Commons Sitting of 9 January 1990

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

  NEW SOUTHGATE CEMETERY AND CREMATORIUM LIMITED BILL
  Order for consideration of Lords amendments read.
  To be considered on Thursday.

  BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL
  Order for consideration read.
  To be considered on Thursday.

  MEDWAY TUNNEL BILL [Lords]
  Orders for Second Reading read.
  To he read a Second time on Thursday.

Oral Answers to Questions
  DEFENCE

    Eastern Europe
    Mr. Terry Fields: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the effect on the level of the United Kingdom's forces of the changing situation in eastern Europe.
    The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Archie Hamilton): We shall continue to give full support to NATO's strategy for peace and security and shall foster dialogue with the nations of eastern Europe while maintaining effective nuclear and conventional forces at the minimum levels necessary for deterrence.
    Mr. Fields: Does the Minister agree that the level of defence spending by the Government is an obscenity and a waste, when a fraction of that money would resolve the ambulance dispute and fund expenditure on the environment, our infrastructure, education, health and other matters? Who is the enemy—surely not our new-found friends in eastern Europe? Why do the Government persist in posturing as the most fanatical cold war warriors in Europe? Is it not time for a rethink and for Britain to take a realistic approach to defence?
    Mr. Hamilton: There is nothing more important than the defence of these islands and although changes are taking place in eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, there is tremendous uncertainty there and nobody knows what the future will bring.
    Mr. Speaker: Sir Alan Glyn.
    Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
    Sir Alan Glyn: Does my hon. Friend agree that, despite all the changes in Europe, in Russia and in the satellite countries, Russia still represents a formidable force and that we should in no way drop our defences but should retain our nuclear deterrent until Europe has settled down and a peace settlement can be reached?
    Mr. Hamilton: My hon. Friend is right. It is probable, indeed likely, that intentions in the Soviet Union have changed, but recently the capabilities of the Soviet Union's forces have probably been enhanced with new equipment that has come on stream. We know that intentions can change and the future is uncertain.
    Mr. Menzies Campbell: Does the Minister accept that the changed political circumstances make it highly unlikely that a follow-on to the Lance missile will be deployed? Will not that make it impossible to sustain the doctrine of flexible response? Does not that in turn make it necessary for the Government to consider a defence strategy based on minimum deterrence?
    Mr. Hamilton: As the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, our NATO partners remain committed to a follow-on to Lance, and that decision will be taken in 1992. Flexible response is an essential part of our deterrence strategy and I should be unhappy to see us move away from that.
    Mr. Speaker: Question No. 2. Mr. Colvin.
    Mr. Colvin: No. 2, with one proviso—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must ask his question. He cannot preface it with a proviso.
    Mr. Colvin: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but the wrong date has been printed on the Order Paper. I do not know whether that is a Freudian slip, but the date should be 1990, not 1999. I fear that the Minister may give me the wrong answer.
    Mr. Speaker: If the fault lies with the Table Office, I shall accept that correction.

    Helicopters
    Mr. Colvin: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he is yet in a position to confirm his order for 25 utility EH101 helicopters for delivery in 1999.
    The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Alan Clark): The EH101 utility helicopter programme is still at an early stage. We are giving our attention to a number of different considerations, but it is much too soon to confirm an order.
    Mr. Colvin: I am disappointed to hear that answer because in April 1987 my right hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger), the then Secretary of State for Defence, promised an order for delivery early in 1990. That gives rise to a couple of questions. First, can my hon. Friend tell the House whether the project definition stage of the EH101 utility version has yet been completed? If not, when will that happen? Secondly, can my hon. Friend

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    say more about the review of the role of the helicopter in the land battle in Europe, which we all badly want to learn about?
    Mr. Clark: I remind my hon. Friend that when my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for Defence made his statement about the order for 25 aircraft, he said that it was subject to contractual and other considerations. We hope that the project definition study will be completed in April. The more comprehensive programme of operation analysis will continue. It is a detailed topic that will affect our consideration of the mix of helicopters and other weapons in the battlefields of the future, and we shall be drawing the appropriate lessons for our procurement.
    Mr. Ashdown: I take this opportunity to tell the Minister of the seriousness—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) has hardly got a word out.
    Mr. Ashdown: I remind the Minister of the seriousness of the situation. Does he realise that the two-year delay is creating a serious impediment to the effective financial management of the project, which is so important both to Westland and to the nation? Is the Minister aware that the delay means that the first type 23 frigate will have to wait a full five years—perhaps one quarter of its total life—before it receives the EH101 for which it was designed, and without which its operational effectiveness will be considerably diminished? How can the Minister continue with that folly?
    Mr. Clark: If the right hon. Gentleman is honest with himself and with the House, he will acknowledge that a number of specification incompatibilities remain to be solved. Until that is done to our satisfaction, we cannot place an order.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Has the specification been properly thought through in regard to the Army and the Royal Air Force? The signs are that both services are unhappy with the EH101 as a basic helicopter for the future.
    Mr. Clark: As I said, there are specification incompatibilities, but it would not be appropriate for me to reveal them to the House. However, they have been fairly well ventilated in the specialist press. My hon. Friend can read those specialist journals and see what he thinks.
    Mr. Rogers: The hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin) said that he was unhappy with the Minister's reply. The Opposition are appalled at the Minister's reply. In April 1987, when he cancelled the NH90 project, the then Secretary of State for Defence gave a firm commitment to the EH101, stating that
    "we intend to place an order for an initial batch of 25 utility EH101s for delivery in the early 1990s."
    We are now in the early 1990s, and still no delivery of EI-1101s has been made because an order has not been placed. That statement by the then Secretary of State and the Government's current statements serve deliberately to mislead the House.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. No Minister deliberately misleads the House.
    Mr. Clark: Characteristically, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) did not complete the quotation. My right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for Defence clearly also used the words:
    "subject to satisfactory contractual negotiations."—[Official Report, 9 April 1987; Vol. 114, c. 470–71.]
    Does the hon. Gentleman want me to order an aircraft before I am satisfied that it is effective and represents good value?
    Mr. Marlow: In view of recent changes in eastern Europe, many of which are irreversible, and given the likelihood that, in future, we shall be less involved in a defence policy that is dependent upon armour, and likely to require a more mobile and flexible capability, does my hon. Friend agree that the Government are more likely to invest in helicopters than in tanks and armoured vehicles?
    Mr. Clark: The mix between helicopters, armour and other weaponry on future battlefields is subject to a detailed programme of operational analysis that my Department is currently undertaking.

    Aldermaston (Police Investigations)
    Mr. Ron Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the progress of the MOD police investigations into malpractice at Aldermaston.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Michael Neubert): I assume that the hon. Gentleman refers to press reports alleging financial malpractice by contractors in connection with the A90 project. I can confirm that certain allegations are the subject of investigation by the MOD police, but it would not be appropriate for me to comment further while that is still in progress.
    Mr. Davies: I can understand the reason for the Minister giving that answer. Does he not think that opportunities for malpractice will be considerably greater after privatisation? Will the Minister give particular consideration to the role of the compliance office, and will he tell the House how the newly contracted atomic weapons establishment will be able to ensure that those responsible for monitoring the operations are not dependent on their relationship with those who are contracting? Will he assure us that the compliance office will not enter into direct contractual relationship with private contractors?
    Mr. Neubert: There are no grounds for believing that there will be greater opportunities for malpractice under contracted management in the future. It is true that the investigations are taking their time, but they will be completed before long and it would be wrong to jump to any conclusions before we know the results. Safety will be given the highest priority. The hon. Gentleman may care to look at the written answer that I gave the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) on that subject.

    Eastern Europe
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the implications for defence procurement of recent events in eastern Europe.
    Mr. Alan Clark: We welcome recent moves to towards democracy in eastern Europe and hope that they will lead to a sustained improvement in East-West relations and enhanced stability and security in Europe. Certainly those events and other developments will continue to form an important part of the background to our considerations of procurement decisions.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my hon. Friend accept that his statement will be widely welcomed among thinking people in the House, because of the troublesome and turbulent times through which Russia is going? Any country that has 386 generals who may find themselves unemployed may decide to make dangerous incursions, and that shows that it is not warmongering to be safe, but making sure that we have peace.
    Mr. Clark: I welcome the note of caution sounded in my hon. Friend's question, against the background of reckless optimism that I have heard in some quarters. Certainly, the events in eastern Europe have reduced the likelihood of confrontation, but I think that we would all agree that they have not enhanced the stability of that region.
    Mr. Douglas: Does the Minister not accept that the threat from the Warsaw pact countries in total has significantly diminished, so the posture of the United Kingdom Government, when they endeavour to retain defence expenditure between 5 and 6 per cent. of gross domestic product, is preposterous in current terms? Should we not be thinking carefully, in view of the implications of a rundown in defence expenditure, about how we can shift from defence manufacturing to civil manufacturing, to meet the needs of eastern Europe and the Third world?
    Mr. Clark: Such changes are purely matters for the commercial judgment of the companies concerned. It may be possible for the Soviet Union to switch its industry, as it has a command-led economy of a fairly Socialist kind. We have heard much ill-thought-out nonsense from the Opposition Front Bench about socially acceptable jobs and funds to shift industry from one form of production to another. I am confident that the flexibility and sense of innovation of British industry will be equal to the events, should they arise.
    Mr. Jack: In the light of my hon. Friend's current procurement programme, will he tell the House how his Department will react to the contents of the West German Defence Minister's letter about the decision on radar for the European fighter aircraft? Can he tell my constituents, who are involved in building those planes, when they can expect to have an answer?
    Mr. Clark: That subject is under close and detailed discussion between the two Governments. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I will be meeting the West Germans in the near future. No decision has yet been made, but we are fully aware of the great merits of the ECR 90 system.
    Mr. Leighton: Does the Minister agree that one of the reasons for the relatively sluggish performance of the British and Soviet economies—and even some difficulties for the American economy—since the war has been the huge burden of armaments that we have borne, and the amount of research and development that we have had to
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    invest? West Germany and Japan, on the other hand, have benefited from not having to bear that burden. Would not the beating of swords into ploughshares as early as possible be very much in our national interest?
    Mr. Clark: All Government spending is a matter of priorities, and the electorate give their verdict on spending programmes at election time. The House will, however, be interested to learn—and I have no doubt that Opposition Members will welcome this—that social security spending is three times as much as defence spending.
    Mr. William Powell: Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be entirely wrong for British defence policy to be adjusted to meet considerations that may be short term? Will he ensure that any changes in the defence budget reflect long-term changes rather than purely temporary factors?
    Mr. Clark: Every Minister responsible for procurement is a victim of the fact that leads and lags in weapon orders ensure that that consideration is observed, whatever private intentions may be.
    Mr. O'Neill: Following the changes in eastern Europe, against whom will the laser guns fitted to type 22 frigates be deployed? Why have those weapons been shrouded in secrecy for so long, and will Britain join the United States and the Soviet Union in giving an undertaking that they will not be used in any peacetime exercises?
    Mr. Clark: It is extraordinary that the hon. Gentleman should make such a fuss—and his off-the-cuff remarks on the subject were an absolute disgrace. He made the ludicrous comment that the weapon was a very dangerous means of self-protection, but surely it is desirable to possess a system that guards against trigger-happiness, and against any repetition of the incident when the United States shot down an airliner by mistake.
    This is a purely defensive weapon with no offensive capability, and it is an essential adjunct to the Royal Navy's armoury in difficult waters where it may not wish to shoot.
    Mr. Hind: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he has any plans to change Britain's defence policy in western Europe following the recent changes in the Governments in East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia; and if he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Tom King): Our policy in western Europe is based on strong support for the NATO Alliance. NATO's commitment to seeking dialogue with the East while maintaining a strong collective defence has undoubtedly contributed to the welcome changes taking place in eastern Europe.
    Mr. Hind: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his answer. Does he agree that, although there have been welcome changes in eastern Europe, it is probably more unstable now than at any time in the past 25 years, and that our defence posture must therefore be cautious? Before making any moves towards a change in defence policy, will my right hon. Friend consider that Mr. Gorbachev has a much stronger hand on the Soviet Union—particularly in relation to dealing with the nationalist movements that are arising on the fringes of the Soviet Union, which would destabilise the whole country and possibly lead to a military takeover?
    Mr. King: I support my hon. Friend's comments about potential dangers and instability. Siren voices suggesting that all the problems were over were heard in a previous defence Question Time, and I remind the House that since then all the events in Romania have taken place and President Gorbachev has threatened to resign. While everyone of good will wishes a successful outcome to the current exciting and important developments, no one can conceal the instability and potential danger of the position.
    Mr. James Lamond: If we were prepared to engage in the conventional forces in Europe talks in Vienna when the position in eastern Europe and the Warsaw pact was much more threatening that it is today, why are we still dragging our feet now? Why has no progress been made in the fourth round of talks, and why does this country not take the initiative in ensuring that money is saved, so that it can be used properly for social purposes, both here and abroad?
    Mr. King: The hon. Gentleman seems to ignore the active part that we are playing, as a full member of NATO, in the current discussions which we hope will lead to a successful treaty on conventional weapons reductions in Europe during the current year. Our policy is clear: what we wish to achieve—our responsibility to this country and our allies—is greater security at lower force and armament levels. We are determined to achieve that aim, and the possibility is there, but it must be soundly based.
    I do not know how many hon. Members listened to the answer that I gave just now. No one can pretend that the present circumstances, especially the developments in the Soviet Union during the past month—the speed of change, and the uncertainty in the area—do not mean that we must do all that we can to advance the cause of peace, while maintaining the security of our country.
    Sir Jim Spicer: It has rightly been said today that it will take time for the Ministry of Defence to bring forward its study and decide what the procurement policy should be. In the short term, however, does not my right hon. Friend agree that it would be right and proper to equip properly the fifth airborne brigade with the necessary number of helicopters, so as to make it truly a mobile brigade which is capable of going into action immediately?
    Mr. King: My hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence Procurement said that the exact balance of battlefield provision is under study. My hon. Friend, with his close interest in these matters, understands very well that the leads and lags in the procurement programme make it important not to change anything without all the background details against which decisions can be made. That is why we shall make sure that at all times we do not put at risk the security of this country.
    Mr. Buchan: After the historic events of the past two or three months, is it not sad that the Conservative party is completely incapable of understanding or attempting to respond to them? Mr. Gorbachev has been taking enormous risks and is running into enormous danger. Due to his actions, the world can now be more hopeful. Does not the Secretary of State have a responsibility to respond? Can the Government not assist Mr. Gorbachev to face the dangers in which he has placed himself? His actions have been on behalf of humanity. For God's sake, act.
    Mr. King: The hon. Gentleman has a very suitable selective memory. Many of us have often seen him rise to his feet from the Opposition Benches to oppose the stand for freedom, justice and liberty in eastern Europe that we have taken. At the very time when the strength and unity of NATO has ensured the possibility of progress and freedom in Europe, I totally reject his intervention.
    Hon. Members: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall hear the hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan).
    Mr. Buchan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am accused on every occasion in the House of opposing freedom. That is a vile calumny and lie. It is disgraceful. The Secretary of State obviously did not listen to a word of what I said during our debates on the Official Secrets Act 1989. If anyone has argued continually in the House for freedom, it has been me and not the Minister. He should withdraw.
    Hon. Members: Withdraw.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We often hear rough statements in the House, but I do not think that an attack has been made on the honour of the hon. Member for Paisley, South, whom the whole House respects.
    Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Conservative Members warmly support the Government's defence policy? Does he not agree that it is ludicrous to ask for a change in defence policy until we make progress on arms reductions with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact countries?
    Mr. King: Throughout the years we have stood for the strong defence of our country and for freedom, democracy and dialogue. It is that which has achieved progress. It is monstrous for the hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan) to suggest that somehow we are holding up that process.
    Mr. O'Neill: Will the Secretary of State be participating in the 35-nation talks in Vienna next week, on doctrine and strategy? If he does not intend to participate in those talks, will his representative convey the need that is felt throughout the House and the country for genuine vision in Britain, taking account of the fact that the future order in Europe will be based not on the security of two blocs but on the security of 35 nations working together in one new grouping?
    Mr. King: I shall be represented by the Chief of Defence Staff and the Vice-Chief of Defence Staff at the talks in Vienna. We shall continue to play a constructive role in trying to strengthen security and peace in Europe. We take some pride in the progress that has been made. Opposition Members complain about a lack of vision when we are achieving more progress, better understanding and a greater chance of peace than we have had in 40 years. We do not consider that that shows a lack of vision.
    Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: As I initially supported the upgrading of short-range nuclear weapons in Germany, I ask my right hon. Friend carefully to reconsider this matter. Has he noticed the views of Lord Carrington and others that such a proposal is unrealistic in the present circumstances, bearing in mind the fact that those weapons will be pointing at East Germany?
    Mr. King: My hon. Friend is aware that at the NATO summit those matters were agreed under the comprehensive concept and it was decided that they should be reviewed in 1992. In view of the rapid rate of change and the developments that are taking place, that is an eminently sensible position to adopt.

    Nuclear Submarines
    Mr. McFall: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent consideration he has given to safe decommissioning of nuclear submarines.
    Mr. Alan Clark: We continue actively to consider the safest way of disposing of decommissioned nuclear submarines.
    I refer the hon. Gentleman to the evidence which my Department gave to the Select Committee on Defence and which was published in its seventh report.
    Mr. McFall: At least three options have been open to the Government, but they have taken none. Instead, they have produced the disingenuous fourth option—wait and see. Despite their prevarication, over the next 10 years at least eight nuclear submarines will be decommissioned, including Dreadnought. As the Defence Committee reported last year, additional submarines stored merely to corrode is no reflection on the Ministry's ability to deal with that long-term problem. Consequently, will the Minister give me a straight answer to a simple question?
    Mr. Clark: In view of the concern expressed in the House and the questions asked by hon. Members before Christmas, I went to Rosyth and looked at HMS Dreadnought. I had conversations with the naval personnel concerned and I am entirely satisfied that there is no danger at present or in the long-term future in mooring that submarine or storing it in that way. During that time the radiation factor is minimal, and that will make it easier to consider the three options to which the hon. Member and the Select Committee referred.
    Mr. Viggers: Does my hon. Friend agree that opponents of civil nuclear power tend to forget that the Royal Navy has been safely operating more than 20 pressurised water reactors for many years, which is a reflection on the safety of nuclear power as well as the superb standards of Royal Navy engineering?
    Mr. Clark: Certainly, and it is those very standards of engineering and construction which make the present policy entirely safe.
    Mr. Boyes: What is the Government's attitude to the London dumping convention's new ruling that the sea-dumping or burial of decommissioned nuclear submarines at sea is not permissible? Are the Government prepared to breach the London dumping convention's suggestion? Have the Government considered any land sites? Have they spoken to the Americans about the Hanford reservation in the United States? Is it not about time that the Minister made a comprehensive statement to the House on this matter?
    Mr. Clark: Although sea disposal has not been excluded as an option, I am keenly aware of public concern here and in the international community about that solution.
    Mr. Sayeed: Is it correct that we have been unable to find a safe way of cutting up the reactor compartment of a submarine and burying it without exposing workers to a considerable radiological hazard? Is it correct that it is much safer for people for the reactor compartment to be encased in concrete and the submarine buried in a deep-sea pit?
    Mr Clark: The reactor would not be cut up and the work force would not be exposed to radiation because we would take care to ensure that the exposure was kept to the minimum. The longer a submarine is stored in the mode that is currently used, the faster the radiation factor degrades. It will be simpler in future to dismantle the reactor compartment in the way that my hon. Friend said.

    Frigates
    Mr. Lofthouse: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what are the implications of the United Kingdom withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation frigate replacement for the nineties project.
    Mr. Neubert: It remains our plan to procure an anti-air warfare escort ship to come into service at the turn of the century to replace the Royal Navy's type 42 destroyers. Following the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the NFR90 project, we are addressing how best to meet that requirement, including the possibility of alternative collaborative arrangements for parts of the programme.
    Mr. Lofthouse: What was the Government's initial expenditure on NATO frigate replacement, and why did they withdraw from the project? Does he think that, whatever the costs were, it was a complete waste of taxpayers' money? Bearing that in mind, does he have plans to ensure that initial expenditure on future projects is kept to a minimum?
    Mr. Neubert: There has been no waste of taxpayers' money. Our participation in the NFR90 project cost £4·5 million, and the value of that work will be reflected in the work that we do on the type 42 successor, which we plan to have in service at the turn of the century or thereabouts.
    Mr. Brazier: Does my hon. Friend agree that the bulk of the money spent on a frigate is on its weapons systems, on which we are still doing much collaborative work? Does he further agree that it would be unnecessary for us to continue to design ships with a dozen teams of naval architects trying jointly to produce a sea camel?
    Mr. Neubert: My hon. Friend is right. There is a close connection between the design of the ship platform and the associated weapons systems. He drew attention to the fact that we have announced our decision to enter into collaboration with partners in the family of anti-air missile systems project for anti-air warfare systems, which will he a considerable advance in the planning and design of the type 42 successor.

    War Widows (Pensions)
    Dr. Moonie: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what representations he has received on the level of war widows' pensions since the statement of 11 December.
    Mr. Tom King: A number of letters have been received, the majority of which warmly welcome the proposals that I announced on 11 December.
    Dr. Moonie: Does the Secretary of State agree with the statement made by his colleague in another place, the Earl of Arran, that it is impossible to revise pensions for war widows without considering the problem of the war disabled pre-1973? If he does, what will he do about it?
    Mr. King: The view that was generally held in the House when I made the statement on 11 December and the strong view of the many people who were campaigning was that war widows occupy a unique position in the affections and respect of the people of this country. Against that background, I was able to make the proposals that I did.
    Mr. John Marshall: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the Government's decision was warmly welcomed throughout the country and that most people regard it as sheer humbug and hypocrisy for the Labour party to raise the issue when it did nothing to deal with it when in Government?
    Mr. King: I do not think that the economy under the Labour Government was ever in a condition to afford such initiatives. I was proud to have the opportunity to make that announcement, which has brought considerable comfort and relief to people for whom many in this country have particular respect.

    Fylingdales
    Mr. Fatchett: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the status of contractorisation of Fylingdales early warning system.
    Mr. Archie Hamilton: The operation of the ballistic missile early warning system at Fylingdales is under Royal Air Force command and control, and will remain so when the system is modernised. However, the maintenance, engineering support and operation of the radars and associated equipment has been carried out under contract since 1964. A competition is currently being run for similar services on the modernised system.
    Mr. Fatchett: Is this not a case of the Government's ideology and blind commitment to privatisation taking preference over the country's security? How many times have Ministers told us about the importance of the Fylingdales installation for national security, and how can they justify those comments if they are prepared to give sensitive maintenance contracts to private contractors, who may easily fall into foreign ownership?
    Mr. Hamilton: I do not understand the hon. Gentleman's words about our "blind commitment" to privatisation. Contractorisation has existed at Fylingdales since 1964.

    US Spending (Europe)
    Mr. Bill Michie: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions he has had with his United States counterpart regarding reductions in United States military spending in Europe.
    Mr. Tom King: I have had a number of valuable discussions with Secretary Cheney at NATO and bilateral
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    meetings in the past three months. At all these meetings, he has emphasised the continuing commitment of the United States to maintain forces in Europe as an essential contribution to NATO's collective defence.
    Mr. Michie: The United States defence budget will be published later this month and it is widely expected that next year there will be a reduction compared with this year which reflects the changing situation in eastern Europe. In view of that and the announcement made by the Soviet Union, why are the Tory Government standing alone in increasing the budget to the tune of over £1 billion a year for the next three years, instead of spending money to help those who need it in this country?
    Mr. King: It is no secret that the United States is considering possible economies in its defence budget and that it has already announced possible economies through the closure of bases in the United States and in relation to its other defence commitments. The hon. Gentleman asked his question as though he were wholly ignorant of the fact that we are at present actively engaged as a full partner in the NATO discussions with the Warsaw pact on the reduction of conventional forces in Europe. We are determined to ensure that we maintain the security of our country and to see how that can be done safely, with a reduction of forces and armaments.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Conservative Members welcome the fact that the United States continues to be a staunch ally of the western Alliance and helps to defend Europe, and that we believe that during the past 10 years that policy has brought the USSR to the negotiating table and has brought about the present state of affairs in eastern Europe?
    Mr. King: I entirely endorse my hon. Friend's remarks. The American commitment to Europe was restated clearly by President Bush at the NATO summit on 4 December. He said:
    "The United States will maintain significant military forces in Europe as long as our Allies desire our presence as part of a common security effort".
    We see, as the United States clearly does, the importance of maintaining strong defences. Strong defences made possible the progress that we now see in eastern Europe.
    Mr. Sean Hughes: In view of the reply by the Minister of State, will the Secretary of State confirm whether it is the Government's position that whatever the prospects of reductions in military spending by the United States and whatever the developments in eastern Europe, they can never envisage a change in the doctrine of flexible response?
    Mr. King: These questions are matters which we keep under continual examination. We must ensure that if we change any arrangements for defence, such as introducing a different balance in helicopters or armour, we do so with a clear understanding of the background. At a time of great instability, the biggest mistake that we could make would be to make rapid changes when we cannot be certain of the outcome.

