a few welcome words about the Channel tunnel and how much the Government wanted to see the benefits of that scheme spread throughout the country. I understand that an investment submission is being prepared for a number of passenger trains to be used in connection with cross-Channel services, which must carry some, if not substantial, accommodation for customs and immigration, depending on agreement finally and belatedly being reached about such matters being dealt with on the trains.
    Will there be any leeway in the 8 per cent. investment criterion for those trains, because much will depend, at least initially, on the total number of through services that will be run from the Channel tunnel to provincial cities, such as Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester and into Scotland? Obviously, if that 8 per cent. criterion is to be adhered to rigidly, there will be a reduced number of train sets, because they are obviously sets that cannot be used for any other purpose. Presumably, the fact that they can be used only for that purpose may weigh against them in terms of investment criteria.
    We welcome the fact that the Minister has pointed out the contribution that the Channel tunnel can make, not to transferring existing freight from road to rail—regrettably, at present, there is not much rail freight—but to mopping up some of the projected increase, at least in the next few years, and perhaps making deeper inroads into reducing the number of juggernaut lorries cluttering up the roads in the south of England.
    54
    The Minister will be aware of the falling number of section 8 grants in recent years. Will he look again at the criteria for section 8 grants, especially those referring to lorry-sensitive miles? As I understand the system, if it is possible to show that a number of lorries can be taken away from unsuitable roads—however unsuitable roads are defined—obviously it becomes easier for the applicant to receive a contribution towards the provision of private rail sidings. The problem is that the more motorways and dual carriageways we build and the more road improvements we carry out, the fewer lorry-sensitive route miles there will be. I should have thought that, given the problems of congestion, for example, on the M25 and on some of our other motorways, anything that helps to reduce the number of lorries on those motorways—although I accept the fact that that is why motorways were built in the first place—would be welcome.
    Will the Minister assure us that he will at least look at the rules on section 8 grants to see whether they can be widened, so that the graph of grants for section 8 private sidings starts to turn up again instead of falling away as dramatically as it has in the past few years?
    If we confine our interest to reading the newspapers, we would think that all our roads and motorways are absolutely choked and that the forecasts about road traffic are invariably understated. Of course, in some cases, they are. No one needs reminding of the congestion on the M25. There are those of us, however, in the Opposition who believe that there are better ways of alleviating congestion than spending £10 billion on new motorways or widening existing ones. A transport package would be much more beneficial than the usual behaviour of the Department of Transport, which appears to act more as a Ministry of Transport than as a Department.
    Does the Minister agree that many roads are being built on the basis of traffic forecasts that have been greatly overpitched? For many hours of the day and night it is possible to picnic in comparative safety on the outside lane of the M45 from the M1 to Coventry because there is little traffic. The M18 is another road that was built to motorway standard but, for much of the day and night, appears to be under-utilisied. It was built on the basis of projections that have not yet come to fruition and, in the opinion of many, never will.
    Mr. Portillo: Does the hon. Gentleman think that the case for the Humber bridge was overpitched?
    Mr. Snape: Of course it was, but for a good reason— —
    Mr. Adley: By-elections.
    Mr. Snape: Of course. If the Conservative party is trying to tell us that at no time has it produced figures to back up a political necessity, I do not believe it. The Conservative party should reconsider the problems caused by congestion and tolls. I hope that, now that the Minister has made his political pitch, he will agree that the projections that were made to justify building those roads have frequently not come to fruition.
    There is a twin problem because, by its nature, traffic forecasting is an inexact science. I ask the Minister about the saga of the M40 from Oxford to Birmingham. In the mid-1970s, under the two moderates to whom I have referred, the Department of Transport decided that no motorway was necessary between those two cities. The Department talked, justifiably, about the need to improve

    55
    the existing trunk roads, the A34 and the A41, and to bypass towns and cities such as Banbury and Warwick. The Department costed the exercise and said that it would do all that was necessary to cater for traffic growth in the foreseeable future.
    By the early 1980s, it had been decided that that was all a mistake and that a motorway was needed. Because of the traffic projections, it was decided that a two-lane motorway was needed for much of the road's length. It was then decided that the projections were wrong and that a three-lane motorway was necessary. In a decade we have gone from no motorway to a three-lane motorway.
    Earlier this year, a public inquiry was set up to consider the possibility of setting up a service area on that road. The inquiry sat for some months, and these things do not come cheap. Recently, the inquiry was adjourned because someone in the Department of Transport decided that the traffic projections were 42 per cent. too low.
    This is a saga worthy of the late Mr. Peter Sellers. How does the Department justify such wide fluctuations of opinion between no motorway and a three-lane motorway, the traffic forecasts for which will be exceeded by 42 per cent. by the early 1990s? What kind of computer is used to produce such fluctuating forecasts?
    Mr. Adley: A Peter Snow swingometer.
    Mr. Snape: As the hon. Gentleman says, a fairly slow Peter Snow swingometer—with a vengeance. The Minister will forgive me if I sound somewhat cynical about some of the projections from his Department, given the saga, as yet incomplete, of the M40. Is the public inquiry to be resumed later this year? Will the hon. Gentleman give us accurate projections on road traffic between Oxford and Birmingham?
    Little mention has been made so far of congestion in the air, or on the ground for those waiting to take to the air. The experiences of last summer and the likely experiences of this summer are no cause for the Government to congratulate themselves. I do not suggest that it is all their fault, but some of it certainly is. Patting themselves on the back when would-be travellers spend hours at airports is no way to impress either the House or the electorate. We need greater investment in our air traffic control facilities and greater involvement in Euro-control. It is a pity that it takes at least one and probably two summers of discontent for air travellers before the myth of sovereignty of the air is dissipated. Euro-control is largely nominal. In addition, there are 42 centres and 22 different control systems in Europe. This makes no sense, and certainly will not make any sense this summer, for those who are sitting in extremely overcrowded airports.
    Mr. Michael Colvin: The hon. Gentleman and I have taken an interest in this matter and, in fact, visited Gatwick together to discuss air traffic control, among other matters. He should be gracious enough to acknowledge that the Government have taken the lead during their presidency to persuade the EEC to broaden the scope of Euro-control. There is a good reason for that—the United Kingdom has more to gain from the liberalisation of air services in Europe and the streamlining of air traffic control than any other country, because we have about 20 airlines that provide international services. We are taking the lead in Europe.
    56
    I should like the Government to speed up their programme of investment. Expenditure of £600 million in air traffic control sounds like a lot of money, but it is peanuts compared with investment in roads and rail. Failure to make that investment will result in Charles de Gaulle airport becoming a main European hub from which one can travel to London in about two and a half hours. To preserve our lead in civil aviation, we must do more to improve the capacity of our airports in the south-east.
    Mr. Peter Fry: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Three speeches have been made in an hour and a half and, with the greatest respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin), we have had virtually a miniature speech from him. Some of us have been waiting to make our contribution. There is little time for Back Benchers to speak in the debate, so I ask for your protection.
    Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): I think that the hon. Member is asking me to make an appeal for shorter speeches so that as many hon. Members as possible can contribute. I gladly accede to that request.
    Mr. Snape: I gladly accede to it, too. I apologise if we have all been deprived of the doubtless wise words of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry). Perhaps I allowed myself to be led astray by the number of interventions during my speech.
    I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin) said. I wish that we could get away from the idea that we have to take the lead over the rest of Europe. That justifiably irritates people. The thought of the Prime Minister appearing through the door of any conference centre brandishing her handbag and threatening to take the lead would be an instant turn-off in many EEC countries. I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that, whoever takes the lead, the present system is unacceptable. As he rightly said, £600 million sounds like a great deal of money, but it is peanuts compared with the amount required to do something about the ever-mounting delays and congestion in European air travel.
    Bearing in mind your strictures, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall not produce the statistics to refute some of the Minister's boasts about the level of investment in railways since the Government took office in 1979. It is true that investment for the current year is fairly high, as it was last year, but the early years of the present Administration mark some of the lowest levels of investment within the railway industry for 20 years or so. If one takes the global figure, the public service obligation and investment, the Government are still a long way behind their predecessors. Current expenditure is a fraction of that spent on the railway network throughout Europe. In relation to the more developed countries of the EC, we are eighth out of eight in terms of the proportion of GDP which is spent on railways, which is no cause for self-congratulation.
    Our transport system suffers from chaos and congestion, and the sooner the Government lose their air of smug self-satisfaction, which has been typified by the Minister, and the sooner they acknowledge that a deep-rooted problem exists which only money can solve, the better.
    5.51 pm
    Mr. Peter Fry: I am most grateful, and I only hope that the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) will regard my comments as words of wisdom. I always enjoy listening to his contributions. He is always worth listening to and bullish. I understand why he is so cheerful today. If I were a member of the Labour party and had had his majority at the last two elections, I should be happier than usual today.
    The debate has developed in a disappointing way. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) began by giving a blinkered view. One would always think that the only mode of transport worth considering was railway. The debate so far has centred on road investment versus rail investment, but the argument should be opened up.
    I came to the House as a member of what was loosely called the road lobby, but I consider myself as good a friend of British Rail as of the British Road Federation, because I have come to the well-thought-out conclusion that as the pressure on transport in this country is increasing, and has been increasing for a number of years, it is pointless to have futile arguments about whether we should invest more in road than rail or more in rail than road when we all realise that, particularly in large urban areas, all modes of transport have a contribution to make if we are to ease the pressure on our cities and means of communication. There is little doubt that today's problem will become considerably worse before it gets better, despite the record levels of investment listed by my hon. Friend the Minister this afternoon.
    We are suffering not merely from what the Opposition describe as the neglect of investment in transport infrastructure, which has occurred even during this Administration, but from a lack of investment which goes back 15 or 20 years. A major new road project probably takes 15 years from initial concept to completion. One of the problems of today's debate is that, even if someone in the Department of Transport were to bring forward a wonderful plan and persuade the Treasury that it could be implemented, and even if the finance were advanced, it would take many years to tackle the growing congestion and the tremendous problems that we face. That is why I am sad that the debate so far has concentrated on what has gone before rather than on arguments for the future.
    My hon. Friend the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State have shown determination and flexibility, which were sadly lacking in the Department of Transport for several years. The team at the Department of Transport is determined that there should be extra investment. One aspect that I particularly commend is that, unlike those of other Administrations, the team is prepared to consider virtually any option if it will improve the overall position.
    It is all very well to dismiss spending on roads, but we are told that the number of motor cars is to double by early next century. It is all very well telling people that they should not have a motor car and should travel by public transport, by rail, but once the average person has bought a motor car, he or she will continue to use it and to want to use it because it is the most convenient form of transport. Any Government who fail to recognise that and suggest that people's use of motor cars should be too greatly inhibited will find themselves on the receiving end of public dissatisfaction whenever the next election takes place.
    Mr. Snape: The hon. Gentleman put a question. I will return it by asking him one. How much money would have to be spent on roads to alleviate the congestion that we see most days in and around our major cities?
    Mr. Fry: We cannot build our way out of trouble. I have just returned from a visit to the United States, where it is now accepted that it is impossible to build enough roads to satisfy the overwhelming demand. That does not mean, however, that we should do nothing but consider what each mode of transport contributes. We might find that it is best to concentrate on light rail, heavy rail underground, British Rail services or using car sharing more than we do at present. We may need some road improvements or even to build new roads. It would be taking a blinkered view to pass today's motion, as though voting more money for the railways would solve the problem.
    As I said earlier, the difficulty arises because the problems are increasing. One interesting aspect of modern travel, particularly travel for work, is how much more complex it is becoming. More and more people travel, not merely in a radial line from outside the city into its centre, but across the city and its suburbs. Yet our public transport systems are nearly all based on radial lines of communication.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: Does not the hon. Gentleman accept that one measure that should be taken is to charge motorists who insist on driving into towns and city centres unnecessarily, and even to charge those who drive in as a matter of course? A leader in today's Evening Standard suggests two methods of doing this in London as the only way of preventing unnecessary congestion from bringing the capital city to a standstill.
    Mr. Fry: It is possible to use a more rigid parking policy to deter the motorist. The number of commuters coming into London by car is a small percentage of the total number of people coming into the city. Many would argue that that percentage comprises essential users, perhaps Members of Parliament who cannot travel home any other way if the House sits late. It is all very well saying that we should make them pay, but most of them, because they are in business, would pass on the cost to someone else and the charges would hit and therefore penalise people at the lowest end of the income scale.
    The problem has been exacerbated recently. Yesterday's Sunday Telegraph states:
    "Between 1983 and 1988 daily rail journeys into London during the morning rush hour.… increased from 380,000 to 460,000 … During 1981–82 there were 498 million journeys completed on London Underground rising to 798 million in 1987–8".
    Increases on this scale have come upon us remarkably quickly, and the decisions needed to deal with them must be made as early as possible because they take so long to implement. The Government, the Secretary of State and the Minister have at least come forward with some imaginative ideas, such as the central London rail study, for which we have been waiting a long time. Even if we agreed all the studies and decided to go ahead with all the projects, the difficulties would continue to multiply.
    The Minister and I had an interesting Adjournment debate a few weeks ago about the contribution that private capital can make to transport infrastructure shortages. We differed, in that he felt that private investment could be encouraged to come in without any sweeteneers from the

    59
    Treasury or the Government. I welcome the Green Paper; I am not entirely sure how the ideas expressed in it will work out in practice, but I remain convinced that many projects, especially road projects, cannot stand on their own without some form of tax relief on the money invested or some sort of payment by way of shadow tolls. I do not especially commend either form of assistance, but something is needed.
    The Government have had the courage to think much more adventurously than their predecessors, but if my hon. Friend discovers, as he undoubtedly and unfortunately will, that the considerable investment now being made is insufficient to deal with the congestion, now and in the future, I hope that he can assure me that the Government will keep an open mind when considering alternatives. I am all in favour of my hon. Friend trying to encourage the private sector to come in, as the Green Paper suggested, but it would be wrong to close off all the alternatives.
    We are on the verge of a tremendous explosion in the movement of people. It is a fundamental responsibility of any Government to safeguard the freedom of that movement, which is one of our basic liberties. It has taken a long time for Governments in this country to give transport and expenditure on it the high degree of attention that it enjoys today. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and to my hon. Friend the Minister for recognising the challenges that transport problems pose. Given the extra expenditure that they have already announced, I am confident that they will have the determination to deal with this problem and to bring relief —if not tomorrow, perhaps in a few years—to the people of this country.
    6.3 pm
    Mr. Donald Anderson: The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry) asked some basic questions about transport policy and outlined the great explosion in transport use that will happen over the next few years. I wonder whether he and other hon. Members are prepared to face the implications of, for instance, making motorists pay the marginal social costs involved in relieving inner-city congestion. The hon. Gentleman also asked why there had been so much concentration in the debate and in the motion on rail, as opposed to road. He said that transport should be seen as a whole. The answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is that hon. Members have concentrated on rail because its potential contribution to our transport system has been consistently devalued over the years. That is why we seek positively to put the case for rail.
    Having heard the Minister's speech I am tempted to ask: if things are so good, why are they so bad? People like me who use public transport in London expect that at least one of the lifts in an Underground station will not work and that, when they change tubes, at least one of the escalators will not work. We expect the honeyed words over the loudspeaker—at least they tell us now why things are wrong—informing us of delays.
    International comparisons provide some indication of the Government's neglect. In an editorial on 19 May, The
    60
    Independent said something that might be labelled Marxist by Conservative Members. Under the heading "Neglected transports of horror" it said:
    "For nearly 10 years, Margaret Thatcher paid scant attention to transport. Nor did she give any Cabinet Minister a long enough term of office at the Department of Transport to master the subject and push through major reforms. Six men, several of them distinctly second-rate, have succeeded one another during a period which has seen a single Prime Minister and two Chancellors of the Exchequer. This was a sign that Mrs. Thatcher regarded transport as a relatively unimportant portfolio, an error to which her own access to special travel facilities, coupled with her well known antipathy to railways, made her especially prone. The nation is suffering for this lack of interest."
    No hon. Member, based on his own experience or on talking to his constituents, can gainsay this lack of interest from on high in transport in this country. Our people travel nowadays. They see the quality of the railways in France and Germany and can compare them with ours. They can compare the glistening newness of the underground in Paris with the squalor and age-old feeling of the Underground in London.
    Comparisons of projected investment over the next few years show that West Germany plans to spend £12 billion on major rail programmes. France plans to spend £1 billion a year until the end of the century. These countries display a far more bullish attitude to their railways, and that is reflected in staff morale and usage by passengers. Spain intends to spend £10 billion; Italy proposes investment of up to £18 billion. Even Holland, a small country, is spending £3 billion. The current investment programme of British Rail is £3·8 billion over five years.
    Britain is virtually at the bottom of the table of European countries when it comes to building urban railways to relieve inner-city congestion. We plan to build only 1·5 km of such rail, in the form of the Bank extension of the Docklands light railway in London. That is the only domestic urban rail project under construction, and it compares with West Germany's 116·1 km, Italy's 79·7, and France's 62·8. The Railway Gazette International year book survey, published in May of this year, showed that the United Kingdom was sandwiched between Finland, with 1·6 km, and Greece, with 0·9. We should be seeking ways of using rail positively to relieve inner-city congestion.
    The schemes for 752 km of urban track have been held up because of the Government's insistence that a large proportion of expenditure must come from the private sector—yet it is clearly not providing enough. High-speed railways can fuel the arteries of the new Europe. We have seen a difference of attitude among our European partners in this respect. Rail can also be a major solution to congestion in our inner cities.
    I accept that the Government have, in principle, welcomed the central London rail study. I have no doubt that the Minister and his colleagues are seeking additional cash for LRT and British Rail from the Treasury, but, in response to the study, which was published in January, the Treasury has yet to provide additional sums on a scale remotely comparable with what is available for roads.
    All in all, the comparisons speak badly for the attitude to rail in this country. Vision is lacking, at a time when our constituents can see increasing squalor in the rail network. The Government's narrow theme is that the passenger must pay. That is rather different from the criteria for investment in roads. They seek to maximise property sales, selling assets as part of their major rail policy.

    61
    Environmental and safety considerations have constantly been downgraded. France has certainly shown how high-speed rail can spread growth and investment to the regions and at the same time protect the environment. The result of the Government's policy has been poor staff morale. I invite hon. Members to speak to railwaymen in their constituencies about how they feel about their future. Morale now is very different from what it was under Sir Peter Parker. At that time, ordinary railwaymen felt that at least there was someone fighting their corner—if that is the appropriate word after the European elections. They felt that at least someone was banging the drum for rail.
    The uncertainties that derive from privatisation are another major factor affecting morale. Think tanks were at the margins of government a decade ago, but now they are front centre stage and there is talk about bringing back the Great Western and the LMS. The Government's road and rail investment policies are constantly out of balance. Surely a sensible policy would be for the Government to recognise that, even though the railway system cannot make a contribution on the scale that some of the advocates would like, it is there and a major but under-utilised national asset. It could make a major contribution to regional development and could reduce congestion in the cities.
    We can anticipate regional demand. For example, in my part of the world in south Wales the heads of the valleys road was built at a time when there was little demand for it. However, we are told that there is no prospect of the electrification of the main line from Paddington to south Wales, because the investment criteria cannot be met. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) showed in his example, although the Government put their hand on their heart and say that they had accepted every project put up, only those projects are proposed by British Rail which they know will satisfy the artificially high criteria imposed by Government.
    Government have to take seriously the regional implications of the Channel tunnel. In all their transport policies, they have shown the hallmark that led to their massive defeat in the European elections. They have shown themselves to be out of step with our European partners. They are on their own in a corner in terms of their assessment of the contribution that rail can make to an overall transport policy. They have shown themselves to be environmentally unconscious by failing to understand the contribution that rail can make. One sees in their transport policy, as in their European policy, the personal stamp of the Prime Minister, which proved so disastrous for the Conservatives over the past few days. The Prime Minister never travels by rail and has consistently downgraded the contribution that rail can make. That prevents a serious and sensible policy on rail from being adopted by the Government.
    6.13 pm
    Mr. Robert Adley: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson). I do not disagree with much of what he said. One of the advantages of a transport debate is that it shows the growing consensus—if I am allowed to use that word—not only about the causes but about the need for a solution to many of our transport problems.
    62
    The motion moved by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) would have us believe that severe congestion is caused by inadequate investment in public transport. It is actually caused by increasing prosperity. The hon. Gentleman failed to answer my intervention. There is no point in saying to people who have become prosperous that they cannot have cars because there are enough already. Prosperity has created the congestion and we have to find ways to solve it.
    I agree with hon. Members who have said that better public transport is the only sane solution to the problem of congestion. At one time it seemed that the motor car would sound the death knell of the railways. However, by its very proliferation the car is the cause of the revitalisation of our railway system. We must take that on board. The Government's economic policies have caused congestion but they need not be ashamed of that because they created the prosperity.
    My hon. Friend the Minister of State has been gracious enough to listen to many of my comments about coaches in London. Some of the policies of the Government, such as coach deregulation, have created micro-problems of traffic congestion and pollution in London. That applies especially to commuter coaches which come in and out during rush hours and park all day, often with their engines running and polluting the atmosphere with diesel fumes. We have deprived London's local authorities of the right and duty to designate coach routes. If we had the courage to re-examine some aspects of the deregulation policy, we might be able to deal with small but important parts of the congestion.
    I should like to speak about two points made by my hon. Friend the Minister. The first is about the docklands light railway. Yes, we welcome that railway but no, we do not welcome the thinking that caused the Government to insist that the railway be built so cheaply that it was incompatible with the rest of London Regional Transport and British Rail. In a city such as London it is futile to try to save money by building bits of a railway that do not fit in with the rest of the railway system. I hope that we shall not make that mistake again.
    When the Minister spoke about Snow Hill to Wolverhampton my heart leapt. There used to be a railway line from Snow Hill to Wolverhampton. It was called the Great Western Railway. A few weeks ago I went to look at Wolverhampton low-level station which had just been saved from destruction and is now being revitalised by Wolverhampton council. I shed tears when I thought of the investment in infrastructure that was put into our railways by our forebears and which we have thrown away.
    I make a specific plea to my hon. Friend the Minister, to my hon. Friends and to the Opposition and I hope that the House can unite on it. Because of changing patterns of traffic it may be necessary on occasions to discontinue a rail service. However, there is never a case for destroying the track bed by selling it off, thereby preventing our descendants from reinstating a rail service should condition change. Can we please stop selling off temporarily redundant railway tracks? It was possible to build the docklands light railway only because, by sheer chance, the tracks and land had not been flogged off by British Rail.
    There was the old Great Central railway; and the Somerset and Dorset joint railway line which everybody used to laugh at, which stretches forlornly between the

    63
    great growth areas of Avon in the north and south-east Dorset in the south. Barbara Castle sanctioned the closure of such lines and if she had not done so we would now be able to reinstate our rail services and see more motions on the Order Paper by my hon. Friends congratulating British Rail on reopening services. There was one recently about the reopening of the line between Burton and Leicester, but that service would never have been reinstated if it had not been for the quirk of fate that kept the track bed in existence.
    Mr. Snape: May I reassure the hon. Gentleman about the line that moved him to tears? The track bed between Snow Hill and Wolverhampton was preserved by the former and, sadly, now abolished West Midlands county council. In the county structure plan it had the foresight to envisage that that line would reopen in the 1990s—as indeed it will, albeit as a metro line.
    Mr. Adley: Perhaps that local authority would like to move down to Dorset to give a few lessons to Dorset county council, which believes that transport means roads. The rail infrastructure in and around my constituency were destroyed in the 1960s by the Labour Government. I am not being partisan. One could weep at the opportunities lost then.
    There have been references to the European election, if it was an election—a non-election to a non-Parliament.
    Mr. Snape: Did the Tory party lose in the hon. Gentleman's constituency?
    Mr. Adley: No, I think that the Conservative candidate in our European constituency increased his share of the vote. That is beside the point.
    The substantial vote for the Green party could not and should not be ignored. It was a quiet message to the Conservative party, the Labour party and the Liberal and Alliance party, or whatever it is called this week. That vote is a clear message to all of us that environmental matters are of growing concern to the British electorate. Transport plays a major part in that environmental concern. In a brief debate, it is not possible to go into all the policies that one would like to see pursued but, in California of all places, the home of private enterprise, the state is legislating to ban the internal combustion engine by early in the next century.
    Surely we in western Europe must recognise that we have to tell the oil companies and the motor car manufacturers that, if we can send men to the moon, we must be able to develop the electric motor vehicle to a non-polluting form of transport, that we must get on with this and not allow the pace to be dictated by those who have a commercial investment and interest in continuing to provide forms of land transport that fill our air with fumes. It must be technically feasible, and sooner or later Parliament must do something about it.
    There is a similar problem about the railways. Electrified railways are clean and they are much the most economical to operate, but they cost a certain amount of money in capital investment. Why do we always have to look longingly across the Channel to see the attitude that our colleagues there take towards public investment in general and in particular towards public investment in their railways? The French provided and built the original
    64
    train grand vitesse—TGV—to Lyons. They thought that it would be 15 years before there was a return on their investment, but that was achieved in six and a half years. We should take a leaf out of their book, and instead of looking for reasons not to invest in our railway system look at the options available to us and the benefits that can flow from bold decisions. If we did, we would go some way towards alleviating the aggravation and concern felt by many of our fellow citizens.
    We have discussed also the vexed question of rail investment versus road investment. My hon. Friend the Minister knows my views on this matter. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State came here a couple of weeks ago and announced what I can only describe as a roads bonanza. In that beautiful glossy document, among the proposals was a motorway from the Channel tunnel to Southampton. That will be marvellous, except for those who find that the road goes past their front door, but we shall not discuss that aspect of the matter now. However, a railway line already runs between the Channel tunnel and Southampton. A tiny piece of it on the stretch between Ashford and Hastings is the only part not electrified. It is a few miles long, but British Rail is unable to satisfy the Government and meet their investment criteria so as to link up the entire line to through traffic by putting down a third piece of metal to form an electric railway line. It is grotesque that we have these double standards in assessing road versus rail investment criteria.
    The hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) talked about the unofficial meetings that we all know take place between British Rail and the Department of Transport, and the hon. Member for Swansea, East mentioned this too. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Minister will be honest and straightforward. They must stop pretending that every single piece of new investment that British Rail wants to undertake it can undertake. We all know what that means. It is that when the private meetings have taken place, only when British Rail satisfies the Department's officials does it put in a formal proposition. However, dozens of schemes are thrown out informally. Occasionally, a scheme such as the one between Blackpool and Manchester gets thrown out even after it has been put forward by BR. There can be no justification for a short-sighted decision to throw out a scheme that would complete a whole railway system by electrifying one small section.
    The motion refers to the Channel tunnel. I am sure that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor will have read my excellent booklet called "Tunnel Vision". In it, I set out to discuss these problems a year or so ago. Have hon. Members thought about what will happen when the Channel tunnel opens? The result will be the M25 in spades. Who realises that all the rail traffic coming to London from the Channel tunnel will, in the initial years, use Waterloo, but will have to operate on a single track of railway line between Vauxhall and Waterloo? It is not even a double track. Hon. Members should think what that means in terms of congestion and delay. If my hon. Friend the Minister thinks that he has difficulties and troubles now with congestion and delay on the railways, to paraphrase a politician on the other side of the Atlantic, "he ain't seen nuthin' yet", because there will be serious problems.
    Mr. Snape: It was A1 Jolson.
    Mr. Adley: The hon. Gentleman must not distract me!
    We are desperately short of experiments in public transport. I shall mention one phrase, which may cause the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East to smile. It is slip coaches. In the old days the Great Western Railway experimented with, and then ran extensively for many years, a system of slip coaches. In it, trains slipped a coach off the back of an express, which then came to a halt at a designated station without causing the main train to stop. That was the only way to do it with a steam engine, but now, with electric tracks and light diesel traction, a whole new world would be opened up by an experiment into powered slip coaches. What people want is the opportunity to travel on a through train without having to change. This applies particularly to the Channel tunnel and to people travelling to airports. Will my hon. Friend the Minister ask British Rail how much it would cost to carry out an experiment into powered slip coaches to see whether they could be used as a way to help to alleviate transport problems?
    I shall finish by dealing with railway privatisation. I am afraid that some of my colleagues know more about party politics than public transport. The two make uneasy bedfellows. I am delighted to hear that the confrontation of reality against expectation on the privatisation of the railway has meant that the timetable originally agreed by my reluctant right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for publishing his proposals has now to be delayed. I am prepared to be convinced that somehow we can discover what nobody else in the world has discovered—the way to run a private passenger railway system profitably. There may be reasons why the best railways in the world, in France, West Germany, Switzerland or Italy, are state-controlled and the worst passenger railway system in the world, that of the United States, is owned privately. There may he some hidden message there, which misleads me, and that may be an argument for privatisation.
    I am waiting patiently, and I have an open mind about railway privatisation because, as a Conservative, I am in favour of the principle of privatisation. However, I am not prepared to allow political dogma to dictate my view as to whether we should privatise the railways purely for the sake of privatisation. If my hon. Friend the Minister can convince me that the criteria laid down by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—that it will provide a better service for the public—will be achieved, I shall support it. Unless and until he does, I shall not.
    6.30 pm
    Mr. Gerald Howarth: It is a great pleasure to take up the remarks of the train-spotter's friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley). That term takes me back to the days when I was the chairman of my school's railway society, and the concept of powered slip coaches had us all extremely excited. I am sure that my hon. Friend has done more than probably anyone else in the House to advance the cause of the railways throughout our land. I am only sorry that in his strictures to my hon. Friend the Minister he was not able to congratulate him on having done the decent thing with the Ribblehead viaduct.
    Mr. Adley: I have done so previously.
    Mr. Howarth: I am sure that my hon. Friend has congratulated my hon. Friend the Minister on other occasions. For the record, I thank the Minister for what I consider to be a sensible and wise decision.
    Mr. Snape: There was no private money.
    Mr. Howarth: The hon. Gentleman may say that, but I think that we are getting used to the idea of private money in the railway system. I think that the privatisation of the railway system will be advantageous when it comes to introducing improved services.
    I agree with the Minister that it is astonishing that the "Salads", or whatever they are called, decided on this topic for debate. They are surely on uncertain ground. Almost invariably, those who call for more investment in roads, bypasses and the infrastructure generally are those who organise residents' action committees to prevent developments from taking place. They tend to speak with forked tongue on matters on which my right hon. and hon. Friends have a good story to tell. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch feels that more could be done for the railways, but the railways have benefited from the £3,000 million that has been invested in them so far, and they will benefit further from the substantial programme that is to be implemented.
    Those of us who use the InterCity services cannot fail to have noticed the vast improvement that has taken place. The services are fast, comfortable and generally punctual. I pay tribute to the friends of the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) who are responsible for manning our railways for what they have done. I warmly welcome the significant improvement that has been made.
    Mr. Snape: Perhaps the best reward that the hon. Gentleman could give my "friends" is to remove the cloud of uncertainty that is caused by silly privatisation proposals.
    Mr. Howarth: The hon. Gentleman knows that any change brings in advance of its implementation a degree of uncertainty. If his friends and hon. Friends were to consult those who were employed in nationalised industries and have now been liberated by being brought into the private sector, they would find generally that they are happier in the private sector. They find it more fulfilling and more rewarding than employment within the state sector.
    Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Howarth: No, I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) wishes to make a contribution to the debate, and I do not wish to impede him.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will be pleased to know, as will the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East, that after 25 years the Walsall-to-Hednesford line, which runs substantially through my constituency, has recently been reopened. I pay tribute to Staffordshire county council for using the ratepayers' money to back the project, and I hope that ratepayers will support the line and enable it to become a financially viable service. New lines are being opened, and the railways are increasingly responding to the needs of the passenger. Those responsible for the inter-city services have announced that they are running earlier trains from various parts of the country to enable business men to

    67
    arrive in London by 9 am. We are beginning to see a concentration on the needs of the customer and a willingness to respond to those needs.
    The deregulation of inter-city and local bus services has led to substantial improvements. The inter-city services are fantastic. The coaches are marvellous—they are fast, efficient and pleasant vehicles in which to ride. Minibuses are in profuse supply throughout the country. They offer frequent and comfortable journeys and are a substitute for using the car.
    The Government have tried to grapple with the problems of London's third airport but I do not believe that the solution is entirely adequate. The Civil Aviation Authority's call for another London runway can be answered only by a second runway at Stansted to meet the demand that unquestionably will follow. The nettle had to be grasped in the first place.
    Some of my hon. Friends in neighbouring constituencies are concerned about the Birmingham northern relief road. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State produced a splendid document setting out new proposals for the road system. It referred to the provision of "New Roads by New Means", including the introduction of private finance. It was only when I arrived back in the House about three weeks ago that I picked up the document and found encompassed within it a letter from my right hon. Friend telling me that the relief road was to be what amounts to the first toll motorway project.
    Initially, I welcomed the concept. I am not opposed in principle to toll motorways. Most of our fellow citizens who travel on the continent are happy to pay the French Exchequer for the benefit of using the French motorway system, but of course, there is a choice. I usually use N roads to avoid contributing to the French Exchequer. When French motorists come to Britain, I do not see why they should enjoy our fine motorway network without making any contribution to our Exchequer. Toll motorways can make a good contribution.
    After five years of deliberation, characterised by the closest consultation between Ministers and the Members of Parliament who represent the affected constituencies, it is distressing that a sudden announcement has had the effect of causing considerable consternation in south Staffordshire. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) will see his constituency affected by the Birmingham northern relief road. It will suffer particularly because all the options that have been canvassed go through his patch and will upset one section of his constituents or another.
    The project has been five years in development. As I have said, there has been substantial consultation with Members of Parliament as well as with local authorities and local people. The Department's preferred route, the so-called green route, was accepted with enthusiasm or resignation by the people in the area, there was a public inquiry and we were awaiting the inspector's report, which would have confirmed the go-ahead. It was then that we were told that all bets were off, and it appears that the issue is to be opened up again. There is to be competition, with tenders invited for an unspecified route. Those who sold their houses under planning blight arrangements could well find that their houses will not come within the new route; there is great uncertainty.
    68
    The relief road was widely accepted by my constituents as a necessary development, and the same position was taken by the constituents of my hon. Friends. I have no doubt that the same view was taken by the entire nation. There is no doubt that the part of the M6 which runs through Birmingham is a grossly over-used road. The idea of a diversion was sensible. In my constituency, we can visualise substantial economic benefits deriving from the relief road, and many exciting projects have been put together. For example, the Poplars site—it is owned by Staffordshire county council—has produced a most imaginative scheme in partnership with the private sector. That scheme and others are threatened: everything has been put into the melting pot, and I cannot see what the gain will be.
    If I could see that there was to be a clear gain, I would be in favour of it. However, I doubt whether there will be a gain. Many of the new exciting projects are likely to be put at risk. More especially, the Burntwood western bypass is under threat. Similarly, the Cannock eastern bypass is threatened because, unless the new road goes ahead, that bypass will go nowhere. That would be a lot of public sector investment for nothing.
    At the very least, my hon. Friend the Minister should tell us that he will confirm the Department's preferred route and ensure that, if there is to be competition, it will be competition on the preferred route. He cannot tell us that there will be no delay. The Birmingham northern relief road is not the same as the Dartford-Thurrock route, which has only two points, one at each end of the river. The Birmingham northern relief road has no fewer than four intersections planned in my constituency. Will a private sector developer have four intersections? I suspect that a private sector developer would be unable to afford four intersections and would have only one mid route. Therefore, we are likely to lose out.
    Although my constituents have not expressed this concern yet, they may be concerned that while Londoners have benefited from a great deal of public sector investment in the M25, my constituents may have to pay for the privilege of having a road which elsewhere in the country would have been provided from the public sector.
    I understand that time is short, but I hope that I have been able to endorse much of what my hon. Friend the Minister has done and has plans to do. The Government's record on transport has been first class. There is nothing of which we should be ashamed. Unquestionably, more must be done and the Minister must consider air transport. However, I congratulate him and plead that he will have more consultations with his hon. Friends.
    6.41 pm
    Mr. Simon Hughes: During this debate news has reached the House that the Hight Court has ruled in favour of the National Union of Railwaymen, and that Wednesday's rail strike will go ahead at the same time as the strike on the London Underground. The fact that London Transport is coming to a standstill is a reflection of the Government's policy on transport in the capital. Commuter chaos on a regular basis is a continuing capital crisis. The Minister appears to believe that the Government should not interfere with that chaos or even be concerned about it. The Minister hardly referred to the fact that there was any problem on the public transport system.

    69
    The Government have that blinkered view because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) said, they assert that they are investing enough on transport. Our motion alleges that the Government are so significantly under-investing in public transport that they are condemning the country to an extremely uncomfortable and precarious economic future. When the Minister replies, we would like him to tell us whether he is prepared to consider some of the advice given to him by his hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley), who referred to other countries where the evidence was that privatising and pretending that Government could have a hands-off policy was a receipe for a deteriorating transport system.
    It was interesting to note that the hon. Member for Cannock and Burntwood (Mr. Howarth) was in favour of privatisation of roads except where it affected his constituency. The Minister alleged that my hon. Friends and I and our party complain if schemes to invest in transport are proposed in our areas or near our constituencies. That is completely untrue. For example, on a consistent basis, my colleagues have campaigned for the Settle-Carlisle railway. My colleagues have also consistently campaigned for the Cambrian coast railway to remain open, and only today my colleagues are heightening their campaign to keep open the Lewes-Uckfield line.
    We must remind the Government that communities comprise people, many of whom do not have private transport. There must be sufficient public transport. That does not mean a service like that which has arisen from deregulating the buses, where the system is fine if someone wants to travel at a peak hour in the morning or afternoon, but no good if someone wants to go off the main route at off-peak hours. There must be sustained investment in a public transport system because that is the only way to deal both with our macro-economic problems and ensure a public service.
    Mr. Gerald Howarth: I want to help the hon. Gentleman to understand something which he clearly did not understand in my speech. Had it been proposed to us at the outset that the Birmingham northern relief road was to a toll motorway, I would have welcomed it warmly. However, my constituents and I find it difficult to accept, after a public inquiry and five years of agony, that that whole can of worms is to be reopened.
    Mr. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. If he supports a Government who will land their new ideas for privatised roads somewhere and that somewhere happens to be in his constituency, he cannot really complain about it. If he complains now, I assume that he would complain about something similar happening elsewhere. He cannot expect the rest of the country to put up with something which he would not want in his back yard.
    As a proportion of our national expenditure, expenditure on transport has dropped consistently throughout the 10 years of this Government. It was 4·9 per cent. in 1978–79, 4 per cent. in 1986–87 and it is projected to be 3·7 per cent. in 1990–91. The Government are doing that clearly as a matter of policy. In his announcement today about the extension of the Jubilee line through my constituency, the Minister made it clear that the plan would go ahead provided that the private sector invested
    70
    in it. I am not against private sector investment, but the idea that we can regularly and consistently reduce as a proportion of our national expenditure the amount of Government money spent on public transport and sustain a decent public transport system is not credible.
    Mr. Adley: I cannot allow the travesty of truth which the hon. Gentleman has just espoused to remain on the record. He cannot claim that his party led the campaign for the retention of the Settle-Carlisle line. Will he confirm that the formation of the all-party group to retain the line took place entirely as the result of the efforts of Conservative and Labour Members and that not one member of his party joined that group?
    Mr. Hughes: I did not claim that my party led the campaign. I claimed that my party was involved from the beginning in that campaign with local county councillors and district councillors at both ends of that line on a sustained and regular basis. We have argued the case in this House and outside, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. The record shows that we have consistently argued that the Settle-Carlisle line and others should be retained, while for a very long time the Government have prevaricated. We have had to wait months and years for them to make a decision on what was clearly a crucial matter for the environment and the communities concerned.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor also made it clear that one of the reasons why it is important to invest substantially more in public transport than we do now is that in only that way would we have an environmentally acceptable transport policy.
    Private transport cannot increase at its present rate, with all the inevitable consequences for pollution and congestion, let alone mental illness and frustration, without severely harming the personal and the local environment. It is better by far to invest in the national rail network and, in urban areas, in an underground, a rapid transit network and a bus service. In that way, one maximises transport efficiency, especially if the subsidy system is properly regulated, with the consumption of the minimum amount of fuel and maximum travel occurring at the most convenient times. Encouraging and permitting private transport to grow, building roads to meet that demand, and in so doing automatically increasing demand —the M25 is the best example of that—is an unacceptable solution.
    Today's issue of the Financial Times makes it clear how ridiculous are present policies. Writing about London Regional Transport in an article headed
    "Raising fares and hackles on overcrowded Tube",
    Rachel Johnson observes:
    "Here's the good news for Tube travellers. London Underground is tackling its biggest problem—overcrowding —which has now reached dangerous levels … Now for the bad news. London Underground's proposed solution to the problem, outlined to the Commons transport select committee, is to raise fares to such high levels that people are forced off the system."
    Even the Transport Secretary expressed his doubts:
    "'I would have to hear convincing arguments from London Underground before I agreed to pricing people off the Underground'."
    I am glad to know that even the Secretary of State has doubts.
    The reason why our capital will completely clog up is that in a city in which 35 per cent. of commuters use the Underground—which represents a total of 2·6 million