    Recruitment
    Mr. Butler: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on anticipated levels of recruitment to the services over the next three years.
    Mr. Archie Hamilton: Levels of recruitment over the next three years will be affected by a range of factors, including the success of the measures being taken to improve the retention of trained service personnel.
    Mr. Butler: What measures does my hon. Friend propose to increase the prospects of recruitment?
    Mr. Hamilton: We have already considerably enhanced the advertising budget, which has increased enormously. We are trying to attract ethnic minorities and greater opportunities have been found for women in two of the services. A decision will be taken shortly on the Royal Navy.

    Nuclear Test Veterans
    Mr. George Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent representations he has received about providing compensation for ex-service personnel who took part in the nuclear testing programme.
    Mr. Archie Hamilton: A number of recent representations have been received from right hon. and hon. Members and others regarding compensation for nuclear test veterans.
    Mr. Howarth: Does the Minister accept that every other country in which there are veterans with these problems have now conceded this point? When will this Government concede it, in line with all the others?
    Mr. Hamilton: That is true only of the Americans, and the position in the United States is different from that faced by our nuclear test veterans. We have always made it clear that if we can find direct evidence that nuclear test veterans are suffering from cancer as a result of their service in the forces, we shall compensate them. To date, we have found no evidence to support that.

    Defence Commitments
    Mrs. Fyfe: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will initiate an independent review of the United Kingdom's defence commitments.
    Mr. Tom King: I have no plans to do so.
    Mrs. Fyfe: In the light of developments—[Interruptioni]—in eastern Europe, will the Minister say, when the first Trident submarine arrives—[Interruption.] —at which country it will be aimed?
    Mr. King: I apologise to the hon. Lady, but I heard hardly a word of that supplementary question.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I accept that the Secretary of State did not understand what the hon. Lady said. It is difficult to hear.
    Mrs. Fyfe: The House rather resembles school returning for the first day of term, Mr. Speaker. In the light of events in eastern Europe, when the Minister acquires his first Trident missile, at which country will he aim it?
    Mr. King: The hon. Lady may not be aware that the Labour party supports the need for the maintenance of a nuclear umbrella with the presence of United States forces in Europe. We recognise the need to maintain a balance of nuclear and conventional forces. That is our position and I understand that it is also the Labour party's position.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Archer: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 9 January.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Archer: The right hon. Lady having flatly refused to meet two successive presidents of the Methodist Conference, who were asking to see her on the instructions of conference, may I ask her to say whether the deep concerns of the Methodist people are as much a matter of indifference to her as are the concerns of the other churches, the Royal College of Nursing, the British Medical Association, the Royal Society, the Bar Council and the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom? Has she ever considered as a possibility that everyone else may he right and that she may be wrong?
    The Prime Minister: I am very flattered that everyone would like to come and see me, but I am afraid that there just is not time for all that to take place. The president of the Methodist Conference wrote me a letter. I replied fully to it—the reply received a great deal of publicity—pointing out that despite the complaints of the president of the Methodist Conference, the amount spent on social security was vastly in excess of what was spent by Labour, that the same applied to the amounts spent on health and the disabled, and that this Government had well and truly discharged their duty of increasing the social services available to the people of Britain.
    Mr. Dunn: Does the Prime Minister agree that the first duty of the British Government is to provide the means of defending their people and that it would be foolish in the extreme to change our defence policy now to take account of the short-term changes that appear to be happening in the eastern bloc?
    The Prime Minister: Yes. I agree with my hon. Friend. The defence policy that we have is a NATO defence policy, as was made clear in the replies that I heard by the Secretary of State for Defence to previous questions. It is a flexible response and it can be changed only by NATO. These matters will be considered when the agreements on reductions in conventional arms have been completed. We shall have to consider the issues together so that one nation does not take advantage over another of the reductions.
    Mr. Kinnock: Will the Prime Minister join me today in paying tribute to the skill and dedication of all the ambulance workers who worked at the scene of the tragic multiple crash on the M25 last night? Does she agree that it is inaccurate as well as insulting for those people to be described as merely professional drivers?
    The Prime Minister: I gladly pay tribute, as I have always done, to all the ambulance workers, many of whom are still working full time and many of whom in particular are providing full emergency and accident cover. A number of those at the scene last night were on normal emergency and accident cover, in the usual way.

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    As the right hon. Gentleman knows, it has been our wish—I believe that it has been the wish of the ambulance and Health Service—to increase the number of ambulance staff who have paramedical qualifications. For that reason, the pay offered to the ambulance workers, varying between 9 and 16·3 per cent. according to their qualifications and where they work, was slanted towards those who also have paramedical qualifications.
    Mr. Kinnock: Will the Prime Minister now answer an essential part of the question? Does she agree that to describe the people who went to the scene of the crash last night as merely professional drivers is both inaccurate and insulting?
    The Prime Minister: I have gladly paid tribute to the ambulance service and pointed out that we require a bigger proportion of ambulance workers to have paramedical qualifications so that they can give life-supporting medical treatment at the scene of accidents. For that purpose we have slanted the pay offer to the ambulance workers of up to 16.3 per cent. in London towards those who have the requisite medical qualifications.
    Sir Anthony Grant: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is wholly inappropriate and has never been the case under any Government that Cabinet Ministers negotiate directly with trade unions? Will she confirm that the line that the Secretary of State for Health is taking commands the wholehearted support of Her Majesty's Government?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I gladly confirm that. As my hon. Friend knows, the latest offer of 9 to 16·3 per cent., according to where a person works and his qualifications, included some £6 million of new money. The NHS executive had already moved to make that extra money available and we look forward to the ambulance people settling.
    Mr. Tony Banks: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 9 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Banks: Will the Prime Minister take time today to compare her travel time to work with that of the average Londoner? As she sweeps out of Downing street past those new regal gates in her bullet-proof limo, with the police holding back the traffic and the angry crowds—[Laughter.] her travel time to work is probably about 90 seconds. We should all like that. Is she remotely aware of the terrible congestion on London's roads and the appalling state of London Transport? Will she come out of that bunker in No. 10 and, for once in her life, travel on public transport in London in the rush hour? If she did it just once something would change, but Londoners have to do it twice a day.
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman does not have his facts quite right. I live over the shop, as I have done for years.
    Mr. Page: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 9 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Page: If my right hon. Friend, for perceived electoral advantage, were to change her deeply held views
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    on policies such as unilateral disarmament, the closed shop, sale of council houses and nationalisation, would the voter believe that she or any party that did so would revert to type after the next general election?
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend knows, the Government's policies are founded on sound principles and strong convictions. The policies will not change. The principles are excellent and they have done very well for the British people. We shall continue until the next election and through the next Parliament to pursue the same policies which are relevant, beneficial and advantageous to our people.
    Mr. Andrew Smith: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 9 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Smith: Does the Prime Minister agree that, in the interests of proper public and parliamentary accountability, her former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Lord Young, must now agree to appear before the Public Accounts Committee to answer for the public losses and the threat to jobs at Cowley and elsewhere arising from the Government's giveaway of the Rover Group?
    The Prime Minister: I do not believe that it is at all usual for Ministers to appear before the Public Accounts Committee, for reasons that the hon. Gentleman knows. It is quite a different matter to appear before the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, which I understand my right hon. and noble Friend has agreed to do.
    Mr. Hind: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 9 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Hind: Does my right hon. Friend agree that excessive and irresponsible increases in spending by county councils will lead to vast unnecessary increases in the community charge? Is she aware that Labour-controlled Lancashire county council has increased its expenditure in the past 12 months? If a rate were to be declared, it would represent an increase of 33·4 per cent., which would cause unnecessary hardship to the ratepayers of Lancashire.
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend that unnecessarily high spending will increase the community charge and place an extra burden upon the electors whom councils are meant to serve. Let us look at the settlement for the coming year. In our settlement proposals, the provision for council spending is 11 per cent. more than the corresponding figure for last year. That should be quite sufficient for reasonable programmes and, therefore, a reasonable community charge. If that policy is not followed, I trust that electorates will know precisely what to do and cast their votes against such councils.
    Mrs. Ray Michie: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 9 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Lady to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mrs. Michie: How will Scotland benefit from the single European market if the Government do not heed the

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    warning by Sir Robert Reid that there must be a substantially increased investment in north-south rail links?
    The Prime Minister: Of course, Scotland will benefit upon the completion of a whole common market of the kind that we shall have after 1992. In Edinburgh, for example, we have a flourishing thriving financial centre and one of the things that we are trying to do is to get much greater freedom to sell our services in the market. With regard to manufacturing goods and their movement, I hope that the hon. Lady will read in full Sir Bob Reid's speech, which was very complimentary about the enormous advances made in the past few years during his chairmanship of British Rail. He pointed out a number of things that he wished to see done, some of which require private Bills—particularly the link from Heathrow to Paddington, which would affect everyone who travels down that way. It was some Labour Members—not members of the hon. Lady's party—who prevented the passage of such private Bills.
    Mr. Boswell: Most people think that this is the first Prime Minister's Question Time of the decade. Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to comment on the recent staggering events in eastern Europe and take an early opportunity of going to eastern Europe and telling people there of the benefits of policies based on democracy and free enterprise?
    The Prime Minister: I gladly respond to my hon. Friend's question. The events in eastern Europe confirmed that Socialism has utterly failed and has been totally rejected by the people of eastern Europe who want much greater freedom than they have ever known, a freer market economy and genuine democracy. We shall do all that we can to assist in that aim. We are already giving Poland and Hungary extensive help, in concert with other countries in the European Community.
    Ms. Primarolo: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 9 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Lady to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Ms. Primarolo: The Prime Minister referred to the Government's sound principles and strong convictions. As a mother and grandmother herself, will she explain why her Government have introduced social security changes which mean that a 16-year-old pregnant woman living in a hostel has only £3·65 per week to buy her meals and keep herself—excluding rent and breakfast? What is so sound about those convictions and principles?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Lady knows that benefits were changed so that those living in hostels have the same kind of structural benefit as those living in flats. They got their housing benefit, and of course they will get their rent rebate, and they have the requisite income support. That is very much fairer than favouring one group, who live in one kind of accommodation, against the other.
    Mr. Butler: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 9 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Butler: Does my right hon. Friend share my disappointment at the banks' withdrawal from the student loans scheme? Does it not show that it is naive to depend on alternative economic strategies that involve the banks rationing their own credit at Government request alone?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend. I am sorry that the main banks pulled out of the student loans scheme. I am afraid that it will be disadvantageous for students because it means that they will not be able to have the facilities offered by local banking branches. It is unwise of the students to urge the banks to do that, and it is unwise of the banks to agree to do it—it harms everyone. Nevertheless, the student loans scheme will go ahead.
    I agree with my hon. Friend about credit control. Credit control would not work on days when we had no foreign exchange control, and it would be quite absurd to rely upon the banks to try to operate such a system.

Standing Committee E
3.30 pm
Dame Janet Fookes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As Chairman of Standing Committee E, which is considering the National Health Service and Community Care Bill, I have to report to the House the circumstances in which the Committee adjourned this morning. After repeated requests from the Chair to resume his seat—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a very serious matter.
Dame Janet Fookes: The Chair made repeated requests to the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) to resume his seat because he had persisted in pursuing a matter which I had ruled was not a matter for the Chairman of a Standing Committee. When it became crystal clear that the matter was not to be resolved in any other way, I accepted a motion for the adjournment of the Committee. That motion was passed without a Division.
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Sir Geoffrey Howe)rose—
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have called the Leader of the House.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: The House must take seriously the report made by the distinguished and experienced Chairman of Standing Committee E. From what she has told the House, it is quite clear that the conduct which she has reported made impossible the continued work of the Standing Committee. In the absence of a response to rulings made by the Chair, quite regardless of what was being talked about, I beg to move,
That the Chairman of Standing Committee E, during its sittings to consider the National Health Service and Community Care Bill, shall have power to direct that any Member who disregards the authority of the Chair or persistently and wilfully obstructs the business of the Committee do withdraw immediately from the Committee Room for the remainder of the sitting; and that the Serjeant at Arms shall act on such orders as he may receive from the Chair in pursuance of this order.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must propose the Question. [Interruption.]
Dr. John Cunningham: While it is obviously essential that the House at all times should uphold the authority of the Chair—I say that on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself without equivocation—[Interruption.]
Mr. David Shaw: Is this the behaviour of the next Labour Government?
Dr. Cunningham: Shut up, you fool.
Mr. Speaker: Order. These are very serious matters.
Dr. Cunningham: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Was it really necessary to move the motion, in this way, immediately? Why cannot we have a cooling-off period and hold discussions through the usual channels before we take such an unprecedented step? The motion—although
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it was difficult to hear because of the noise made by the hooligans behind the Leader of the House—gives unprecedented powers to the Chairman of just one Standing Committee—something that the House has never done before—without even the opportunity to discuss what has happened and how we might resolve the matter through the usual channels.
We should pause before rushing into such a decision. I am sure that, with reasonable time, we can resolve the matter satisfactorily in a far better way and in a way more acceptable to hon. Members. After all, it was a decision of the whole House that originally established Standing Committees. If the motion is accepted, it would give to a member of a Standing Committee—albeit the person in the Chair—powers to overrule the decision of the whole House by excluding a Member from the Committee whom the whole House had decided should be a member. Before the House takes such a step, we should pause and consider more fully all the implications.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Allow me to remind the House that the motion is debatable and it is for the House to decide whether to agree to it.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: I am a member of the Standing Committee who wants to debate the important National Health Service and Community Care Bill. This morning the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) delayed the Committee from 10.30 until just after 11 o'clock. The Committee suspended for 10 minutes and, after the suspension, continued for a few more minutes. It became clear that the hon. Member for Workington was insistent upon disrupting the work of the Committee. We have not yet debated even one word of the Bill.
If we are to support the Chairman in running the Committee, it is vital that the House agrees to the motion. It is not unprecedented as it has already happened once this Parliament on Scottish legislation. The quicker that the motion is passed, the quicker the Committee can continue to debate the National Health Service and Community Care Bill, which is of so much concern to all our constituents.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I understand that the motion is debatable, but I am advised that as it is a narrrow motion if I were to veer from it you would intervene, Mr. Speaker, and ask me to resume my place.
May I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the debate that took place on 14 March 1989. On that occasion hon. Members representing the Scottish National party were in similar difficulties. I have read the Hansard report of the speeches made on that day. They show that every hon. Member who managed to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, and to speak was allowed to speak on the motion that had been tabled, which was narrow, in a way that went wider than the terms of that motion. All the speeches made on that occasion went far wider than the motion moved by the Leader of the House. Therefore, on the basis of precedent, I ask you for a little latitude, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman to clarify matters? His example took place against a totally different background. The whole House will understand

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—I think the hon. Gentleman accepts this—that he cannot rehearse in the Chamber this afternoon a matter that has already been ruled out of order in Committee.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I drew attention to the example only because the motion that the Leader of the House read at the Dispatch Box at that stage in 1989 is almost identical—I have it with me—to the motion tabled by the Leader of the House today. I believe that that is a precedent which allows me to go a little wider than the motion.
This morning, as the House knows, I was involved in a little difficulty in Committee. I want to make it clear to the Chairman of the Committee that it is not my intention to disrupt the proceedings of the Committee in future. Therefore, the motion need not have been tabled if the Leader of the House had come to me to ask me my—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: One of the Government Whips was kind enough to do that and came to me in the Tea Room to ask me that. I presume that he revealed my intentions to the Leader of the House. The motion need never have been tabled. It has been tabled for other reasons—because some Conservative Members do not want the issue that I raised in Committee to be raised in public or to be given an airing before the British public—
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Will my hon. Friend give way? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] This is a debatable motion. My hon. Friend has referred to incidents in Committee this morning. In view of the fact that the Committee took certain decisions and that the Chair took one—to suspend the Sitting—and as this matter is now before the House, those members of the Committee who were privy to the incidents and the statements made are fully aware of the facts, which we in the Chamber are not. As we are now debating the motion, it is important that the House should know, from my hon. Friend and others, exactly what took place and what statements were made. We cannot properly decide the issue unless my hon. Friend is able to reveal in full exactly what took place and what was said.
Mr. Speaker: That is fair enough. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) can certainly touch upon the matter. However, it would not be in order for him to outline at length a matter that the Chairman of Standing Committee E ruled out of order.
Mr. Campbell-Savours rose—
Mr. Ted Rowlands: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is a specific point of order because the House is in some difficulty. By all means let us have accounts—I am sure that we would have a faithful and honourable account from both the Chairman of the Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours)—but would it not be sensible for us to pause to read the Hansard report of the Committee proceedings before debating the motion?
Mr. Martin Flannery: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is impossible for the House thoroughly to understand what happened unless what my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) has just suggested is done. We
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need to have the verbatim report of what happened in the Committee. Without seeing that, to continue with what is happening would be a violation of democracy.
Mr. Jerry Hayes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As a member of Standing Committee E, may I say that the issue is not about what was discussed, but about the behaviour of the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) and the discipline which the Chair must exercise from time to time. I sat through that Committee for two days, and the hon. Member for Workington—whose forensic skills I admire—disrupted it. That is what this matter is about, and nothing else.
Mr. Speaker: Order. We do not want points of order on this decision. I sense from the mood of the House that there is a feeling that we should reflect on the matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "No".] Order. The purpose of the motion is to give the Chairman of Standing Committee E the authority to suspend a Member from the Committee if her orders are disobeyed. The shadow Leader of the House has already said that we must uphold the tradition in this Chamber of obeying the Chair's rulings. I hope that the House will always do that.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: You, Mr. Speaker, said that you would let me proceed if I did not seek to touch on these matters at great length. It is not my intention to do so. I want to touch on the matter only briefly.
I raised the matter of a company called Michael Forsyth Limited—a lobbying, public relations company which trades on the name of a Minister of the Crown. The secretary to the Minister, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth), is a lady called Griselda Hayes, who is not currently in the House. She has been, and is, acting as the Minister's secretary and is the wife of the man who bought half the company from the hon. Member for Stirling. Therefore, there is a direct link with the Minister's secretary in the House of Commons, who sees the mail of hon. Members when they write to him—if the correspondence goes via the Letter Board as opposed to going direct to the Department. I object to this lady's access to mail on the basis that she might see correspondence from hon. Members about issues relating to privatisation when her husband owns half the company, Michael Forsyth Limited, which is involved in public relations, and promoting privatisation.
I know, although the Minister denies this, that he has an informal agreement whereby if he is sacked and loses his job as Minister or—[interruption]
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must hear what the hon. Gentleman says.
Mr. Andrew Rowe: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member to continue to bring to the attention of the House a personal matter that a Minister has already denied?
Mr. Speaker: This is the problem with such matters. The House has to make a decision about whether the motion should be passed, and it is difficult to make that decision until it knows the background to the matter.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I moved the adjournment of the Committee this morning after we had reached the stage when the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) would not resume his seat when

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asked to do so, would not desist from making a speech when ruled out of order and barracked the rulings of the Chair. As a result of that misbehaviour, it seems that the hon. Gentleman is now being allowed to make a speech that was out of order this morning and is out of order now. [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. How can I possibly rule on the Secretary of State's point of order if he is not allowed to make it?
Mr. Clarke: There is a difficulty here, which is why we have come from the Standing Committee to the Floor of the House. The hon. Member for Workington is a procedural expert to a greater extent than I am. Until this morning I did not know that a Chairman of a Standing Committee had no power to suspend a Member in circumstances in which you, Mr. Speaker, would suspend a Member. My belief is that the hon. Gentleman persisted this morning thinking that he would be suspended and then found that he could not be. That is the issue, and it is the only issue, that we have brought to the Floor of the House.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. These proceedings do not bring any credit to the House.
Mr. A. J. Beith: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. You were right to say that there are aspects of these proceedings which do not bring credit to the House, but these proceedings have been initiated because the Leader of the House brought a debatable motion before the House. Some hon. Members now realise that under that motion matters will be raised that they do not wish to have raised.
You have already said, Mr. Speaker, that some degree of reflection might be preferable, and I wonder why the Leader of the House did not realise that before he moved the motion. As the Committee need not sit again until Thursday, the matter may be deferred to allow for a more careful debate and for hon. Members to have the motion before them. We are all being asked to consider a motion that has not been printed, to which it has not been possible to devise any amendments, and whose implications we cannot consider. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to give the Leader of the House the opportunity to withdraw the motion and to deal with the matter in a more sensitive way.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: The shadow Leader of the House made the point—
Mr. Campbell-Savours: Is this on a point of order?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: Yes. I respond to the point of order that has just been made.
The shadow Leader of the House made the point that the matter was entitled to be considered clearly and in silence. The position quite simply is that, having suspended the proceedings of Standing Committee E this morning in the light of the adjournment motion that was moved and accepted—the Committee has achieved no useful work this morning, having made no headway on the substance of the matter—the Chairman of the Committee reported to the House that that had happened as a result of the repeated failure of the hon. Member for
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Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) to respond to her rulings. Therefore, the matter comes before the House on the simple point of the need, as a matter of order, to uphold the rulings of the Chairman.
The shadow Leader of the House is entirely right to say that this is not a matter that arises frequently. Fortunately, it has not been necessary to raise it frequently. Without the Chairmen of Standing Committees being armed with the authority that you, Mr. Speaker, have, their rulings have been accepted without question. It is because that has not happened in this case, and having attempted to find a solution through the usual channels, that I have moved the motion. It would have been preferable if a comprehensive undertaking could have been given through the usual channels, but in the absence of such an undertaking, and in the face of the fact that the Standing Committee is due to resume its work at 4.30 this afternoon, it seemed to me right beyond question that I should move the motion to uphold the authority of the Chairman of the Committee.
Dr. Cunningham: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I know that the Secretary of State for Health finds it difficult to accept arbitration. Perhaps he will reflect on the fact that that is exactly what he, together with the Leader of the House, is being offered in this case. My hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) has already made it clear that he has no intention of continuing to disrupt the Committee, and that the Government Chief Whip had that information some considerable time ago, so I wonder why the Leader of the House has rushed the motion before us. As he has done so, and as the motion is debatable, I hope that Conservative Members will, like me, respect the authority of the Chair and will allow my hon. Friend the Member for Workington to continue his speech.
Mr. Speaker: Before the hon. Member for Workington does so, I remind the House that, although the motion is debatable, there is other important business to consider. When the authority of the Chair must be upheld, that matter must be dealt with responsibly. The hon. Member for Workington has outlined the reasons why he refused to obey the Chair earlier today, and he must not go further in stating on the Floor of the House what was said upstairs and then ruled out of order.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: You are absolutely right, Mr. Speaker, in saying that I have already outlined the reasons for my action, but I want to make one final point.
This morning, I made it clear to the lady Chairman of the Committee, and to the Government Whip, the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Knight), in the Tea Room, prior to the House sitting this afternoon, that I had no intention of disrupting the proceedings of the Committee in the future. I understand that that reassurance has been conveyed to the Government Chief Whip, and it should have reached also the Leader of the House. Therefore, there was no need for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to move his motion.
I said that Michael Forsyth Limited is trading in the name of a Minister of the Crown. I also have to say that the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) has made an agreement with the new director—
Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Member is alleging that something irregular has occurred, that must be dealt with as a matter of privilege. Alternatively, if it is a question of