    71
    passengers and a 60 per cent. increase in five years, with a further 30 per cent. increase projected over the next five years—the amount of subsidy and public money being spent on it is being reduced. The new managing director of London Underground seems to think that that is perfectly acceptable:
    "We have to get the best out of our troops",
    he said, justifying less expenditure, adding:
    "McDonald's has shown the way in this. You don't have to have very highly paid and highly educated people to treat the public properly."
    Although one often feels like a McDonald's burger squeezed between two halves of a bun when one goes on the Underground, none the less that is no way to treat the travelling public, be they commuters, visitors from other parts of the country, or tourists from abroad.
    Comparisons with expenditure in other parts of Europe make it obvious that not enough is being spent. Government funds account for 52 per cent. of public transport costs in Paris. The subsidy in Rome is 82 per cent.; London's subsidy is just 30 per cent. and falling.
    The same applies to British Rail, which transports 40 per cent. of London's commuters and which, as with London Underground, has seen a 25 per cent. increase in demand. But has there been increased investment to meet it? No, instead the Government cut investment in British Rail by 25 per cent. over the past seven years, and cuts totalling a further 25 per cent. in the three years 1986–89 were recently announced.
    The Minister carefully avoided quoting figures showing a cut in investment in real terms since 1979, though there has been increased expenditure in cash terms. Given the inflation over which the Government preside, it would be difficult for there not to be an increase in cash terms. Presumably increased expenditure in cash terms will continue as inflation endures.
    Mr. A. J. Beith: Not necessarily.
    Mr. Hughes: Not necessarily, as my hon. Friend says —because the Government could continue to cut public expenditure. They always gave the reason for inflation as too much spending from the public purse, yet inflation continues.
    The third option of building urban railways to reduce inner-city congestion is also being ignored. Germany and Italy, for example, have substantially more urban railway track than we do. We are at the bottom of the league, with only Finland and Greece having as little urban railway track as we do. I challenge the Minister to deny that the following figures are wrong.
    Network SouthEast, which is the most overcrowded sector of the British Rail network serving the capital, had its public subsidy reduced from £350 million in 1983 to £165 million in 1988. It is proposed to cut the subsidy to £85 million in 1992. It is unbelievable that, with demand for some provincial services growing by 50 per cent. and for London commuter services by 25 per cent., the Government respond by spending £7 billion on roads and cutting railway investment from £1 billion in 1983 to half a billion in the last financial year.
    Our public transport system problems must be overcome. They include endemic overcrowding, appalling security, and ridiculous safety provisions. In last
    72
    Wednesday's debate my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Sir C. Smith) demonstrated that, if one happens to be large, overweight, disabled, carrying luggage or accompanied by children, it is impossible to make one's way through the new-style safety gates. The situation is so problematical that there are now more staff supervising the gates than there were before they came into existence.
    Massive strategic investment in public transport is required. Only then will we have a safe, cheap, environmentally pleasant and clean public transport system. Without strategic planning, which the Government abolished, it will not work. The transport system has been left to fend for itself, with both London Regional Transport and British Rail left to pay their own way. The Government are willing to announce massive road plans inside or outside the capital, but public money should be spent instead on public transport, to relieve congestion in our capital.
    If the Government believe in improving the environment for the majority of British people living in urban areas, they should invest in public transport. The Minister dare not pretend at the Dispatch Box that the Government have been doing that. They cut public expenditure and have heaped misery on the public.
    When on Wednesday the public complain about the lack of Tube trains and railway services, they will be criticising not those who are on strike but the Government who imposed that chaos as the penalty for lack of investment over many years.
    6.57 pm
    Mr. Portillo: The complete inability of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) to understand the difference between subsidy and investment is depressing. Subsidy is a measure of how much money a railway is losing. Fortunately, our railways lose less money year by year. Investment is a measure of how much money goes into renewing the railways' facilities. The highest figure ever reached in real terms between 1974 and 1979 was £546 million. The figure for 1987–88 was £594 million, for 1988–89 it is £629 million, and for the next four years it will be £781 million, £865 million, £928 million and £865 million.
    In contrast, valuable speeches were made by my hon. Friends. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry) for pointing out the absurdity of telling the public that at this stage in our economy we can allow no more cars on the roads. That would mean the predominantly white middle class which currently owns cars saying, "Enough is enough," and denying aspiration to car ownership to the working class, to blacks, and to the elderly—all of whom are increasingly the new road users.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough expressed doubts about getting private finance under way without subsidy. I do not regard private finance as a substitute for the public sector. We made it clear that there will be no scheme by scheme deductions for successful private sector schemes. We are experimenting with private finance and our minds are not closed.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock and Burntwood (Mr. Howarth) expressed concern about the Birmingham northern relief road. I can reassure him that the time spent on the public inquiry was not wasted, because the work done will be useful to private sector applicants. We shall establish a short timetable for the

    73
    competition, and we have every reason to believe that the private sector is likely to follow the route already examined. The public inquiry report can be kept on ice, and that route can be used again in the public sector if the private sector scheme does not bring a result.
    I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) for making a most interesting speech. I shall, of course, bring his point about powered slip coaches to the attention of British Rail. I feel, however, that it is a bit misleading to consider only the initial cost of the docklands light railway. Immense investment has been put into it since, and it is capable of great expansion.
    I wish to pick up a couple of points made by the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape). The hon. Gentleman mentioned bus substitution. British Rail is using taxpayers' money to subsidise transport services when that is merited on social grounds, and it must be right to test the use of that money against the cost of providing equivalent service by road. There has been only one case of bus substitution so far. I have not requested any particular number of such cases, and I point again to the substantial figures for provincial investment.
    As for the cross-city electrification in Birmingham, the rolling stock there is very old. The question is how to replace it. Diesel would be cheaper, but it would be more expensive to maintain and also less reliable, while electric stock, despite its higher capital cost, would provide gains in maintenance and reliability. The sums must be done thoroughly—that is all that we require. I shall be happy to approve the most cost-effective replacement scheme when I receive a submission from British Rail.
    The hon. Member for West Bromwich, East also mentioned section 8 grants. He will know that the Freight Transport Association has made a submission recommending an expansion, and I am considering that.
    The Government recognise the problems of transport congestion. We have produced plans for investment in roads and public transport. As a Government, we do not wish away the difficulties—we seek to meet them. In particular, we recognise that no project is without its environmental impact, but many projects are beneficial to the environment overall. That is why we are willing to approve them. Our policy is balanced and determined. Of course, any transport policy faces real problems, but the problem today is certainly not any reluctance on the part of the Government to invest in transport. That is why I invite the House to reject the motion.
    Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
    The House Divided: Ayes 65, Noes 213.

    Division No. 246]

    7.2 pm

    AYES

    Alton, David

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

    Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

    Dixon, Don

    Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

    Duffy, A. E. P.

    Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

    Eadie, Alexander

    Beith, A. J.

    Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony

    Fisher, Mark

    Boateng, Paul

    Foster, Derek

    Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

    Foulkes, George

    Campbell-Savours, D. N.

    Galloway, George

    Cartwright, John

    Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

    Clelland, David

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Cohen, Harry

    Gordon, Mildred

    Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

    Haynes, Frank

    Cook, Robin (Livingston)

    Howells, Geraint

    Cousins, Jim

    Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

    Darling, Alistair

    Hoyle, Doug

    74

    Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

    Prescott, John

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

    Quin, Ms Joyce

    Johnston, Sir Russell

    Reid, Dr John

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    Ruddock, Joan

    Livingstone, Ken

    Salmond, Alex

    Livsey, Richard

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    McCartney, Ian

    Short, Clare

    McFall, John

    Skinner, Dennis

    McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

    Snape, Peter

    Maclennan, Robert

    Steel, Rt Hon David

    Martlew, Eric

    Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis

    Maxton, John

    Wareing, Robert N.

    Meale, Alan

    Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

    Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

    Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

    Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

    Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Pendry, Tom

    Mr. Archy Kirkwood and

    Pike, Peter L.

    Mr. Ronnie Fearn.

    Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

    NOES

    Alexander, Richard

    Glyn, Dr Alan

    Alison, Rt Hon Michael

    Goodhart, Sir Philip

    Amess, David

    Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

    Amos, Alan

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

    Gorst, John

    Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

    Gow, Ian

    Ashby, David

    Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

    Atkins, Robert

    Gregory, Conal

    Atkinson, David

    Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

    Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

    Ground, Patrick

    Batiste, Spencer

    Grylls, Michael

    Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

    Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

    Bellingham, Henry

    Hague, William

    Benyon, W.

    Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

    Bevan, David Gilroy

    Hanley, Jeremy

    Blackburn, Dr John G.

    Hannam, John

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

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

    Boswell, Tim

    Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    Harris, David

    Bowis, John

    Hayes, Jerry

    Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

    Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

    Brandon-Bravo, Martin

    Hayward, Robert

    Brazier, Julian

    Heddle, John

    Bright, Graham

    Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

    Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

    Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

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

    Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

    Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

    Hind, Kenneth

    Butler, Chris

    Holt, Richard

    Butterfill, John

    Hordern, Sir Peter

    Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

    Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

    Carrington, Matthew

    Hunt, David (Wirral W)

    Chapman, Sydney

    Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

    Chope, Christopher

    Hunter, Andrew

    Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

    Irvine, Michael

    Conway, Derek

    Jack, Michael

    Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

    Jackson, Robert

    Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

    Janman, Tim

    Cope, Rt Hon John

    Jessel, Toby

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

    Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

    Davis, David (Boothferry)

    Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

    Dorrell, Stephen

    Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

    Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

    Durant, Tony

    Kilfedder, James

    Dykes, Hugh

    Knapman, Roger

    Evennett, David

    Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

    Fallon, Michael

    Latham, Michael

    Favell, Tony

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Fenner, Dame Peggy

    Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

    Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

    Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

    Fishburn, John Dudley

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Forman, Nigel

    Lightbown, David

    Forth, Eric

    Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

    Fox, Sir Marcus

    Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

    Franks, Cecil

    Lord, Michael

    French, Douglas

    Lyell, Sir Nicholas

    Fry, Peter

    McCrindle, Robert

    Garel-Jones, Tristan

    Macfarlane, Sir Neil

    Gill, Christopher

    MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

    75

    Maclean, David

    Shersby, Michael

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Sims, Roger

    McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    Mans, Keith

    Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

    Maples, John

    Speed, Keith

    Marlow, Tony

    Speller, Tony

    Marshall, John (Hendon S)

    Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

    Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Maude, Hon Francis

    Stern, Michael

    Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

    Stevens, Lewis

    Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

    Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

    Mellor, David

    Stradling Thomas, Sir John

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Summerson, Hugo

    Miller, Sir Hal

    Taylor, Ian (Esher)

    Mills, Iain

    Taylor, John M (Solihull)

    Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

    Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

    Moate, Roger

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

    Montgomery, Sir Fergus

    Thorne, Neil

    Morrison, Sir Charles

    Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

    Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)

    Tredinnick, David

    Moss, Malcolm

    Trippier, David

    Mudd, David

    Trotter, Neville

    Neale, Gerrard

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    Neubert, Michael

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Nicholls, Patrick

    Waddington, Rt Hon David

    Nicholson, David (Taunton)

    Wakeham, Rt Hon John

    Norris, Steve

    Walker, Bill (T'side North)

    Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

    Waller, Gary

    Oppenheim, Phillip

    Walters, Sir Dennis

    Page, Richard

    Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

    Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Warren, Kenneth

    Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

    Watts, John

    Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

    Wells, Bowen

    Porter, David (Waveney)

    Whitney, Ray

    Portillo, Michael

    Widdecombe, Ann

    Raffan, Keith

    Wiggin, Jerry

    Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

    Wilkinson, John

    Redwood, John

    Wilshire, David

    Rhodes James, Robert

    Winterton, Mrs Ann

    Riddick, Graham

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Roe, Mrs Marion

    Wolfson, Mark

    Rossi, Sir Hugh

    Wood, Timothy

    Rowe, Andrew

    Yeo, Tim

    Sackville, Hon Tom

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Scott, Nicholas

    Shaw, David (Dover)

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

    Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory

    Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

    and Mr. Alan Howarth.

    Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

    Question accordingly negatived.
    Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments) and agreed to.
    MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That this House congratulates the Government on the record levels of capital investment in all forms of transport infrastructure since 1979 while at the same time reducing the burden on the taxpayer; welcomes their plans to increase this investment further over coming years with both public and private money to meet the forecast growth in demand which is the result of the economic success of this country under the Conservative Government; welcomes the Government's success in creating the conditions in which the private sector could both finance and build the Channel Tunnel; congratulates the Government on its determination that the whole of the United Kingdom shall share in its benefits; applauds the high priority that they give to all matters of safety on transport; and welcomes their recognition of the importance of environmental conditions in transport policy.

Civil Liberties and Bill of Rights
7.14 pm
Mr. Robert Maclennan: I beg to move,
That this House condemns the erosion over the last decade of civil liberties; believes that such liberties are increasingly under threat through the abuse of public power; and further believes that the rights of the citizen are required to be protected, as in other democracies, by a Bill of Rights.
This year, Parliament celebrated the third centenary of the passage by the Lords and Commons of the Bill of Rights which ushered in the Glorious Revolution. It was the second Act of the reign of William and Mary. Since that Act was passed, the people of this country have looked to Parliament to secure and enlarge their liberties.
It was not the first attempt to ensure that the executive Government would be subject to the law, for in England that was the main thrust of Magna Carta, but from that Bill of Rights stems the modern development of the doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament and the theory that Parliament secures the nation's freedoms.
The House will, I think, acknowledge that that theory has been put to severe test during the past decade. In the eyes of many British people, and of many friendly foreign observers, Parliament seems more the accomplice of an oppressive central Government than a check on overweening power. Liberty is ill in Britain today. A majority Government, elected by a minority of the British people, have contrived to cut down, threaten and abuse institutions and individuals who have dared to raise their voices in dissent or criticism—in local government, in the press, in the broadcasting media, in the universities. In the name of the economy, security or some other reason of state, freedom has come under attack.
The right of public assembly—the means whereby the man in the street has the opportunity to express his dissent has been hedged around in the name of public order. Proposals have been advanced by the Government to curb jury trials. The presumption of innocence and the freedom from self incrimination—in the United States, secured by the first amendment to the constitution—are under attack here. Censorship has been reintroduced, not because, as in wartime, careless talk costs lives but because the Government presume to impose standards of taste on the British public. Freedom to disseminate sexual information and advice, at a time when never more needed, has been put at risk by the infamous provisions of section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988.
While the Government pour forth expensive and tendentious propaganda, they seek to stop up all channels of official information, pursuing—like furies—through the courts civil servants and former public servants who have been scandalised by Government evasions and distortions into revealing what they know of the truth.
It is possible, after 10 years, to stand back a little from the sophistries with which each of these invasions of fundamental rights has been justified and to discern a pattern for some, even for several, of these episodes: the Zircon affair; "Death on the Rock"; the Government's rejection of Lord Windlesham's report on that programme without even having read it; the failure to comply with the Brogan judgment of the European Court of Human Rights condemning Britain's detention policy in Northern Ireland without, apparently, a serious attempt to comply with the ruling.

77
I have tried to approach each of these cases dispassionately and to look at them on their merits, but we have to admit that what we are seeing is a case-by-case compromise of liberty. The Government's amendment to our motion almost admits that. They speak of the balancing of liberty against certain other reasons of state. That is not the thinking one would have anticipated from a Conservative Administration who wrap themselves in the language of liberty. Ronald Dworkin said:
"The essence of liberty is not precise boundaries or mechanical tests but an attitude."
Despite the Government's espousal of economic individualism, there is no sense that in their eyes the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual are sacrosanct.
We have come to this pass because the Government have exploited the potential of our constitution to allow the concentration of public power in the hands of the Cabinet. Ministers initiate legislation, exercise their broad administrative discretions, control the flow of official information, determine levels of public expenditure and taxation, and appoint the executive heads of the major public authorities. Even to state the theory is to be reminded that in the past decade, Cabinet government has been supplanted by prime ministerial government to an extent unknown in Britain, even in wartime.
Lloyd George and Winston Churchill had as their closest Cabinet colleagues men of other parties with views and opinions widely different from their own. We now have a Prime Minister who brooks no opposition and who does not seek to maintain within her Cabinet any internal balance of views. She admitted before she took office that such a concept was anathema to her and that she sought to do away with Cabinet debate.
I put it to Conservative Members in particular that we have seen the consequences of that dispersal of internal Cabinet debate. If a Government such as ours is not imbued with a sense of the primacy of individual liberty, the British subject has no constitutional safeguard. The will of the majority in Parliament is absolute, and the minority, never mind the individual, can go hang. That constitutional reality understandably embitters the people of Hong Kong, who have seen this Westminster Parliament strip them of their rights as British subjects. We do not hear the call of our own citizens; let us listen to them before it is too late.
In three major respects, the British people suffer constitutional disadvantage in the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms in comparison with the citizens of other democratic countries. First, within our constitution there are no institutional checks and balances such as those which flow from the separation of powers in the United States between the Executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Secondly, although the United Kingdom consists of four nations, we suffer from the most centralised system of government among the major nations of the free world. Thirdly, there is not a transcendent law to which British people may have recourse in the courts of the realm when their fundamental rights and freedoms are attacked. Because of that last weakness, I and other hon. Members have from time to time sought to incorporate into the domestic law of this country the provisions of the European convention on human rights.
The Bill which I introduced in December 1983 was subsequently taken up by Lord Broxbourne in another
78
place, and then introduced with minor modification by Sir Edward Gardner in the House in 1987. On all occasions, it enjoyed considerable cross-party support. The Bills were introduced not as partisan measures but as measures seeking to embody a sense of the inadequacy of our unwritten constitution in the face of the attack on our fundamental rights and freedoms—and not purely by the present Administration, because long before the present Government came to office, successful cases had been brought against its predecessors in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In 1987, only 13 Labour Members stayed in the House on a Friday to vote to give the Bill a Second Reading. As a consequence, it failed by six votes to proceed to Committee.
I believe that there is a growing recognition in this country that freedom will be enhanced if the European convention were to be incorporated into our domestic law. That is the policy of my right hon. and hon. Friends. It is a policy favoured by distinguished parliamentarians in all political parties.
Mr. David Ashbey: Has the hon. Gentleman considered the argument that incorporation of the European convention would restrict human rights in Britain and not increase them, that it would have a restrictive effect, because it would be placed in legislation and nothing would be allowed to go beyond it so that there could be no increased human rights but only restrictions?
Mr. Maclennan: I find that a puzzling view. The hon. Gentleman, as a lawyer, will know that not only is it possible to legislate in addition to the provisions of such a charter to amplify the law, but that in the event of a case not being satisfactorily concluded in the eyes of the appellant, the case can be taken further, to the court at Strasbourg. In a short intervention, the hon. Gentleman could scarcely have time to develop his point, but perhaps during the debate he will explain what appears to most of us to be a paradox.
In my view, the Bill and the policy enjoy the support of eminent parliamentarians who have had experience of operating in difficult security circumstances, such as Mr. Roy Mason—as he then was—in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldrige-Brownhills): The hon. Gentleman will know that I am sympathetic to the drift of his remarks, but given the supremacy of Parliament, what secures the primacy of one piece of legislation over subsequent pieces of legislation?
Mr. Maclennan: The Bill would either have to be entrenched by procedures which the House has not hitherto invoked—I do not wholly rule that out in the light of the developments of our constitution—or it would enjoy the kind of primacy which is enjoyed by the European Communities Act 1972, for example, which successive Governments have considered to be the fundament of the law of our country. It is technically possible to repeal it, and there is no doubt that in that sense it does not impair parliamentary sovereignty, but the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is extremely improbable that the European Communities Act would be repealed without a test of public opinion, comparable to the referendum which ensured that it would remain on the statute book. If a Bill of Rights is similarly enacted by the House and enjoys that kind of security, most of us will be satisfied.

79
There remain, however, two obstacles to the enactment of such a Bill—the Prime Minister herself and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) the deputy leader of the Labour party. The opposition of the Prime Minister is of a piece with her general belief in the efficacy of the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty which she has stuffed down many unwilling throats, not least in her notorious Bruges speech.
However, the opposition of the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook is a little harder to understand, although he has been at pains to seek to explain it in some newspaper articles. Labour's deputy leader appears to acknowledge the attacks on fundamental rights and freedoms that our present constitution allows, and has recommended a constitutional remedy of his own—the reform of the upper House. He talks of some of the difficulties of introducing a Bill of Rights into this place. He will remember the difficulties that were experienced by the Government of 1966 in reforming the upper House, but let that matter lie. He says that the purpose would be to translate the upper House from its current advisory and revising role to that of a body which, in ways not clearly specified, would entrench the freedoms of the British people.
It is clear that what the right hon. Gentleman recommends is insufficient for that purpose, for, as Lord Scarman wrote in The Independent newspaper of 19 June:
"Even if the House of Commons could be persuaded to accept the necessity of a second Chamber's assent, a majority of Members of the same party in both Houses could restore the full menace of elected dictatorship. Let us keep in mind that in a pluralistic society many minorities have no real opportunity of acquiring political power and rely on the law's protection against oppression by the majority."
If the right hon. Gentleman's alternative to a Bill of Rights is unsatisfactory, his opposition to incorporation is less than cogent. He appears to take the view that, because a Bill of Rights is not sufficient for his purposes, it is not necessary. I still share many of the right hon. Gentleman's aspirations for the people of this country and acknowledge that what he calls positive liberties must be secured by specific legislation—including, for example, a freedom of information Bill and greatly improved access to legal aid, so that such protection as the law affords is generally available. We shall not, however, by the adoption of a Bill of Rights secure a reordering of our public expenditure priorities, nor shall we effect the redistribution of power from Whitehall and Westminster to the regions and nations of the United Kingdom.
Those are not arguments against such a Bill, for the rights that we espouse for our people by treaty, in affirming our membership of the regime of the European convention, are rights that should be enjoyed through application to our own courts and not alone through the tortuous and expensive route to Strasbourg. They are important rights. This matter is of particular relevance at this time when the House has expressed concern about these matters. They include the right to privacy, the right to freedom of religion—perhaps somewhat reassuring to certain of our ethnic minorities—the right to freedom of expression, a right that has been more tested, than, perhaps, any other fundamental right during the tenure of the present Government.
They include also the right to freedom of peaceful assembly—a right which, as I said, was hedged around by
80
the Public Order Act 1986—and the right to freedom of association, guaranteeing the right to belong to trade unions. Again, many people have wondered whether the Government have it in mind to curb that right still further. They include also the right to enjoy those freedoms without discrimination on many grounds—on any grounds—of status.
Mr. Graham Riddick: I have been listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman's speech to detect any reference to the abuse of trade union power. In passing, he referred to trade union power and suggested that the Conservative Government might be taking too much power from trade unions. The one way in which the Government have enormously extended personal freedom to millions of people was by redressing the abuse of the closed shop. When the hon. Gentleman was a member of the Labour Government, they forced 7·5 million people to belong to trade unions, in many cases against their will. I should have thought that, far from denying freedom to people, we have extended to millions of individuals the freedom either to belong or not to belong to a trade union. Surely that is of great importance to many people.
Mr. Maclennan: The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) would have been even more secure in the pursuit of his objectives if the European convention had been incorporated into our law. The provisions of that law were tested against the closed shop in the British Rail case. It had to be fought all the way to Strasbourg, whereas those who considered themselves to suffer from the closed shop would have had a right in the domestic courts if my proposals had been accepted by the hon. Gentleman's Government.
Mr. A. J. Beith: I hope that my hon. Friend will not forget also that, when that matter was tested in Strasbourg and those who were aggrieved had to go all the way there, they met the resistance of the Solicitor-General of this Government in advancing a case against them in that court.
Mr. Maclennan: I hesitate to rub salt into the wounds of the hon. Member for Colne Valley when I am endeavouring to enlist his support.
Mr. Riddick: We must get this right. First, the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) started his speech by criticising the Conservative Government for taking freedoms from individuals. However, this Government have given back to millions of trade unionists the freedom either to belong or not to belong to a trade union. Secondly, when his party was in government, what did the hon. Gentleman actually do to give individuals that right? He was in the governing party. What did he do about it at the time?
Mr. Maclennan: The hon. Gentleman's first point is a repetition of the point that I have already answered. On his second point, the Government to which I belonged, under the leadership of the Home Secretary, the right hon. Roy Jenkins, as he then was, published a White Paper setting forth the proposals that the provisions that I am seeking to have incorporated be incorporated in the law of the land. The hon. Gentleman's own party's opposition to the case of the three British railwaymen is the answer that he needs to bear in mind.