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interests outside the House, the Select Committee on Members' Interests, of which the hon. Member for Workington is himself a member, should consider it.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I have already checked, Mr. Speaker, that it is not a matter of privilege, and nor is it a matter for the Select Committee on Members' Interests. The rules governing such matters are instead set down by the Prime Minister. They cover the conduct of Ministers' private affairs, and they are not matters over which the Committee of which I am a member has any jurisdiction. This morning, I simply asked the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland a question, which was whether he would give the Committee an undertaking that he would not—
Mr. Cranley Onslow rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall call the Chairman of the 1922 Committee, but I have not had a report of what happened in Standing Committee E.
Mr. Onslow: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. Surely we are debating whether the Chairman of a Committee should be given further powers to deal with a disorderly situation when it arises in his or her Committee. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that we are not here to challenge the ruling that was made this morning. However, judging from the expression on the face of the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), let alone from his words, it is his intention to achieve precisely that objective. It would not be inconsistent with the wishes of the House that the authority of the Chair should take priority over the preferences of the hon. Member for Workington.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. As I understand it, my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) attempted to make a point of order in a Committee this morning. It was obviously inconvenient for the Government, but hon. Members have the right to free speech.
The problem for the Chairs of Committees is that they do not have power to suspend a Member but have to work, or have done since I have been in the House, by persuasion, and it is often extremely difficult.
I remember a Committee which was considering a social security Bill in which a Member kept talking while the Chair was putting the Question and taking the votes. The Chair used all the available powers to keep the proceedings in order. It would be an unfortunate precedent if, in an attempt to gag hon. Members, we changed the balance of power between the Chair and the Committee. They have the power to achieve things by persuasion whereas you, Mr. Speaker, have the power to exclude Members, but that is based on the fact that it is in the best interests of the House, and you are normally supported in that. For the Chair of a Standing Committee to exercise similar powers, without the whole House having the opportunity of access to all the information, would be unfortunate.
Mr. Speaker: That is a matter that the hon. Member might raise if I call him to take part in the debate.
I think that the whole House will accept that we must uphold the authority of Chairmen of Standing Committees. If we fail to do that, anarchy will prevail, and
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we cannot have that. Let us now come to a decision on the matter—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I call the hon. Member for Workington, but please be brief.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: We could curtail the debate quickly if I were to be allowed to finish my brief remarks. I simply asked the Minister to tell the Committee that he would not reacquire his interest in Michael Forsyth Limited in the future, or that his wife would not acquire that interest. People in the industry believe, and I have been told reliably, that he has an agreement to reacquire those shares if he loses his job as a Minister or if he loses his seat in Parliament. That is the issue.
Mr. Speaker: Those are allegations that the hon. Member cannot sustain. I have heard enough of the background to this case.
Mr. Michael Foot rose—
Mr. Campbell-Savours: May I finish my speech?
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Foot: As the House is now aware, this is a debatable motion, although that was not immediately evident, I thought, to the Leader of the House when he moved it. If he had known that when he moved the motion, he might have made at the beginning the speech that he later delivered on a point of order. If he had explained the situation at the beginning of our proceedings, it might have been somewhat different, although I think that it would have been unsatisfactory from the point of view of the vast majority of right hon. and hon. Members.
Of course, it is right to emphasise that the authority of the Chair here and in Committees must be upheld, as my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), other hon. Members and you, Mr. Speakers, have said. However, that authority cannot be upheld by motions moved in this form when the House has not had the chance to consider what they are about. The Leader of the House had a second opportunity—he is shaking his head before he even knows what I am going to say. That may be the safest way in the Cabinet: if they shake their heads later, they will be lopped off.
This is a serious matter. Let me say again to the Leader of the House that if he wishes our proceedings to be conducted properly—and I understand the motives that persuaded him to move the motion—he must withdraw the motion. He will then have a chance to give not only my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland, but hon. Members on both sides of the House the opportunity to consider it. If he really wishes to uphold the authority of the Chair, that is the best way for him to go about it. But if he tries to rush through the motion as he did at the beginning—without knowing or considering the consequences—far from upholding the authority of the Chair, he will be creating still more confusion.
For the third time, I invite the right hon. and learned Gentleman to take the obvious course. If he does not, however, the motion will still be debatable, and I believe that all hon. Members will exercise their right to debate it. Even on the lowest ground, that of assisting Government business—and hon. Members cannot sink any lower than that—much the most sensible course is for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to withdraw his ill-considered motion and to move it again tomorrow after consultation.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Mr. Speaker—[HON. MEMBERS: "Is this a point of order?"] No, it is a contribution to the debate. I propose to make three brief points. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) will doubtless agree with the first two, although he will probably not agree with the third.
First, let me respond to what was said by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett)—
Mr. Andrew Faulds: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If the Secretary of State is allowed to make a speech, why was my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) not allowed to do so?
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) had already made his speech.
Mr. Clarke rose—
Mr. Campbell-Savours: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask for your guidance? When my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) rose earlier, may I take it that you regarded that as an intervention in my speech?
Mr. Speaker: I had said to the hon. Member for Workington that I thought that he had made his case in sufficient detail for a judgment to be made on whether the motion should be passed, and I therefore called his right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot).
Mr. Clarke: In response to the—
Several Hon. Members: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Such behaviour disfigures our proceedings. I call the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker).
Mr. Jeff Rooker: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. To avoid any confusion that may arise later, will you please explain to the House whether, there being no written motion before the House, a manuscript amendment can be submitted? Will you also tell us whether there is any fixed time limit that would force the debate to end before 10 pm?
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Will hon. Members allow me to deal with one matter at a time?
Hon. Members will find the precedent on page 323 of "Erskine May". Such motions may be moved without notice and are debatable. The debate could continue until 10 pm, although I hope that it will not.
Mr. Clarke: The first point that I wish to make, in response to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett), is that there is no question of criticism of the hon. Member for—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. I did not answer the second part of the question of the hon. Member for Perry Barr. The motion is amendable by means of a manuscript amendment.
Mr. Ivor Stanbrook rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put; but MR. SPEAKER withheld his assent and declined then to put that Question.
Several Hon. Members: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am on my feet. The dignity of the House would be best served if we were to proceed with the debate. I have a suspicion that a manuscript amendment is being prepared.
Mr. Dave Nellist: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: No. Points of order of this kind do not help in any way at all.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The House is in difficulty over this matter. As I have already said, a manuscript amendment, which I should be prepared to consider carefully, is being drafted. Let us listen now to what the Secretary of State for Health has to say.
Mr. Clarke: I think that the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) would agree that he is not—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Norman Buchan: My hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) was in the middle of his speech.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Buchan rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan) must resume his seat.
Several Hon. Members: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I shall hear the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith).
Mr. Beith: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have to raise this matter, because it is of the greatest importance to the freedom of speech in the House.
I may have misunderstood what you said a few moments ago. My first understanding of what you said was that you had called the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) to order because it seemed that he might be straying beyond the terms of the debate. That would have been right and necessary for you to do. However, some of your later comments led me to believe—I am sure that I was wrong in this assumption—that you had ordered the hon. Member to resume his seat and to bring his speech to an end.
I am able to hear things that are said by hon. Members who are sitting near me that you, Mr. Speaker, are unable to hear. I believe that a number of hon. Members thought that you had caused the hon. Member for Workington to cease speaking. I know—and you know far better than I—that it does not lie within Mr. Speaker's power to do that. As I understand it, you asked the hon. Member for Workington to cease to refer to anything that was either outside the terms of the motion or ought to have been raised as a matter of privilege and that you would have

831
given him the opportunity to continue his speech if you had realised that he wished to do so. Am I right in that assumption?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) said that he knew that, if it were moved, this motion would be narrow. I had already pointed out to him, both in private and in public, the extent to which he could go in the debate. He went to that point. My understanding then was that he had made his contribution—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Then I called another hon. Member to speak. That is that position. I have already called the Secretary of State. [HON. MEMBERS: "On a point of order, Mr. Speaker."] I shall hear the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook).
Mr. Robin Cook: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I try to assist the House? It is quite clear that the debate inevitably turns on what happened this morning in Standing Committee E. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Whether we are debating what was said in Standing Commitee E or whether Standing Committee E was disrupted, the debate inevitably turns on what happened this morning in the Standing Committee. If the motion is persisted with, the House will be invited to take a view on what happened in Standing Committee E. Surely, therefore, it would be wrong for allegations about what happened this morning to be made in the Chamber before hon. Members have in front of them the verbatim record of the Committee's proceedings.—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) says that the words are irrelevant to the Committee's behaviour. We cannot judge its behaviour without having the record of that behaviour in front of us. It is perfectly clear that the Secretary of State intends to refer to what he says happened this morning.
May I put it again to the Leader of the House that, whatever he may think about the merits or otherwise of the motion he advanced 45 minutes ago, it would be better for the House to debate it when we have the verbatim record? May I press him on an additional point? We are now in difficulty that Standing Committee E is due to resume the sitting at 4.30 this afternoon, at which point all those hon. Members who are aware of what happened this morning will vanish from the Chamber. In those circumstances, surely it must be self-evident that the debate must be deferred for future and further consideration.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The House is in a difficulty about this. I propose to suspend the House for 15 minutes so that discussions on this matter can take place through the usual channels.
Sitting suspended at 4.15 pm.
4.30 pm
On resuming—
Dr. Cunningham: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During the brief suspension I have taken the opportunity to discuss the situation not only with the Leader of the House but with my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), who has renewed to me his assurance—the assurance that he first gave to the House some moments ago—that it is not his intention to disrupt the Standing Committee's proceedings any further.
832
In the light of our discussions and that new assurance, I hope that the Leader of the House will now respond postively—[Interruption.] It is a clear undertaking, as I said earlier, and I repeat it now. I therefore invite the Leader of the House to respond positively and to withdraw the motion.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: Two points have emerged clearly from what has been said on both sides of the House, including by the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot). The first concerns the importance of upholding the authority of the Chair.
Dr. Cunningham: I apologise to the Leader of the House. I said—I repeat it willingly—that of course we uphold the authority of the Chair in all circumstances, including the circumstances in which the hon. Member for Plymouth, Drake (Dame J. Fookes) found herself earlier. I give that absolute assurance again, as I did at the beginning of my original remarks.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for his confirmation of that because it was a point that emerged clearly, even from the characteristically mischievous but well-intentioned intervention of the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent. I appreciate the support of the right hon. Gentleman as a former Leader of the House, and also that of the shadow Leader of the House.
Secondly, the undertaking now given by the shadow Leader of the House on behalf of, and affirming that given by, the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) was of a character not available through the usual channels, despite our search for it at an earlier stage this afternoon. Had that position been different, the question of moving the motion that I moved would also have been different.
The undertaking now having been given and the House having plainly been assured from both sides that the authority of the Chairman of the Standing Committee must and will be upheld, we have a different situation from that which prevailed when I moved the motion.
The allegations advanced in the Committee upstairs which were the subject of the ruling by the Chairman of the Standing Committee have in substance been reasserted on the Floor of the House this afternoon. That is, for me arid for most hon. Members, a matter of the utmost regret. It is fair to my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) that I should make it clear that he firmly rebutted those allegations during the Committee's proceedings. I hope that they can be left to rest on the basis that they should never have been made. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] On the basis of the assurance given by the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) and his confirmation that the authority of the Chairman of the Committee will be upheld, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr. Roger Gale: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Now that the matter has been put to bed, you will be aware that this afternoon we have witnessed the shameless use by one hon. Member of the television cameras to smear the reputation of another. [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the House has dealt with that matter. I deeply regret that it has arisen in this way.
Mr. Gale: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I regret to have to press the matter further. This afternoon we have witnessed the use of the cameras on live television to smear a Member of this House. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) would not have said what he did outside the House and every hon. Member knows it. As a Back Bencher, I appeal to you Mr. Speaker. It is your clear duty to protect Members of the House. When these proceedings are over, will you consider what measures can be taken to ensure that such circumstances do not arise again?
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the House will not persist with this matter. Allow me to deal with it. We must deal with each other in this place as men and women of honour. It is not in our traditions that we should smear each other in the House. The hon. Member informed the House of what had occurred in the Committee this morning and at a certain point I asked him to desist. We should now continue with our proceedings.
Mr. Bob Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is clear that the events of this morning, of which some of us knew nothing until the hon. Member for Plymouth, Drake (Dame J. Fookes) reported to the House, have put both the House and yourself in some difficulty.
I wish to put to you a point which is a matter of precedent relating to the powers of the Chair and hon. Members who are on their feet. You made it clear that my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) had assumed and affirmed that the scope of the debate on the motion moved rather precipitately by the Leader of the House, was narrow. My hon. Friend developed several points, which you informed him were outside the scope of the debate. At that point you called my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) who made an effective speech. Some of us were under the impression that you called him to make a point of order. At that point my hon. Friend technically had not completed his speech although in your judgment he was moving outside the scope of the debate.
It is within the power of the Chair to ask an hon. Member not to pursue a point if it is beyond the scope of the debate or is not in order, and you did so. As a matter of precedent, is it not the case that the Chair has not the power, other than through the ten minutes rule or on matters relating to order, to ask Members to resume their seats and that only on a matter of content can they be ordered to pursue other matters? I hope that you can confirm that on future occasions, which I hope will not arise, hon. Members will be able to complete their speeches, as you will agree is right.
Mr. Speaker: Allow me to explain. I regret that there has been some confusion this afternoon. I have no authority to order an hon. Member to sit down unless he is out of order. I was under the impression that the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) had completed his speech. That is why I called the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot). If the hon.
834
Member had not completed his speech, I apologise to him. In my judgment, he had reached the point at which it would not have been in order for him to go further.
Mr. Ivan Lawrence: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can you tell us whether the conclusion of these proceedings is now a precedent? If it is a precedent, is not the precedent this—that if one shows contempt for the ruling of a Chairman of a Standing Committee and subsequently, having caused the disruption of that Committee, gives an undertaking that it will not happen again, no further proceedings will follow? Is that the kind of precedent that we are expecting to establish today?
Mr. Onslow: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not evident that the confusion that has been caused in the House this afternoon has its origins in one simple fact, which is that Chairmen of Standing Committees do not have power to suspend members of those Committees for unruly behaviour? They do not have such powers because no member of a Standing Committee has previously behaved so badly as the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) behaved on this occasion—of that there can be no doubt. Would not the best way out of this difficulty be for the whole matter to be referred to the Select Committee on Procedure so that a judgment can be made? Then the hon. Member for Workington, who is a member of that Committee, can argue his point, although I doubt whether his argument will carry much conviction.
Mr. Speaker: I do not think that we can pursue this matter to any benefit today. It is perfectly true, as the right hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) said, that the Chairmen of Standing Committees—
Dr. John Reid rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am on my feet.
As the right hon. Member for Woking said, Chairmen of Standing Committees, whose authority must always be upheld, do not have the powers that the Speaker has. It may well be that the Select Committee on Procedure should consider the matter.
Dr. Reid: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I raise this point of order reluctantly because, like my hon. Friends, I am aware that very important Scottish business is to follow immediately afterwards. I am also aware that many people in Scotland will regard today's events—both the byzantine rules and the substance of what was said—as very important. The motion was withdrawn after discussions, through the usual channels, of three issues. The first two, I accept. The third was a statement from the Leader of the House to the effect that the allegations have been rebutted by the Minister concerned and assurances given. I want to know—this is a point of order for you, Sir—and I am sure that the people of Scotland will want to know, whether that means that assurances have been given by the Minister that the company trading—
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Dr. Reid: —will not be bought by—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have already said, and the hon. Gentleman, although he was not with us before this

835
Parliament, knows, that we do not make allegations against each other in this Chamber. If we seek to do so, it must be by a motion on the Order Paper.
Sir Hugh Rossi: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. If the principle established by this afternoon's proceedings is that the authority of Chairmen of Standing Committees must always be upheld, how can we have been discussing what happened before a ruling was made by the Chairman of a Standing Committee? If we have such a discussion, it means that the House is being invited to stand as a court of appeal upon that ruling. With respect, Mr. Speaker, it should be made perfectly clear that if a Chairman of a Standing Committee has made a ruling, that ruling cannot be questioned by the House. We must then determine whether an hon. Member has acted properly in accordance with that ruling. That is not what we have been doing this afternoon.
Mr. Speaker: In order that the House can make a judgment on whether a motion should be carried or not, the arguments must be heard, and that is exactly what happened this afternoon. I must say to the House, however, that I think that these proceedings bring no credit on us and that it would be very wise indeed for the Select Committee on Procedure to look carefully at the powers that are given—or not given, in this case—to the Chairmen of Standing Committees. Their authority must be upheld and the hon. Member for Drake was quite right to come to the House to report to the House what happened in Committee.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We have a heavy day ahead of us, and a great many hon. Members wish to speak.
Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. There have been a number of requests that you should report today's events to the Select Committee on Procedure. The Chairman of that Committee, who takes a deep interest in these affairs, is not here today. May I suggest, therefore, that to avoid any repetition of such a series of events, you ask the Procedure Committee to investigate the whole structure of rules relating to Members' interests and to tighten them up? That would render discussions such as those held this morning unnecessary because Ministers would not be involved.
Mr. Speaker: That is a matter not for the Procedure Committee but for the Select Committee on Members' Interests.
Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: Further to the point or order, Mr. Speaker. I think that we should clarify, for the record, which of two things the House was doing. If the motion tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House had purported to censure the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) and to punish him in some way—by exclusion or anything else—it would have been perfectly right for the House to debate the circumstances of the Chairman's request to him, with which he did not comply. I did not see my right hon. and learned Friend's motion in writing, but as I understand the matter, the motion did not seek to censure anybody. Instead it would have conferred powers on the Chairman of the Standing Committee. It cannot, therefore, have been in order to go into what happened in that Committee only for the House to decide whether to
836
uphold the authority of the Chairman of the Committee. I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that I think that it is a matter for regret that the House did not proceed with that motion, which represented the only possible way of upholding the authority of the Chairman of that Committee.
Mr. Speaker: We can best bring this matter to a conclusion by repeating that the House was being asked to confer power upon the Chairman of a Standing Committee to exclude a Member if he misbehaved. The hon. Member for Drake did not have that power this morning. The motion before the House was a debatable motion and the House was not asked to give a rubber stamp to what the Leader of the House proposed. The House had every right to debate whether the Chairman of a Standing Committee should have that power. The matter has now been resolved. I hope that we shall never get into such a difficulty again, and that we may leave the matter there.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have nothing more to say on this matter.

BILLS PRESENTED

  COALMINING SUBSIDENCE (DAMAGE, ARBITRATION, PREVENTION AND PUBLIC AWARENESS)
  Mr. Alan Meale, supported by Mr. Frank Haynes, Mr. Dennis Skinner, Mr. Joe Ashton, Mr. Harry Barnes, Mr. Don Dixon, Mr. Harry Cohen, Mr. Eric Illsley, Mr. Martin Redmond, Mr. John Prescott, Mr. Alexander Eadie and Mr. George J. Buckley, presented a Bill to establish the rights of owners of houses, land, buildings and other constructions which have suffered damage due to subsidence resulting from the working and getting of coal or of coal and other minerals worked therewith, to full repair or equitable compensation of their properties; to establish an independent arbitration procedure to resolve any disputes that may arise out of such damage or any matters relating thereto; to require any public body or organisation involved in the working or getting of coal and other minerals to take steps to prevent subsidence damage and to promote public awareness of working which might give rise to such damage:
  And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 26 January and to be printed. [Bill 46.]

  FOOTBALL SPECTATORS
  Mr. Alan Meale, supported by Mr. Denis Howell, Mr. Joe Ashton, Mr. Jim Lester, Mr. Tom Pendry, Mr. Eric S. Heifer, Mr. David Blunkett, Mr. Robert N. Wareing, Mr. Harry Barnes, Mr. Brian Wilson, Mr. Peter L. Pike and Mr. Don Dixon, presented a Bill to establish a statutory liaison body for the sport of football, to include in its membership the various footballing authorities and their agencies, Football League clubs, the Sports Council, football supporters' organisations and other necessary bodies; and to make provision for changes in the organisation and function of the sport; and for connected purposes:
  And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 2 February and to be printed. [Bill 47.]

  BRITISH RACING COMMISSION
  Mr. Alan Meale, supported by Mr. Jimmy Dunnachie, Mr. Dennis Turner, Mr. Jimmy Hood, Mr. George J. Buckley, Mr. William McKelvey, Mr. Ian McCartney, Mr. John McAllion, Mr. Pat Wall, Mrs. Llin Golding, Mr. Max Madden and Mr. Harry Barnes, presented a Bill to establish a single national commission of control for the whole of the horse and dog racing industries, with overall responsibility for the bloodstock, thoroughbred breeding and betting industries, incorporating the control of the financial arrangements, rules and aims of current bodies, their other responsibilities and where applicable, the assets of all publicly supported organisations concerned or connected with these sports: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 9 February and to be printed. [Bill 48.]
  GREYHOUND BETTING LEVY
  Mr. Alan Meale, supported by Mr. Don Dixon, Mr. Menzies Campbell, Mr. Tim Smith, Mr. A. E. P. Duffy, Mr. Richard Alexander, Mr. Frank Cook, Mr. Harry Greenway, Mr. William McKelvey, Mrs. Llin Golding, Mr. Martin Redmond and Mr. George J. Buckley, presented a Bill to extend the functions of the Horserace Betting Levy Board to include the sport of greyhound racing; and to make consequential amendments to the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 16 February and to be printed. [Bill 49.]
  HUMAN RIGHTS
  Mr. Graham Allen presented a Bill to provide protection in the courts of the United Kingdom for the rights and freedoms specified in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms to which the United Kingdom is a party: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 26 January and to be printed. [Bill 50.]
Orders of the Day

  Enterprise and New Towns (Scotland) Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  4.50 pm
  Mr. Speaker: I have selected the reasoned amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is a separate point of order. Allegations have been made on the Floor of the House. It is a rule of the House that every Member is an hon. Member. I draw your attention to the proceedings of Standing Committee E on 19 December, when my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland said:
  "Since the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) was clearly referring to me"—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 19 December 1989; c. 37.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. We have finished with that matter; I have nothing more to say on it. I do not think that there is any profit to be gained for the House in persisting with it. It must be a completely different issue.
  Mr. Bennett: It is a matter of principle. If an hon. Member makes allegations about another hon. Member in Committee and those allegations are denied in the record of 19 December, is it in order for an hon. Member to make the same allegations on a subsequent occasion on the Floor of the House when they have been denied by the hon. Member concerned? Is that not tantamount to impugning the honour of the hon. Member and calling him a liar?
  Mr. Speaker: What goes on in Standing Committees is a matter for the Chairmen of Standing Committees. We have now disposed of that matter. I call Mr. Secretary Rifkind.
  The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind)rose—
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. We have already disposed of the matter. Today's proceedings have brought no credit upon the House. I ask hon. Members to leave the matter there.
  Mr. Bill Walker: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: Is it a different matter?
  Mr. Walker: Mr. Speaker—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Sit down, please. [Interruption.] I have said that I do not propose to take any further points of order on the previous matter. If the point of order is concerned with this Bill, I will take it. Is it concerned with this Bill?
  Mr. Walker: It is a matter of principle.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not prepared to take it if it resurrects the previous matter. It must be concerned with this Bill.
  Mr. Walker: It is a different matter of principle, Mr. Speaker. I have been attempting to catch your eye for

  839
  some time on this point of order. It is about hon. Members on Standing Committees or elsewhere. If we are to accept your ruling—I have—no argument with it—that the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) gave his word and made a pledge—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I must ask the hon. Member to sit down. We have dealt with that matter. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Walker rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Please sit down. I call Mr. Rifkind.
  Mr. Walker: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: I have told the hon. Member that I am not prepared to take his point of order. I shall be very reluctant to take further action. I ask the hon. Member to resume his seat.
  Mr. Walker rose—
  Mr. Speaker: I ask the hon. Member to resume his seat. I call Mr. Secretary Rifkind.
  Mr. Rifkind rose—
  Mr. Walker rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I order the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) to resume his seat. I call Mr. Secretary Rifkind.
  4.53 pm
  Mr. Rifkind: I beg to move. That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The House will be pleased to be able to consider the more tranquil matter of this Bill, with the major proposals that it incorporates for the Scottish economy. The Bill has been described as perhaps the single most important measure affecting Scotland. [Interruption.] I ask Opposition Members to wait a moment. It has been described not only by me but by the Scottish Trades Union Congress as the single most important measure—[Interruption.] Before he goes too far, I refer the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) to the remarks of the STUC. It describes the Government's proposals as
  "The most significant institutional reforms within the fields of both training and economic development to be suggested since the establishment of the Manpower Services Commission in 1974 and the Scottish Development Agency in 1975."
  Therefore, I was modest in my description of the significance of the Bill, because the STUC and its members clearly think that its significance is even greater.
  There are three major aspects of the Bill for Scottish Enterprise, any one of which would be of profound importance to the Scottish economy. First, it provides for the combination of the Scottish Development Agency and the Training Commission into a new body to be known as Scottish Enterprise—a powerful body with substantial resources, which will provide an integrated approach of a type that has not been seen before.
  Secondly, the Bill provides for the transfer of responsibility for training in Scotland from Sheffield to Edinburgh, and from the Department of Employment to the Scottish Office. Thirdly, it provides for many of the responsibilities that in the past have been carried out by either the SDA or the Training Commission to be delivered in future by new private sector-led enterprise
  840
  companies in each of the various regions of Scotland, both in lowland Scotland, and, through Highlands and Islands Enterprise, in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
  Without qualification, any one of the three proposals would amount to a major contribution to the economic future of Scotland. Brought together, they justify the joint judgment of myself and the STUC about their profound significance. They are not only profoundly important. What is significant and, perhaps, unprecedented for such wide-ranging measures is the enormous support that they have received virtually throughout Scotland.
  In response to their White Paper, the Government received more than 420 contributions from various organisations, bodies and others concerned with the future of the Scottish economy. Of those 420 responses, no fewer than 403 did not depart from the central recommendations of the White Paper. Only 17 out of 420 disagreed with the basic proposition in the White Paper for the integration of training in the SDA and the creation of Scottish Enterprise.
  It is a disappointment but, perhaps, not surprising that in that lonely group of 17 was to be found Her Majesty's Opposition, the Labour party. We have found that, the Labour party, with no significant or noticeable support from any major organisation in Scotland, stands in lonely isolation opposed to the Bill. The hon. Member for Garscadden sits sulking in his tent, without any support from significant bodies in Scotland. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends think that 1 am exaggerating, I ask them to reflect on the views of many organisations in Scotland. I shall not refer to all those that might be seen in some way as antipathetic to the views of the Labour party. Let me concentrate on those which are the traditional allies and supporters of the Labour party and which the hon. Member for Garscadden in the past has never hesitated to quote as endorsing his view and welcoming his support.
  For example, Mr. Campbell Christie, the general secretary of the STUC, who has not only identified the STUC with the proposals but who was present at the launching of them, said on 31 August last year:
  "First of all can I say that from the trade union movement's point of view we very much welcome the integration of training and economic development as envisaged in 'Scottish Enterprise' and we look forward to the partnership arrangement that the Secretary of State and others have talked about this morning and participating in it."
  We find that the Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations
  "notes with approval the remit for Scottish Enterprise"
  and
  "endorses the case … for devolving to a Scottish base the administration of the training and job creation functions … and integrating them with the economic development functions already directed from a Scottish base."
  The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities said in its response to the Government's proposals:
  "The general objective, set out in the White Paper on Scottish Enterprise, to integrate the Government's support for training and for enterprise creation is welcomed by I he convention."
  The Church and Nation Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland stated:
  "The Committee welcomes in broad terms the proposals set out in the Government's White Paper 'Scottish Enterprise' and, in particular, the fact that Scotland is to be given special treatment to suit her own needs. The Committee also welcomes the proposal to bring together training arid enterprise functions which will benefit greatly from being inter-related."