81
It is important that the Labour party should pay greater attention to support for freedom than it has so far, and not because it is a cure-all. It will not achieve all the objectives that they seek. Neil Ascherson, a journalist who is perceptive and broadly supportive of the Labour party, has put it well. He said:
"By itself a Bill of Rights cannot halt a drift towards authoritarianism and conflicts born of injustice. But it offers a ledge of legal ground on which the injured subject may stand and fight."
That is all that I claim for it, but I claim that it will make a significant difference to the climate in which we live in this country and to the climate of freedom that has been seen to be under threat.
If the Labour party's deputy leader is still seeking to persuade his party that it is better to seek the vindication of those rights in Strasbourg than in Sparkbrook, he cannot be surprised if his point of view seems to some to be perverse. The rights protected by the language of the convention may seem to some to be unduly vague, but the cases that have been dealt with in Strasbourg have covered such precise circumstances as the alleged inhuman treatment of suspected terrorists in Northern Ireland; inadequate safeguarding of personal privacy against telephone tapping by the police; unfair discrimination against British wives of foreign husbands under the immigration rules; alleged inhuman conditions in cases of solitary confinement and segregation; corporal punishment in Scottish schools; ineffective judicial protection for detained mental patients and would-be immigrants; and the dismissal of workers because of the oppressive operation of the closed shop, the case to which I have referred.
They also include the nationalisation of aircraft and shipbuilding companies without adequate compensation —[Interruption.] No, a Conservative Government were in office then. Such cases also include the denial of equal citizenship rights to British passport holders from East Africa and interference with free expression by the Law Lords in extending the common law offences of contempt of court and blasphemy. Many other important matters of public law have been brought before the Commission.
When the call to incorporate the European convention was first made 15 years ago, some doubt was expressed about the appropriateness of judges being involved in deciding cases which, of their nature, had a substantial political element. The capacity of British judges to act in such cases was never seriously in question, for the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had, for many years, fulfilled such a role as the final court of appeal in many Commonwealth countries. That argument was advanced by the Attorney-General the last time this issue was debated in the House—I am glad to see him in his place for this debate—but he must acknowledge that it now seems somewhat dated. In the intervening years we have seen the development by the judiciary, with parliamentary approval, of judicial review of administrative action. Virtually all those cases are of considerable political sensitivity.
We have also seen British judges apply the general provisions of European Community law and find little difficulty in so doing. Indeed, although the European convention has not itself been incorporated into Community law, the European Court of Justice has issued
82
decisions in the light of it. It therefore follows that, indirectly, the European convention is becoming a part of British law, if only in a limited economic sphere.
Although I have not hitherto proposed that a Bill of Rights should be entrenched under our constitution—to answer the point made by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd)—and it is true that its provisions even if incorporated could be rendered null by a simple Act of Parliament, I believe that the political impact of enacting a Bill of Rights would be considerable. Governments would not lightly derogate from its provisions, and the public would be alerted to the potential breach of our freedoms if a Government showed such a purpose.
I recognise that the Prime Minister has argued before now that that is a constitutional matter of the kind that it is right to enact only when there is broad cross-party support. However, notwithstanding her personal view and that of the deputy leader of the Labour party, I believe that such broad cross-party support exists and that it is underpinned by a substantial majority in the country. That is the evidence of opinion polls that have been taken directly on that point.
There is a growing desire for a Bill of Rights in this country. As the matter seems increasingly urgent, I appeal to the Prime Minister to recall the undertaking of the manifesto on which she was first elected, to institute all-party talks. Such a step would go far to give substance to her claim to be concerned for the rights and freedoms of the people. The people of this realm are concerned that they are seeing the erosion of the liberties that they have taken almost for granted, unchecked by this Parliament, which itself is becoming a cipher to be used by an over-mighty Government.
7.44 pm
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. John Patten): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
'welcomes the extension and enhancement of civil liberties over the last decade; believes that the Government has acted fairly to balance the liberties of the individual with the rights of others and of the community as a whole; and considers that these liberties are fully protected by present constitutional arrangements.'.
The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) made his remarks in a serious tone and gave the House a serious speech. He had obviously thought about what he had to say in some depth and made an interesting speech, on which I congratulate him. Although I did not agree with much of it, it provided a useful text for those of us who wish to examine the arguments of those who, I believe mistakenly, feel that there has been some great erosion of liberties recently, especially in the past 10 years of Conservative government.
Apart from religion and family, to me at least, few things are as important as the protection of basic human rights—I am sure that most hon. Members would agree with that—but the country that the hon. Gentleman described bears little resemblance to the one in which I live and which I know. His suggestion that civil liberties have been eroded in the past 10 years seems to be not only incorrect, but the opposite of the truth. I shall try to demonstrate why I believe that, in what I hope will be the same serious vein as that of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland.

83
I should begin by saying that this Government and all the Ministers in it are fully committed to ensuring that the citizen of this country knows his or her rights and that those rights are not violated. That does not mean that liberties are or can ever be under the prescription that we favour or that of the hon. Gentleman's Bill of Rights, of which he sketched a brief plan. It does not mean that those liberties can ever be unqualified because any responsible Government must also take account of the rights of society at large and of the conflicts of rights that exist in society. That is fully recognised in the many international human rights treaties to which we are party.
I will take as an example the right of freedom of expression as defined in the European convention on human rights because
"it carries with it duties and responsibilities".
According to the convention, that right may be limited to the extent necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety, the protection of morals, and so on. I do not think that anyone seriously disputes that most freedoms must have some limits. I doubt whether there is any disagreement between the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland and myself on that. The disagreement is about where the limits should be drawn.
We should also remember—this was largely ignored in the hon. Gentleman's speech although he was teased into making some references to it, thanks to two excellent interventions by my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick)—that political freedom depends to a considerable extent on economic freedom, which is something that Conservative Members hold dear. However much a national constitution may proclaim and purport to guarantee civil rights, those rights will always be limited unless individual citizens have a measure of economic freedom with which they can exercise those rights and within which they can exercise a certain amount of choice.
It is for that reason—not materialism—that the Government have given emphasis to measures which enhance personal freedom—by, for example, returning to people the right not to belong to a trade union. There was precious little freedom at factory gate strike meetings, at picket lines at factory gates or with mass pickets or flying pickets. It is for the same reason that we have given people the opportunity to buy the council house or flat in which they live. Happily, that is now becoming an all-party consensus. The Education (No. 2) Act 1986 and the Education Reform Act 1988 have shifted power away from bureaucracies in the favour of parents, teachers and school governors.
My last point on the necessity to underpin freedom by giving people a measure of improved economic status is that it is no coincidence that the deregulation and freeing of economic life in this country has coincided with increased productivity, lower unemployment, lower taxes and more disposable income in real terms. That bestows freedom, but it also bestows responsibility. That, too, is important.
Mr. Ashby: My hon. Friend has missed out one of the most important freedoms that the Government have given us. The reduction of taxation has given individuals the
84
freedom to spend the money for which they have worked hard in the way that they wish rather than the state saying how it should be spent.
Mr. Patten: My hon. Friend, characteristically, is absolutely right.
Over the years in which I have been a Member of Parliament, Opposition Members have made much of a supposed diminution of freedom of expression, which I know that some of my hon. Friends also feel. Again, that is a charge that does not stand up to close examination. In this Session, for example, the Government's Official Secrets Act has removed a huge category of Government information from the criminal law. It has also raised new obstacles to bringing prosecutions against journalists in those few areas which still remain within the criminal law. The decision to prosecute in those cases rests no longer with the Government, but with the prosecuting authorities. The test for a journalist is not whether disclosure will cause the Government embarrassment, but whether it will cause specific forms of harm to the national interest, and that the journalist knew that it would. Protection of the national interest will always remain, however, the first priority of the Government, as I hope that it will for all parties in the House.
On the theme of liberty of expression, the Criminal Justice Act 1988 allows the press to challenge specific orders which restrict press reporting. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 gave judicial protection to journalists' notebooks. Those are three considerable areas in which we have actually improved and not diminished the freedom of journalists to report. I cannot envisage any way in which those matters could restrict the freedom of the press.
Mr. Michael Stern: Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?
Mr. Patten: Indeed I will. Perhaps my hon. Friend feels that we have gone too far.
Mr. Stern: On the contrary, on the question of freedom of expression, does my hon. Friend recall that it was this Government who passed the Education Act 1986, which attempted to guarantee freedom of speech within our universities? Where were the Opposition parties when Professor John Vincent was being beaten up by a mob at Bristol university and when our hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) was being forbidden for six months the opportunity to utter a word on every campus in the country?
Mr. Patten: I agree with my hon. Friend. I believe that the guarantees of academic freedom are important. I represent a university city. I know that my friend Professor Vincent suffered terribly with those personal attacks, as did his family. That is not the way to conduct free argument.
This Government are committed—as I hope that any Government would be—to the principles which lie behind the idea of open government, but "open government" is an easily turned phrase. The principle is, of course, to make as much information available as possible while preserving the confidentiality that is essential to the effective working of Government. That is, of course, consistent with the principles under which this place works. Ministers are accountable to Parliament for their performance in that respect.

85
I will cite a few of the many ways in which the Government have made more official information available in the past 10 years. There has been a considerable increase in public consultation, very much more briefing for the media, and publication of research and evaluation papers—[Interruption.] No, by Ministers. Tape recorders now operate at every briefing that I give at the Home Office, which I believe is a good way to conduct those matters. There is more publication of research and evaluation papers on the effect of policies and more openness about the processes of Government. There have been cameras inside our prisons and police stations, and Departments consult far more and much more widely. Of course, the Select Committees have developed their role in examining expenditure, administration and policy of the main Departments.
Mr. Maclennan: On the subject of Government information and briefings, does the hon. Gentleman not think it significant that at least three major national newspapers and organs of opinion think so little of these as a means of learning the truth about what is going on in the Government that they have declined to participate in the Lobby system?
Mr. Patten: The briefings to which I was referring were the kind where journalists with a proper interest want to talk to a Minister on the record, to a Minister's civil servants or to the press department simply to find out information. In my brief experience of Government, there is much more of that now than there was when I started. It is a good thing that, within proper limits, civil servants talk to the press and explain to the press what they are up to and what the bases of policies are without taking on the role of being Ministerial spokesmen.
I believe, however, that the most significant trend of the past 10 years is the fact that the courts have continued to develop and to refine judicial review to supervise the fairness of administrative decisions. I strongly believe that judicial review is far and away the most effective safeguard against the abuse of power. It is a much more effective safeguard than any Bill of Rights could ever be. That is a theme that I shall now try to develop.
Mr. Richard Shepherd: The safeguard used to be the House. I wonder what my hon. Friend would say—I think that this is part of the question before the House—to Lord Hailsham's question about the elective dictatorship: what are the institutional safeguards to ensure the continuance of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly? My hon. Friend has not so far addressed that issue, but I hope that he will do so before he concludes.
Mr. Patten: Given the parliamentary supremacy, I suppose that theoretically there can be none. I say "theoretically", but we are greatly helped by judicial review. I believe that my noble Friend Lord Hailsham recognises that. Of course, we have public opinion, which underpins so many of our freedoms in this country.
The right of freedom of expression is not absolute, for it is limited to protect the rights of others. Hence, we have laws about racial incitement, libel and blasphemy, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland. The legal framework which protects an individual's rights in this country has been shown in rather starker relief recently as a result of the "Satanic Verses" affair. Hon. Members will be aware of the background to
86
the case, with the demonstration towards the end of May in London and with the lamentable violence in Bradford on Saturday. There are, however, some general points which bear repeating and emphasising before the House.
The first is that our commitment to civil liberties encompasses the rights of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of protest, which are three important freedoms. The second is that those freedoms should prevail provided that the criminal law is not broken. That principle underpins those three freedoms, On no account should the freedom to demonstrate be regarded as an opportunity for violent disorder, however passionately held the views of the protesters.
Mr. Kenneth Hind: On the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge- Brown-hills (Mr. Shepherd), how does my hon. Friend the Minister view the preservation of those fundamental rights, in the sense that any Government who have a majority in the House can, through that majority, overturn rights that we all accept today as fundamental to our community? They can sweep away those rights purely and simply by means of an elected majority. Are not some rights so fundamental that they should necessarily be over and above that and, if we have a Bill of Rights, should require something like a two-thirds majority to overturn them, as in the United States constitution? We should not, as the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) suggested, have a temporary Bill of Rights, which would be no rights at all.
Mr. Patten: I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) has given much thought to the matter, but I believe that this place, reinforced by public opinion and judicial review, is an adequate safeguard. My hon. Friend went very much further in suggesting how a Bill of Rights should be entrenched and made some suggestions which may be useful to the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland, who did not tell us how he would entrench his Bill of Rights.
To return to demonstrations, freedom of assembly and freedom of protest, the whole House will continue to understand and sympathise with the anger and hurt of many Moslems over the contents of "The Satanic Verses". At the same time, our message to Moslem community leaders, although a brief one, must be clear: "By all means meet and voice your protest as British citizens, but do not let your message be lost among, or your reputation be sullied by, the violent actions of a disorderly minority. Do not abuse your freedom to demonstrate by encroaching upon the freedom of others to hold a different view or simply to walk down a usually peaceful shopping street on a Saturday afternoon. Try to impress on young hotheads in your community that pictures of policemen lying on the ground being kicked do nothing to advance the Moslem cause or the cause of ever-improving race relations, which are an important part of our national fabric."
Mr. Tony Benn: Everyone understands why the Minister chose to put that passage in his speech. He referred to blasphemy. There is pressure to extend the law and I have presented a Bill which would abolish the offence of blasphemy. I should like a clear assurance that the Minister stands by the Home Secretary's position that there should be no change in the law. Were an attempt made to assuage those anxieties by extending the law of blasphemy, it would raise serious questions. Hon.

87
Members on both sides of the House agree that it would be wrong to extend it. Indeed, it would be impossible, because for a Moslem, the Christian faith is blasphemous, and so on.
Mr. Patten: I certainly stand by what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said. One of the specific points concerning alleged blasphemy is before the courts, according to a reference on the Press Association tapes this evening.
The motion before the House includes the assertion that civil liberties are increasingly under threat from the abuse of public power. People seem to have short memories. It was this Government who this Session put the Security Service on a statutory footing for the first time. This Government have given redress to citizens who consider that they have a grievance against the security services. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act has strengthened the investigatory powers of the police. If, as is intended, this means that the guilty are more likely to be brought to book, that extends liberty—the liberty to be protected from wrongdoers—while the same Act, with its codes of practice, provides for better safeguards for citizens and those who have not been brought to trial and gives us much more certainty about what powers the police have. As a citizen, I welcome that as much, I hope, as any other hon. Member.
If I disagree with the diagnosis of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland in his thoughtful speech, I find the medicine that he suggests even more unpalatable. He suggests that citizens would enjoy more rights if civil liberties were enshrined in a Bill of Rights. I think that that sums up his argument. Anyone might think, from the way in which this was proposed, that those rights are not protected unless they are codified and set down in a Bill of Rights. That is not so, and the hon. Gentleman knows it.
Those rights are already protected in our common and statute law, although in far more precise terms than is usual in, for example, the European convention on human rights, which most proponents of a Bill of Rights would like to incorporate in our law, and which is couched in much more general terms than much of our statute law. For example, article 6 of the convention specifies in general terms minimum rights for a person charged with a criminal offence but without spelling out details of time limits, cautions, rules of court and police procedures, on which our statute law is increasingly specific, giving greater protection to our citizens.
Arguments for incorporation have been paraded in the national press, although the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) in particular has made his opposition clear. I do not often agree with him, and I hope that he will not be alarmed to hear that I agree with some of the things that he has written. He was attacked by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland for being unspecific about the way in which he intended to protect citizens' rights in his scheme. The right hon. Gentleman probably does not need my defence, nor would he welcome it, but I believe that it is unfair for the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland to criticise him for not working his ideas out in full when the hon. Gentleman himself did not spell out to the House how he
88
would entrench his Bill of Rights if it ever reached the statute book, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) pointed out.
Mr. Maclennan: The Minister has clearly neither heard nor understood what I said, and I apologise if that is my fault. I said that I was not proposing the entrenchment of a Bill of Rights. I was advocating that as with the Bill of Rights of 1689, which not even this Government would contemplate repealing, it should be a simple statute.
Mr. Patten: I fully understand what the hon. Gentleman has just said and what he said earlier. He has not explained for the understanding of the House why it is worth going through the exercise if some later Government can turn the whole thing on its head.
Mr. Hind: In that case, it is a waste of time.
Mr. Patten: It is a complete waste of time, as my hon. Friend comments from a sedentary position. We need to grasp that nettle if we are to get anywhere with the intellectual underpinning of an argument for a Bill of Rights. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland has failed that test.
Incorporating the European convention on human rights would mean that the courts, rather than Parliament, would determine society's needs. That is no reflection on the impartiality of the judiciary. Rather it is a reaffirmation that it is for Parliament, with its sovereignty, to decide. I do not doubt that judges could do the job—of course they could—but I have doubts about what the job would do to the judges. It would politicise them in the public eye. There can be no more powerful exposition of that case than that put forward in the Chamber by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General in the 1987 debate on the private Member's Bill put forward by our then colleague Sir Edward Gardner.
Several Hon. Members rose— —
Mr. Patten: I have given way a great deal. I am anxious not to take up the time of the House because a number of hon. Members wish to contribute.
Our unwritten constitution has served us well, and there is no evidence that a written constitution or Bill of Rights would help us to do it better. Everything depends on how a constitution, written or unwritten, is interpreted and applied in daily life. That is an acid test.
For some people, of course, liberty has been curtailed. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland made threatening statements about the way in which he saw liberty being curtailed. I do not mind the idea that IRA terrorists can travel less easily to and from Great Britain as a result of the powers available to the police, the courts and the Government under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974. Those powers are essential for the defence of law-abiding people against terrorism and, alas, they are powers that the Labour party wishes to revoke.
I do not mind that the opportunity for apologists of bombings and shootings to appear on our screens has been curtailed. I do not apologise for the fact that their chances of making propaganda broadcasts have been denied. I certainly do not mind the curtailment of the liberty of a young man to carry a knife in his pocket and the fact that, should he appear in court, the burden of proving why he was carrying that knife now rests with him and not with the prosecution. Those are certainly restrictions on