  841
  In view of the Opposition amendment and the opposition of the hon. Member for Garscadden to the central thrust of our proposals, I challenge the hon. Gentleman to say what support he has from elsewhere in Scotland for the Labour party's lonely position on the measure. I challenge him to name one other organisation of substance or body of importance in Scotland that supports the Opposition's view, which is derived from their narrow partisan position of opposing for its own sake and not on the merits of the proposals.
  Mr. Dick Douglas: The Secretary of State is obviously replying carefully and legalistically to a wide range of arguments. There is great merit in annotating those who support him. if we study carefully the words that people are using to support the legislation, it is clear that they are talking about the interrelationship of the investment and training functions. The danger is that in the Bill those functions are not interrelated, but fused. That is the problem that the Secretary of State, in operation, must address. It is not the interrelationship but the bureaucratic fusion of those functions; it is not only the devolving to Scotland but the local aspects as well.
  That is a bureaucratic and operational problem that the Bill does not address. The dangers exist and the Labour party is right to draw attention to the fact that those two functions should be more disinterrelated to avoid the danger of fusion and to benefit the Scottish economy.
  Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman may be describing the position of the Labour party, but I hope that he will have the honesty to admit that that view does not have the support of any other significant organisation in Scotland, on either side of the industrial scene. I note that he accepts that.
  It is an unusual phenomenon for the Secretary of State for Scotland, in the present Administration, to be quoting in support of his proposals the STUC, COSLA and the Church and Nation Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. I should usually be nervous about support coming from those quarters. I should be grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pledging the Labour party's opposition as that will reassure some of my hon. Friends that the Government are continuing on the right path.
  Mr. Donald Dewar rose—
  Mr. Rifkind: I shall happily give way to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that he can tell us who else supports the Labour party's view.
  Mr. Dewar: I shall make my own speech in my own time. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman puts such store on the advice given to him by those organisations, why has he accepted their general blessing but repudiated almost every one of the specific pieces of advice that they have given him?
  Mr. Rifkind: That simply is not true. There have been a number of extremely useful contributions and suggestions from the STUC, COSLA and other organisations, some of which we have accepted. I have not the slightest doubt that, as the Bill is debated in the weeks to come, there will be constructive suggestions from a variety of organisations. I hope that the Labour party will
  842
  be included in them. If it moves away from its emotional, pigheaded reaction to measures and its partisan political view, and instead addresses the contents of the Bill, I have no doubt that the consensus that currently includes the rest of Scotland might be extended also to include the Labour party.
  Dr. Norman A. Godman: I wish to ask a question relating to clause 1(b), which talks of a body to be known as Highlands and Islands Enterprise, which shall have the general functions of
  "preparing, concerting, promoting, assisting and undertaking measures for the economic and social development of the Highlands and Islands."
  Where does the tourist industry stand with regard to that part of the clause? The right hon. and learned Gentleman will recall that the Select Committee on Trade and Industry called for a United Kingdom body for the tourist industry. Will he assure the House that, under the Bill, the Scottish tourist industry and board will remain autonomous bodies for the next two years?
  Mr. Rifkind: I very much hope that they will remain autonomous bodies for longer than that. The Government have no proposals to limit the autonomy of the Scottish Tourist Board. The Bill will not have any effect on that matter.
  The central thrust of the Bill is the integration of training and the Scottish Development Agency into a new body to be called Scottish Enterprise. I shall explain why the Government and a wide spectrum of Scottish opinion believe that to be highly desirable. The first and most obvious reason—and one that industry has pointed to—is the desirability of a single door for industry with regard to business support and training. It is always easier and more simple for those who are to benefit from the support that is given by Government if they can go to a single organisation or body to identify what is available and come to a conclusion as to the extent that such a body can assist with their economic opportunities. The integration of the two organisations has much to commend it, rather than a continuation of parallel organisations each seeking to help industry in a different but interrelated way.
  Secondly, it is wrong to imply that training is other than another form of investment. Training is a form of investment and, in that sense, is similar to the general work that the Scottish Development Agency and the Highlands and Islands Development Board have done for a number of years. If we wish to continue the strategic involvement of such an organisation, working with the Scottish Office, to carry out its duties, those matters should operate in an integrated way. It is that integration that has been most commended by all the organisations that I have mentioned and also by the CBI in Scotland, the Scottish Council (Development and Industry), Scottish Business in the Community and various other organisations.
  Mr. George Foulkes: Will my right hon. Friend—[Interruption.] Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the infrastructure, particularly transport services, is vital for industrial development? He may be aware of the distressing news today that British Rail plans to discontinue direct services from Stranraer via Girvan and Ayr to the south of England. That will cause great harm and difficulties for industrialists not only in my constituency but in the constituencies of the right hon.

  843
  Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) and the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Lang). My colleagues and myself, along with some Conservative Members, will be meeting British Rail officials next week to ask them to reconsider the matter. Will the Secretary of State join us in that campaign to persuade British Rail to reconsider that unwise decision that will be detrimental to industrial development in the south-west of Scotland?
  Mr. Rifkind: My friendship with the hon. Gentleman goes back 20 years and I take no offence at his initial form of address. We are all disappointed by any proposal to limit or reduce British Rail services in any part of Scotland. There will be an opportunity for the reasons that British Rail has put forward to be considered and for a conclusion to be reached on whether they have substance. There will also be opportunities for comments and representations to be made to British Rail. The announcement was made only today, and it is clearly necessary for the ideas behind it to be properly examined.
  The thrust of the proposals is the integration of the SDA and training. I have given the reasons why, in my view and the view of virtually all those who have commented on it apart from the Opposition, the integration of the SDA and training makes great sense.
  The second main ingredient is the transfer of responsibility for training from Sheffield to Edinburgh and from the Department of Employment to the Scottish Office. It is a profound change because it involves the transfer not only of policy responsibility, but of the resources that have previously been the responsibility of the Department of Employment. That is of great significance. The need for it flows from several different reasons. First, if there is an integrated body called Scottish Enterprise, through which new enterprise companies are to be established, it obviously makes sense for those companies to be answerable to one line of response and to one Government Department. To have a split of responsibility in an integrated body answering to two Government Departments simultaneously would not have made sense or have been wise. Therefore, the Government came to the conclusion, which has been well received, that this is a sensible change.
  In addition, it is a Scottish solution to meet Scottish needs. The Scottish Development Agency has no exact parallel south of the border. If it is to continue with its important role of business support, environmental improvement and other works—it is the Government's intention that it should—it is sensible and desirable that that economic activity should be linked to the work of the Training Agency in Scotland, which is comparable and interrelated. Therefore, it makes sense that the Scottish Office, which is already an industrial and economic Department, should have an enhanced role.
  Mr. Tony Worthington: The Secretary of State referred to the transfer of control for training to Edinburgh. Do the provisions mean that the Secretary of State will be able to give up the employment training scheme unilaterally?
  Mr. Rifkind: I made it clear at the beginning of the debate that it is in the interests of youngsters and others in Scotland that the qualifications that they obtain should help them to gain employment either in Scotland or
  844
  elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The same applies to my colleagues in the Department of Employment, the Welsh Office and the Northern Ireland Office.
  In response to the hon. Gentleman's specific point, the Government have a United Kingdom training policy—of that there can be no doubt. Indeed, it is something of which Her Majesty's Opposition also approve. In the unlikely event of my wishing to promote completely different training policies in Scotland from those applied elsewhere in the kingdom, it would obviously be necessary for me to get the approval of my colleagues before moving in that direction. That goes for any Department at any time. However, I cannot think of a more undesirable course on which to embark. It would mean that the qualifications of youngsters in Scotland would be of little help to them in obtaining employment in other parts of the kingdom.
  Mr. John McAllion rose—
  Mr. Rifkind: Perhaps I may finish this point. 1t is important that the training policy should be applied with sufficient local flexibility and sensitivity and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) for leading me on to the third major ingredient of this part of the Bill.
  I should have thought that Her Majesty's Opposition, with their professed belief in decentralisation and devolution, would enthusiastically endorse the creation of enterprise companies instead of carping and criticising. For the first time, we shall have the opportunity to create in each region of Scotland enterprise companies that will have the responsibility for delivering not only the training responsibilities of the Training Agency in Scotland, but much of the business support responsibilities of the Scottish Development Agency and the Highlands and Islands Development Board. In delivering those local services, we envisage significant flexibility that will enable those companies to adapt to the way in which such policies are implemented, in response to the needs of the locality.
  Mr. Archy Kirkwood: On the Secretary of State's point about decentralising local enterprise companies, we in the rural areas of Scotland have some legitimate concerns because the present provisions have guaranteed a relatively stable and systematic standard throughout Scotland, which has served the rural areas just as well as the urban areas. Although I understand that the problems in urban areas can sometimes be greater, I am concerned about the demands and requirements that will be placed on those who are expected to participate in the local enterprise companies in rural areas. Those people will have to travel long distances for little reward, which is asking a great deal unless the Government can come up with real resources and a real package of support to make it worth while for local business men to become involved in rural areas.
  Mr. Rifkind: With all due respect, I advise the hon. Gentleman to contact the enterprise trusts and business community in his constituency and in his own part of Scotland. If he does, he will find that there is already enormous interest from the rural areas in Scotland. There is not the slightest sign of any lack of response. Quite the opposite—the Government have been enormously delighted not only by the number of people coming forward, but by the calibre of those wishing to be identified

  845
  with enterprise companies. That applies in the rural areas as well as in the more industrial parts of Scotland. We can already say with confidence that attracting people of calibre in sufficient numbers to carry out the responsibilities of the enterprise companies will not be a problem. Indeed, far more such people are already coming forward than can be accommodated within the framework of the proposals.
  Mr. Alistair Darling rose—
  Mr. Rifkind: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue for a little while, I am sure that I shall find it possible to give way to him in due course. I wish to get on with my speech because I can see that many hon. Members wish to take part in the debate—
  Dr. Jeremy Bray rose—
  Mr. Rifkind: Very well, I give way to the hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray).
  Dr. Bray: Although the point about local participation may be impressive in principle, is the Secretary of State aware that there is a great variation in the quality of people coming forward in the different industrial areas? In Lanarkshire, for instance, the biggest employer, British Steel, is not taking part and another major international company has nominated its property manager. Generally, Lanarkshire will not have a first division board.
  Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman must be responsible for his own comments on that. The people who have been mentioned to me as being interested in taking part in Lanarkshire and in other areas include a number of important persons within the local economy. However, the hon. Gentleman is entitled to his own view.
  The importance of the enterprise companies flows from the following facts. First, when training was introduced some years ago in the early 1980s, it was at a time of mass unemployment and inevitably the method of training that was applied was relatively unsophisticated. Over the years, the training has become more sophisticated, and with falling unemployment those who are seeking and obtaining training, whether they be youngsters or older persons, are in a much stronger position to obtain employment thereafter. With the demographic changes that are already taking place in Scotland, which will lead to a massive reduction in the number of school leavers in the next few years, the need to have a training system and a business support system that is more tailored to the requirements of each locality in Scotland is greater than ever.
  The simple fact is that the economic, training and business support needs of the north-east of Scotland are not necessarily the same as those of Glasgow. The needs of Edinburgh are not necessarily the same as those of Dumfries and Galloway, and those of the Borders are not necessarily the same as those of Lanarkshire or Dumbarton. Only by a system of effective decentralisation can one hope to meet such requirements.
  Mr. Darling rose—
  Mr. Rifkind: Perhaps I may continue this point. It is of great significance that the Scottish Development Agency was already in the process—it has been doing this for some
  846
  time—time—of decentralising to its own employees in various parts of Scotland the administrative responsibility for implementing a number of the schemes for which it is responsible. We are taking that process an important stage further and devolving and decentralising responsibility not simply to the officials of the SDA, but to the local community—primarily to the local business and industrial community, but also to those from other sections of the community who have an interest in the economic development of the locality. That is profoundly different from what we have ever had in Scotland. It has been widely welcomed by both sides of industry and I repeat that it is a matter of great sadness that, for reasons that have not yet been properly articulated, the Labour party seems unable to identify with the view that is so widely held.
  Mr. Darling: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. Perhaps I can tell him why there is some concern. I am all in favour of decentralisation, but I am not in favour of decentralising decision-making to one narrow category of people such as business men. The old town of Edinburgh has been targeted by the SDA, mainly because it wants to see more tourism there. However, people living in the old town are concerned that, through the local boards, business men may identify gap sites from which they individually and their companies could profit, and those business men may then use the umbrella of the power and prestige of their enterprise boards to acquire and free that land and then, lo and behold, their own companies may buy up the land and make a profit from it. My fear is that the boards could be used as stalking horses for individual business men because there is no countervailing balance provided by the local community to any meaningful extent.
  Mr. Rifkind: Those are interesting points. However, the hon. Gentleman's proper response should be the more constructive approach of the STUC, COSLA and others who have commented on these matters. Some of them have expressed similar concerns to those of the hon. Gentleman, but that has not stopped them welcoming the broad thrust of the Bill. They have said that they welcome the thrust of what the Government are doing, although that could be improved in certain ways, but irrespective of whether it is improved, it is far better to have the Bill in its present form than not at all. That is the fundamental difference between the Labour party and the rest of Scotland on the issue. The Labour party would be well advised to raise those matters of detailed concern as the Bill goes through the House. Scottish opinion finds it difficult to understand why those are being used as a perceived justification for opposition to all the proposals.
  Sir Nicholas Fairbairn: My right hon. and learned Friend might observe to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) that the new town of Edinburgh was built by the enlightenment of business men and its prosperity lies on it.
  Mr. Rifkind: My hon. and learned Friend is entirely correct and the inheritance that enterprise has given to the modern grandeurs of Scotland can hardly be exaggerated.
  I have commented primarily on the position in Scotland as a whole. However, the position in the Highlands and Islands is comparable and there has been a great welcome for the Government's proposals throughout the Highlands and Islands. In our consultative document we put various

  847
  proposals to Highlands and Islands opinion, including a continuation of the status quo or the proposals now referred to as Highlands and Islands Enterprise. It was clear that the overwhelming weight of opinion supported the proposal for an integrated approach, giving to the successor body to the Highlands and Islands Development Board comparable powers to those exercised by Scottish Enterprise.
  In putting forward the proposals, we do not wish to imply any criticism of the SDA or the HIDB. I say without qualification that their role and contribution to Scotland during the past years since their creation has been of profound significance and importance. The HIDB—which this year celebrates its 25th aniversary—has operated through a period of profound change to the well-being of the Highlands. When we think of the history of depopulation in the Highlands, it is of enormous encouragement that since 1971 the population of the Highlands and Islands has increased by 25,000, or 8 per cent. The HIDB is entitled to credit in contributing towards that.
  Mr. Alex Salmond: Will the Secretary of State confirm that his endorsement of the past record of the Scottish Development Agency is not shared by the progenitor of the Scottish Enterprise scheme, Mr. Bill Hughes, the vice-chairman of the Scottish Conservative party, who has made some sweeping attacks on the performance of the Scottish Development Agency?
  Mr. Rifkind: Bill Hughes is perfectly able to speak for himself, but at least he has remained in the Conservative party, unlike some of those in the Scottish National party who take a different view from the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond).
  The Government's views are quite simple: the SDA, particularly with the changes introduced to its powers after 1979, has made a sterling contribution to Scotland's well-being, which is why combining the SDA's present responsibilities with those of the Training Agency will strengthen its future contribution. I say categorically—because this is a matter that has given rise to some concern —that we have every intention that the SDA will continue with its strategic responsibilities to the wider Scottish economy. There is to be no change to inward investment as a result of the proposals and Locate in Scotland will continue, as at present, to co-ordinate with the Industry Department for Scotland and Scottish Enterprise.
  Mr. George Robertson: The Secretary of State referred to the value of the Scottish Development Agency. I served as a board member of the SDA in its initial period. It has had 14 years to build up considerable success. The SDA has a good track record and an identifiable image. Why has the Secretary of State resisted the advice given by all the organisations that he has prayed in aid in his speech and decided that the name, Scottish Development Agency, should now disappear?
  Mr. Rifkind: The SDA made it clear that it did not take any exception to the proposed name, Scottish Enterprise. If we create a new body, combining two quite separate organisations to come into existence at a time when enterprise companies are also being created with a profoundly new role to play, this constitutes a new start. There is no question about that and the SDA has been the first to acknowledge it. 1 do not attach enormous
  848
  importance to nomenclature. When we have a new organisation with new powers and responsibilities, it makes sense to reflect that in the organisation's title. I was pleased that in its representations the SDA made it clear that it had no objection to that proposal.
  Part I of the Bill deals with Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Clause I establishes the two bodies and gives them general functions in economic development, environmental improvement, training, and, in the case of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, social development. It also gives effect to schedule 1 which provides for the constitutions, proceedings and staffing of the two bodies. Clause 2 enlarges on their training functions, while clauses 3 and 4 make further provision as to the functions for the two bodies. Clauses 5 and 6 make particular provision for the two bodies' functions for the improvement of the environment and derelict land.
  Clauses 7 to 13 provide for the powers that the two bodies may exercise in carrying out their functions. As I have said, they include the full powers of their predecessors. Restrictions on some of those powers are set out in clause 12: again, the restrictions are no greater than those which were placed on the predecessor bodies. Clause 13 enables me to give the two bodies directions, following consultations with them. Clauses 14, 15 and 16 make various provisions with regard to the two bodies' training functions. They cover such matters as payments equivalent to industrial injuries benefit in approximate cases, the treatment of disabled ex-service men and women, and the prevention of sexual or racial discrimination.
  Clause 17 allows the two bodies to delegate their functions and powers to others. It will be principally through this provision that local enterprise companies will be able to carry out functions under contract to the two bodies. Certain functions and powers are excluded from delegation. The hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie might now have read the Bill, compared to when he made his previous comments, and if so he will realise that the powers of delegation do not include compulsory acquisition of, and entry to, land and powers to obtain information. Clause 18 allows local authorities and new town development corporations to act as agents for the two bodies.
  Clause 19 defines the two bodies' areas of operation and clauses 20 and 21, together with schedule 3, make provision for the transfer of property, rights and liabilities to the two bodies from their predecessors. Clauses 22, 23 and 24 make provision for the financing of the two bodies.
  Mr. Worthington: I concede that derelict land is excluded from delegated powers. However, I made another point about planning permission, which is referred to in clause 5. Under the Bill, that is not excluded.
  Mr. Rifkind: Enterprise companies will not be public bodies. They will be private sector companies, with the same legal position as any other such company. It flows from that that they can have no involvement in the planning process, any more than any other planning application. If the hon. Gentleman will not accept my word for it, perhaps he will accept the advice that he is clearly now receiving from the hon. Member for Garscadden, which I suspect is identical in content arid conclusion as mine.
  Mr. Dewar: But I draw a different conclusion.
  Mr. Rifkind: I look forward to the interpretation of the hon. Member for Garscadden in due course.
  Clauses 25 and 26 make provisions concerning the two bodies' powers of entry on to Crown land and the service of documents. Clause 27 provides for the two bodies to furnish the Secretary of State with accounts and annual reports, and for the statements of account to be examined and certified by the Comptroller and Auditor General before being laid before Parliament. Clause 28 restricts Scottish Enterprise's involvement with the media industry, while enabling it to advertise in connection with its investment functions without requiring authorisation under the Financial Services Act 1986. Finally, clause 29 makes provision for the registration of agreements made by the two bodies with landowners.
  Let me deal now with provisions in the Bill for the Scottish new town development corporations. As the House is well aware, there are five new towns in Scotland and the oldest, East Kilbride, was designated in 1947, and the youngest, Irvine, in 1966. The main objectives in creating them were to assist the dispersal of industry and population from overcrowded inner-city areas, especially Glasgow, and to provide locations for economic expansion.
  Development corporations have provided good quality housing and new industrial infrastructure for post-war Britain and have encouraged economic and environmental development. Scottish new town residents have responded well to changing technology, demonstrating their flexibility and capacity to adapt to the needs of the market place. Firms that have set up in the new towns have grown and prospered. The Scottish new towns continue to make a contribution to the economic and social well-being of Scotland and the United Kingdom.
  The aim of the New Towns Act 1946 was to attain thriving, balanced communities that would ultimately be able to stand on their own feet, and be treated in the same way and have the same status as any other town. The Bill is necessary to bring the new town programme in Scotland to its completion. The Government have always made it clear that new towns should not continue to be distinguished from other towns by the perpetual presence of special public sector support and our policy will enable the new towns to become self-sufficient communities.
  Our proposals, on which we have consulted at length and in considerable detail, are similar to the arrangments that have operated for the English new towns, but there are significant differences. For example, we have concluded against having a residuary body for Scotland, but there is scope under the proposals for the transfer of corporation assets to a range of bodies, including Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Homes, to the extent that the assets have not already been disposed of to other parties before dissolution of the corporations takes place.
  The present statutory provisions governing the transfer of corporation undertakings and their wind-up and dissolution are contained in sections 35 and 36 of the New Towns (Scotland) Act 1968, but they are inadequate and out of date. New provision is required and I shall now describe briefly the relevant provisions in the Bill.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) is a member of the Standing Committee considering the National Health Service and Community Care Bill. Who will do the
  850
  valuations of the properties, and how will the Property Services Agency fit into the new schemes of Scottish Enterprise?
  Mr. Rifkind: The corporations have traditionally been responsible for their own valuations and that may be an appropriate way of dealing with the matter. But there are recognised and well-established procedures for the valuation of public sector assets.
  On the relationship between new towns and Scottish Enterprise, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, there are proposals for the creation—
  Mr. Dalyell: I asked about the relationship between the Property Services Agency and property holdings and the new Scottish Enterpise. I asked that partly because, with my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall), I am involved in considering the Property Services Agency and Crown Suppliers Bill in Committee.
  Mr. Rifkind: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for clarifying the question, but I am not sure that I can clarify the answer. If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I shall have the matter involving the PSA looked into and my hon. Friend the Minister of State may be able to deal with it when he replies.
  Clause 30 amends the provisions in sections 36 and 36A of the New Towns (Scotland) Act 1968 relating to the procedures for the wind-up and dissolution of the development corporations. It also provides for individual wind-up orders to be made, allowing maximum flexibility in determining when a development corporation should begin the wind-up process. It extends the scope for development corporations to dispose of their property, rights and liabilities and provides for their transfer after a wind-up order has been made. It also empowers the Secretary of State to relieve, by making grants, any financial burden that is imposed by the transfer of corporations' property.
  The Bill also contains new financial provisions affecting the development corporations. The new town development corporations have always been financed mainly by borrowing. The original expectation was that corporations would incur revenue deficits in their early years, which would be met by borrowing. It was also expected that development of the new towns would create sufficient surplus in time to repay that borrowing. Those assumptions were largely fulfilled for the first generation of new towns. However, it became evident in the early 1980s that in general they would be unlikely ever to generate sufficient surpluses to service and repay their accumulated debt. To remedy that, the Government in 1985 took powers in England and Wales under the New Towns and Urban Development Corporations Act to carry out a reconstruction of the debt of the English and Welsh new towns. That Act also introduced new financial arrangements in the form of grant for the provision of facilities that could not be expected to pay for themselves. Therefore, clause 31 provides for financial reconstruction of the Scottish corporations, and clause 32 provides for the payment of grant to meet the cost of essential infrastructure provisions that cannot be financed by borrowing.
  Clauses 33 to 37, and schedules 4 and 5 to which they give effect, contain the necessary supplementary, miscellaneous and general provisions of the Bill.