89
individual liberty, but they are necessary if we are to stop the growth of a knife culture on our streets. I welcomed at the time and I welcome again the support from the Labour Front Bench for that move.
I do not mind that the drug trafficker and the serious criminal know that, when convicted, they may lose not just their liberty but the profits from their crimes, which the courts are now empowered to confiscate. Those curtailments of liberty are extremely important, and few reasonable people would not accept the case for such action.
Ministers and Parliament have a duty to judge the difficult balance between enhancing individual freedom and ensuring proper protection for our nation. All Governments, of whatever colour, will always have that duty. In the past decade, we have looked conscientiously and meticulously at issues of individual freedom. No decision to increase or diminish those powers—I have openly given examples of increasing as well as diminishing powers over individual liberty—has been taken lightly and without clear evidence of need in either direction. Where the protection of the community has needed limited and well-defined reinforcement, we have provided it, and we shall continue to do so. I ask the House to reject the motion.
8.9 pm
Mr. Alistair Darling: Quite understandably, the Minister referred to events in Bradford this weekend. He, like the Home Secretary, has exhibited an unfortunate tendency to lecture Moslems as a whole. We should be mindful of the fact that the majority of Moslems are law-abiding and a minority of people were involved in the trouble at the weekend. Before a Minister imputes blame to the Moslems, he should be careful because it may have unfortunate consequences.
The tragedy is that the reason for the Moslems' hurt and offence has gone undiscussed and undebated in the country because of the trouble on which attention has focused. Unless we are willing to understand and discuss the reasons for the hurt and fromence caused to Moslems we shall be a long way off fostering the mutual understanding and respect needed in this country.
Mr. Stern rose— —
Mr. Darling: No, I shall not give way. I merely wanted to make that remark, and I know that many hon. Members want to speak. I now intend to address the motion before the House.
There is no doubt that a statement of rights in this country is necessary and that, under this Government, the need for a framework of rights has assumed a greater importance and urgency. Who would have thought that a British Government, this Government, would have ordered the seizure of the English language editions of Pravda to prevent British people reading about "Spycatcher", when the world already knew all about it?
The Minister said that he did not recognise the country of which the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) spoke. Perhaps that is where the trouble lies, and perhaps Conservative Members should reflect today that some of the difficulties may be due to the fact that Ministers, particularly the Prime Minister, do not recognise the country which most of us see. The Government are intolerant. They talk of enemies within,
90
and their record on rights is poor. More than 80 British laws have been amended as a result of decisions in the European Court on Human Rights. No wonder that Conservative Members, particularly the Prime Minister, do not like Europe.
The Government's actions are oppressive, as has been shown by their treatment of broadcasting. We saw the spectacle of police being sent to raid the BBC headquarters in Glasgow in the middle of the night. Who would have thought that that would happen in a British city? We saw the Zircon tapes seized as an elaborate blind, when the real reason for the Government not wanting the Secret Society series to be broadcast was because of the sixth programme in the series, entitled "Cabinet Government", which still languishes in the BBC Scotland offices in Glasgow. That programme was about the election campaign of 1983, and the fact that the Government sought to undermine and spy on the citizens of this country. Their object was to prevent the programme from being shown, and the Zircon affair was a blind.
Other examples of the Government's oppression include the GCHQ and Stalker affairs, the judicial process and the Official Secrets Act 1989, which means that there is now no public interest defence. We have recently seen their blatant attempt to nobble the judiciary in the immigration appeal tribunal system, although, happily, that has now been stopped.
The Government have no concept of citizenship in society, something which is despised by the Prime Minister. She says that every person should be a freeholder, with the implication that being a citizen means that someone also has to own property. Far from setting people free in this country, the Government have climbed on to people's backs and withheld information. They attempt to condition the media, and the Gibraltar affair was an example. To this Government, freedom is not a right but is strictly on loan. The Government's actions and ideology are but one reason for the changing mood sweeping the country. What is to be done about it?
The motion invites us to endorse a Bill of Rights, but the Opposition will not support it for two reasons. First, the main problem with a Bill of Rights in this country is due to the nature of the British constitution, which is unwritten. I think that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland will accept that most countries with a Bill of Rights have a written constitution which can be entrenched, and that there usually is a supreme court to interpret it. In England, there is no such system. Instead, this country's fundamental constitutional doctrine is the supremacy of Parliament, and the fact that no one Parliament can bind its successor. Therefore, it is obvious that a Bill of Rights approved by one Government could be undermined or substantially changed by a subsequent one. The Bill of Rights could not be elevated above other laws and given the status of a super-law.
Mr. Richard Shepherd: I am very interested in this argument. At the moment, we are signatories to the treaty on the convention of human rights and the courts are increasingly taking note of it. The Government accept the rulings of the European Court, except for the little derogation before Christmas on the Northern Ireland issues, which the Minister thinks is a great advance for liberty. Therefore, have we not enshrined a Bill of Rights by the mechanisms of the treaty?
Mr. Darling: We are a signatory to the treaty, but it is always possible, as the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brown-hills (Mr. Shepherd) said, for us to get out of it. At the moment, we do not have a system which allows us to enshrine and elevate any legislation or treaty to the status at which it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to completely remove it or so undermine it that it becomes ineffective. It is always open to the Government to legislate themselves out of difficulties with which they may be presented by the courts in this country or elsewhere.
It is a shame that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland did not dwell on the second problem, which involves the contents of a Bill of Rights. There is no doubt that some Governments, particularly this one, would wish to elevate some of their worst political prejudices into constitutional pillars. I doubt that there would be national consensus, and there certainly would not be in the House, about what should be contained in a Bill of Rights.
Difficulties would present themselves when we dealt with the security services, over which there are fundamental differences across the House.
The general problem can be illustrated by the European convention on human rights, to which reference has been made many times this evening. Article 6 states:
"In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law."
As the Minister said, that is all very fine, but unless there are safeguards—for example, involving the time in which someone can be brought to trial—the system is open to abuse.
The Minister sits and nods in agreement, but he may like to reflect that England has no provision comparable with that in Scotland, which requires someone to be brought to trial within 110 days of him being committed for trial. In England, it is possible for someone to remain locked up without trial for a considerable period. The provision in the European convention is all very well as a statement of principle, but without detail and safeguards, it does not have the value imputed to it.
Article 8 of the European convention states:

"1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right".

That is fine, but where does it leave us with regard to phone tapping and so on? General statements, while welcome and sometimes useful are, by themselves, incomplete. It is necessary to specify to a far greater degree than has been done in the European convention or other countries' Bills of Rights, what those rights are. We do not want to have a system of vague rights which can subsequently be undermined by Government action or which allows the judiciary wide room for maneouvre.
The same problem arises in article 12 of the European convention, which states:
"Men and women of marriagable age have the right to marry and to found a family, according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right."
That demonstrates the difficulty faced by some citizens in this country. It is true that men and women of marriageable age have a right to marry, but as we know, this Government and others before them have posed great barriers if a British citizen wants to marry, for example, a Pakistani or Indian citizen. In that case, they have to pass the primary purpose rule. They have to prove that the primary purpose of their marriage is not to gain admission
92
to this country by means of their prospective spouse. So an article such as article 12 can be undermined by the way in which the Government choose to interpret it or to legislate their way out of it.
Mr. Hind: How would the hon. Gentleman entrench his Bill of Rights in such a way that it would not be possible for a subsequent Parliament to get round the rights that it contained?
Mr. Darling: I say, in the politest possible way, that the hon. Gentleman has been jumping up and down all evening. If he holds on for a little he will hear what we propose.
As I was saying, article 14 deals with discrimination and is also worded in general terms. I emphasise that general rights have only limited value. It is necessary to specify what these rights are and how we might go about enforcing them. Unless it is clear to the courts what remedy Parliament or a convention is proposing, the rights can be undermined.
We should also bear in mind the fact that, unless this detail is enshrined in statute, the issues will be decided not by Parliament, which is supposed to represent the people, but by judges. Ultimately, the Government can still legislate themselves out of awkward difficulties.
Our approach is different, and, I think, practical. It is designed for early implementation and it does not involve writing a constitution for the country. It is designed to fit into the British constitution as it is. The House will be aware that the Labour party proposes major constitutional reform. The reform we have in mind will provide many of the safeguads which, I am sure, the Social and Liberal Democrats—if they are still around—will support, as will a growing number of Conservative Members— —
Mr. Maclennan: How does the hon. Gentleman propose to entrench these changes?
Mr. Darling: If the hon. Gentleman will contain himself, I am just about to get to that point.
We propose that the House of Lords be abolished and replaced by a directly elected second Chamber which will have the power to block for one parliamentary term certain Acts enshrining constitutional reforms and fundamental rights, which I shall refer to in a moment. We aim to provide a clearly stated system of defined rights, a system that can be enforced by citizens in their local courts without having to go to London or Europe. We aim to create rights that provide an immediate remedy.
For example, we consider that a freedom of information Act is essential and long overdue. Citizens have a right to know why decisions were made and who made them. We would repeal the Government's official secrets legislation. We shall enshrine a right to reply Act and a right to privacy, not along the lines proposed by the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne), but a right not to be interfered with by the state, providing safeguards against the abuse of power by the state.
We believe that the Data Protection Act 1984 needs to be greatly strengthened. Citizens have a right to know what information is held on them and why, so as to avoid abuses. We also believe that a right to equal treatment, regardless of sex, race, sexuality or disability, is essential.
It is worth observing in passing that the regional and national assemblies which we propose will also provide rights and safeguards and will begin to move the balance

93
of power away from Westminster. This Government have abolished councils. The Secretary of State for Education and Science has acquired 415 new powers, and the Secretary of State for the Environment has acquired 315 new powers over local government finance and 100 over housing. Seventy thousand council officials are being barred from the political process. Patronage has been abused. All this must be stopped, and a system of regional and national assemblies can begin to put it right. Decision-making should be handed back to people so that they can see who is making decisions on their behalf. If they do not like what they see, they can replace an assembly with one more to their liking.
The Minister referred to judicial review, but he must know that it is strictly limited. It cannot examine the law or a regulation; it can merely look into the way in which a decision was reached. It is certainly not the answer to the frequent complaints heard in this Chamber— —
Mr. Menzies Campbell: Much of what the hon. Gentleman has just said would probably find agreement in many parts of the House, but he has still not dealt with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan). How would he entrench in his constitutional changes the elements which he regards as so desirable? I find it difficult to imagine that his party will create a constitutional system in which the House of Lords can stop this House legislating in the way in which it has done for many years.
Mr. Darling: We propose that the second Chamber will have the power to delay legislation for a whole parliamentary term— —
Mr. Hind: For one year?
Mr. Darling: No, for the length of a Parliament, which could be up to five years. This would force any Government proposing to diminish any of these rights to go to the country with that specific programme in mind. Thus, we shall be able to safeguard rights and the constitutional settlement which we propose—consisting of regional and national assemblies—so as to stop any Government coming to office and tearing them up. A Government would he forced to go back to the country if they wanted to pursue such a programme.
I fully accept that this will not block repeal for all time —under our constitution that would be impossible—but it provides a new safeguard and, as such, it is greatly to be welcomed.
Mr. Hind: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the public will regard this idea with extreme cynicism? A Labour Government could come to power and pass Acts of Parliament, and then claim that those Acts contained certain fundamental rights. If they were subsequently not elected for a further five years, the system would block the party that came to power from changing the legislation. The Labour Government could then wait until returned to power, and begin again. This will sterilise Parliament for five years and block any progress that is not in line with the hon. Gentleman's point of view.
Mr. Darling: Let us take the freedom of information Act as an example. If it incorporated the fundamental right to which I have referred, it would not be possible for a subsequent Government to take away from or seek to
94
repeal the Act until they had gone back to the country to gain a mandate to do so. That is how we seek to entrench rights that we regard as fundamental.
If an incoming Government were confident of their case, it would be open to them to seek a mandate at a subsequent election to put it into action, and we should have to accept that.
Mr. Stern: The hon. Gentleman is making an important point. Once upon a time the Opposition believed in the public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Should such a Government come to power again and pass legislation to that effect, is not the hon. Gentleman saying that they would regard such action as fundamental, thereby ensuring not only that they could nationalise everything, but that they could prevent a subsequent Government from denationalising?
Mr. Darting: The hon. Gentleman is exaggerating. No one is suggesting that every Act passed by a Labour Government would be enshrined in the way I have described. I am talking about a narrow but important range of rights, not about every Bill that would go through the House. The hon. Gentleman must understand the distinction. We shall make it clear in the manifesto on which we fight the next election precisely which rights we propose to enshrine in this way. What I have described does not and could not apply to every piece of legislation that a Government wanted to enact. We propose to provide a framework that will allow remedies that are not possible at present. It is essential to create an open society where freedom is the presumption and where the opportunity of redress is easily available. It is possible to enshrine rights about which there is broad consensus. They should be enshrined in such a way that they cannot easily be overturned by any authoritarian or ruthless Government.
There is no doubt that constitutional change is essential and we propose two planks to such change. First, we propose the reform of the second Chamber in the way that I have described with strong and powerful national assemblies in Scotland and Wales and regional assemblies in England. Side by side with that will be a clear system of fundamental rights. They will be enshrined in such a way that they cannot be overturned with ease. Happily, it will not be long before we see that system in operation.
8.30 pm
Mr. David Martin: It is clear from what we have heard in the debate that, when there are proposals to change our constitutional arrangements, we get into grave difficulties. They are difficulties not only of definition but of carrying into practice a system that could not be entrenched in our system of parliamentary representation and of the Queen in Parliament, which is the ultimate repository of power. We have already heard the sort of bickering that would soon break out not only in the Chamber but in cross-party and inter-party disagreements. That would occur when we tried to define what should be put in place of that which we have, imperfect thought it is.
I listened with fascination to the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan). As my hon. Friend the Minister said, the hon. Gentleman made a serious contribution. Undoubtedly, he sincerely believes that in the last 10 years we have seen something happening

95
that is very different from what happened before. He believes that there have been compromises with liberty and that the powers of the Cabinet are in some way different. He thinks that the Prime Minister is some kind of dictator, the like of which we have not seen in the House in any generation.
Each of those matters is based on fundamental difficulties faced by the hon. Gentleman. His party has played no serious part in the protection of liberties nor has it had to balance them against the interests of Government. It has not played a serious part in government since the first world war apart from the short period when some members of his party were in the slipstream of the Labour Government during the 1970s. Many of those who were part of that Labour Government would wish to draw a decent veil over their activities, which led directly to the election of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and a Conservative Government. That Government were mindful of the trampling of liberties and the seemingly uncheckable and unchecked union activities. The memories of that have played a special part in keeping my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister where she ought to be, in No. 10 Downing street.
Are Cabinet powers any different now from what they were before? Let us look at events this century. Neither Baldwin nor Chamberlain was in any way different from the present Prime Minister in his relations with the Cabinet. Neither Winston Churchill nor Attlee listened any more than any other Prime Minister to fundamental disagreements about the way that Ministers behave or about Cabinet responsibility without expecting a resignation or, as on one famous occasion, suggesting that a period of silence would be beneficial.
Eden had a somewhat weak Government who were short-lived. Macmillan's Cabinet provided an object lesson in dissent because although there were no public disagreements, there were clearly disagreements between Treasury Ministers and the Prime Minister—"little local difficulties" in 1958, when all Macmillan's Treasury Ministers resigned. The Prime Minister of the day went to the country a year later and won a majority of 100. It could be argued that Macmillan's Cabinet was handled with a lighter rein than the Cabinets of many other Prime Ministers, and the same description could be applied to the Cabinet of Sir Alec Douglas-Home.
We can remember times during the Government of Harold Wilson when the whip was cracked. We had references to dog licences, and his Cabinet was very much in control of what went on in Parliament. Harold Wilson dominated Parliament for a time in a way that was no different from any other Prime Minister.
Then we had my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath). We remember those halcyon days when everyone was listened to and compromise and consensus were the order of the day. However, we also remember that allegations of dictatorship were levelled against that Government. It was alleged that they were pushing through vast chunks of legislation without listening. Many Opposition Members will remember that time, but now we hear that that Government operated in a way that is wholly different from the way that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is operating.
96
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has to come to the House and must go to the country. One cannot blame the British people or those hon. Members who continue to support the Government when they are asked to do so. It is not dictatorship constantly to appeal not only to members of one's own party to support legislation—as has happened for many decades—and also from time to time to have to go to the country. In the end, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is as answerable as any Prime Minister before her and as any Prime Minister who follows her.
It is not new for the constitution to be criticised for not giving rights to individuals. It was put in a rather satirical way by Stanley Holloway decades ago, long before the present Prime Minister entered No. 10. He referred to the Magna Carta,
"That was signed by barons of old
That in England today
You can do what you like
So long as you do as you're told."
At that time it was a satirical comment, but people recognised in it a basis in truth.
All Government are faced with the difficulty of striking a balance between the rights of the individual and the interests of the community as a whole. Obviously, we can think of specific cases that occurred in Government's, and we wish that the decisions could have been different. That applies to Governments of all complexions. Hon. Members, rather than judges or anybody else, must have the ultimate power to question Government, and we must jealously guard that right.
Mr. Maclennan: The hon. Gentleman has advanced a historical argument about the manner in which Cabinet has been conducted in Labour and previous Conservative Governments. Does he acknowledge that the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), who is in the Chamber, was permitted by the Labour Prime Minister to campaign against the Government on the issue of the European Community? Secondly, in terms of the present Government, does he acknowledge that the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) has blown the gaff and explained all the points about how the present Government work?
Mr. Martin: Most certainly not. Several people have left the Government and are now giving commentaries on what happened and what they hope will happen, but that is not necessarily in accordance with reality. The decision whether to go into the Common Market was made on a free vote. It was then followed up, on an idea of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), with a referendum, which confirmed what had been decided in the House. I do not see any difference between what I have been saying, or anything that is inconsistent with what I have been saying, and what the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland has said.
I occasionally agree with the right hon. Member for Chesterfield on constitutional issues, and I certainly agreed with his point about blasphemy. I think that Macaulay foresaw him in the character of Sextus in the battle of Lake Regillus, when he said:
"Men said he saw strange visions
Which none beside might see
And that strange sounds were in his ear
Which none might hear but he".
There have sometimes been bizarre lectures from him looking at the historical scene back to the peasants' revolt,

97
well after Magna Carta, through the 17th century, and no doubt we shall hear this evening a contribution from the right hon. Gentleman that is out of the ordinary. I welcome the opportunity to hear what the right hon. Gentleman has to say.
The implementation of a Bill of Rights would be decided not by this place but by judges. That would fundamentally change the constitution that we know and that has grown up over many centuries. Most of the ideas in the European convention on human rights are based on freedoms that have been borrowed from countries such as ours that have had them incorporated for many centuries and that are safeguarded within Parliament. We should jealously guard the powers of this place rather than giving them away to judges or anybody else, because I do not believe that they can be trusted with such a role.
8.41 pm
Mr. Tony Benn: I welcome the debate and the initiative to hold it. We do not often discuss the constitution. Last year, we had a little celebration about the events of 1688, which some said were the basis for our liberties, although some of us take the contrary view about that. "The Rights of Man" by Tom Paine is still banned in the Maze prison. He was one of the greatest democrats in our history and he is still controversial 100 years after his death. I doubt whether I shall achieve that honour. I admire him for having said things of such permanent importance.
I can understand the reasons that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) had for introducing this motion because we have had a decade in which many unpleasant things have happened to individuals. Academic freedom in universities has been mentioned, but the Government have banned political discussion on the youth training scheme. If one is on YTS, one cannot discuss why one is unemployed because the Government have said there is to be no such discussion. We have also seen the abolition of the Greater London council, the hamstringing of local government, the banning of unions at GCHQ, the behaviour of the police at Wapping—which I saw myself, and which led to a number of police being charged—"Spycatcher", Zircon, and the "shoot-to-kill" policy.
Yesterday, I sat in Sheffield beside another Member of Parliament the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Adams). There were television cameras there, which were filming him but those doing the filming knew that if they showed the film, they would be punished. I also knew that the Government could subpoena the film makers if they thought that the film contained any information that would lead to action against him. I have never been more frightened in my life. I was sitting in the heart of this country and seeing a Member of Parliament denied the right to speak to people.
The debate will not be meaningful if we trade party points. Although the use of the powers by different Governments may differ, the problem is the existence of the powers. I can trade many examples about what happened under different Governments, but we cannot remedy this problem without looking at the constitution as a whole. There has been much discussion about a Bill of Rights. Under it, the rights of the people would be set out and monitored by judges appointed by the Prime Minister. They are subservient to the state to the extent that the mere
98
mention of the words "national security" causes them to disregard every other factor. The judges recently disallowed a strike on the ground that it would be inconvenient, which is a contemptible attack on the idea of trade unionism, especially when coupled with sequestration of funds. This cannot be put right by adding one simple ingredient of the kind that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland proposes.
Tom Paine said that the dead cannot control the living. He was right. If the political values of society some years ago had been entrenched, and we could not change them, we should be enslaved by the dead. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) brought forward proposals—not Labour policy—which are to go to the annual conference from the national executive committee. He proposed two things. The first is than we should abolish the House of Lords, although he did not describe how that should be done. I have given some thought to the matter, for reasons into which I shall not go. His second suggestion was that one Government could entrench what they thought important at the expense of the next. What would happen if a Labour Government introduced something that a successor Conservative Government did not like? What would happen if a Conservative Government entrenched things that an incoming Labour Government did not like? There would have to be two elections before any change could be brought about. It is not practical to legislate in that way. These arguments will have to be explored. We need a national constitutional convention, called for the purpose, rather than a discussion on the matter in a three-hour debate on a Supply day for a political party.
The plain fact is that the people of this country have no basic or enforceable civil rights and the reason is simple. We are not citizens living in a democracy, but in law subjects of the Crown, which has immense powers over us and our lives. It has been said that Parliament is supreme, but it is not. Look at the words of the enactment:
"Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons in the present Parliament assembled".
The Crown enacts the laws. It does not disregard the advice of either House, but we are still, in law, an advisory body. We have no mandatory power over the Crown.
What the Crown is, is an interesting question. The powers of the Crown are exercised now, in the main, by the Prime Minister of the day, personally and often in secret. It has been said that Cabinets are different, and that may be so, but Cabinets are not told what the Prime Minister is doing. Do hon. Members imagine that the Prime Minister discloses to the Cabinet that he or she intends to make somebody a peer or to instruct the security services to do whatever it is he or she wants done?
We do not even have a freedom of information Act for the Cabinet, let alone in Parliament. I would have settled for that in my time.
If people do not know what is going on, they cannot be held accountable. It is all very well for Ministers to come to the House and say that they are accountable, but we do not know what they are up to and the Conservative party did not know what we were up to when we were in Government. If we do not know, the public do not know, and when the truth slips out, the Cabinet Secretary is sent round the world to apply the principles of economy not only to public expenditure, but to the truth.