  851
  In conclusion, let me comment on the local enterprise companies to which I referred. They are crucial to the proposals that are before the House and we have been enormously encouraged by the enthusiastic response that has already made itself known throughout Scotland. Already we have 11 applications from the lowlands of Scotland and a further six from the Highlands and Islands, and I understand that in every other part of Scotland proposals for consortia, which will be put to the Government, are already at an advanced stage of preparation.
  Mr. Kirkwood: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for allowing me to intervene a second time, but why was the opportunity not taken to impose a social as well as an economic requirement on the new local enterprise companies operating outside the old Highlands and Islands Development Board area? As the House knows, a social requirement has been imposed on the Highlands area, but there is still no social requirement south of the Highlands and Islands.
  Mr. Rifkind: We have replicated the traditional role of the Highlands and Islands Development Board. The fact that the Scottish Development Agency, when it was created in 1975, was not given a social role, unlike the HIDB, was the result of a recognition at that time, which is still relevant, that the particular needs of the Highlands and Islands are distinct from the rest of Scotland. That is reflected in the current legislation.
  It is important to remember that the local enterprise companies can be established without the need for primary legislation. They are private sector companies that do not require statute, so they can come into existence at any time. If, as we expect, they come into existence over the next few months, any contractual relationship that they enter into will be not with Scottish Enterprise, which will not yet have come into existence, but with the Scottish Development Agency and the Training Agency in the first instance, but that will be temporary.
  Mr. Ernie Ross: Will the Secretary of State explain the difference between the arrangements in Scotland and those in England and Wales? He will know that the initial impetus for the change in the delivery of training came from the experience in the United States. He will also know that in England and Wales the Secretary of State for Employment is imposing performance contracts on each training and enterprise council. A performance contract will require a guaranteed placement of trainees before payment is made. Will those same performance contracts be imposed by local enterprise companies on providers of training?
  Mr. Rifkind: I advise the hon. Gentleman not to exaggerate the relevance of the experience of the United States to the proposals. Naturally, one is interested in the experience of any part of the world, but essentially we have been influenced by the needs of the Scottish economy and our perception of what would be most appropriate and relevant to the Scottish requirement.
  The hon. Gentleman asked about a comparison with TECs in England. There are some similarities, but the differences are even more profound. The role of the enterprise companies will be far wider than those of TECs in England, which will be restricted to training. In Scotland, enterprise companies will also have the
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  significant role of business support and development, representing some 80 per cent. of the projects presently carried out by the Scottish Development Agency. In addition to that, there is no counterpart to Scottish Enterprise. Essentially, the relationship will be contractual and it will be necessary over the next few months to work out the precise details of how that contractual relationship will operate. In many respects, it may be similar to that in England and Wales, but not necessarily so. It will be accommodated to meet the specific requirements in the various parts of Scotland.
  Mr. Adam Ingram: Will the Secretary of State confirm that he intends to set a maximum number of 12 persons to serve on each local enterprise board? Only four of those places will be allocated to local authorities. Lanarkshire has five district councils, as well as Strathclyde regional council, covered by one local enterprise board. Will the Secretary of State further confirm that he has instructed the managing director of East Kilbride development corporation to serve as a public sector representative on that board? If that is so, how can all those local authorities make an input into the running of the local enterprise company in Lanarkshire?
  Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting that we have instructed the general manager of East Kilbride development corporation, but that is not so. The Secretary of State will have no power to determine who serves a local enterprise company. I repeat that local enterprise companies will be private sector companies, and nothing in the Bill or in any other provision enables the Government to determine their composition. We have said that we shall be prepared to enter into contractual relations with enterprise companies that are private sector-led, with broadly the proportion of private sector involvement of the type that has been mentioned. However, we shall not be identifying precisely the individuals who should serve on enterprise boards or in enterprise companies—other than in Scottish Enterprise itself.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Rifkind: I have given way many times during my remarks, but I shall not do so again as I know that other hon. Members wish to participate.
  The central theme of the Bill is a devolution—if one wishes to use that word—or a decentralisation of responsibility from Sheffield to Edinburgh, from the Department of Employment to the Scottish Office, and from the centre of Scotland to each of its regions and local communities. It is one of the great ironies that the Labour party has for the past few years been droning on about its belief in the principle of devolution and decentralisation but is now presenting itself as the only body of significance in Scotland that opposes a Bill that provides for major decentralisation and devolution of power both to Scotland and within Scotland.
  The hon. Member for Garscadden may tell the House that he is opposed not to the Bill's broad principles but to its detail—and the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) nods his head vigorously. The hon. Member for Garscadden has long been a Member of Parliament and will be aware, even if the hon. Member for Fife, Central is not, that if one supports the broad principles of a Bill but disagrees with its details, one does not oppose it on Second

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  Reading but seeks to amend it during the later stages of its progress through the House. That is the view taken by others in Scotland who have some reservations about the detail of the Bill.
  I say in a spirit of friendliness to the hon. Member for Garscadden that in recent weeks he has been very critical of the Scottish National party for seeming to ignore, for narrow reasons of party political advantage, real Scottish interests. The hon. Member for Garscadden has warned and advised, with all the authority that he can muster, that political parties that seek to give prominence to narrow partisan advantage rather than to identify wider Scottish interests are doomed to failure, rejection and contempt.
  I repeat that the hon. Member for Garscadden cannot call on his traditional friends and allies for support. He cannot call on the trade unions, local authorities, or even the Committee on Church and Nation—which must make him, on this issue if not on others, one of the loneliest men in Scotland. Knowing him to be a man whose nature is of the essence sweet, reasonable and conciliatory, I have no doubt that after due consideration, and after examining all the pluses and minuses, and subject to all the necessary reservations, caveats and recommendations, the hon. Member for Garscadden will end up endorsing the Bill. If he does not, he will be repudiating the interests of the people of Scotland and something that the whole of Scotland is anxious to see implemented as soon as possible.
  5.54 pm
  Mr. Donald Dewar: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to insert instead thereof:
  "This House declines to give a Second Reading to the Enterprise and New Towns (Scotland) Bill because it fails to provide the right framework for rebuilding the Scottish economy and to make proper provision for a true partnership between the private sector, local authorities, trade unions and the wider community and threatens the central strengths of the Scottish Development Agency and the Highlands and Islands Development Board; and because it fails to guarantee the financial support required for economic resurgence and to ensure that control of training policy is given to Scotland; deplores the absence of any guarantee that when New Town Development Corporations are wound up, tenants will have the choice of landlord and tenure that they want; fears the loss of the momentum generated by the Corporations; and believes that the interests of the residents will not be put first in the disposal of New Town assets."
  Apparently I have entered the Chamber naked, at least in the mind of the Secretary of State for Scotland. I suppose that I ought to be grateful that at least he did not descend to describing me as an honest politician, which he does when in a particularly uncharitable mood. I unrepentingly move the reasoned amendment in my name and the names of my right hon. and hon. Friends. It is a little harsh of the Secretary of State to describe me as being harsh and pigheaded, and as someone who spends most of his time sulking in a tent. My commitment to the open air life certainly does not run to an enthusiasm for tents.
  I accept of course that enterprise and new towns have a number of factors in common. One of them is their rather unlikely linking in the Bill, which raises for both rather more questions than it answers. The Bill blissfully disposes of new towns in three clauses that are tagged to the end of it. They deal with winding up and disposal in a brief outline of statutory powers and enabling legislation
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  which advances very little the knowledge of those whose lives are tied up in the new towns, and which offers little more than "The Scottish New Towns: The Way Ahead", which was published last July. The Secretary of State must be aware that that document gave rise to many fears and questions.
  The legislation is an anticlimax in respect of new towns, which attaches special significance to the Committee stage —when I hope that Ministers will be a great deal more forthcoming about the way in which winding-up will be effected and the disposal of assets tackled. I accept that winding-up must come. We have always accepted that new towns were there to do a job and that at some point they would form part of the normal administration in Scotland. I pay tribute to the development corporations, to their staff, and above all to the people living in new towns. The vitality and drive that they contribute have undoubtedly made new towns a significant success story.
  In Committee, we shall want to probe several matters of concern in the minds of almost everyone in Scotland, including the district councils within which new towns are contained, those involved with the development corporations, and those living in the new towns themselves. One concern is how the new towns will be able to maintain their economic momentum during the winding-up period. We shall want to know more about the role of the local enterprise companies, which we are told will be profit driven and have a normal share structure, articles of association, and a board of directors.
  The company will be a normal commercial animal, yet it will inherit a residue of public functions during an important but perhaps destabilised period. We shall want to know more about the relationship between Scottish Enterprise and the companies that will operate in each new town area, local authorities, and the local development boards. There will be a complex mosaic of interlocking responsibilities, and having examined the Bill and the other documentation that has been presented, I have reached the conclusion that a great deal more information must be produced before the House should be asked to put the Bill on to the statute book.
  We want to know on what basis assets which, as every right hon. and hon. Member knows, have been generated and developed in the public sector will be valued and sold. We do not want to find that the public sector or even the local development corporation is left with an unattractive residue that it cannot flog off at some figure to other parts of the commercial world. We want to know much more than is revealed by the bare bones of the Bill.
  The final point, and I apologise that I have had to make these remarks fairly quickly, is one that the Secretary of State knows balks large in the debate in the new towns at the moment—the future of the housing stock. I do not want to be unfair, and I accept that the Bill does not rule out the possibility of a wide range of choice to individual tenants at the time of winding up. There are saving references to local authorities, but I hope that there will be rather more than that. There are also references to a number of other organisations and possible recipients of the new towns' assets and the housing stock.
  In Committee we shall want to convince the Government that they must go considerably further, and that they must give a full range of choice to individual tenants before, and at the point, of winding-up.
  The Minister must be aware that in almost every test of public opinion, and in every investigation carried out by

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  opinion polls, whether they are organised by a new town corporation such as East Kilbride or by the Government, it is clear that there is at least a significant block of tenants in the new towns who are interested in becoming district council tenants when they have to make a choice. In East Kilbride some 70 per cent. showed that preference. In the Government's inquiry, when asked what they would like now, 63 per cent. of tenants opted for the district council, and when they were asked the more hypothetical question of what they would opt for at the time of winding up, the figure dropped to 47 per cent. That may represent a significant shift in opinion, but it still represents a massive number of people whose choice must be respected. Compare that with the preference for Scottish Homes which some 4 to 5 per cent. opted for, or for private landlords, which only 1 per cent., dropping to something unquantifiable, opted for, and one begins to see that it is important that we make provision for a transfer to district councils, as that is the choice of the individual tenants.
  It makes a mockery of choice if it exists only if it is exercised as the Secretary of State wishes. The range of options must be comprehensive. I hope that I am giving the Secretary of State fair notice that we shall return to this subject in Committee with energy and persistence.
  I do not think that the Secretary of State will object to my quoting one other opinion outwith the Labour party or the new towns themselves, as I think that it is fairly representative. I know of no evidence to show that any organisation does not back my basic case at the moment. I shall quote the Scottish Consumer Council's view on the subject. Peter Gibson, its director, says:
  "It would be a surprising vote of no confidence in the attractiveness to tenants of potential new landlords, whether housing associations, co-ops, building societies or new housing trusts set up by development corporation employees, if the government were not to allow district councils to compete on equal terms."
  That is a fair way of putting it, and it is in the language of the new Conservative party, and it will no doubt appeal to the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) who is so influential in the counsels of the Scottish Office. I hope that we shall have no trouble and that in Committee we will find that we are pushing at an open door.
  There is largely a deafening silence in the Bill on the subject of Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. The Bill says absolutely nothing about the local enterprise companies. I recognise that the Secretary of State said that they do not need a statutory base, but, as he has described them as the heart of the matter, lying at the centre of the scheme, it makes it more difficult to take a balanced look at Scottish Enterprise or Highlands and Islands Enterprise. That is particularly puzzling to me, because I had an exchange with the hon. Member for Stirling recently on television, in which I predicted that there would be problems controlling the enterprise companies' budgets because of the balance of power between Scottish Enterprise and the constituent companies operating in the area. I was told, in a very nebby way by the Secretary of State, who sounded just like an Edinburgh advocate patronising a Glasgow solicitor, that I clearly had not read the Bill. I have read it with enormous care, but I have found no word, or scrape of the pen, about those issues. I wish that he would be more accurate with his abuse in future, and not put us in this difficult position.
  I recognise that the Government were running hard to catch up with what was already happening when they drafted the Bill. The lack of available information
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  reinforces the impression of muddle and confusion and I believe that a sense of direction is lacking. As I have said consistently from the beginning of this debate, we are not convinced about the structure that the Government are commending in Scottish Enterprise. We welcome unreservedly the fact that there should be a Scottish training agency—I will return to its powers in a moment —but we are not convinced that it has to be behind one door of the Scottish Development Agency. Of course there are links, there has to be interaction and co-operation—I concede that—but it need not necessarily be with the same management structure.
  Let us consider the SDA and the HIDB. They have succeeded because they are tight, professional organisations with short lines of communication and with an integrated operation from the top to the bottom. They are the opposite of what is now being proposed in many ways. Those enterprise functions—the supporting of excellence, the use of pump priming funds from the public purse—and all the work of business advice and promotion with which the SDA and the HIDB are associated are very important, but I do not think that they require the same sort o management structure as that needed to organise the hundreds of outlets that provide on-the-ground training., whether employment training, the youth training scheme or some other form. That is not necessarily a happy marriage.
  I remember that the Secretary of State said in a Scottish Grand Committee debate that, of course there would have to be a compromise. The structure that he again referred to today that the SDA has evolved for its own purposes and its present range of responsibilities will be torn up and another substituted. That shows that, given its traditional role, it is not only a compromise but one that it would not have wanted.
  I am not ashamed to stand alone on this issue, although I do not think that I do. I accept that the weight of institutional response probably welcomes the present proposals more than I do. I do not know why the Secretary of State should think that it is dishonourable to stand and argue for what is right—he has made a lifetime career of it. I find it extraordinary.
  My impression is that much of the support started with a nod to the general structure but, when one reads the documents, one discovers that that support was heavily qualified. At times it has broken into private grief. Peter Carmichael is one man who speaks for many people in the SDA and he is an interesting witness. In the Glasgow Herald on July 14 last year, Dr. Carmichael, who is the ex-director of the SDA in Scotland, talked about the break-up of the Scottish Development Agency and the weakening of an organisation dedicated to help Scotland expand its economy. He went on:
  "I fear for any real strategic business development in Scotland at the national level".
  He may have put it in somewhat populist terms in that article, but I believe that he reflected the genuine private unhappiness that anyone who has talked to those involved during the past few months will be aware of.
  I admit that this is anecdotal, but the Glasgow Herald of 30 October carried a report that emanated from the international forum held by the Scottish Council (Development and Industry). The article said that the area away from the forum floor was buzzing with comment and that reflected a powerful unofficial agenda and widespread concern that the planned changes would damage

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  Scotland's present development, and usher in a system that is incapable of delivering what is promised for it. That is my experience: when people are pushed into corners and asked what they really think, the doubts start to emerge in a pronounced and urgent fashion.
  Mr. Rifkind: The response that is already emerging from people anxious to play a part in the proposed consortia belies the hon. Gentleman's analysis. I hope that at some stage he will tell us whether the Opposition believe in decentralising major powers to enterprise companies. I am aware of his reservations about their proposed composition, but 1 should like him to make clear whether he believes that such companies should exist at all. If he does, I hope that he will appreciate that, if training and the Scottish Development Agency are not integrated, local enterprise companies will have the extraordinarily unattractive responsibility of entering into contractual relations with two entirely separate Government agencies. For that reason, among others, both sides of industry have opposed such arrangements, and have said that an integrated agency would be infinitely more desirable.
  Mr. Dewar: I understand the points that the Secretary of State has made. It seems that we shall have some interesting debates in Committee. The Opposition are heavily committed to a genuinely devolved structure, but we are not convinced that the Scottish Enterprise companies will constitute the best way of carrying out such wide-ranging duties, or that they will be properly composed for such a task.
  I do not want to make too much of the issue of the one-door approach. Let me say in passing, however, that if my suggestion that we retain a development agency and set up a Scottish training agency is such arrant bunkum as the Secretary of State seemed to suggest, he must have some very interesting conversations with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales. As he will remember, his right hon. Friend has decided to retain the Welsh Development Agency and to have a Welsh training agency as well, for exactly the reasons that I have advanced.
  I do not deny for a moment that this is a matter for genuine debate; none the less, to suggest that anyone whose ideas differ from those of the right hon. and learned Gentleman is unrepresentative, or has taken leave of his senses, is to advance a view that the Secretary of State for Wales would find extremely interesting.
  Mr. Rifkind: I am content for the hon. Gentleman to promote himself as representative of Welsh opinion, as long as he is happy to concede that I am representative of Scottish opinion.
  Mr. Dewar: I do not believe in arguing the impossible, and on this occasion I shall decline the Secretary of State's invitation.
  I believe that there is something of a political motive behind some of the current restructuring. I too remember the attack launched by Mr. Bill Hughes, referred to earlier by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Sahnond). Let me quote from it:
  "The SDA has done nothing for Scottish business. It is one big bureaucracy and it hasn't delivered the goods. The best thing about it is its PR organisation."
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  In fairness to Mr. Hughes, I should record that he told me that he had been speaking specifically about the SDA's policy on small businesses—although his reservations were stated in terms rather too wide to make that defence entirely convincing.
  I believe that the aim is to remove the SDA—both the name and the organisation itself—because it is a constant, unacceptable reminder of a considerable success for the public sector. It represents a distinctly Scottish approach to partnership, which I believe should be retained but which we are in danger of sacrificing.
  We shall want to look carefully at the local enterprise companies, both in the Highlands and in the SDA area. For me, they are a largely unknown quantity. We are told that we are to hand over vast powers to the private sector, which will have almost a semi-autonomous fiefdom to administer—all of it based on a narrow ridge of between eight and 12 board members in the SDA area, and between six and 12 in the Highlands and Islands. That must leave little room for trade unions, local authorities and indeed the wider community, whose members ought to be able to make an enormous contribution but will be left to struggle in through the side door.
  To understand my doubts, the Secretary of State need only consult his own original White Paper on Scottish Enterprise. A much-quoted passage from paragraph 3 referred to the research carried out for the then Training Commission, which showed that
  "less than one in three of those employers asked had a training plan and even fewer had training targets for their labour force. Less than half of the workforce covered by the survey received any training at all in 1986–87."
  Of course we need the important input from the commercial and industrial sectors, but we should not hand them exclusive jurisdiction when they have not even shown enough interest to plan their work force requirements. How can we assume that they will make an excellent job of other people's?
  I know about the recent interviews and press publicity concerning the consortia. I do not make too much of the fact that Miss Kay Stratton was involved, as I do not know how influential she was in the evolution of the scheme; what strikes me as important is that she is from the Department of Employment, and was, I believe, a personal adviser to the late lamented Secretary of State. I do not know whether she holds the same position with his successor.
  Then there was Mr. Brian Wolfson, chairman of Wembley Stadium—which did not, in my view, make him a particularly relevant or sympathetic figure. I know that the Secretary of State will wish to remind me that others too were involved: there were, for instance, Sir David Nickson and Alistair Mair of the CBI, whose dislike of devolution is a source of constant wonder to me. He must feel very uncomfortable while helping to preside over what, if the Secretary of State is correct, constitutes an element of devolution.
  There was also my old school companion, Mr. Angus Grossart: I think that the House will wish to congratulate him on his recent award of a CBE, clearly well earned. I note that one of his first tasks was to interview Sir Michael Herries, a figure not unknown to the right hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger). I gained some amusement from the idea of a very junior member of the Royal Bank of Scotland board interviewing its chairman to find out whether he was a fit and proper person to run an enterprise

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  company. It was probably quite a testing little exchange, but I think that it was testing for Mr. Grossart rather than for Sir Michael.
  I am entirely prepared to accept that many people are allowing their names to go forward, although some of them may be guid familiar and guid predictable. I note that Sir Norman Macfarlane has had to be slapped down by the Minister of State because, in his capacity as chairman-designate of the Glasgow company, he suggested that his bailiwick—I use the term advisedly—should include Bearsden and Eastwood. I am indebted to the Glasgow Herald for the information that he suggested half jokingly that the new company should be called "Glasgow Corporation": clearly he has ambitions to become the Pat Lally of Scottish Enterprise.
  Then—surprise, surprise—there was Ian Wood of the John Wood Group, and Sir Charles Fraser, who I understand will head the operation in Edinburgh. I had a quick look in the most recent edition of "The Directory of Directors", and discovered that he currently holds 48 directorships. If we add Scottish Enterprise, he will have 49, one for each Labour Member—a splendid idea.
  I do not want to make too much of the matter, but I feel that there will be problems over the time and commitment that such people will be required to give Scottish Enterprise. Although I do not doubt that they will set out with the best of intentions, there is a danger that the arrangements will degenerate into a board meeting once a month, and the equivalent of a report to non-executive directors. I also fear that the consultants will have a field day. No doubt Conran Roche and Peat, Marwick, McLintock are already hard at work, and they will be followed by many others.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) will probably point out later in the debate, it is likely that a raft or horde of sub-contractors will all be asking for the right to provide places, and any real innovation and control will be extremely loose.
  Sir Donald McCallum of the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) voiced his worry about fragmentation in a speech on 8 December. Many others have made the point that the dangers are real and genuine. There is a danger that the enterprise companies will become very much hyped by their considerable powers. We understand that they will be able to spend up to £250,000 on projects. That is the glitzy side of the job. They will also be able to compete by trying to attract major developments, such as the 14,000 jobs being created in Renfrew and yet another national stadium which has been offered to Paisley only in the last week or so. I foresee that competition of that kind will lead to fragmentation.
  The Secretary of State must provide information in Committee about the contracts that are to be made with Scottish Enterprise, which are to last for three years. In my television exchanges with the Secretary of State, I asked him whether the budgets would be controlled or monitored by Scottish Enterprise. I was told that I was mistaken, and that there would only be contracts. I accept that, but I want to know how the contract will be monitored. Will there be sanctions for non-performance? Can the contract be broken and taken away? I do not know the answers to those questions. Before we hand over to a self-selecting and largely self-appointed group of business men a public budget which, according to the Government, could in some areas be as high as £70 million
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  or £80 million, we are entitled to know a great deal more about it. For obvious reasons, it will not be a short Committee stage. The Scottish Office will have to tell us how independent Scottish Enterprise will be of the Scottish Office. Very real restrictions concerning training, economic powers and directions are written into a number of clauses. Those restrictions may already be enshrined in the 1975 legislation and are being repeated in the Bill. We shall want to know how the powers will be exercised.
  We shall also want to know how independent of the Department of Employment the Scottish Office will be when it comes to training. I gather from the Secretary of State's rather evasive answers today that the Department of Employment will be very much the dominating partner. Most of the Scottish Enterprise companies will simply be implementing established Government policy, which will be overseen by a national task force, in which Sir David Nickson is bivouacked as a nominal and token Scot.
  If the Secretary of State thinks that I am the only one who has these worries, I intend to bother him with the views of one of those who enthusiastically supported the concept—Mr. Hamish Morrison of the Scottish Council (Development and Industry). According to a report in The Scotsman, he said:
  "Now we have this Scottish Enterprise model. Is it really going to be a decision-making body in its own right? Or is it going to be a retailer for schemes that are devised somewhere else according to different perceptions?"
  According to The Scotsman:
  "Mr. Morrison said that he believed that the devolution of training proposed was more apparent than real and that Scottish Enterprise would be no more than a cheerleader for nationally constructed schemes."
  He may be right. If so, it puts a different complexion on what the Secretary of State told us.
  I do not intend to labour the resources issue. We shall have a go at it in Committee. We are told that about £500 million will be available for the whole shooting match. It is an impressive figure, but it is a standstill budget, an amalgamation of the status quo. I want to know whether the Secretary of State can do better than that.
  I remember, because I always listen with attention to the Secretary of State, that when he appeared with Mr. Jonathan Dimbleby in "On the Record" he gave a clear hint that a good deal more money would be available than simply an amalgamation of existing budgets. We should like to know what, when and how much. I am not encouraged by the explanatory and financial memorandum to the Bill, which refers to the financial implications as being broadly equivalent to what they are at present. It is not a pledge which gets the pulse racing.
  We want devolution, but we do not want a pretence ai devolution to be paraded before the people of Scotland. Devolution must mean some form of democratic control. At the very least, it must mean a genuine measure of community involvement. I am not convinced that either of those conditions has been met. The very opposite is the case.
  Something is fundamentally wrong with the proposal. It creates a new establishment that is narrowly based and unrepresentative. I do not doubt the genuine interest of those who are volunteering, but they are setting out on an uncertain course towards ill-defined objectives. I cannot get out of my head the phrases in the original White Paper about putting the employers into the driving seat and