99
The prerogative powers that the Prime Minister has at his or her disposal are varied. They include the power to make war without consulting the House of Commons. There was no explicit vote before the Falklands war, as there would have been in the American Congress. The Prime Minister can also sign treaties. The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) signed the treaty of accession before it was published. We never saw the treaty of accession until he came home with his signature on it. Ministers can legislate in Brussels by the use of prerogative powers. As a result, Parliament is impotent before Common Market legislation. When, as a Minister, I went to the Council for over five years, I went not with statutory power but with the prerogative power to make treaties, and the prerogative power has nothing whatever to do with the House of Commons.
The corrupting system of patronage extends its tentacles throughout the administration of Government. Is there to be a night of the long knives? That is the Prime Minister deciding whether to sack Ministers. Who is to be put into the other place? The Prime Minister does not consult anyone about that. Who is to be made a judge, a bishop, or chairman of the BBC? These are powers and they are inherent in our constitution. It is all very well saying that we should try to fit a Bill of Rights into our constitution, but let us be serious about the matter. How have we won the rights that we now have? Has any judge ever seriously advanced, on a major front, the rights of the people of this country? There are women who are Members of this place, including one who sits as a Deputy Speaker. Did a judge give those hon. Members their right to vote? Not at all. It was the struggle that did it. Another example is the right to worship.
All our rights have been won by struggle. It annoys some hon. Members—that is why they need to be reminded of the fact—that all our rights were won by breaking the law on the ground of principle. There are many examples, including the Tolpuddle martyrs against the Combination Acts, the suffragettes, the Chartists and the struggle for the right to worship as we think fit. These rights were won by principled people who broke the law, and who may have suffered for doing so. In the end, however, the House had to respond to popular acclaim.
When we ask how rights have been won, I would not put the judges anywhere. If anything, they have been the ones who have tried to punish the people who tried to make these advances.
What rights should we have? One cannot mention a Bill of Rights and assume that everyone will agree. Many will say, "What a good idea," but what rights should there be?
Is the right to work a fundamental right? Is the right to a home a fundamental right? I see people sleeping out on the Embankment every night—in the summer that is more tolerable than at other times of the year. Is there a right to a home? Is that a fundamental right? Is that something that will appear in a Bill of Rights? Is there a right to lifelong education?
Is there a right to health? My father was a member of the Liberal Government of 1910. He told me that the most important thing that that Government did was to make it clear that the nation's health was a national interest. When he told me that in about 1945, I thought that he had made a pretty obvious statement. I thought to myself, "Why did
100
you mention that?" I realise now why he did so. The right to health is no longer a national interest. The right to free treatment is no longer a national interest. Is the right to dignity in retirement to be in a Bill of Rights? If these rights are to appear in a Bill of Rights, we shall find ourselves in a new arena.
During the 1945 general election, I remember going to Covent Garden with the wife of a Labour candidate, Peggy Ashcroft. I drove around in a loudspeaker van for a fortnight. I remember a man called Knocker O'Connell. He got to the microphone—that was not a good thing to happen during an election because none of us knew when he would let go of it—and produced his political alphabet. He told us "F stands for freedom:"—what Britain brags about. If you can't afford your dinner, you are free to go without." What about President Roosevelt's four freedoms? These included the right to be free from fear, disease and poverty and ignorance. For some people in society the state and trade unions are the enemy, but when we consider the rights to which I have referred, one sees that the state and the trade unions are the friends of many people.
It was the state that gave people the right to health through the National Health Service. Trade unions give people rights. I happened to be speaking in another part of the House today and someone who works within the House told me that her friend, who had worked for 32 years, had been sacked by her employer after she had had to take three or four months off work to look after her dying father. What is she to do? Does that person have rights? If she does, the trade unions and the state are her friends, not her enemies.
If we are to have the rights of which I have been speaking, how shall we monitor them? Will the judges have that role? I think not. Will Parliament be responsible for monitoring them? I think that it must be. Parliament remedies injustice. We are all employed by the public. I stayed up late the other night when the debate on the registration of dogs took place. I was in my place at 3 am. Many people had written to me to express their anxiety about dangerous rottweilers and alsatians. I replied to tell them that I agreed with the feelings that they had set out in their letters. Accordingly, I was in the Chamber to vote at 3 am. Whether we want to do that does not matter, because in the end our constituents will decide whether to return us. There is nothing disreputable about working for our employers if our employers are our constituents. When I travel around the constituency I do not say, "This is my constituency and these are my voters." I am the employee of my constituents.
As I have said, advance always comes from pressure. The Labour party has rediscovered, quite properly, the importance of Scottish devolution following a by-election at Govan. Devolution was not exactly at the top of our agenda a year or two ago. Following the European elections, there will be many Greens emerging from all political parties. That is because the environmental issue has been won. If we are to get the correction of injustice built into the system, we will not be able to use the judges. To use them would be to politicise them, and they are extremely political as things stand. Another mechanism will have to be used, perhaps one that involves the ombudsman. I am not here to make the constitution. Our rights depend for their achievement on struggle and for their maintenance on vigilance.

101
The issue that we are debating cannot be resolved until we are prepared to examine the constitution afresh from the highest to the most modest levels in our society. When we do so, I think that we shall realise that democracy and monarchical power are completely incompatible. I am not speaking about the royal family, which is a convenient cover for the abuse of Executive power. Instead, I am talking about the principle of monarchial power. I do not think that the British people will ever be free until we have become a Commonwealth, abolished Crown prerogatives —I introduced a Bill on the subject—and embodied Executive power in statute, compelling those who exercise it to be accountable to the elected representatives of the people.
There are already signs in our society of a tremendous popular demand for the basic reforms that I am advocating. There is demand for a Scottish Assembly, and that is a demand for constitutional change. There are demands for the liberation of local authorities from ministerial control. I do not agree with all the provisions of Charter 88, but that is another example of the demands that are being made. Another example is the demand for the disestablishment of the Church of England both within and without the Church, for it is absurd that a bishop can be appointed by a Prime Minister who is not a Christian. It is a strange concept, especially when the Government seem to want conformity on the Bench of bishops.
There is widespread suspicion of the role of the security services. There is opposition to the dangerous doctrine of lifelong confidentiality to the Crown. What an absurd notion that is. There is the idea that someone has an obligation when the Crown itself knows nothing about it. The Prime Minister who gives the order, or his or her minions, may use that doctrine to conceal any revelation of wrongdoing.
The siting of foreign troops in our territory raises constitutional questions. Mr. Attlee, as he then was, brought them in without telling Parliament what he was doing. He was, of course, a Labour Prime Minister. He said that they were on a training mission. They were not on a training mission at all. They were busy building their bases so that 30,000 troops from America could be in Britain, three times as many as there were British troops in India during the time of the Indian empire. There were only about 10,000 British troops in India, apart from the Indian troops. Parliament was not told about the arrival of the American troops. I do not know whether even that Cabinet understood the position.
There was the decision to transfer powers to Brussels. I am making a democratic point, not a national one. The issues that we are discussing will not go away until we examine them more fundamentally. The important question is whether we have a new constitution and a Government of Britain Bill to put to the electorate for endorsement and not whether we should have a Bill of Rights attached to our present undemocratic constitution.
Given the gross abuse of powers of the Crown by successive Governments, few in my judgment now believe in the merits of the so-called unwritten constitution. They are right not to believe in it. It is just a cover for a form of authoritarianism, whichever Prime Minister exercises power. Any sensible political party would be wise to set aside narrow party points and address its mind to the question how we can give to the people of this country a greater right to determine their own future than is possible
102
under the constitution, which we inherited from feudal days and which is now far less democratic than that in any other so-called free country in the world.
8.58 pm
Mr. Richard Shepherd: I had not intended to speak in this debate. However, I am grateful to the Social and Liberal Democratic party for raising this subject for discussion this evening. The subject touches on some of the anxieties of thoughtful people in society. What protects us? What defends our liberties, such as the freedom of speech or whatever else we identify as essential liberties?
This debate sounded almost like my school books written by people like Dicey, Wade and Phillip about law and constitution. The old concept was that Parliament, in the last analysis, defended us. Our freedoms were safeguarded here. The simplest and narrowest freedoms, the basic freedoms of expression, conscience, thought and worship, were protected in the House of Commons.
I will not trade insults with my hon. Friend the Minister of State, who cited the Official Secrets Act 1989 as progress in the parliamentary extension of liberty. I need only reflect that that Act introduces the concept of absolute offences, something that this House has campaigned and fought against for 200 or 300 years. The Minister of State believes that that is an advancement of civil liberties. I shall walk on the other side of the street, but I note what he says.
My hon. Friend the Minister of State also referred to the Security Services Act 1989. If I remember that Act correctly, it states that national security is anything that the Secretary of State for the Home Department states that it should be. Furthermore, the Act states that those matters may not go before the courts. My lessons on the constitution referred to the supremacy of Parliament and the rule of law. The courts enacted the laws. That was a test and a bench mark. Freedoms of speech were asserted through the common law.
The courts mention the "treasured" right, but increasingly this century the supremacy of Parliament has enabled the Executive to take upon themselves powers that we never countenanced that decent, reasonable and moderate people would ever think it necessary to assume. It was extraordinary for me as a Conservative Member to listen to my hon. Friend the Minister of State identify as extensions of liberty two of the most oppressive pieces of legislation brought in over the past six months. For the Minister of State to do that really stands matters on their head.
What defends our liberties? I have little confidence in our courts because of the nature of their remit, their acceptance of the supremacy of Parliament and their job to interpret the law, which I do not dispute. How are our freedoms and liberties defended?
Right hon. and hon. Members have identified several issues which have caused me great anxiety. In his final hallelujah, my hon. Friend the Minister of State stated that it was wholly appropriate, without reference to the courts, to prevent free British citizens from moving from one part of this country to another. The European Court of Human Rights, however, found that improper and considered it an invasion of our freedoms. The Government decided to derogate from that and we had 12 months to figure out a way round the European court's ruling. Although the

103
Government have not found a way round it yet, no doubt they will do so in the next few months. Yet my hon. Friend the Minister of State has been citing those examples as advancements of our civil liberties.
One of my colleagues last January said that Parliament had become a pretty poor defender of our liberties. Given the doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament, and if the Executive can transmit through its party almost any view of the world and enact it into legislation without any correction, it is the duty of the courts to apply that legislation. People who brood on this matter tend to ask whether there is any way in which we can secure certain basic freedoms if they cannot look to Parliament to do so.
The European Court of Human Rights is the mechanism about which we are hearing much today. Incidentally, I opposed it when I first became a Member of this House. I wondered why it was necessary to have a foreign court to oversee our legislative and judicial processes. I regarded that as unnecessary. As a free-born British subject, could I not argue and defend my own rights? But as I watch the growth of Executive power and the exclusion of other centres of balance within our constitution, I become increasingly anxious.
I was elected in 1979. We were told that we were going to have less government and get the Government off people's backs. I remember all those arguments ringing in my head and I still pass them on sometimes to unsuspecting constituents who are not aware of the issues behind them.
We have increasingly concentrated power in the hands of the Executive. In my casualness, I was not mindful of the importance of local government as a balancer. At one time in Walsall, for example, it was important to a large number of residents that the grammar schools there should be maintained. The then Secretary of State for Education, Mrs. Shirley Williams—now of America—did her best to destroy Walsall's grammar schools—but she was unable to do so because the local population offered resistance and exercised its judgment through the council chamber. It happened that Labour was the largest local party and it also wanted to defend the schools, so there the matter rested.
From 1979 until today, I have watched, the Government grasp unto themselves enourmous powers, taking away the rights of local authorities to determine matters which seem wholly appropriate for them to determine. At an earlier stage, and without reflecting, I was happy to see what I thought was in my political interest come to pass. As the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) said, however, what is in one's own political interest is not necessarily in the interests of others. I am not the final inheritor of the kingdom on earth. I am merely one of those who pass through, but the powers will endure. What am I creating when I vote for legislation which increases the Executive's powers? I am handing on an instrument to a faceless successor whom I do not know, who may interpret and use those powers aggressively and in a way that will rebound to my party's dishonour and shame.
What disturbed me a little about the speech of my hon. Friend the Minister was that it did not address itself to the constitutional issue. Are our institutions sufficiently strong to protect my right to stand anywhere I like in this country
104
and say what I wish to say? To me, that is a fundamental right. Yet we have passed a Bill that the Law Lords will enact to the effect that, if I have been a member of the security services for 25 years, for example, I cannot talk about them. To do so would be an absolute offence and one for which I could go to prison. I could not even say that I received a gold watch. The Law Lords have the ultimate jurisdiction and the power to apply that law.
Where is the relief from that aggrandisement of government by a Government who have given up the great parliamentary traditions of Burke? Parliamentary democracy is not divided by two plus one—it is the process of argument and discussion. We should all remember that. Such discussion and argument may not win my agreement, but it should secure my acquiescence. Instead, in recent years our parliamentary guillotine has been flipped up and down faster than anything in the French revolution. I believe that this Parliament has seen the operation of about 30 guillotines, seven in the current Session alone. That is all contrary to our traditions.
Where is the instrument of protection? Increasingly, I have seen it in the belated, slow and unhappy process of references to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of rights that we used to take for granted. Britain made one of the major inputs into that system, as one of its original signatories, but unhappily, the aggrandisement of the Executive is causing anxiety. I believe that these are not just the views of a Conservative Back Bencher but are held more widely. During the "Spycatcher" case, I noted constant references to the European Convention on Human Rights. I also observe judges increasingly attempting to align their judgments with the convention, even though there is no question at that stage of a referral to the European Court. Increasingly, I hear free-born British citizens who still have pockets deep enough to challenge the Government and to stand up and fight them saying, "I will go further if necessary."
One day we shall have the European Court's judgments on Northern Ireland. One day we shall get to the bottom of the Stalker affair. One day the European Court will make a judgment on whether or not our official secrets legislation is reasonable. One day we shall have a judgment on the Home Secretary's warrant for investigations which make lawful that which was once unlawful.
Why is it necessary for us to go to a European court? What if the Law Lords are not mindful of the principles and articles of the convention? Is there a device that can strengthen our institutions? The Opposition have talked about reforming the House of Lords, and I suspect that the right hon. Member for Chesterfield can tell us more about its workings as an "inside outsider". I too have come to the conclusion that the sunset home at the other end of the building, with its slight smell of urine, is a pretty poor body. Life support machines are wheeled in and people talk deferentially about one another's magnificent contributions. In fact, half of them are there due to a mere accident of birth, the other half by virtue of having been grand panjandrums in the Civil Service. Yet we hear them telling everyone how wonderful their careers have been. The whiff of liberty and freedom for which I ask is outside their ken. The spirit of the individual is more than a mere accident of birth.
What unique feature makes a man a legislator? The law reform proposals of Lord Mackay are a classic example of the separation of powers in this country. One cannot get into the House of Lords for Law Lords banging on about

105
how we should legislate on law reform. Hon. Members should talk to me about the role of the House of Lords. It is not respectable any more. One cannot look to the present House of Lords—I go along with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) to this extent—to act as a block or check because it is representative of no one other than the appointees of the Executive who put them there. That curious arrangement was known as the dignified part of the British constitution. Bagehot said that the cure for the House of Lords was to go and see it. I recommend that those who have listened to our debates on this subject should do just that.
Mr. Benn: There is just one charge that the hon. Gentleman has not made against the system. The power of the Prime Minister to give people peerages gives her power over whole sections of society. Many of those people will never receive peerages, but will do anything in the hope that they will. The corruption of patronage—more even than the corruption of inheritance—is a factor that the hon. Gentleman should bring into his denunciation of the other Chamber, which was music to my ears and went further than I would have dared to go.
Mr. Shepherd: It is well known that, in church, I can silence two pews on either side of me by my lack of true note.
I have only to sit in this House as a Back Bencher to see how we are humbled by the creative use of the power of patronage. A Cabinet no longer able to raise its voice to speak home truths and to argue its corner generously and courageously is a sight that diminishes us. That is why we are having this debate. Cabinet government has gone by the board. The ability of the House of Commons to hold its Members accountable and to defend liberties is in question. We must therefore examine the institutional arrangements.
The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) honourably suggested that we could provide a halfway house—a temporary measure to give British citizens more rapid access—by incorporating the European convention. I have concluded that that would be an important contribution to improving the position while we consider more major constitutional reforms.
9.13 pm
Mr. Harry Barnes: The Government have seriously undermined the democratic, constitutional and civil liberties of the people. A specific example is the recently enacted poll tax legislation, which comes on top of other measures affecting secrecy and freedom. The unfair influence of the poll tax will have a knock-on effect, for instance, on the franchise, which is part of the essential background of the establishment of civil liberties.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) said, it is outside this House that pressure is brought to bear upon us. Pressure groups and other people express their views through the electoral system. It is that which is important. The franchise is being fixed and fiddled by means of the poll tax. One might not think that is the case if one looks at the European election results, when the Government got a bloody nose, but the poll tax is manipulating the franchise.
Since the general election two years ago, the franchise has dropped by more than 4 per cent. in 13 Scottish
106
constituencies. That is not due to major population shifts, or to old people dying and fewer young people becoming eligible to enter, the electoral register. It is due to the impact of the poll tax and to the fear of the connection between the poll tax register and the electoral register. The position is even worse in England. Within a year, the franchise has collapsed by more than 4 per cent. in 17 constituencies, including Finchley, where 2,170 people are missing from the electoral register. In the Liverpool constituencies, 10 per cent. have gone missing from the electoral register within a year.
There have to be explanations, but they cannot be given in traditional terms—that fewer people are registering because no election is due. That does not fit in with what happened in the past after elections. It cannot be argued, either, that the cause is demographic change. The change has been brought about by the introduction of the poll tax. It is a sign to us all of the vast changes that the Government have introduced. The poll tax is the Government's flagship. It is a sign of the principles in which they believe.
In the referendum in Chile on the future of Pinochet, people had to pay, in order to vote and have their names put on the electoral register, the equivalent of a month's wages on an employment scheme, so many working-class people were disfranchised. However, those who voted expressed their need for democratic change.
The same has happened to some extent in this country, although it has not been on so dramatic a scale as in Chile. In Labour areas in particular, where people have the most to fear from the poll tax, between 3 and 4 per cent. of electors are beginning to disappear from the electoral register. The smashing of local government has been going on for a considerable period, but it now appears as though a ton of bricks has finally broken the proverbial camel's back.
The poll tax will interfere seriously with our democratic rights and civil liberties. Even after they have smashed local government, the Government will ensure that they fix the system by means of the poll tax. There will be a sort of Hobson's choice about who is elected. Labour-controlled authorities will be in an invidious position: should they increase the poll tax to provide services, and therefore crucify the very people that they are trying to serve, including many people who are on benefit, or should they cut services for those who need them? If local authorities do not cut the services that they provide, there are others waiting in the wings who will be prepared to cut them. The logic of it all is to tie the electoral register to the poll tax register and to manipulate the results.
The poll tax will lead to centralisation, which will be similar to the centralisation that the Government have introduced by means of many other measures, but it will be all-embracing in terms of the operation of rebate schemes, grants, the uniform business rate and many other matters that are in the hands of a Minister who acts in many respects like a municipal Mussolini in his dealings with local government.
The poll tax makes a vast attack upon civil liberties, by searching out information to ensure that, if someone has been missed off the poll tax register, they will be found on the electoral register and if they are not on the electoral register they can be hunted and searched for in a variety of records that do not exist for poll tax purposes. Today, I received a written parliamentary reply from the Under-Secretary of State for Employment stating:

107
"Unemployment Benefit Officers are required to disclose details of the name and address of any person or their partner, aged 18 or over, to a registration officer for a charging authority."
That was in answer to a question about poll tax registration. The answer then makes certain qualifications, but the principle operates in a host of issues in which we would not expect the state and the poll tax registrars to intervene.
That is why, following the pattern set by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield, I seek to bring two measures before the House—one is before the House and one is on its way. The Re-enfranchisement of the People Bill seeks to separate the electoral register from the poll tax register. There is a doubt in law about the legality of the poll tax legislation. Prior legislation which, thank goodness has never been changed will ensure that it does interfere with electoral registration—the 1275 Statute of Westminster, which guarantees free election; and the Representation of the People Act 1983, which codifies earlier legislation and provides that those free elections will allow people to qualify to vote without duress. Do the Government intend to interfere with that freedom and that right of franchise because they believe that the poll tax is even more important?
The other measure I intend to bring to the House concerns petitions. The Scottish Office has said that petitions to poll tax registrars can quite legitimately be used to place people's names upon poll tax registers, yet the ancient right of petitioning precedes that of franchise in Britain. It is the way in which ordinary people could express their views humbly to their monarch and to their Parliament. It was decided that they should not be put under duress for signing a petition, yet what is it but duress to say that when people sign protests against the poll tax, those protests will be used for the very purpose against which they are protesting?
That is another example of the vast attack on the democratic and constitutional rights of the people which is involved in the poll tax. As we have heard, it is but one of the measures before us and one of the signs that the Government's amendment is an absolute load of rubbish.
9.24 pm
Mr. Ivan Lawrence: The trouble with the word "liberty" is that it means whatever we choose to make it mean. One man's liberty is another man's tyranny. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) has just affirmed that the community charge, where each person that has a community benefit and can afford to make a contribution shares the burden of the local cost, is the ultimate tyranny. To others it is a much fairer way of imposing a charge upon local services than the rates.
The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) listed what he considered to be tyrannies. To him the first-past-the-post system of election is a tyranny, but to others the greater tyranny would be to subject our Government to the dictates of the party holding the balance which has attracted the least preferred votes. To him, the Broadcasting Standards Council imposes a tyranny of censorship. Others ask how else we can be expected to protect our children from the pollution of the mind that the television medium could and does inflict upon us without such safeguards. To him, the restriction
108
upon homosexuals not to proselytise their practices is a tyranny, but to others that most limited of restrictions extends the liberty of those who not want their children to be brought up in a too liberal environment. It is interesting to recall that the permissive society was propounded in the 1960s by one of the founders of the party that the hon. Gentleman represented.
To the hon. Gentleman, any restriction upon the rights of Crown servants to blow their secrets for money or, by striking, to bring to a standstill the vital communications centre which helps to safeguard the security of the realm, are tyrannies. However, to others such liberties are a greater tyranny and will do far more to destroy our free society than some of the limited restrictions that the Government have considered it necessary to impose.
Like his leader, the hon. Gentleman claims to believe in democracy. Does he really believe that the people of this country actually want to open Britain to the settlement of 3.25 million Chinese people from Hong Kong? If our present society is such a tyranny, is it not immoral to invite so many potential sufferers to such a tyranny for permanent settlement on our shores?
There are many other issues in which one man's liberty is another man's tyranny. What is the hon. Gentleman's view of random breath tests? Is not the restriction of the liberty of the individual the lesser evil than that innocent people should be continuously mowed down by drunk drivers in our streets? What is the hon. Gentleman's view of the firearms legislation? Is it not a safer society with licences and restrictions on the free use of even sporting weapons?
To say that the Government are cutting the overall liberties of people is such manifest nonsense that I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman is not embarrassed about doing so.
Are we not a freer society in which the taxpayer is able to spend more of his own money through lower taxes, and a freer society now with the ability to spend abroad without restriction? Are we not freer if we own our own houses instead of being tenants of a municipality, and, if we are tenants, freer with rights that we never had before? Are we not freer in a society in which workers have a right not to be forced into trade unions, in which trade union leaders are elected and there are secret ballots, and in which the small business man now has a right to tender for contracts and to make his financial and economic way?
Are women not freer in the workplace than they were before the Government took over? Are not parents freer to choose the schools and education of their children? Is not our leisure time freer now that we can go to public houses with flexible licensing hours? In the age of the computer, are we not better protected by data protection laws? Is there not a freer press now that we have The Independent, Today and other newspapers that did not exist before, and freer broadcasting with more channels from which to choose?
My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) and other hon. Members have spoken about the official secrets legislation. Although it is perfectly true that Crown servants are no freer than ever they were to publish their secrets for money, are not civil servants far freer under this Government than they were before? Is not a freer society one that has done away with ministerial certificates as the test for criminality and