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  giving them a sense of ownership. I am not in the business of doing that. I want a genuine partnership and genuine co-operative effort.
  When I consider the pressures that lie ahead, and the shake-up and shake-out that may come after 1992, I see that ministerial confidence about the proposal will be no great shield against economic reality. Only a week or so ago, the National Westminster bank suggested that during the next five years an ever greater gap would open up between the economy of Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Scotland's share of United Kingdom output has declined over the last 32 years. I use that period because I do not want to be accused of partisan politics. In 1988, it was down 8·2 per cent. Our share of employment is below our population ratio. If we had been able to maintain our share throughout that period, another 200,000 people in Scotland would be in employment.
  Despite all that has been said, our economy has been in decline relative to the United Kingdom and relative, even more markedly, to Europe. So long as that is the position, it is not right to set out a path that is going in the wrong direction.
  Of course we shall encourage people to make what they can of the scheme. It would be silly and Luddite to do otherwise. There is no question of boycotts, or of trying to hold back, or of putting a spoke in the wheel of any enterprise company. However, it would be wrong and irresponsible not to state our reservations. I do not believe that the scheme is a quantum leap, to quote the Secretary of State, or that it will banish the spectre of high unemployment, or that it will make the Scottish economy a leader in Europe. It has been launched on the wrong basis. It has been based to some extent on ideology and political calculation. It does not provide the right structure and it is not the most hopeful way to harness the full range of Scotland's talents. That is why the Opposition cannot support it.
  6.17 pm
  Mr. George Younger: My Scottish colleagues may be somewhat surprised if I begin by saying that it is enormously refreshing to see the hon. Member for Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) still in splendid form. He does not seem to have lost any of it. I cannot, however, agree with his conclusion. He has done his best to justify the lonely position that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland described him as holding. All that he has said amounts to an enormous agenda for asking questions in Committee and examining the Bill throughout its passage, but he has said nothing that would remotely justify hon. Members in voting against the principle of the Bill.
  The hon. Gentleman did not succeed in making a convincing case. The more he tried to make it, the more it appeared that the vast majority of people in Scotland, including all those who were instanced by my right hon. and learned Friend, are right to say not that they approve every detail in the Bill but that its general thrust is right. Many of its provisions have been awaited for a long time by those who are concerned with the Scottish economy, but they had to wait until my right hon. and learned Friend succeeded in finding the means to put them into effect.
  Mr. Ernie Ross: The right hon. Gentleman, who has been responsible for the defence of the country, among other things, over the last few years must find it difficult again to assimilate the Scottish mentality. The Scottish people say that they want training to be under the control of Scottish agencies but that there ought to be a division between training and the very good and progressive role that is played by the Scottish Development Agency. The Secretary of State failed to refer to that honest assessment.
  Mr. Younger: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but I am certainly not trying to get back into the Scottish mentality as I never left it. Our attitude has to be guided by the judgment of hon. Members on both sides of the House as to what will best bring together the various energies and enthusiasms of the Scottish industrial community to help better development and training. The hon. Member for Garscadden's comments can be summed up by saying that he is strongly in favour of devolution, provided that nothing is devolved to anyone.
  I start by welcoming particularly strongly the fact that at long last the training function for Scottish industry will be clearly the responsibility of the Scottish Office and the Secretary of State for Scotland. That is not to criticise the great efforts that have been made in recent years, including the degree of devolution of responsibility that has been achieved. The utmost good will has been shown and great efforts have been made to tailor the training effort to the needs of Scottish particularities, but it has not got as far as we had hoped. Now that we have a United Kingdom training policy with its Scottish component properly situated in the Scottish Office under the control of the Secretary of State—a member of the Cabinet of course —we have achieved the desire of many people in the Scottish economy. It comes at an appropriate time. At no time has the improvement of training, the widening of its scope and a change in attitude towards training been needed more than now.
  Despite all that has been done in recent years to transform training—and the situation is completely different from what it was even 10 years ago—as a nation we still do not really identify or understand the cultural importance of training to our jobs. To some extent, we are still a nation of amateurs who admire the person who can get by and tend to look sideways at the person who is so meticulously trained for what he does that he works really efficiently and methodically all the time. That is a matter of our national attitude which goes way back in history. A closer relationship between the Scottish community and the organisation of training will be a quantum leap, as my right hon. and learned Friend suggested, and will certainly represent a major shift in attitude of everyone in the Scottish economy to the importance of training.
  Training is overwhelmingly important. No business, large or small, can afford to continue its operations without paying close attention to training. Even the smallest firm has to find a way of taking part in it and making sure that its training is of the highest standard. I should like to pay tribute to Bill Hughes for the way in which he produced the scheme and catalysed it into what my right hon. and learned Friend has put into the Bill. Of course it has widespread support throughout Scotland. That is quite remarkable and is a great encouragement to those involved in it. I am sure that when they get down to work they will be backed up with a wide range of support.

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  Much of the debate so far has been concerned with the local enterprise companies. My right hon. and learned Friend had a very good point when he made it clear that if one does not approve of the idea of enterprise companies, certainly in the Scottish context—I do not know anything about the Welsh context which has been mentioned—one has to explain why it would seem sensible to continue the divide between industrial development and promotion generally and training, which is such a vital part of it. Over the years perceptions of training, the ability to provide training and the quality of training have steadily taken a more important role in industrial promotion, and particularly in attracting industry from outside Scotland. It is taking an even more important role now as in many cases industries which are trying to find a place to settle find that the real barrier is not sites, because sites are available, or finance, because there is finance, including grants in some areas, to back them up; the limiting factor is almost always the availability of skilled labour. That is very much the case today even in areas of high unemployment. On that score, the local enterprise companies will bring together promotion and training and that should he undertaken by local business people.
  The hon. Member for Garscadden is among those who are dubious about control of the scheme being in the hands of local people who have been selected from local areas in Scotland. One of the great secrets about the success of the SDA has been the extraordinary efforts that it has made —very successfully—to involve in its work every sort of other body, interest, people, units and firms. In recent years, it would never have made such remarkable achievements by being a public enterprise authority only and trying to do things from above. It has achieved them overwhelmingly in co-operation with local authorities and private enterprise.
  It is an extraordinarily good time to make such a change, to look at the enormous successes in the past few years, and to look to the future for the changes that may be needed to do even better. Of course there are still numerous problems in our economy. Of course there are still parts of Scotland where unemployment is higher than it should be. The main reason for that is that the people who are unemployed are not being trained effectively. That is not their fault; it is our fault over many years.
  However, irrespective of that, the Scottish economy is incomparably different and incomparably better than it has been in the past. It has a better record on growth and productivity. It has one of the best records in the United Kingdom for the earnings of people in employment. There are increasing numbers of people in employment in Scotland. For most of the past year there has been the largest ever number of people at work in Scotland.
  All those factors suggest that the Scottish economy is in a very good state. That is the overwhelming impression one gets from talking with Scottish business people running large and small businesses throughout the country. The CBI, the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) and many further afield have confirmed that the current climate for business in Scotland is very good, and that optimism and confidence are high throughout Scotland. It is sad and unfortunate that, because that has not had anything like the presentation that it ought to have had, many people in Scotland do not feel the remarkable pride that they should take in a Scottish economy which has been doing extremely well compared with most others in Europe.
  864
  I do not think that we should give the Bill a Second Reading today without referring to the record of the SDA and the HIDB. Although I hope that many of their functions and people will continue for a long time in future under a new name if the Bill is passed, nevertheless it is still a good opportunity to look at the achievements of the SDA.
  The general format of the SDA changed quite substantially in the early 1980s and was brought into a much more private enterprise context. Some criticised that as a retrograde step and thought that it would not do so well as a result, but quite the reverse has been the case. We should pay a warm tribute to it for the immense efforts that it made to change the context in which it did its business. It moved from its offices in Glasgow into the community to join not only private enterprise, which was an extremely important part of its work, but local authorities, regional authorities and district councils. Many people who work for the SDA can speak of the difficulties that they had in persuading some local authorities to co-operate with them, but they succeeded in getting that message across and many people and local authorities in Scotland have been thoroughly converted to the fact that they can do effective business with the SDA.
  There is no better example of that than the city of Glasgow. This is its year of culture, but that is something smaller than the enormous transformation in the fabric, spirit and everything that has gone on in Glasgow for the past few years. Overwhelmingly the SDA has not only contributed but has taken the initiative. Perhaps it was essential for somebody to do that, but all the big initiatives in Glasgow had their origins in the SDA, such as the exhibition centre, which undoubtedly was a private enterprise organisation but which was initiated by the SDA and for which it arranged funding from local authorities and the private sector.
  There is no question but that the cement that held together the four different components of the Glasgow area eastern renewal and made it so enormously successful was the SDA. It offered its officials, skills and diplomatic skills and held them together in a way that nothing else could have done. It also had to give leadership on the environment to convince people whose sights understandably were set solely on the main objective; but that main objective of a better Glasgow with more jobs and better industries would not have been achieved unless the SDA had first put right the environment. Some of the worst eyesores in Glasgow were cleared up. The SDA introduced private housing into areas that needed, and got, a lift, and many parts of Glasgow are a monument to that. Although it did not have much to do with it, one can add to that the enormous boom in housing association activity in Glasgow. Much local enthusiasm was harnessed and driven by local people, which led to many marvellous homes of great quality and remarkably improved the appearance of the city in recent years.
  Mrs. Maria Fyfe: Notwithstanding the enormous improvements in housing in Glasgow, including housing association housing which has recently been built in my constituency in particular, the massive problem of unemployment remains. Of the 20 worst constituencies for unemployment in Britain, no fewer than eight are in Glasgow. How will enterprise companies provide training when jobs are not available?
  Mr. Younger: I respect the hon. Lady's feelings, and I am sure that 1 would share them were I in her position, but it does nothing for Glasgow not to recognise its enormous achievements. Unless we recognise what has been done, why it has been done and by whom, it is most unlikely that we shall be able effectively to tackle the next stage of solving the worst problems. As the hon. Lady rightly said, there is still much to be done in Glasgow, but it is no good turning our backs on what has been done and belittling it. One should be proud of it, and I believe that Glasgow is; that certainly is the impression that one gets from talking to anyone in it.
  Mrs. Fyfe: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to what I said at the beginning of my intervention. If he reads Hansard tomorrow, he will find that I acknowledged the improvements in housing in Glasgow. Far from ignoring them, I acknowledged them at the beginning of my intervention.
  Mr. Younger: I do not dispute that, but I urge the hon. Lady to do more to solve the remaining problems and not to pretend that many have not already been solved. There may be lessons in that that we can all learn.
  Mr. Mike Watson: The right hon. Gentleman said that we should recognise what has been done. I am prepared to recognise the role of the SDA in the Glasgow eastern area renewal—the so-called GEAR project—but he failed to mention the role of Glasgow district council and Strathclyde regional council, which was vital to the success of that project. With that in mind, will he impress on Ministers that local authorities have a vital role to play in Scottish Enterprise?
  Mr. Younger: I emphasised that the SDA has been very successful in working with local authorities, and I pay tribute to it for that. It is unnecessary to suggest to my right hon. and learned Friend that local authorities have a vital role to play in Scottish Enterprise because he acknowledged that in his speech. The hon. Gentleman and I agree on that.
  In Glasgow, the St. Enoch centre and the garden festival were enormously influenced by the SDA. We should pay a great tribute to Sir Robin Duthie and George Matthesson, who did much for the SDA over the years, and all the staff who worked with them.
  I am sure that the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross) is anxious for me to mention that the transformation in Dundee has been no less remarkable than that in Glasgow. Anyone who has not visited Dundee for 10 years would hardly know what city he was in if he did so today. That has been achieved with the enormous co-operation of the local authorities, people with interests in Dundee and private enterprise, but the catalyst was the SDA, and no one can take that away from it. I hope that in Committee —I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State believes this—we shall ensure that the skills and expertise that the SDA has used so effectively are carried through as much as possible into the new organisation and given a new opportunity to flower.
  In the interests of time, I have not dealt with the Highlands and Islands Development Board. It has achieved many successes and I have no doubt that its work is equally appreciated in the Highlands.
  866
  I must also mention the leg-up scheme—a strangely named scheme—which was the brainchild of the SDA. It has been used in many smaller communities throughout Scotland. As hon. Members will know, the catalyst for it was the SDA and much of the money was private, but one brought about the success of the other. It was a great success story, and I hope that Sir David Nickson, whom we wish every success in his work, will be able to capitalise on it.
  The key element in much of the success of the SDA has been the skill and dedication of its staff. They are impressive people of great ability, and we must never take them for granted. There are two things that we must not take for granted when talking about them. First—I know that my right hon. and learned Friend will probably have difficulties with his colleagues and the Treasury on this —we must ensure that we pay what is necessary to get the best people to run the technical side of Scottish Enterprise, as we had with the SDA. I know from my colleagues that it is difficult to obtain agreement for that, but it is vital.
  Secondly, we shall not keep the best people to do the jobs—even if we pay them as we should—if they do not feel that they are working in a team in which their peers are of similar quality. These people are mobile and very much in demand. I am sure that Sir David Nickson wants the teams working in Scottish Enterprise to be of as high a quality as those who have worked with such success in the SDA.
  I agreed with the hon. Member for Garscadden when he said that the Scottish new towns were a remarkable Scottish success story. They have always been different from the new towns south of the border. In most cases, they have been outstandingly successful. Over the past seven years, no less than 40 per cent. of inward investment by value has been attracted to our new towns. I know from visiting many overseas companies which were thinking of coming to Scotland that one could talk as much as one liked—and I did—about the opportunities everywhere in Scotland but that there was an enormously strong pull from the new towns because companies liked what they saw there.
  Some of the lessons have spread beyond the new towns and other areas have benefited. The achievement of 40 per cent. by value is impressive and over 30 per cent. of jobs has been provided by the new towns. The hon. Member for Garscadden touched on that lesson.
  Mr. Ingram: The right hon. Gentleman will remember that when he was Secretary of State for Scotland he issued a policy statement on the housing aspects of the new towns. He said:
  "Once the winding up process begins housing still held by a corporation will be transferred as soon as practicable to the District Council within whose boundaries the town is situated."
  It was not long ago that he made that statement, but I assume that he has changed his mind as he now supports the Government's policy. What has caused him to change his mind? Does he accept that it should at least be an option for the tenants of development corporations to choose the district council if all the houses are not to be transferred to the same district council?
  Mr. Younger: I appreciate that, but, having read the Bill carefully, I believe that it contains that option. The hon. Member for Garscadden also said that he assumed from the Bill that those possibilities were not ruled out. People

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  will be able to exercise choice. I do not know how practical it will be for each householder to exercise a different preference from his neighbour, but 1 am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to tell us what options are in the Bill. I assume that tenants will have options and that is certainly in keeping with the enormous change that has taken place in Scottish attitudes to homes in the past few years. That is especially true of the new towns. More than 50 per cent. of people in the new towns have elected to become home owners, which shows a remarkable change of attitude in the past 10 years.
  I have now spoken for long enough and I am grateful to the House for listening to me. The whole House should support the Bill and I hope that the hon. Member for Garscadden will think hard before he votes against the principle of the Bill. He has every right to try to alter it in Committee, and I am sure that he will try to do so, but there are no grounds for voting against the principle of the Bill. The Bill is another Scottish first and comes at a time when the Scottish economy is a pillar or success in western Europe. The Bill has a wide measure of support among the people of Scotland, as is shown by business people and others who have expressed their views.
  6.43 pm
  Mr. Norman Hogg: I shall not follow closely the speech of the right hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger). He made a fairly substantial speech and clearly he is setting out his stall, as it were, to become Leader of the House of Lords. I am sorry to say that he will be disappointed because he will be shadow Leader for the Conservatives in the House of Lords. However, he has made such a good case for the new towns this afternoon that I intend to submit his name to the Committee of Selection so that he can be selected for the Standing Committee and can give us a hand in making the case for the new towns. I hope that I shall be appointed to that Standing Committee.
  I shall not say a great deal in detail about the proposals that apply to Scottish Enterprise, and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, but will confine my remarks to the new towns. In Committee I shall, of course, play my part in debating the other important matters.
  My first interest in the new towns arose in 1967 when I was appointed a district officer for the National and Local Government Officers Association. My first job there was to deal with a problem in Cumbernauld. I was surprised 12 years later to discover that I was Member of Parliament for that new town. Throughout my 23 years' association with Cumbernauld and the other new towns, I have never doubted the mertis of the new town idea. Like the right hon. Member for Ayr, I believe that their record speaks for itself. I am proud of that, because new towns were set up by the 1945 Labour Government. They are a distinctly Socialist idea—and a very successful one at that.
  At the end of the war, the great cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh had serious housing, social and environmental problems. It was clear that solutions could not be found within the context of those great cities and that there had to be another way forward. The new towns were one of the solutions. They offered green field sites, quality housing, jobs and a planned environment. The development corporations were instruments of economic intervention and no one can deny their success in that respect. I remember the right hon. Member for Ayr telling me in
  868
  reply to a parliamentary question some years ago that about 70 per cent. of all inward investment to Scotland was located in the new towns. That achievement speaks for itself. The new towns continue to attract the new sunrise industries on which Ministers place such importance and the case for public sector development corporations is established by their record in that respect. The case for private sector development companies remains to be proven. I am sorry that the Government are motivated by their ideology in all that they do at present.
  When he was Secretary of State for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) was keen on selling off the new towns. At that time, the right hon. Member for Ayr showed more sense and resisted the winding up of Scottish new towns. He was right then and he would be right now if he were to say that the job for the development corporations remains, and that there is still much to be done in coping with unemployment arid creating jobs in the new towns. That is best done by the development corporations, so I am sorry that, with the proposed timescale, the Government are determined to wind up the new town corporations.
  By and large, the new towns built quality houses, although some mistakes were undoubtedly made. Some estates were badly planned and we have suffered as a consequence, but, on the whole, good use was made of the green field sites and public confidence in that housing is reflected in the high level of sales in the new towns.
  I remind the House that the concept of selling houses in new towns did not arrive with Conservative rule. There was always a tenant's right to buy in the new towns. Although undoubtedly the tenants rights legislation changed substantially the terms on which that could be achieved, the principle that houses could be bought always existed.
  Sir Nicholas Fairbaim: I had the good fortune to be at the planning conference of landscape architects at which Cumbernauld was thought up. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is remarkable that there is nothing in any of the new towns that the corporations have built that is ever likely to be listed as something which we should preserve?
  Mr. Hogg: I am not in a position to comment on other new towns and I have no doubt that hon. Members who represent other new towns will refer to the issue which the hon. and learned Gentleman has raised. By and large, the houses built in new towns are good and are selling. But I agree that there has been a disappointing lack of buildings of note and I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman that we have not done as much as we might have achieved in that sphere.
  I am sorry to say that the Government have not, for example, given the green light to a proposal by Cumbernauld and Kilsyth district council to build a proper civic centre for the town to replace the nasty prefabricated local town hall that was built by a previous SNP administration, the members of which have joined with the Tories in opposing the proposal to build a proper civic centre. We expect that of the SNP in Cumbernauld, though I assure the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond), lest he attacks me, that I do not associate him with the SNP in Cumbernauld and Kilsyth.
  There remains a case for new building. The lifting of the moratorium on new town building for which the Minister of State was responsible did not create the conditions to

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  resolve the continuing problem of young people being able to find a home in the town in which they were born and raised.
  Today in Cumbernauld there is a waiting list of 1,230. We have 37 single parents without homes and 325 single persons and 183 engaged couples on the waiting list. Indeed, 545 young people who were born and bred in the new town are unable to find homes there. They are not able to find a way into the private sector because of high interest rates, low pay and youth unemployment. That is why there is a strong case for a public sector new build programme.
  Another problem for tenants is that the proposals in the Bill do not say that tenants will be given the choice of having the district council as their landlord, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) pointed out. I cannot understand the Minister's reluctance to offer such a choice. I understood that even under the new regime in Chester street—under the proposals of some strange people who have taken it on themselves to run the Conservative party and who are insisting on a peculiar ideology of their own—the Tories were in favour of choice.
  We are simply asking that district councils be included in the choice available to tenants. If the Minister cannot assure us tonight that that choice will be written into the Bill, my hon. Friends and I will table amendments to that end in Committee. Such a refusal by the Minister would ignore opinion in the new towns. It would be wrong for the Government to ignore public opinion on an issue as basic and important as the future ownership of people's homes, and I hope that he will change his mind about what is proposed.
  On the local government side, I note that the planning function is to go to district councils. That important shift is to be welcomed because, whatever may have been the achievements of the development corporations in attracting jobs and investment, they have not been popular as landlords and planning authorities. Indeed, we continue to face problems over their responsibilities in those respects, as other hon. Members who represent new towns will agree.
  That is why we welcome the proposal to place planning matters in the hands of district councils. May we be told how and when the planning function will be transferred to district councils and whether financial assistance will be available for receiving authorities which will have to increase staffing levels to deal with the new responsibilities? Perhaps the Minister will answer those points when he replies to the debate or give an assurance that he will answer them in Committee.
  The Bill is curiously silent on what is to happen to existing employees. In previous measures—for example, those which dealt with the reorganisation of local government—the interests of staff were clearly defined. Those provisions served Scotland well because proper arrangements could be made for the transfer of staff.
  What arrangements will be made in this case for the continued employment of staff where functions are transferred? Will any of the arrangements that were employed in, say, local government reorganisation be introduced in this case? In other words, will arrangements be made to ring-fence the staff and will assurances be given
  870
  that on wind-up staff will be absorbed in local authorities which take on additional functions? What arrangements will exist for severance payments, superannuation, pensions and so on?
  I have been asking questions in wide terms rather than specifically because I appreciate that the Minister may have difficulty in answering them tonight.
  Mr. Dalyell: They are important questions.
  Mr. Hogg: My hon. Friend is right to say that they are important, and at some stage they must be answered. If necessary, I shall table probing amendments to discover exactly what will happen to the staff. It is important that they are maintained in employment, right up to the point of wind-up, and a continuing job will remain to be done. It would not be in the interests of the new towns if skilled teams were lost. I warn the Minister that if he does not answer my questions tonight or if we do not receive satisfactory replies in Committee, I shall write seeking a meeting with him on these important issues.
  I do not like what is being proposed for the new towns. It flies in the face of what new town dwellers and workers have expected and planned for in the last 40 years. Indeed, it flies in the face of all that was envisaged by those who pioneered the new towns idea and who went to live in new towns in the early days.
  I am sorry that once again the Government have founded their views on their strange ideology to such an extent that they deny people choice. That is carrying matters too far. I would go as far as to say that the Bill reduces tenants' rights. As I understand it, that is not what the Government would describe as one of their objectives in previous legislation. I believe that the Bill's proposals place at risk the continuing economic achievements of the new towns and for that reason I shall oppose the Bill.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that the debate started late. I ask hon. Members to keep their comments brief so that I can call many of those who wish to participate.
  7 pm
  Mr. Bill Walker: I welcome the Bill. That will not surprise my colleagues on the Front Bench or Opposition Members. It is wise to integrate training and the economic regeneration of the two parts of Scotland covered by the two development agencies—the Highlands and Islands Development Board and the Scottish Development Agency. I also welcome the fact that we shall control training in Scotland because the special Scottish aspects of training must be addressed.
  The House and anyone who cares about what happens in Scotland must consider the awful fact that we have unemployment in some areas yet in others there is an enormous skills shortage. That shows that things have not been done right over many years. There will be a skills shortage because demographic changes will result in a 20 per cent. fall in the number of 18 to 24-year-olds by 1995. That is only five years away. Through the vehicle of the Bill and by the changes that we hope to make when it becomes law, we must address that problem.
  The House will know that I recently spent a little time looking into the plight of the cardboard community in London. I was particularly interested in the position of

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  teenagers, although one could spend much time talking about other groups. The nation must face the fact that the family unit as many of us knew it when we were growing up is not the unit that is common today. It is breaking up in front of our eyes. More families are noted for breaking up than for stability. That has resulted in many teenagers leaving home. I shall not go into the reasons why they leave home; it is simply a fact that they do so. Some leave because they can no longer accept the conditions in their family home and others do so because they will not accept discipline from their parents. So they find themselves out in the big world.
  Earlier today we heard of a pregnant 16-year-old who was looking for a house. We must address the problems of such people. It is no good saying that they should not happen because they do. I have some ideas about what we should do about them. It will be within your memory, Mr. Speaker, and that of other hon. Members that at one time large firms, particularly in London, had hostels to encourage young people to come to London to be trained to work in the company. That was before the second world war and immediately afterwards. Sadly, in the 1960s most of those hostels disappeared. If we still had them today at least we should have an opportunity to provide some sort of accommodation for young people.
  Young people migrate mainly to large towns and cities, whether London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee or wherever, because they think that the opportunities to find work and accommodation will be greater. I should like the enterprise companies to encourage large and medium-sized firms there to provide hostel accommodation. Companies in my constituency tell me that they are desperate for young people but that there is no accommodation for them. I should like to think that the new training and enterprise companies would put together a package whereby the private sector, assisted by public funding, would find a way of providing hostel accommodation linked to a training commitment.
  We should take the opportunity that the Bill provides carefully to consider skills training. For too long we have not considered it in sufficient depth. In the 1960s I played a part in establishing the training boards and I was proud of what we did. I was saddened at the way in which the boards drifted away from their original purpose of training. I, and others who were keen in the beginning, grew disillusioned. That is no reason for saying that we were wrong in what we attempted to do in the 1960s. If we had got it right, we should not today be facing problems of skills shortages.
  We must ask why the taxpayer is prepared to pay for those who have the ability and good fortune to go into higher education. The taxpayer picks up the cost of all their training and education, yet any young individual who has tactile skills—the type of skills that are required for skilled work—does not receive the same support from the taxpayer. In recent years there has been the development of employment training, which now lasts for two years. As a result of the changes made by the Bill, we should develop three-year skills training programmes through the enterprise companies. If we do that and fund them properly, we shall effectively give every youngster the option of skills training or higher education.
  By skills training I do not necessarily mean the narrow, highly technical skills but all skills. People who go into shopkeeping need good communications and human relations skills. We certainly need to develop human
  872
  relations skills because such skills are sadly lacking. We must also develop management skills. Managing people is a highly developed skill and, sadly, that is another area in which we have not enhanced our reputation in the past 40 years. I should like skills training in its widest sense to be encouraged at all levels and the enterprise companies and new enterprise agencies to be developed.
  I notice that the Government have set a target of 12 enterprise companies. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State was right when he said that many individuals had come forward for these enterprise companies. I may add that the 12 companies will be in the Scottish Development Agency area. I apologise to the House if my main interest lies in the SDA area, but that is where my constituency is. It is not in the Highlands and Islands area although people in the Highlands area of my constituency say that it should be, because of the advantages, whether real or imagined, that exist in the Highlands.
  Dr. Godman: The hon. Gentleman spoke about industrial training boards. Was not Mr. Robert Carr persuaded to introduce the Industrial Training Act 1964 because industrial firms refused to train their work forces? What sanctions can be used now, by way of the Bill, against such firms? The Bill will not be amended in Committee because the Government do not like to accept fair-minded criticism of their Bills. What sanctions can be used to persuade firms to train people instead of poaching them from other firms? May I also point out to the hon. Gentleman that unemployment and skills shortages can occur side by side?
  Mr. Walker: I thought that I had made it clear that I realise that unemployment and skill shortages can occur cheek by jowl. I also understand the problems that companies face when the people whom they have trained are poached. I always thought that reflected on the training schemes that I ran in the companies for which I was responsible, and I never looked upon it as a down side. The benefit, I always thought, was that one kept the really good people. That was my experience, although I cannot speak for other organisations.
  I am not as keen on imposing sanctions as I am on providing an environment in which people are encouraged to participate. The changing of attitudes is very important. We need to bring together enterprise, with which the SDA has been involved, and the Training Agency so that we can create arrangements that encourage both enterprise and training. The two have not always moved in tandem, and that has been part of the problem.
  Had the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) been listening carefully, he would know that I suggested that training be paid for from the public purse. That may astonish him, coming from me, but I have advocated that throughout my adult life. I never understood why, if one went to university, the public picked up the cost, whereas if one wanted to be an engineer—the nation is desperately short of engineers—the cost of one's training must be borne entirely by one's industry or company. That has never struck me as a sensible use of national resources.
  I regard the Bill as an opportunity to bring together the aims for which I have worked and to try to ensure that we train young people for the world of today and tomorrow. That is much more important than all the nonsense that is

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  talked and all the charades about defending jobs that should have gone a long time ago in industries that are out of date and no longer competitive. We should be encouraging the sunrise industries and encouraging young people to go into them. We must also encourage people to go to work where there are opportunities. In my constituency, that means going to work in tourism, and that is why I am so interested in the service sector, in which human relations skills are vital.
  The Bill will bring together two essential parts of Scotland's development and future. We shall have to consider the details of the Bill in Committee, but I welcome the principles behind it.
  7.12 pm
  Mrs. Ray Michie: I listened to the Secretary of State using the same enthusiastic rhetoric this afternoon as he used in his statement on 26 July last year in enlarging on his plans for the Highlands and Islands Development Board and the Scottish Development Agency. I am acutely aware, however, of the existence of clause 21, which allows for the dissolution of the SDA and the HIDB. Many of us still ask why that has to be the case. The Secretary of State has not yet made it clear why that has to happen, while the Bill is vague and imprecise and gives no idea of how the new agencies will work better than the old.
  Why are the Government getting rid of the well-known and much-respected names of the agency and the board? Is it normal practice in the business world to drop a brand name that has proved itself and sold well? Time, money and effort are spent in establishing a name with which customers identify and in the private sector, particularly, the protection of names is considered to be a top priority. To substitute for the SDA and HIDB a phrase containing the overworked and desperately boring word "enterprise" shows a lamentable lack of understanding and foresight.
  We have heard fulsome praise, and rightly so, for the work of the SDA from the right hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger). But everyone should be aware that the agency has gone through a period of uncertainty and that, as a result, the work force is severely demoralised. Programmes have not gone ahead and the number of staff who have left since 1987 gives great cause for concern. There is no doubt that we are talking about a politically determined change of direction. To achieve that change of direction, the Government are destroying instead of building on what is already there. The suspicion remains that the Bill is a move by the Government to get their own placemen into the structure. By selling the public assets of the SDA in a headlong ideological venture, the Government will reduce the influence of the public sector and benefit the few private business men in Scotland who still support them.
  As the hon. Member for Ayr said, the SDA is the envy of many in England and has also been studied by many Europeans. It is admired for its flexibility, independence, creativity and effectiveness. The danger is that the Government are throwing it out in the interests of achieving short-term political goals.
  We have heard much about training, and a highly skilled and competent work force is crucial for the economic and cultural well-being of Scotland. I, too,
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  welcome the transfer of decisions about training from Sheffield, but the Secretary of State has still to reassure us that there will, indeed, be full devolution of responsibility for training from the Department of Employment to the Scottish Office. There must be no suspicion that the Department of Employment is resisting the long overdue decentralisation or blocking what the Secretary of State admits should be a Scottish solution to meet Scottish needs.
  The Government have not yet established a satisfactory case for the merger of the SDA with the Training Agency. Organisationally it is a horrendous prospect, but if it must go ahead, it must boost the role of training in economic development and hasten the process of urban renewal, as well as encouraging a more dynamic and innovative approach to training. It is vital that the deployment of Training Agency staff should be decentralised. I am still not confident that our business men and women will want to become agents for administering Government training schemes for any length of time. The Government are placing a disproportionate emphasis on the need for the private sector to take the lead in the management and design of training. We need a review of existing training schemes to see whether they are suitable for Scotland's training needs.
  We need more effective training for trainers. The experience of the youth training scheme and the employment training scheme shows that the quality and professional competence of trainers varies enormously. Equally important is the need for effective monitoring of training standards. The provision for the inspection of training agencies is absurdly small and can give scope for abuse.
  The Secretary of State himself paid tribute to the work of the HIDB. Will the Minister of State explain how the HIDB warrants such a wholesale upheaval? It has already devolved its work and personnel, it has been serving the Highlands and Islands well over the past 25 years, and it has been keeping in close touch with the people. Why try to mend it when it is not broken?
  Is the Secretary of State confident that local enterprise companies will be truly representative of the various geographical localities and businesses, including crofting and farming? Is he confident that the best of our business men and women will again want to be agents for administering Government training schemes and that small businesses will be properly represented? The majority must devote all their time and energy to keeping their own businesses going in the face of continuing high interest rates. Is the Secretary of State confident that local enterprise company representatives will travel hundreds of miles to attend meetings and to perform public services without remuneration; that board members will not reject applications if they consider them to be in competition with their own businesses; and that confidentiality, particularly of business accounts, will always be observed?
  Is it not anomalous that agencies are intended to serve the needs of local communities, yet the Government's proposals contain no provision for accountability to them? Will the Secretary of State consider a substructure in large rural areas? Will he consider my constituency of Argyll and Bute, in which local enterprise companies are to represent Argyll and Bute, Arran and the Cumbraes? It is a vast area. It will be extremely difficult to have frequent meetings. The needs of Bute are quite different from those of Lochgilphead.

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  The Secretary of State talked about an increase in the population of the Highlands and Islands. He was correct, but he should not be misled. That increase did not occur because the indigenous people are staying and multiplying or because they are returning in droves. On the contrary; too many local people have been forced to leave because they cannot compete for housing, farms and crofts. They cannot compete with newcomers with overflowing wallets. Is the Minister aware that in many villages in Scotland one would be hard-pushed to hear a Scottish voice? That trend will eventually take its toll on the tourist industry.
  It is clear that people in the new towns fear that the Government are riding roughshod over residents' freedom to choose the sort of organisation to which they wish to belong. The Bill does not give tenants a statutory right to transfer to a relevant district council. Many residents face an uncertain future. They do not trust the private sector to safeguard their interests. Nor does the Bill contain an obligation to address the needs of homeless people in new towns. There are still far too many homeless people.
  Because of its vague and superficial nature, the Bill leaves many important questions unanswered. The Government are resorting to a simple-minded, dogmatic and impracticable solution. The Bill will he passed because the Government have a majority, but they must not kid themselves that it has been greeted enthusiastically everywhere. People in my area say, "Well, it is coming." I say, "It is coming, and we must make the best of it." They shrug their shoulders and are sceptical. The Bill will not help Scottish people by creating the environment, the infrastructure, the skills and the opportunities that will encourage them to live and work in their own area.
  7.25 pm
  Mr. Allan Stewart: The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) will not expect me to echo her remarks, particularly those about her own constituency. No one is suggesting that the Highlands and Islands Development Board is not doing a good job. What is suggested is a change of structure to incorporate the economic regeneration functions of the HIDB and the Scottish Development Agency with the functions of the Training Agency. When the White Paper was published, the SDA warmly welcomed Scottish Enterprise and the fundamental proposal that training and development functions should be integrated.
  The Opposition's amendment is disappointing. It is much more negative than the speech of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar). He said, "We want reassurances about this and we want to explore points about that," and so on. His speech contained many markers for the Committee. However, the hon. Gentleman failed to mount a coherent argument for a rejection of the proposals. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State mentioned some points of general principle that have been taken by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. COSLA states that the general objective of integrating the Government's support for training and for enterprise creation is welcomed by the convention. The convention went on to state that local authorities have been committed to this approach in practice for some time.
  Dr. Godman: One of the reasons why I almost instinctively oppose Government measures is the intransigence and hostility of Ministers to any fair-minded
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  criticism in the form of reasonable amendments. Ministers are almost always hostile to the honestly awkward critics as well as to the awkwardly honest critics in the House.
  Mr. Stewart: The hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) has said that he is not prepared to consider proposals on their own merits. Sitting next to him is the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Mr. Hogg). During the Comittee's deliberations on the Scottish education Bill, about 13 of his amendments were agreed as a result of reasoned argument with the Government. It is highly possible that the Bill will be amended in Committee.
  Will the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) confirm that the approach to the subject that the Scottish local authorities maintain they have been adopting for some years is wrong? On behalf of the Labour party, will he say officially that the approach taken by COSLA and local authorities to the basic principle of integration is completely wrong? I suspect that he will not do so as he is in conversation with his Whip rather than listening to the debate.
  I welcome the principle of the Bill for a number of reasons. Training is likely to be more and more important in the process of economic regeneration. Let us consider the recent changes in eastern Europe and think not of the political consequences but of the economic consequences. We all hope that those changes result in eastern European economies becoming more integrated with those of the European Community. Eastern Europe has rejected state Socialism and is moving towards the capitalist West. That means that there will be a whole range of new countries competing with Scotland, something that we should all welcome. At least, initially, they will be low-wage countries—but they will be competitors for inward investment. That is an additional reason why we must emphasise our strengths, and the greatest strength that we have is the skills of our people.
  The hon. Member for Garscadden took a different line on resources from that of the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie. If this morning's Glasgow Herald is correctly quoting his views, the hon. Member for Garscadden accepts that the Bill does not propose any change in the level of resources for the joint bodies, although he is arguing for a commitment to more resources. That is a perfectly reasonable position to take. The hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie puts forward the quite different notion that the Bill inevitably means a cut in resources to the new organisations. It does not.
  The hon. Member for Garscadden referred to the boundaries for the local enterprise companies in west central Scotland. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister of State and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State on their decision to reject the approach by the Glasgow consortium to change the boundaries in the greater Glasgow area. I hope that the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie agrees, as the proposals created as much criticism in Clydebank and Milngavie as they did in Eastwood. The consortium was entitled to put forward those proposals, but there was a strong reaction against them. If my right hon. and hon. Friends had taken the other course open to them, there would have been considerable disruption to the existing plans for those areas. The fact that it would have meant a split in my own constituency is perhaps a parochial point

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  —there were wider considerations than that—but my right hon. and learned Friend knows the reaction from the Eastwood district council and we congratulate him on a sensible and swift decision that ended what would otherwise have been a period of uncertainty.
  As always, the Scottish economy faces a period of change. It must adjust to the changes resulting not only from the single European market but from demographic factors. The number of 18 to 24-year-olds in Scotland is estimated to fall by about 20 per cent. by 1995. That is an additional reason to concentrate on improving our skills.
  I join hon. Members on both sides of the House in paying tribute to the new towns. They have been a dynamic and progressive force for change in the Scottish economy. We all accept that new towns cannot be new towns for ever; eventually they must revert to being the same type of community as other towns in Scotland.
  The hon. Member for Garscadden is right to say that many points need to be explored in Committee. However, that is not the point of this debate, which is about the principle of the Bill, and on the principle there can be no doubt about how the House should vote.
  7.35 pm
  Mr. David Lambie: Unlike some of my hon. Friends, I oppose the principle of the Bill and will vote against it. The whole concept of the Bill was introduced when an idea entered the head of Bill Hughes, a director of Grampian Holdings and a vice-chairman of the Conservative party. He used that idea to attack public sector organisations such as the Scottish Development Agency and the Highlands and Islands Development Board and to give a private sector lead to training and industrial regeneration in Scotland. Unfortunately, he took his idea to the Prime Minister, who was heard to say, "As Bill is one of us, I shall support it." It is unfortunate that as soon as the Prime Minister supported the concept our weak Secretary of State for Scotland was forced to accept the whole principle of the Bill.
  I was surprised that the right hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) welcomed the principle of the Bill. I thought that at one time he was giving the funeral oration for the Scottish Development Agency, which will be killed by the Bill. I am willing to bet that if the right hon. Gentleman was Secretary of State for Scotland, the Bill would not be introduced now. He would have followed the policy decision of his colleague the Secretary of State for Wales to separate the Welsh Development Agency from the training facilities. I congratulate the Secretary of State for Wales on maintaining his independence. I am disappointed in the Secretary of State for Scotland and his Minister of State for just accepting the diktat of a person who has never shown any interest outside his own during his whole period as head of an industrial establishment in Scotland.
  That is nothing new. Not only is the vice-chairman of the Conservative party in Scotland dictating to the Secretary of State, but the chairman of the Conservative party in Scotland is inside the Scottish Office as a junior Minister. However, I do not want to embarrass you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by mentioning the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) after all the trouble that the House has had today. The Bill has been designed by two people
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  who do not represent the people of Scotland or the decent Conservatives—if there are any in Scotland—who will be affected by the Bill.
  I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) say that there is a movement of officials and employees out of the Scottish Development Agency,. They are not moving out of the Scottish Development Agency because they are confident about their futures when the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament. I have found as a Member of Parliament—I am sure that this applies to my colleagues—that when one tries to contact officials or employees of the Scottish Development Agency about various matters, I am told, "We are sorry, Mr. Lambie, that person is no longer here". People are taking early retirement or moving on into the private sector to take advantage of the facilities that will be afforded to the private sector when the Bill is enacted. Those in the Scottish Development Agency show no confidence in their futures, and neither will the employees of the Highlands and Islands Development Board.
  Indeed, I am willing to bet—and I am not usually a betting man—that if the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament, Iain Robertson, the chief executive of the Scottish Development Agency, will also move on to new pastures. Knowing him in the past and his work both as a civil servant and as the chief executive of the SDA, I am certain that he will not put up with what will happen to the SDA when it is downgraded if the Bill is enacted.
  To whom are we handing over the future industrial and training policies of Scotland? The answer is to the private sector—to the people who in the past have let down the people of Scotland over their industrial base and training facilities. Not so long ago Scotland and Scottish industry depended for its skilled craftsmen on our heavy industries. Unfortunately, we have few heavy industries left. Many of my hon. Friends represent shipbuilding or former shipbuilding constituencies. In the small town of Ardrossan, near where I stay, the Ardrossan shipyard is now closed. Every year it used to take on 100 apprentices and put out 100 skilled craftsmen to help the new companies coming into the area. The shipyards produced the skills, but they no longer exist and those that are still in operation no longer train apprentices. The same applies to the steel industry, the heavy engineering industry and the chemical industry.
  The people who will man Scottish Enterprise and the local enterprise companies are the very people who at present are not prepared to train in their own companies. That is a general statement and there are one or two exceptions to it. I refer, for example, to the chairman designate of my local enterprise company, the Ayrshire enterprise company Mr. John Hornibrook, the works director of Roche of Dairy, a man who has spent his entire life trying to get the companies in Ayrshire to put money into training, without much success. Although there are one or two exceptions, the majority of people appointed to Scottish Enterprise and to the local enterprise companies such as those in Ayrshire will be appointed by the Government. Yes, they will be Government appointees, placemen of the Conservative Government, appointed to carry out the Conservative Government's policies.
  I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Ayr is no longer in his place. I hope that the Minister of State will not appoint to the Ayrshire enterprise board some of the right hon. Gentleman's friends because as far as I can see they are not interested in training. Most of them are

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  interested only in the honours list and in whether they will get the CBE or the OBE, which will be just another arm to their careers and reputations.
  The only way in which we can achieve anything in training is by giving companies serious financial incentives to carry out their training obligations. We should also apply severe financial penalties to those companies which do not carry out their responsibilities, but which poach from companies that have spent money on training. If we do that, we shall make progress.
  Both private and public industry should carry out their training functions and increase the number of their skilled craftsmen. However, they should do so without being incorporated into this new Government organisation.
  Dr. Godman: I sympathise with my hon. Friend's serious reservations about privately led employment and training initiatives, because the Inverclyde Initiative, which is a privately led initiative, has done little or nothing for the people of the lower Clyde.
  Mr. Lambie: I agree with my hon. Friend because I have experienced Taskforce and local enterprise groups. Because of the serious decline of employment potential in my area, I have always been a leader in trying to get some new Government initiatives. The hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) knows that when he served at the Scottish Office he helped me to set up the Ardrossan, Saltcoats and Stevenston enterprise initiative, which did little for the people in the area. However, such organisations certainly provided a lot of jobs for the people who will now be looking for jobs in the new organisations. It was always a case of jobs for the boys.
  I shall vote against the Second Reading because the Government have included in the Bill their provisions to wind up Scotland's new town development corporations. Why? It seems strange that this Bill has two sections. One deals with the future of the Highlands and Islands Development Board, the Scottish Development Agency and the Training Agency, but that is joined with the provisions to wind up the new town development corporations in Scotland. Why are the Government doing that? The answer is because they do not have enough Tory Members of Parliament to man the Committees on two Bills. The Ministers are punch-drunk with not only defending themselves against the likes of Bill Hughes and the hon. Member for Stirling, but with defending themselves against the people of Scotland also.
  Two totally different subjects are being taken together in one Bill because the people of Scotland are not prepared to vote for Tory candidates. If by some unfortunate chance after the next election the people of southern England vote Conservative again and we have another Tory Government in the United Kingdom, we can honestly say that there will be no Tory Members of Parliament representing Scotland. What will the Government do then? How will they man the Committees? What about the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs? The Government are in difficulties now, but they will certainly be in difficulties later if by some unfortunate chance the people in southern England are still as stupid as they have been during the past three general elections.
  I represent the new town of Irvine. The people there are asking about what will happen to their housing when the new town development corporation disappears. My development corporation of Irvine will disappear in 1999
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  and I shall be lucky if I am around then. I shall certainly not be the Member of Parliament for Cunninghame, South then. By that time there will have been at least two general elections and we will have the possibility of a Labour Government. I say to the people in East Kilbride and Cumbernauld, whose new town development corporations are to be wound up quicker, that they might be caught before we have a new Labour Government, but by the time Irvine new town is wound up there will be a Labour Government and therefore the legislation being passed tonight will not apply to my area. The people in my area are asking what will happen to the houses that are still tenanted. There are more than 5,000 houses in Irvine new town: just over 1,000 have been sold and we are left with 4,000 tenanted houses.
  Sir Nicholas Fairbairn: Who is left with them?
  Mr. Lambie: I shall listen to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, carry on and never mind the interjections by those who have just come in. The hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Sir N. Fairbairn) was one of the best members of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs when I was its Chairman because he always did what he was told.
  The people of Irvine are asking what will happen to those houses. I was interested that in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram), the right hon. Member for Ayr looked down at his colleagues on the Front Bench and said that people in the new towns would surely be given the opportunity of choosing to go to their local district councils. In my case that would be Cunninghame district council. The Minister did not look, nod or give any sign of agreement with the previous Secretary of State for Scotland. Unlike my hon. Friends, I will not wait until this matter is discussed in Standing Committee. If the right hon. Member for Ayr was correct and the Government are to give the tenants a choice of going to their local district councils, I want the Minister to say now that his right bon. Friend the Member for Ayr was correct.
  The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Ian Lang): If the hon. Gentleman can contain himself until my wind-up speech, I shall address the matter then.
  Mr. Lambie: Usually, whenever we reach the wind-up speech we are told to wait until the Standing Committee. When one has been here long enough one has heard all these stories from Ministers.
  Mr. Thomas Graham: My hon. Friend makes an important point. I assure him that I know what the Minister's answer will be. When the Scottish Special Housing Association existed, we constantly asked the Minister to give the SSHA tenants the right to ballot to decide whether they wanted to go to the SSHA or to their local authority. If that had happened in Linwood, Erskine or such places the folk would have voted overwhelmingly to go to their district councils.
  Mr. Lambie: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. When the right hon. Member for Ayr was Secretary of State for Scotland he gave the guarantee that when the Scottish Special Housing Association was wound up the houses would be handed over to the local authorities. Previous Secretaries of State from both the Labour and Conservative parties said the same. We know that Scottish