109
replaced them with the decision of the jury? Is it not a freer society in which the secret service is put on a statutory basis, with rights that are enforceable by the courts?
Dr. John G. Blackburn: My hon. and learned Friend has referred to the Official Secrets Act. On two occasions in my life I have entered a career in which I was subject to the Official Secrets Act and I gave a signed undertaking that I would honour the details of that Act. It was part and parcel of the conditions of my service, and honoured it. Does he agree that to dishonour an oath, a pledge or a covenant is reprehensible?
Mr. Lawrence: What my hon. Friend has just said underlines the extent of his own honour, which I believe all Conservative Members emulate, which is why we supported the legislation when it was introduced.
In the contentious area of police powers, has not liberty been extended by the Police Complaints Authority, by tape-recorded interviews of suspects and by the code of practice in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 which is daily invoked in our criminal courts?
I could go on for four and half hours or more—but I shall not—listing the steps taken by this Government to safeguard the liberties of the individual. The total weighs heavily in the scale of freedom and far more heavily than the total of the restrictions placed on some individual freedoms to protect the wider freedom of the greater proportion of our people.
I accept the invocation of an Opposition Member not to turn this into a political debate, but when one recalls how things were under the Labour Government who ended their dreary days of individual restriction and restraint with their limitations on spending, on saving and on investment; with the total repression of state control; ever extending its tentacles into our lives; with the bureaucracy of municipal control; with the abuse of trade union power, yet with none of the liberties that I touched on earlier, how can the House pass a motion condemning the erosion of rights under this Government?
Of course we have not been perfect—that is because, as human beings, we are not perfect and because, as many hon. Members have said, our Parliament is a most imperfect institution. As a Government we have been misled into depriving prisoners of certain rights, such as that peremptorily to challenge three members of the jury. We have had our individual liberty unnecessarily restricted by the fluoridation of public drinking water, a matter upon which I could certainly talk for another four and half hours.
As the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling), who spoke for the Labour party, said, it is true that we have been taken to the European Court of Human Rights on many occasions, and more often than some other countries, but that is because we have accepted the right of individual petitions since 1966, compared with that right being accepted by France in 1981; by Greece in 1985; by Spain in 1981; and by Turkey in 1988. As it takes between five and six years for an application to reach the court or the Committee of Ministers, of course we have had more violations. However, it is also because we in the United Kingdom are responsible for legal systems other than that in England, Wales and Scotland. We are responsible for the legal systems of the Isle of Man and of Guernsey, which have themselves been taken to the European Court of Human Rights.
110
However, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central did not tell us that a reference is by no means the same thing as a guilty finding; that some of the issues are by no means serious, and that some are most arguable. In one judgment last year, several complaints were lodged in respect of the opening of personal letters, but only one violation was found. That is a vindication of the civil liberties enshrined in the rules in Scotland. One adverse finding was against the right of the courts to impose a punishment of birching in the Isle of Man, and many people have different views about that matter and about the civil liberties and human rights involved. Another case was the infringement of the freedom of association arising from the closed shop, to which this Government are greatly opposed, but on which they thought that they had the duty to present the arguments fairly in that court. Against that we have, with legal aid, a far more liberal and speedy legal system than many other legal systems in Europe, and our courts, with the civil liberty safeguard of judicial review, are looked upon with admiration by the rest of the world.
Having said all that, I am in favour of incorporating; the European convention on human rights into our domestic law, because I believe that we could thereby improve even further our conformity with human rights and civil liberties. I am sad that the various moves to introduce a Bill of Rights in Parliament have for procedural reasons not so far succeeded. I supported such a Bill, and I support it now, because it would be far better if our own alleged violations were to be considered by British courts, with British judges rooted in British traditions, than before foreign courts, with foreign judges rooted in foreign and quite different traditions. Such a Bill would do still more to correct our inevitable lapses and would underline Britain's complete commitment under the Government to the collective enforcement of civil liberties. It would make our efforts to sustain human rights in the world at large even more convincing.
Of course, the passage of such a Bill would not still the nonsense that cascades out of the mouths of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland and his friends and allies, but then, I fear that nothing would do that.
9.35 pm
Mr. Michael Stern: I entirely agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr Lawrence) about the extent to which a lack of definition of liberty has informed the debate. That is, perhaps, not surprising, when the director of one of our supposedly foremost educational institutions—the polytechnic of north London—believes that he is supporting liberty and freedom of speech, when he disapproves of a speaker at that institution to such an extent that he throws the whole weight of the administration of that polytechnic behind organising a rival meeting so that people are not encouraged to hear that of which the director disapproves.
The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), who introduced the debate, listed a number of part-imaginary and part-real areas in which he believed that human rights has suffered in the past 10 years. I should like to put the other side of the case, which has not been entirely explored in the debate so far—the extent to which the Government in the past 10 years have buttressed and extended human rights by their realisation that there can be no liberty and no enforcement of rights without, at

111
the same time, protecting those rights by ownership of property, and by relating the availability of liberty to that of the right to own and the right to choose.
I cite just a few examples. I am sure that, like me, the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland represents a constituency which consists in part of council housing. I am sure that like me, he has discovered over the years that the one area that dominates his constituency surgeries, and which, above all others, creates unhappiness and a feeling that rights have not been given or have been taken away, is that of monopoly municipal housing. That is not surprising. If we consider housing in terms of human rights, the right of the council tenant is the right to take what he or she is given or nothing, whereas the right of the home owner, or of the tenant is a sector where there is nore than one landlord, is the right to choose the type and location of housing appropriate to the individual. That is the fundamental truth. It is this Government who have so extended that right of home ownership and are now in the process of extending the right to choose between landlords. Those are rights which were almost completely forgotten by previous Governments and certainly rights to which Opposition Members are very late converts.
Another example is that until the Government came to power, a person in employment was frequently offered the right to join a pension scheme but that right was not a right —it was a legal obligation. If the person did not want to join the pension scheme because it was wholly inappropriate to his circumstances, under every previous Government the only remedy was to leave the job. The present Government have created the right to say no—the right not to join a wholly inappropriate scheme.
There is another matter that has not been mentioned. I defer to no Opposition Member in looking to the roots of trade unionism and the extent to which in their early days trade unions represented an extension of human rights to the individual, but I hope that the Opposition join me in accepting, at least in part, that in the 1960s and 1970s that form of trade unionism had been subsumed in a trade unionism that was an instrument of repression which took rights from people rather than adding to them.
I have referred to respects in which the Government have extended liberties, but I should like to refer also to aspects where they have reduced the power of the state, thereby extending liberties. One of the Government's first actions was to abolish exchange controls. In so doing, they showed that they had the self-confidence to say to ordinary people, "You have a freedom that was not previously given, at least since the war—if you do not like this country, you have the freedom to go elsewhere and take your property with you." No previous Government had ever dreamed of giving such a freedom because no previous Government had had the self-confidence to know that most people would not want to take it once it was open to them.
It is easy to pick isolated matters on which those who wish to attack our society have, in recent years, lost part of the right to attack it, but under the Government there has been a great extension of freedom for ordinary people.
9.41 pm
Mr. Menzies Campbell: I start with the proposition that civil liberties are easily removed but difficult to restore. History demonstrates that freedom of speech and of association were rights that had to be won from a protesting and jealous Executive. They are rights which, under our constitution, can easily be removed because the supremacy of Parliament is such that it can override any of the civil liberties that we take for granted. Our constitution provides no protection for the constitution itself. Parliament can as easily legislate to curtail liberty and freedom as to clean up the streets. Alone among the democracies in Europe, we do not have a written constitution or a Bill of Rights.
The United Kingdom was a signatory to the European convention on human rights in 1951. In spite of that, it has never been incorporated into our domestic law. Our courts cannot apply it and aggrieved citizens have to go to Strasbourg. Some have, so it has been established that there should be legal restrictions on telephone tapping and interception of mail, that prisoners should have the right to correspond with their Members of Parliament and that a woman who has the right to live in the United Kingdom may have her foreign husband live with her here. Because of the rulings of the European Court, the law relating to contempt of court has been changed, homosexual rights have been established in Northern Ireland and corporal punishment has been abolished in state schools in Scotland. If our system is so perfect, why is it that citizens have had to have recourse to Strasbourg for those purposes?
In the Minister's speech there was a central thesis that economic freedom was necessary to underpin constitutional freedoms. Put in that form, I have no objection to that principle, but it is not enough. If the only freedom is an economic one, the rich will be more free than the poor. The right to buy council houses, which I support, is a right that can easily be diluted or made more difficult to fulfil if mortgage interest payments increase because of the operation of the economy by the Government of the day.
The Minister also endorsed academic freedom, to which there would be no objection from the Social and Liberal Democrats. In another place, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead moved, and had accepted, an amendment to provide safeguards for academics against threat of dismissal on the grounds of unwelcome opinions. The amendment was resisted by the Government, which proves that there is no monopoly of good sense in relation to the preservation of liberty to be found on the Treasury Bench.
The Minister referred to judicial review as an essential feature of the protection of our liberty. He was quite right, but he omitted to point out that the single most significant feature of judicial review has been the way in which it has developed since the Wednesbury doctrine of 1947, to the Tameside case and beyond. That case is important and if he is not entirely familiar with it, the Minister should have another look at it, because it reflected an important advance in the doctrine of judicial review. It related to selective education, and the court was constrained to review the statement of the Labour Secretary of State at that time. The court's decision was not political, but its consequences were and the court must have been well aware that it would be.
There seems to be some reluctance in the House to rely on judges, but what happens when an individual goes to

113
Strasbourg? He goes to Strasbourg and enlists the aid of the court to establish the necessary proposition. The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) expressed concern about the judges' role. However, in the "Spycatcher" affair they could hardly be said to be the Government's poodles. When the Labour party was endeavouring to clear up a little local difficulty in Liverpool, some of those who were the subjects of the investigations were able to go to the court and obtain an injunction against the executive of their own party to stop it proceeding in a way that would prejudice their rights. In the past, the judges have demonstrated their capacity for making proper decisions.
Much of this debate has turned on the issue whether a Bill of Rights can be entrenched in the constitution. I do not believe that it can unless the sort of wholesale review of the constitution, to which the right hon. Member for Chesterfield referred, takes place. However, neither the Treaty of Union nor the reform Acts by which we gained universal adult suffrage are entrenched in the constitution, although it is unthinkable that any Government would seek to depart or detract from those.
As the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) said, since we accept the rulings of the Court of Human Rights, we are, by definition, accepting a restriction on our sovereignty. There seems to be no difference in principle between importing that convention into our own law, and the circumstances in which we accept the court's judgments.
An eminent contemporary jurist said:
"When times are abnormally alive with fear and prejudice the common law is at a disadvantage. It cannot resist the will, however frightened and prejudiced it may be, of Parliament."
In another place, Lord Scarman enjoys a certain reputation in constitutional matters and I would have thought that his opinion was one to which the Government should give some weight. To adopt the convention into United Kingdom domestic law would give common law precisely the advantage that it now lacks.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) who has the privilege of being my Member for Parliament, made a most interesting contribution to the debate in which he seemed to move quickly from the constitutional proposals of the policy review yet to be approved, to the changes which he wanted in society. I am not surprised that he felt it necessary to display a fleetness of academic foot which we have not previously seen from him. His programme cannot be entrenched in law any more than ours. His Act to create a five-year delay using the House of Lords can be repealed like any other. So determined are Labour Front Bench spokesmen—no doubt under the benign influence of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley)—to have no truck with a Bill of Rights that they are prepared to propose embracing a constitutional curiosity which many would find repugnant and which is likely to be as easily overcome as any other piece of legislation.
Part of the debate touched on freedom of information. I accept, as the debate showed, that there is an immediate clash of values between those who believe in official secrets and those who believe in freedom of information. The Minister claims that the Government's reform in this area is an advance, a proposition which brought an uncharacteristically inelegant horse laugh from the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills, who went on to display
114
in his speech that robustness and independence of mind which have earned him the respect of all sections of the House.
The principal concern about the official secrets legislation, which is not yet an Act, is its failure to address what many regard as the real issues. Secrecy has been institutionalised in Britain since 1911 by more than 100 other statutes which make disclosure of information by civil servants or by others a criminal offence, and by strict disciplinary codes. The new official secrets legislation continues the culture of secrecy in Government. Under the new Act there will be no duty to publish information and no provision for a public interest defence for offences of unauthorised disclosure of information. As my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) pointed out during the long debates on the Bill, it would be a crime for a civil servant to reveal that his Minister was committing a crime—a most curious consequence of the legislation and a clear insight into the thinking of the Government who prompted it.
There will be no test of harm in relation to certain disclosures such as telephone tapping and surveillance, and no requirement of guilty intent when certain disclosures are made by civil servants. If it was within our power, we would introduce a freedom of information Act to show this clash of cultures. We would establish a public right of access to official information and seek to amend the Official Secrets Bill, if it becomes law. The effect would be to put the onus on the authorities to justify secrecy, instead of on the public to justify access.
Good government depends on the ability to learn from mistakes and to improve policies. In a closed system mistakes remain hidden and no one learns from them. As this debate has shown, it is, in the end, a question of attitude. To judge from some of the contributions today, Conservative Members believe that there has been no infringement of any sort of the liberties of the subjects of the United Kingdom. They believe that from the position of the influence which they enjoy and of the privilege to which, to a certain extent, they have access.
The truth is that in many areas of our lives, public and private, our liberties have been the subject of continued erosion under all Governments since 1945. We do not notice as our liberties are diluted day by day, but eventually a point must be reached at which those who are worried about these matters take a stand, pointing out that the Government have gone so far and must be allowed to go no further. That is why we have introduced this topic for debate and why we shall invite the House to support our motion.
9.54 pm
Mr. John Patten: The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) may have explained why he and his right hon. and hon. Friends have introduced this motion, but they certainly have not explained to me exactly what their Bill of Rights would contain or how it would help or hinder. At no stage during the speeches by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) or the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East did we have any elucidation of exactly what the Bill would contain. They are barking up the wrong tree.
Bills of Rights and written constitutions are not the all-healing prescriptions that they are made out to be. We

115
can see that from around the world. No hon. Member has dealt with any authority at all with what such a Bill would contain. [Interruption.] It was not stated in the speeches. Secondly, no one has said in the debate how a Bill of Rights could satisfactorily be entrenched. The arguments advanced by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland and by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East were, presumably, arguments of despair. The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East is rather unnerving because he looks and sounds like a Tory. It is just that the words do not come out in a Tory way.
Mr. Menzies Campbell rose— —
Mr. Patten: I will give way to the hon. and learned Gentleman only on matters of tailoring and asthetics, but not on his political arguments. I will try to make it up to him afterwards.
The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland gave no indication at all of how his shadowy Bill of Rights would be entrenched. He and his hon. Friends should have listened much more carefully to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), but few SLD Members were in the Chamber when he spoke. He put his finger on the telling dichotomy between liberty and tyranny in this country—that moving frontier where one man's liberty can be another man's tyranny.
I suppose that I must turn briefly to the arguments advanced by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling). He lifted the veil on the Labour party policy reviews just enough to agitate the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), who did not delay for a moment or hold back from attacking his hon. Friend's constitutional prescriptions, which were exceptionally muddled and unclear. The hon. Gentleman was unable to answer any of the questions put by my hon. Friends and was subject to intimidating threats from the right hon. Member for Chesterfield about the new policy review plans needing the endorsement of the next Labour party conference.
There are many hurdles before the plans by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central for reform of the House of Lords, regional assemblies and local assemblies, and so on, can be put to the Labour party. The hon. Gentleman mischieviously misrepresented what I said about the recent unfortunate demonstrations in Bradford. I certainly did not introduce any overall condemnation of Moslems in this country. I chose my words very carefully, as I hope and believe that he will do in future. I called upon community leaders to try to intervene with the few hotheads who have caused trouble so as to ensure that trouble does not occur in the future. The hon. Gentleman should read the record tomorrow and have the decency to apologise. He should not try to play party politics with sensitive issues about race relations in this country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Martin) made an interesting speech, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern), who spoke about academic freedom. We all listened carefully to those speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South, said that the Liberals, the Alliance, the SDP, the SLD and the Democrats—to name but five —have had no serious experience in government since the first world war and simply do not appreciate how difficult
116
and demanding it is to balance freedom and security, individiual liberty and national interests. We certainly cannot look to them for guidance. That was made manifestly clear in the last three hours of debate. That is why their motion is so impractical.
This is a poignant day on which to debate an SLD motion. Yesterday's results show that the public do not seem to share that party's preoccupation with its view of civil liberties. Its vote fell to such an extent that it is now in fourth place behind the Greens, which suggests that its manifesto commitment to incorporate the European convention on human rights into Community law was not quite the standard to which the electorate wished to rally. As befits a party that we now see in terminal decline, its arguments are impractical and impossible. That is why I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to resist the motion in the Lobby.
Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 16, Noes 164.

Division No. 247]

[10 pm

AYES

Alton, David

Livsey, Richard

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Maclennan, Robert

Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

Beith, A. J.

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Salmond, Alex

Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

Steel, Rt Hon David

Howells, Geraint

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Johnston, Sir Russell

Mr. Archy Kirkwood and

Kilfedder, James

Mr. Ronnie Fearn.

NOES

Alexander, Richard

Forman, Nigel

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Forth, Eric

Amess, David

Fox, Sir Marcus

Amos, Alan

Franks, Cecil

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

French, Douglas

Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Ashby, David

Gill, Christopher

Atkins, Robert

Glyn, Dr Alan

Atkinson, David

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Batiste, Spencer

Gregory, Conal

Benyon, W.

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Bevan, David Gilroy

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Hague, William

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Boswell, Tim

Hanley, Jeremy

Bowis, John

Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Hayes, Jerry

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

Brazier, Julian

Hayward, Robert

Bright, Graham

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

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

Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Hind, Kenneth

Butterfill, John

Holt, Richard

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Carrington, Matthew

Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

Chapman, Sydney

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Chope, Christopher

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Conway, Derek

Hunter, Andrew

Cope, Rt Hon John

Irvine, Michael

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Jack, Michael

Dorrell, Stephen

Janman, Tim

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Jessel, Toby

Durant, Tony

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Evennett, David

Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Fallon, Michael

Knapman, Roger

Favell, Tony

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Latham, Michael

Fishburn, John Dudley

Lawrence, Ivan

117

Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

Sackville, Hon Tom

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Shaw, David (Dover)

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Lord, Michael

Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

Lyell, Sir Nicholas

Skeet, Sir Trevor

McCrindle, Robert

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Macfarlane, Sir Neil

Speed, Keith

MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

Speller, Tony

McLoughlin, Patrick

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Mans, Keith

Stern, Michael

Marlow, Tony

Stevens, Lewis

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Maude, Hon Francis

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Summerson, Hugo

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Mellor, David

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Miller, Sir Hal

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Mills, Iain

Thorne, Neil

Mitchell, Sir David

Trippier, David

Monro, Sir Hector

Trotter, Neville

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Twinn, Dr Ian

Morrison, Sir Charles

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Moss, Malcolm

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Mudd, David

Waller, Gary

Nelson, Anthony

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Neubert, Michael

Warren, Kenneth

Nicholls, Patrick

Watts, John

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Wells, Bowen

Norris, Steve

Whitney, Ray

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Widdecombe, Ann

Page, Richard

Wiggin, Jerry

Patten, John (Oxford W)

Wilkinson, John

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Wilshire, David

Porter, David (Waveney)

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Portillo, Michael

Winterton, Nicholas

Raffan, Keith

Wolfson, Mark

Redwood, John

Wood, Timothy

Rhodes James, Robert

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Riddick, Graham

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Tellers for the Noes:

Roe, Mrs Marion

Mr. Alan Howarth and

Ryder, Richard

Mr. David Maclean.

Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to he agreed to.
Resolved,
'That this House welcomes the extension and enhancement of civil liberties over the last decade; believes that the Government has acted fairly to balance the liberties of the individual with the rights of others and of the community as a whole; and considers that these liberties are fully protected by present constitutional arrangements.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Resolved, That, at this day's sitting, the Pesticides (Fees and Enforcement) Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Fallon.]
Orders of the Day

  Pesticides (Fees and Enforcement) Bill
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  Order for Third Reading read.—Queen's consent, and Prince of Wales's consent, signified.
  10.11 pm
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Richard Ryder): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
  The Bill is designed to make technical improvements to the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985. Above all, its changes will save taxpayers more than £500,000 a year.
  I thank the Opposition, and in particular the hon. Members for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) and for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) for enabling the Bill to proceed smoothly with their full support Upstairs on Second Reading and in Committee. On the basis of that unanimity, I commend the Bill to the House.
  10.13 pm
  Mr. Ron Davies: For the sake of accuracy, I should point out that the hon. Members for Caerphilly and East Lothian are actually two different people. I represent Caerphilly and my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) is unavoidably delayed this evening. The Bill was subject to a brief but interesting debate in Committee. The Opposition supported its central objective, which was to remedy defects in the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 and to recover the £600,000 which the taxpayer currently pays to evaluate the products of the pesticide industry.
  Provision is also made to secure the more effective monitoring of the 1985 Act by local authorities and the Opposition accepted the Minister's assurance in Committee that the local authority associations had been consulted and further accepted that no onerous or unduly costly additional responsibilities were being placed on them.
  The Opposition recognise the value of pesticides to agriculture. However, we are determined to ensure that their use is entirely compatible with the health and welfare of the environment, of those who use them, and those who consume products on which they have been used.
  The registration and review procedures for which the Bill makes financial provision must be thorough but also speedy. Denise Low, head of the Department's pesticides safety division, is reported in Farmers Weekly of 24 March as commenting:
  "Resources are not available for us to deal with routine reviews very quickly."
  I put to the Minister a question that was asked in Committee. Will he use the Bill to ensure a speedy review of the many pesticides approved prior to 1965 and therefore still subject to no formal testing, and ensure also the registering of new products—some of which may be more environmentally friendly and desirable than those they were designed to replace?
  Will the Minister ensure that there is less of the obsessive secrecy that surrounds pesticides, their uses and approvals than currently exists?

  119
  Finally, there remains concern in the agricultural industry that the new levies may fall unfairly and disproportionately across the industry. Will the Minister continue his consultations with trade representatives and ensure some form of public reporting, or reporting to Parliament, perhaps annually, on the scheme's operation as amended by the Bill?
  My hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian wanted to be present in the House this evening, as he carried the burden of the Bill for the Opposition in Committee. However, he has duties in connection with the European elections, and I am sure that at this moment he is savouring the atmosphere of Tory MEP-free Scotland, just as we do in Wales. However, that matter is contentious but the Bill is not. We did not oppose the Bill's Second Reading or its progress in Committee, and we support its Third Reading.
  10.16 pm
  Mr. Geraint Howells: I agree with the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) that the Bill is not contentious, and certainly it has our support. As I did not have the privilege of serving on the Committee, I have one or two questions to ask the Minister. I understand that since 1979 1 billion gallons of formulated pesticides have been used per annum. It is a serious matter that the number of health and safety inspectors dropped by 26 between 1977 and 1986.
  I am informed that some farms are visited only once every six or eight years, while others have never been visited. I declare an interest, in that I do not believe that an inspector has ever visited my farm. More effective policing of spraying activities is needed, and that view was shared by the Agriculture Select Commitee in its 1987 report. The Government appear to have a lack of commitment to the health and safety inspectorate.
  It is reported that, of the 71 incidents reported to the inspectorate in 1986, only 23 were properly investigated, and that inspectors are unable to provide farmers and the public with the information they require about incidents of pesticides poisoning. Although I support the Minister in every way on the pesticides issue, I believe that the Government missed a glorious opportunity to give extra financial aid so that additional inspectors can be appointed to look after the interests both of the public and of the agricultural industry.
  10.19 pm
  Mr. Ryder: I thank the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) for raising three important points, with which I shall try to deal clearly and concisely.
  First, he asked whether the industry would meet the costs, and whether the programme of review and registration would be speeded up. It is no secret that we have recently had some difficulty in completing as many evaluations of both new and old substances as we wished. Industry has a great interest in the rapid processing of new substances, and we are diverting as many resources as possible to deal with the applications. The review of older substances is indirectly in the interests of the companies, but is most immediately a task that we undertake in the public interest to reassure ourselves and the public of their continuing safety. We must balance those private and
  120
  public interests at all times, and I believe that the Bill, by guaranteeing that the funds will be found, will allow us to progress faster in both cases.
  Secondly, the hon. Gentleman asked whether I would seek—in his words—less obsessive secrecy on pesticides. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the work of our advisory committee on pesticides is not restricted by the Official Secrets Act, and industry has said that is not the data but their commercial value that it wishes to protect. We release a great deal of information now, and the issue is really acute only in relation to old pesticides, for which we simply cannot write over 400 evaluations. More resources—and, therefore, the Bill—will help to plug any important gaps in public information that hon. Members may identify. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that we shall do all that we can to provide as much information as possible. If the information is there and its publication is in the public interest, I think that we should encourage the industry to permit it to go out.
  Thirdly, the hon. Gentleman asked whether we would monitor and publish the distribution of resources between companies. The answer is yes. We are conscious of the interest of the industry and the House in the matter. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that consultation is already under way, and I shall inform the House of the outcome as soon as it is available.
  The hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells)—I have always known Pembroke, North as Cardigan, and I suspect that a few people in the hon. Gentleman's constituency do as well—asked me about the availability of resources for enforcement. The strength of the Health and Safety Executive is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment; it does not fall under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture. I shall of course pass on the hon. Gentleman's remarks to my right hon. Friend.
  Let me paint a broader picture of enforcement for the hon. Gentleman. From the outset, officials in our Department envisaged that environmental health and trading standards officers in local authorities would undertake enforcement of part III of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985—FEPA—on the type of premises for which they have enforcement powers under the Health and Safety (Enforcing Authorities) Regulations 1977. It was not envisaged that that would entail the provision of additional resources, as such work would largely dovetail and coincide with duties performed under other legislation, and, indeed, would provide local authorities with comprehensive powers to enforce good practice.
  Discussions with representatives of local authorities have established that they would not be averse to accepting such an enforcement role, but that such work is not viewed by the associations as devoid of financial resource implications—particularly training and litigation, the cost of neither of which can be readily determined. Local authorities intend to await our decision on the local authority officers to be specified to enforce part III before assessing the extent of the training that is necessary.
  The Health and Safety Executive has a well established training scheme as well as a committee—HELA—together with sub-committees for liaison with representatives of local authorities on issues related to enforcement of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. My officials, together with those of the Health and Safety Executive, are seeking ways to use the HELA machinery to train

  121
  authorised local authority officials to discuss the FEPA enforcement issues and to promulgate the kind of advice to which the hon. Member for Caerphilly referred.
  Again I thank him for the support that both he and the official Opposition have given to this small though important Bill. I thank also the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North for his support and for that of his party.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

  MEMBERS' INTERESTS
  Ordered,
  That Mr. Rhodri Morgan be discharged from the Select Committee on Members' Interests and Mr. Bob Cryer be added to the Committee.—[Mr. David Hunt.]

  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.).
  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
    AGRICULTURE
    That the draft Set-Aside (Amendment) Regulations 1989, which were laid before this House on 18th May, he approved.

    JUDGMENTS
    That the draft Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 (Amendment) Order 1989, which was laid before this House on 23rd May, be approved—[Mr. Fallen.]
    Question agreed to.

Housing (Warrington and Runcorn)
10.25 pm
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Fallon.]
Mr. Doug Hoyle: This is a subject which affects many of my constituents, particularly those who live in rented property owned by the Warrington and Runcorn development corporation. Some of the matters to which I shall refer do apply not just to the present Minister, the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Mr. Trippier), but to his predecessor, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe).
Oscar Wilde said:
"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."
In this case, it is not by the people but by the development corporation—aided and abetted by the Department of the Environment and by Ministers.
The history of the matter goes back to 1984 when Warrington borough council first decided to enter into discussions, without prejudice, to see whether it could agree terms with the Warrington and Runcorn development corporation. On 21 March 1985, it formally entered into consultations, which continued until 1986. In July 1986, it was agreed that there was no reason why Warrington borough council should not take over the houses. There were no difficult estates in Warrington; rent arrears worries and vandalism were not a major problem there; the houses owned by the Warrington and Runcorn development corporation were in good condition and of traditional construction; no flat roofs or other structural problems had led to difficulties; staffing levels were low and there was no direct labour organisation.
The proposals were accepted by David Binns, the general manager of Warrington and Runcorn development corporation, who wrote to the Department of the Environment supporting the transfer of the new town housing to Warrington borough council and said:
"Warrington and Runcorn development corporation is in a unique situation in having to organise two housing transfers and two community-related assets transfers, and hence practicality might supersede policy considerations."
There was a problem at that time with Runcorn, too, for he also said:
"Transfer negotiations with Warrington borough council have already reached an advanced stage. Even if Warrington and Runcorn development corporation houses transfer to Warrington borough council, the private housing/public housing ratio in Warrington will still be around 70:30, which is above the national average."
Warrington does not have very large housing estates with demunicipalisation policies designed to break them up.
The negotiations continued, and seemed to be going smoothly until the Peterborough new town tenants were balloted as to who would be their future landlord In an 83·5 per cent. poll just over 93 per cent. of those entitled to do so opted to transfer to Peterborough city council. At that stage the negotiations appered to come to a halt and difficulties began to arise. Although there was pressure for the negotiations to continue, there was a hiatus and it was finally decided that the best way forward would be for housing associations to come into the picture and for tenants to be able to decide whether they liked the way in which housing associations functioned.
The Minister will probably say that it had nothing whatever to do with the Department of the Environment

123
and that it was purely a matter for Warrington and Runcorn development corporation to decide after consultation with the tenants, but I find that most peculiar. If the Department of the Environment had no role in Warrington and Runcorn development corporation reaching that decision, why were Department of the Environment officials involved in the negotiations for the transfer of the management to the housing association before the Warrington and Runcorn development corporation board considered the decision to transfer? If they had no part in the decision, what were they doing?
The answer was clear from the board's report on 14 May 1988. The Warrington housing association wrote to Mr. Lawton, chief executive of Warrington borough council, as follows:
"Thank you for your letter of 28 September 1988 enclosing a copy of the joint recommendation. Your letter and paper were discussed. Warrington housing association welcomes and supports the paper. It accords very closely with the position that we have taken since being invited to be involved in negotiation.
Indeed, Warrington housing association consistently put the case for the borough council's involvement and real tenant choice in our discussions up to and including ministerial level."
I find it quite amazing to be told it was purely the choice of the development corporation when the Warrington housing association wrote that it had been involved in discussions up to and including ministerial level and had asked that Warrington borough council be involved. It would have made sense for there to be a survey to find out the relative cost of the housing association and the local authority as the managing authority.
The consultation that took place lacked democracy. The tenants were given only about three weeks in which to make a choice. In the Warrington area, 5,000 houses were involved. Warrington and Runcorn development corporation received about 2,000 replies, and 99 per cent. were in favour of the local authority. Unfortunately, the Warrington and Runcorn development corporation chose completely to ignore the wishes of those people, saying that they had been subject to pressure from councillors and had not received all the information.
Our problems today arose from that point. The leader of Warrington borough council and I have written to the Minister about the lack of consultation with the tenants and have asked him to intervene. The Minister has hidden behind the fact that he has no authority to direct a housing authority on a management matter, but that is plainly not true. His Department was involved in the run-up to the decision and it was part and parcel of the decision to hand over to housing associations.
The tenants are upset because they have not been consulted. There is no doubt that the Minister could intervene at any time, particularly as he and the Government always talk about tenants' choice. When we saw the handover to the housing association, no choice was given. The Minister relies on the fact that, at some time in the future, there will be a ballot to decide what the tenants want to do—whether they want to stay with housing associations, be managers, or go to the local authority. It is hardly a level playing field. That could happen at any time. In three years, they will have had experience of housing associations, but they will not have had any experience of being under a democratic authority, with Warrington borough council. That is one reason why the tenants are upset.
124
The tenants ask why real consultation and the ballot for the managing agent could not take place. It would have made a lot of sense to have relative costs from Warrington borough council and from the housing association so that a real choice could have been made. If necessary, at some time in future they could have another ballot. At least they would have the choice. They had the housing association thrust upon them without any opportunity to choose. I hope that the Minister will deal with that point today.
I refer now to the eventual sale and to the ballot that will take place before it. The Minister will tell us that it cannot happen at the moment because legislation is to go through the House. I note that housing associations presently have a three-year term as management agents, but the agreement allows for an extension. Again, I refer to the board report of 14 May 1988.
Will the Minister give me an assurance that no extension will be permitted and that the ballot will take place as soon as possible within three years? Although the housing association has taken over, I appeal to the Minister to reconsider his decision not to intervene, and to do so in the interests of democracy and tenants' choice, and allow tenants of the Warrington and Runcorn development corporation, even at this stage, to have the proper consultation for which they are pressing, so that they can decide whether they want the managing agent to be the housing association or the Warrington and Runcorn development corporation. There is no legislation that would prevent Warrington borough council from acting as the managing agent.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss this with the Minister. We have had correspondence. I also welcome the expert advice that he has received from the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Sir F. Montgomery), who also has an interest in this matter.
Sir Fergus Montgomery indicated dissent.
Mr. Hoyle: A close member of the hon. Gentleman's family has an interest in this matter. Therefore, I have no doubt that the Minister will have received some expert advice from the housing associations.
So that my constituents may arrive at a proper choice, I ask that even at this stage they be given proper consultation.
10.30 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. David Trippier): It is customary to congratulate Members on their good fortune in securing an Adjournment debate. However, on this occasion I have to withhold any such benediction. The hon. Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) has resorted to this route to continue to noise abroad his misplaced and erroneous views on this matter. It is perfectly fair to say that despite our political differences, he knows that I have always been more than willing to discuss any matter with him. Those discussions have usually been friendly and, I am pleased to say, productive.
However, on this occasion, the hon. Gentleman did not even bother to ask to see me first about this. Instead an early-day motion appeared on the Order Paper, which is not only misleading but also insulting in the way in which

125
it is written. I am glad to say that some of my hon. Friends were also incensed by this action and tabled an amendment to set the record straight.
Now the Gentleman has decided to raise the matter yet again in this debate. It is a most extraordinary way to carry on. I can only assume that it is a temporary mental aberration brought on by the hon. Gentleman's obsessive concern with this subject, which he misunderstands.
The only good thing to come out of this debate is that it gives me the opportunity to let Warrington and Runcorn new town tenants know what will happen in the future, to give them the facts, and to give them the reassurances that they have been seeking.
I shall initially deal with the future of the Warrington new town housing, as that is the hon. Gentleman's principal concern. The most important point, which he seems incapable of grasping—the wording of his early-day motion makes it clear that he is incapable of grasping this important point—is that there is a fundamental difference between management of the housing and the future ownership of the stock. That distinction is absolutely clear, indeed elementary, but it seems to have suited some people to deny it. So I stress again that management and ownership are two quite separate and distinct issues.
Let me turn first to the management of the housing. I have repeatedly made it clear that who the new town development corporation appoints to manage its housing is a matter solely for the corporation. That was the case for the new town housing in Warrington.
The board of Warrington and Runcorn development corporation proposed in May 1988 to appoint four local housing associations to manage its housing. I do not need to remind the hon. Gentleman or the House that several Members of the Labour party serve on that development corporation. When the corporation took that decision it believed that there would be a number of advantages in doing so. It would ensure that a high-quality management service could be maintained as wind-up approached. It would remove the uncertainties affecting the existing housing staff, as they would be offered jobs with the housing associations where possible. It would also meet the Commission for the New Towns' request not to be directly involved in management of the stock when it inherits it from the corporation in October.
Finally, the board believed, quite rightly in my view, that giving tenants the opportunity to experience a housing association must make for a more informed choice of future landlord by tenants in the ballot of ownership. Everyone knows about the council, as they come into contact with it regularly; but who knows as much about housing associations?
Before I forget the point, I must emphasise that, as far as I am aware, the Labour party has said time and time again in the House that it is in favour of housing associations—non-profit making bodies—and I have not heard a single voice of dissent on that matter. I include the hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Mr. Oakes), who seems to be pleased, or at least satisfied, with the present arrangements.
I am all in favour of any action which makes tenants compare the services offered and rents to be charged by a prospective new landlord, rather than voting for the council on the basis of "the devil you know".
The corporation then consulted tenants on its management proposal as required by law. There is no getting away from the fact that it did consult tenants on
126
that, and that it did consider tenants' views as required before taking the decision to appoint the housing associations as agents. I am satisfied that the corporation acted quite correctly at all times, and that I am not the only one who believes this.
One of the corporation's tenants complained to the local ombudsman about the way in which the corporation took the decision. Having considered the case, the ombudsman decided in January not to pursue the investigation. The reason given was that there was
"no evidence of maladministration by the corporation leading to injustice".
Obviously, some tenants disagreed with the proposal and others who indicated a preference in the consultation to have the borough council as manager. The corporation carefully considered those views, but decided that there were insufficient objections not to proceed with the proposal. To put the whole matter into context, the House will be interested to know that fewer than 100 responded, out of some 4,222 tenants. In fact, specifically, 65 responded, and of those about half were in favour of the council. Therefore, to be generous, we are talking about 34, or perhaps 35, tenants.
The corporation also considered the representations that it received on a proforma that had been distributed by the borough council. I had hoped that the hon. Member for Warrington, North would have condemned the council for the misleading and incorrect information given on that proforma—but, if he will not, then I will. The proforma, surprisingly enough, failed to distinguish between management and ownership—the same mistake that was made by the hon. Member for Warrington, North in his early-day motion—and that created quite unnecessary confusion and uncertainty among the tenants. I refuse to believe that the council did not know the difference between the two.
The proforma was also misleading on rents, as it gave the impression that the borough council would charge low rents if it managed the stock. As I have told the hon. Gentleman previously, the rent levels remain the responsibility of the development corporation. Whoever manages the housing cannot influence the rent level. The recent increase in rents in Warrington is roughly the same as in all other new towns. There is no connection between the general rent increase and the corporation's decision to appoint the housing associations as managing agents. It obviously follows from that that the agency fee, which must remain commercially confidential information, is such that it can be met from the usual resources available to the corporation. The proforma also contained some rather scurrilous comments about social landlords and plaudits for the council, which were completely irrelevant to the issue of housing management.
This is where I am in some difficulty in understanding the hon. Gentleman's stance on the issue. Perhaps that helps to explain why it is that he has managed, on the one hand, to secure a number of people who appear very happily to have gone ahead and signed the early-day motion, which we have already corrected because factually it was incorrect, but, on the other, does not appear to have gathered any support, particularly from neighbouring parliamentary colleagues.
The proforma is very important because it could—and I have no doubt it did—put the fear of God into a number of people's minds.

127
Overall, having considered the matter carefully on a number of occasions, it seems to me that the corporation has acted quite properly in appointing managing agents, and that decision has been implemented. It is in force now and I have no intention of intervening to change matters.
My personal view is that many tenants will learn a lot about housing associations as a result of that agency agreement. I hope that a similar agency proposal by the Milton Keynes development corporation will also be implemented and do likewise there. As I said earlier, that can only be a good thing in terms of the future ballot on ownership. Tenants will actually be able to choose on the basis of the services and terms offered to them, rather than on the basis of misconception and misinformation. I do not see that that tips the scales in favour of the housing associations when it comes to the vote on ownership; rather, it would seem to ensure fairer competition. I can only think that, if the council is worried about the management agreement, it can only be because it might not have a very good case to put to the new town tenants —why else should it be concerned?
I shall now deal with the separate issue of future ownership of the new town housing. This is by far the most important concern for tenants. Who owns the roof over one's head is a basic and crucial matter for every tenant. We have always recognised that. We therefore decided that, as general policy, if a change of landlord is to take place, tenants must first be given a say in the matter. A change of landlord will have to take place in all the new towns as the remaining new town development corporations, and eventually the Commission for the New Towns, are all due to be wound up. Our intention has always been to offer tenants, whenever possible, a choice about the future ownership of their homes.
In Warrington, we have always said that tenants would be given a ballot on future ownership. As yet, I cannot say exactly when the ballot will take place, but that is our firm intention. The choice is likely to be between the borough council, if the council is interested, and a social landlord, such as a housing association, which would be approved by the housing corporation. The social landlord is likely to be one of the housing associations now managing the housing. We proposed this in our consultation paper on new town housing transfer last year and we have now carried it forward into the Local Government and Housing Bill. Clause 143 of the Bill specifically provides for this choice between the council and the approved landlord. The individual choice of tenants will be respected, so if the tenants want to vote for the council as their future landlord, they will be able to do so and that is what they will get. This is a long-running commitment which we have every intention of honouring.
I should like to take this opportunity to say a few words on the future of the development corporation's other
128
housing stock at Runcorn because it is a topical issue. There are two current issues. The first is the future ownership of the housing at Runcorn. The development corporation has been keen to see this settled before it is wound up at the end of September. It has therefore been discussing with RUNHAG, a group of five local housing associations, the possibility of transferring the stock to it, subject to tenants supporting the idea and a price being agreed for the housing. Tenants have generally supported this proposal and have been expecting to be consulted on it. We also welcomed RUNHAG's involvement and have been keen to see the transfer succeed.
Three weeks ago, just as the development corporation was reaching the conclusion of its negotiations with RUNHAG on price, Halton borough council decided that it might—and I stress might—be interested in acquiring the new town housing and threatened legal action to achieve that end. That interest comes very late in the day. Previously, the council had expressed no interest. I asked the council on no fewer than three occasions in the past eight months to make its intentions clear, but it did not do so.
In the circumstances, I think it quite right that the negotiations with RUNHAG should run their course and the tenants should be consulted on this option. I have therefore told the council that I do not intend to ask the development corporation to open negotiations with the council on future ownership so long as RUNHAG remains in play.
The second issue is the future of the Southgate estate. Proper tenant consultation has now taken place. The board of the development corporation will be considering tenants' views tomorrow and the final decision will be taken on the corporation's proposals for demolishing the existing buildings.
I have made my own views on this well known. I am convinced that demolition is the only sensible answer. We shall then have to consider the future of the site, whether some replacement housing might be provided and the timing of any redevelopment. I hope that Merseyside Improved Houses will continue to discuss the options available with the interested parties and that we can meet as far as possible the wishes of existing Southgate residents expressed in the consultation responses.
I repeat our longstanding commitment to give new town tenants in Warrington a chance to vote for the landlord they want, including the council. In the meantime, they will be managed by the housing associations, which I am certain will be able to prove to many tenants that the hon. Gentleman's concerns are completely misplaced and the council's scare stories unfounded. In Runcorn, I hope that very shortly tenants will be able to be consulted on whether they want RUN HAG to be their landlord. I am sure that it would be the right choice.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at six minutes to Eleven o'clock.