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  Homes was set up to replace the Scottish Special Housing Association and the Minister of State, Scottish Office, who is present, reneged on the agreement and a private company was set up to administer the houses of the Scottish Special Housing Association.
  The people in the new town houses are afraid because Scottish Homes not only gives people the right to buy their homes, which the Labour party accepts, but has the right to sell houses on the open market when they become vacant. Therefore, instead of a reduction in the housing waiting list in the Cunninghame area—which is now more than 4,000, with just under 1,000 in the new town—homelessness is increasing as Scottish Homes begins to sell houses that were formerly in the rented sector.
  In a survey carried out by the Scottish Office, 59 per cent. of the people of Irvine said that, given the choice, they would rather be tenants of Cunninghame district council. Only 7 per cent. said that, at the wind-up of the corporations, they wanted to be tenants of Scottish Homes. Yet the Government are to transfer, against the wishes of the people, houses to Scottish Homes if they have not been sold off to some other private enterpriser. I speak on behalf of the tenants of the IDC houses in the new town of Irvine and ask the Government to ensure that tenants of the houses that remain at the wind-up, which I hope will never come because by that time we will have a Labour Government, will be given the choice to go to their local district council.
  7.55 pm
  Mr. James Arbuthnot: The Bill contains the most important reforms of training and economic development since 1974, when the Manpower Services Commission was established, and since 1975, when the Scottish Development Agency was established. The Scottish Development Agency was established by a Labour Government, so it was refreshing when the incoming Conservative Government of 1979 did not abolish it, as was widely expected. Instead, they adopted, adapted and developed it in a way that showed flair and proved extremely successful. Perhaps that shows that the party divide then was not as great as it is now, which is fitting.
  As has been generally recognised on both sides of the House, the SDA has been a success. It has a high reputation both inside and outside Scotland, and has an imaginative and dedicated staff. One reason for that success has been that it has moved away from a policy of throwing money at lame ducks and moved instead towards being vigorous and successful in helping Scotland to develop its sunrise, rather than sunset, industries.
  Speaking as a Member for an English constituency, albeit a Scottish Member—
  Mr. Ernie Ross: Will the hon. Gentleman, with his detailed knowledge of Scotland, tell us of any single lame duck at which the SDA threw money and to which he objected?
  Mr. Arbuthnot: I was making the point that the SDA has moved away from that policy and towards different policies encouraging the new industries that Scotland has needed, rather than trying to throw money at the dying industries of coal and steel.
  Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman has just made that up.
  Mr. Arbuthnot: I have not made it up. The SDA has moved towards the new industries that Scotland will need to rely on in future.
  England does not have a similar agency to the Scottish Development Agency, which has caused some envy in English circles. It does not have an organisation fighting for English enterprise, and perhaps it should. Clearly it is right that the responsibility for training in Scotland should be devolved in Scotland. That proposal is not opposed by any hon. Member. Training should not be dealt with in Sheffield as it is now, and there can be no argument about that.
  The question then arises as to where training should be dealt with in Scotland. The advantages of transferring the responsibility for training to the Scottish Development Agency are considerable. A single organisation, providing an integrated system of enterprise promotion and training, is more likely to produce the skills that business men need than would a separate body.
  Another problem is that the demographic decline as a result of the end of the post-war baby boom—I lay claim to being part of that boom—will cause an extreme shortage of skills in Scotland. In the United Kingdom we are facing a shortage of skills which, unfortunately, is not faced by our competitors. That makes it all the more important that we should enhance the skills of the young people whom we have, quite apart from any natural desire to do that in any event.
  It is vital that the training of our young people should be inextricably linked to the jobs that they will be required to do. It is right to transfer responsibility for that training to Scotland and to the body most closely concerned with investment in Scottish enterprise, and to treat the training not just as another investment but as the most important investment in Scottish enterprise.
  For that reason the general secretary of the Scottish TUC welcomed the integration of training and development, and it is hardly surprising that the chairman of the Scottish Development Agency said:
  "We welcome, we endorse and support the visions and the principles in the White Paper. The SDA is throwing its full weight behind Scottish Enterprise and, in particular, the proposals that training and the development function should he integrated."
  Mr. Graham: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that there is to be no new money for training in Scotland, yet private industry has an appalling record on training and the creation of apprenticeship? Not long ago the Evening Times, a well-known Glasgow paper, carried an article on the serious problems to be found in training schemes run by private companies. They were a disaster. One of my constituents, who is supposed to be training for his HGV licence, has been running about as a chauffeur, carrying private employers all over the place. That is not what he should be doing. We need new money to ensure that training can happen and that apprenticeships develop. Private industry will not lead the way. We need to see a better input from the Government.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. Interventions should be brief.
  Mr. Arbuthnot: Hon. Members on both sides of the House have recognised the need for a far greater emphasis on training than in the past. I am not clear whether the

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  hon. Gentleman believes that only the Government should be responsible for training or that industry should place more emphasis on training. In 1978–79 about two thirds of the money that went into the Scottish Development Agency came from the Government and the other third came from business and the economy that it produced.
  In view of the wide support for the changes that are being introduced in the Bill, in view of the support of the Churches, the trade unions, the SDA and the vast majority of the 420 representations that have been received, it is more surprising that the party, or parties opposite—I have now heard the Liberal party's view—have set their faces so firmly against it and, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State said, have stood in splendid isolation in opposing the Bill.
  Mrs. Fyfe: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Scottish TUC is so concerned about the plans for training in Scotland that it has proposed setting up an independent body to monitor the carrying out of that training because it cannot trust the Government to do that properly?
  Mr. Arbuthnot: The STUC has generally welcomed the Bill. Obviously, it disagrees on some issues, as do many others who have produced representations generally in support of the Bill. But the broad feeling in Scotland is that the Bill and the White Paper are along the right lines. The Labour party is sadly isolated if it says that the principle of the Bill is flawed. But is the Labour party saying that? Do Labour Back Benchers agree with the suggestion of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) that the Bill should be opposed? When my right hon. and learned Friend asked whether it was the detail rather than the broad principle of the Bill that was objected to, the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) nodded his head. In that case, he and his colleagues should examine their conscience, support the Bill on Second Reading and propose detailed amendments in Committee. If they do not do that, they will risk being accused of petty opposition for the sake of it, and rightly so. They also risk being trampled in the rush of local authorities and local trade unions eager to take part in the local enterprise companies. They are putting forward applications to take part. If the Labour party is not to be trampled in that rush, it should consider changing its stance. The local trade unions and local authorities are eager to endorse the principle of this excellent Bill.
  8.5 pm
  Mr. Adam Ingram: I do not intend to comment in detail on part I of the Bill which deals with Scottish Enterprise, but I fully endorse the points made in relation to that by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar). I represent the first Scottish new town and I have lived in East Kilbride for the past 20 years. Therefore, I want to confine my remarks principally to part II, which deals with the winding up and dissolution of the new town development corporations.
  The residents of the new towns expected and deserved something better than an imprecise three-clause addition to another piece of legislation, sneaked out in an unacceptable way over the Christmas and new year holiday period. The way in which that was done, and the lack of detail contained within the measure relating to the new towns, treats the 25,000 people who live in the new towns with nothing short of contempt.
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  The Secretary of State and the Minister with responsibility for the new towns appear to forget that Scottish new towns are places where people are born, brought up, and educated and in which they live and work. They are total communities in which one in 20 of the Scottish people live and work.
  Why have we not been presented with a proper piece of legislation which takes account of the ongoing housing needs of the new towns? Why have we not been presented with a Bill which takes account of the benefits gained by having the overall community environment planned and run by bodies with a degree of democratic accountability? Why have we not had a piece of legislation which recognises the economic benefits to be gained from having a democratically accountable body responsible for the economic development of the new town areas? Why should five new towns find themselves being privatised and run differently from every other town, city or community in Britain?
  Two key areas give major cause for concern—housing and economic development. The future of new town tenants and those who would have expected to be housed by the new town development corporations in the future remains decidely uncertain. The real fears and worries of tenants will be increased by what the Bill does not say as by what it does say.
  As other hon. Members have said, in the past year the Government have commissioned an independent survey on the attitudes of new town residents to housing choice within the new towns. It makes salutary reading. I shall not go into that in detail, but I want to take one prime aspect. In reply to one question, two thirds of tenants said that the district council would be their preferred landlord on wind up. Only 8 per cent. said that they would choose a housing association, 9 per cent. a housing co-operative, 5 per cent. Scottish Homes and 1 per cent. a development corporation buy-out. No one said that they would choose a private landlord. That is a clear expression of tenant choice—something that the Government claim is their overriding and highest priority.
  If the Government are so committed to tenant choice, why does not the Bill contain a simple clause stating that at any time prior to or during the winding up process tenants' wishes will be respected and that they will be able freely to choose their own landlord? One simple clause would put at ease the worries of all tenants living in development corporation houses. I suspect that such a clause was not inserted because the Secretary of State and the Minister knew that tenants would choose their district councils and did not-want to offer them that choice.
  At present, development corporations in East Kilbride, Glenrothes and Livingston are planning to transfer their housing stocks to private management agencies, and they have not asked tenants for their views on that development. Recently I tabled a parliamentary question asking the Minister whether he would be prepared to advise or instruct development corporations to consult tenants prior to any transfer to management agencies of new town housing stock. His simple and stark answer was no. Tenants are being given little choice, and the management structure is being transferred over their heads.
  We are left with a public housing authority that takes no account of tenants' wishes, and a Secretary of State and Minister who are not prepared to defend tenants' interests. When the Bill is enacted, I envisage the Secretary of State

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  establishing in each new town an office on whose door will be the sign "Tenants' choice—no inquiries please." Even the people of Romania are not prepared to put up with that kind of thing any more. What is happening even before the Bill is on the statute book will occur to an even greater and more dramatic extent when it is law. Tenants will have the choice only of accepting what the Government say is right for them—and if they do not like it, they can get out. I refer to people who have lived for years and decades in new towns, and who have brought up their families there and are now seeing their children marry and bringing up their own children.
  The Bill is silent on which body will be responsible for new towns' ongoing housing needs. Existing new build programmes are inadequate to meet the current requirements of new town areas. The situation has deteriorated steadily over the years and seems likely to become an even greater problem in the years ahead. Figures from Shelter reveal an alarming increase in the number of homeless and the extent of waiting list problems in new town areas. In my own new town of East Kilbride, the number of homeless doubled in the seven years between 1981 and 1988—increasing from just over 2,000 to more than 4,000—as a consequence of Government policies. No one else can give development corporations the authority to build new houses. Such instructions have not been forthcoming in recent years, even with the lifting of the moratorium after considerable pressure was placed on the Scottish Office by Scottish local authorities and tenant representatives.
  The Bill makes no provision either for local authorities to fulfil their statutory obligations to the homeless and to other special needs groups. The proper solution would be to provide for a transfer of the relevant special needs housing stock to district councils. That would set to rest the worries and fears of those already living in special needs housing and the many on the waiting lists for such accommodation—as well as of the many thousands of homeless in new towns who are searching for a home within the community but cannot obtain one because of circumstances outwith their control.
  There is no mention in the Bill of the way in which the relative success of new towns in recent years will be maintained. Other hon. Members have mentioned that in recent years 40 per cent. or more of inward investment in Scotland has gone to new town areas. That success is built on long-term planning, investing for the future, and the careful use of public assets in developing new town areas. Those assets have been developed at considerable public expense and managed successfully over the years through a form of democratic accountability in partnership, to a greater or lesser extent, with local authorities. That formula for success and the experience that has been built up will now be cast aside.
  Although the Bill says nothing about the successors to the development corporations, the White Paper does. It makes it clear that the successor bodies will be run on a private sector basis and will be profit driven. Instead of the existing bodies dedicated to long-term development, there will be groups of entrepreneurs with an eye on the main chance and a fast buck who will be more dedicated to getting what they can out of new towns—probably by asset stripping—than to what they can put into them. Now
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  is the wrong time—with increasing competition for inward investment not just within Britain but across Europe, and for economic development—for the Government to throw away the major business expertise that exists within new towns and to dispose of well integrated, developed and properly planned industrial and commercial assets to the highest bidder. Even then there is doubt as to whether they will go to the highest bidder.
  The Bill's failure to provide for local authority involvement in the successor bodies also gives cause for concern. Local authorities will have a role, albeit minimal, in Scottish Enterprise and in local enterprise companies, but they will be denied a similar involvement in local development boards. Why should that be so? Why should local authorities or democratically elected councillors be denied a place on the local enterprise boards, when there is acceptance that at least some form of local authority representation should be permitted in respect of local enterprise companies? In the case of East Kilbride and Glenrothes, there is a fear that the development corporations will be wound up before Scottish Enterprise is up and running and has a chance to establish itself. To subject new towns to a changing and uncertain environment could prove disastrous not just for their areas and their wider communities but for the whole of the Scottish economic scene.
  Everyone associated with new towns takes pride in the housing, social, industrial and commercial environment that they provide. Those of us who live in new towns are proud to do so, but nothing in clauses 30, 31 and 32 gives cause for hope in their future. Those three clauses are analogous to the three-card trick, but instead of it being a case of finding the lady, it is a matter of finding the Government's commitment to democratic accountability and freedom of choice. We all know what happens to the lady in the three-card trick: it is shown briefly and then palmed by the con man.
  Fortunately, the people of the new towns will not be conned by the Secretary of State. They know that they will not have even a chance of glimpsing freedom of choice in respect of housing or democratic control over their communities' commercial and industrial assets. That is why the people of the new towns strongly oppose the Bill and why I, as a new town Member of Parliament, give them my full support.
  8.18 pm
  Mr. Alex Salmond: The debate had an unusual start, when the speech of the Secretary of State for Scotland was disrupted by the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker). I was glad that the hon. Member for Tayside, North did not get shown the red card —not so much because we would have missed his speech later but because, rather embarrassingly, I would have been constrained for the first time to support Mr. Speaker's ruling on such a matter.
  The right hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger), making one of his first speeches as a Back Bencher on a Scottish subject, paid a handsome tribute to the work of the Scottish Development Agency, the Highlands and Islands Development Board, and new town development corporations. His tribute was so handsome that I wonder why he so enthusiastically supports legislation that abolishes those institutions. That is an important point. Opposition Members are entitled to be certain, before we

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  endorse or support the legislation, that what replaces those institutions will be more effective than the SDA, the HIDB and the new towns have been. Criticisms along those lines are not carping and minor but substantial and major.
  There is no doubt that the legislation has been oversold and that occurred from its genesis when the progenitor of the scheme, Mr. Bill Hughes, the vice-chairman of the Conservative party in Scotland, boasted that it would eliminate Scottish unemployment within a matter of years. If claims of that sort were to be brought to fulfilment, there would have to be something in the scheme—either in its finance, its function or its performance—that would allow such extravagant claims a semblance of reality. If we consider the issues in turn we will find nothing in the legislation that could meet such an ambitious target.
  As other right hon. and hon. Members have pointed out, no new money is being made available for investment work or training in Scotland. The best that can be said is that finance under the legislation will be broadly equivalent to what is available at present. There is a real danger that a diminution of finance is on the agenda. One might reasonably expect that private employers taking a larger funding role in training in the future is part and parcel of the Government's logic of privatisation of the training services.
  Opposition Members are entitled therefore to ask for guarantees that the hints of an expanded budget that the Secretary of State for Scotland was prepared to give in a television programme will be transformed into legislation. Perhaps, when the Minister replies, he will tell us what will happen to the funding pattern of the SDA, the HIDB and training under the Scottish Enterprise proposal.
  Nor is there any great change in the functions that will be undertaken by the new system. The Secretary of State has made great play of the devolution of the training services to the new Scottish Enterprise organisation. As other hon. Members have said, when one analyses those training services, one sees that 95 per cent. of the funding will remain dominated by programmes determined by the United Kingdom Department of Employment. All the Secretary of State had to say when he was questioned about whether that represents a "Scottish solution to Scottish needs" was that it would be a problem if Scottish qualifications were different from those in England. Does that not also apply to the present Scottish education system? There does not seem to be any problem with Scottish labour mobility into England—just the opposite. The key priority is that training qualifications should be appropriate to the needs of the economy in which they function.
  If the scheme was a genuine Scottish solution to Scottish needs there would not be a superficial devolution of training programmes but the right to evolve training programmes that are appropriate to Scottish conditions.
  When we consider the likely performance of the new agencies, we are entitled to ask why the new set-up will be better than the old one. For example, the Scottish Development Agency has just undergone a major reorganisation and decentralisation of its functions. How will the investment function of Scottish Enterprise perform better than the SDA, with a similar decentralisation by area?
  A number of hon. Members have criticised certain aspects of the SDA's performance in the past, but on the whole, and one can only judge these things in that way, it would probably be the virtually unanimous view of the
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  House that the SDA has performed well under the circumstances. Why should we expect the new organisation to perform its investment function better than the SDA or the HIDB did in the past?
  We already know that 95 per cent. of the training schemes will be United Kingdom dominated. The Government are placing their faith in the intervention and introduction of private sector employers into the organisation. They will dominate local enterprise schemes by a ratio of two thirds to one third. What is the training track record of that section of the Scottish community and why does it lead us to expect that their performance within Scottish Enterprise will be dramatically better than their performance within their own companies? The Government claim that they have a consensus on the proposals, but I do not see that one exists. There is certainly a consensus in favour of devolution of training to Scotland, but, as Hamish Morrison, chief executive of the Scottish Council has said, that is "more apparent than real."
  There is a large measure of agreement that there should be integration of training and investment because they are closely interrelated. However, that should not mean that the existing institutions—the SDA and the HIDB—should have to be dismantled. Why was it not possible to use the new area structure of the SDA as the basis for the new organisation, and, underneath that, along the model of the present local enterprise trusts, have agencies that would deliver local training needs from the training budget?
  In my constituency the proposal from Banff and Buchan Enterprise made the important point that training needs are not likely to be identified best on a Grampian level. They are more likely to be identified in the same way that local enterprise trusts identify them at the moment —at a really localised level with detailed knowledge of the local economy. We could have kept the best aspects of the SDA and its structure as well as integrating the training requirements.
  Any agreement in principle that there may have been at one time about the proposals has been shattered by the total imbalance in the structure of the proposed organisation. There is a real danger and a suspicion that these proposals will mean the replacement of the professionalism of the SDA with the patronage of the Conservative party.
  The Secretary of State for Scotland said that he does not appoint local enterprise companies. That is true. He appoints the committee that vets the local enterprise companies. He also appoints Scottish Enterprise, which monitors the performance of local enterprise companies. Therefore, there is a real danger that that is effectively an extension of Scottish Office patronage into an area which, in the past, was administered professionally.
  The SDA and the HIDB are the latest in a list of Scottish institutions that have been attacked by a range of policies. Education local authorities and the Health Service have also been subject to reorganisation and restructuring, often for no good reason, at the hands of the Government.
  We should consider why the two thirds bias towards the private sector is wrong. First, it is wrong because it fails to realise that local employers are in competition for scarce labour resources. Take the Grampian example. There will be a maximum of eight private sector local employers in the new Grampian Enterprise organisation. What about the many other private sector employers within the region?

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  Will they not have any input into the organisation? Secondly, the scheme devalues the role of local authorities. They are not just major employers; they are major providers of training services through local authority colleges. Again, in the Grampian example there is a maximum of four places available to non-private sector sources. Therefore, the odds must be against even one councillor from, say, Banff and Buchan becoming a member of the new organisation. The proposals belittle the legitimate training role of local authorities.
  The third problem is the lack of effective trade union representation, particularly in training. There is a potential conflict of interests between employers, and between employer and employee. The union movement should be properly represented to ensure that people are confident that they are being trained to enhance their skills, and not because it suits one part of the private sector. There will be no consensus support for the Bill until the present proposals, which are biased in favour of the private sector, are replaced by proposals that provide for a genuine partnership between private sector, local authorities and trade unions.
  I agree with much of what was said about new towns by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Mr. Hogg), although I cannot endorse his architectural attack on the Scottish National party. In view or his past comments on such matters, the hon. Gentleman probably did not give us the complete picture of Cumbernauld's architecture, and in any case I do not know a great deal about that subject.
  One of the tenants who lobbied hon. Members today gave me a copy of a letter sent on behalf of the Minister of State in June 1988. The letter dealt with the position of new town tenants following the abolition of the new town corporations, and stated—as Ministers have stated before —that the Secretary of State
  "will take full account of the views and wishes of the tenants concerned before reaching his decision."
  Various surveys and expressions of opinion have made two things clear. First, in general the district council represents the most favoured landlord for new town tenants; secondly, private sector landlords were the least popular choice—so unpopular, indeed, that they barely registered in the surveys. I feel that we are entitled to a definite statement that each new town tenant will at least be given the option of moving into district council tenure when the new town corporations are finally wound up.
  Significantly, the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Ayr, did not seem to be aware of the amount of evasion, convoluted logic and survey-rubbishing in which the Minister of State has been engaged. The Minister's statements have led us all to suspect that district council tenure is the last option that he wants to offer, but we believe that the new town tenants should be given the freedom of choice that they were originally promised.
  I want to make two specific comments on the Scottish Enterprise legislation, followed by a more general point. First, have the Government considered the fact that European social fund applications are processed through the Department of Employment? Will that task be devolved to the Scottish Office, to the SDA or to Scottish Enterprise?
  890
  Secondly, let me ask on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) whether the Government have considered the anomalous position of her constituency and Moray district. At present, some 25 per cent. of population is in the Highlands and Islands Enterprise area, with about 75 per cent. in the Scottish Enterprise area. My hon. Friend argues that the whole of her constituency and district should be brought within the Highlands area, with the important proviso that funding should take account of the increase in population.
  Finally, let me make my general point. There is no doubt that labour supply factors can be important to economic success, and over the next two or three years certain industries in Scotland are likely to face severe labour shortages in jobs that require key skills. Construction is an obvious example, because of the current oil boom. Economic structure and demand are also important, however. I wonder whether the Secretary of State or the Minister watched a BBC television programme last Friday in which a successful Scottish business man, Mr. David Murray, was asked for his views on the outlook for the next decade. Far from replying that he believed that the Scottish Enterprise proposals would lead to some great Scottish economic renaissance, Mr. Murray expressed regret about the erosion of indigenous ownership in the Scottish economy, and pointed to the damage done to Scotland's economic prospects by penal interest rates that are designed not for Scottish economic conditions, but for the overheated economy of the south-east of England.
  Until we have a real economic policy that provides a genuine Scottish solution to Scottish needs, the Scottish Enterprise proposals will be at best irrelevant and at worst damaging.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. Four hon. Members have sat here for a long time trying to catch my eye. I understand that the Front-Bench Members wish to reply to the debate at 9.20 pm, which leaves 43 minutes. I hope that the arithmetic will not be lost on hon. Members.
  8.37 pm
  Sir Nicholas Fairbairn: I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree that we have heard a rare speech from the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond), a Scottish National Party Member. It was not constructive; we would not expect it to be. It was not instructive either. What was rare about it was the fact that it was not even destructive, and I am sure that we all learnt very little from it.
  I was impressed to note that the only titter that we have heard throughout the debate came from Labour Members when the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) said that even the Romanians would not stand for the Government's proposals. Let us not forget the principal new town housing policy of President Ceausescu: he bulldozed all the villages and forced people to live in Socialist new towns. I have just returned from a visit to the Socialist new towns of Warsaw, Witowice in Czechoslovakia and East Berlin, and I can understand why the Romanians would not want Socialist new towns. I was horrified by what was said by the hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Lambie) about human beings

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  who had had the effrontery to buy their own houses. His remark may well rank in the history of Socialism, along with "We are the masters now": he said that "we" had been left with only 4,000 houses.
  Who are "we"? Are not houses meant to belong to people? Why should we arrogantly assume that they wish a Socialist organisation, which has been left with only 4,000 houses, to be perpetuated?
  Dr. Godman: There are only 4,000 left.
  Sir Nicholas Fairbairn: There is only one in my constituency. Why does the hon. Gentleman say that only 4,000 are left? I pay tribute to him for his kindness and his compliment to me in allowing me to be a member of his committee, even though my peccadilloes were always put into shadow by his own.
  The hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross) made an interesting point when he asked us to give an example of a factory or industry that had not been destroyed in Scotland. He should be the last person to ask such a question. Ron Todd prevented the most important modern factory that Scotland could ever have had from coming to Dundee.
  The Opposition want bureaucracy to continue in its most strangling form. The successes which the Minister of State and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State have brought about for the Scottish Development Agency will be increased by the Bill. Enterprise companies in Perthshire and Fife are enthusiastic about the Bill, but they are frightened that the regional councils or the Socialist district councils will attempt to make the magnet of the city of Dundee do down the city of Perth. We want the enterprise companies to benefit small towns and villages in Scotland by developing tourism and trade.
  The most essential element for future employment is training. I read the Dumfries Courier every day. It is the only newspaper that still carries advertisements on its front page, with the news in the middle. Each day there are probably two advertisements in the "Situations Wanted" column. There are probably 200 advertisements in the "Situations Vacant" column. At the other end of the newspaper there are sophisticated advertisements, usually between 50 and 100. The reason for that large number of vacancies is not because people do not want to work; it is because we do not have trained people to do the work that is available. It is work that they would like to do.
  People need to be trained and encouraged to be flexible so as to be able to adapt to changes in working practices. The development of skills is the most important manifestation of education in all its variety. The Bill combines training with what is, for Scotland, a unique benefit—one Government agency to which any person who wishes to invest in Scotland can go, knowing that everybody whom he will need to consult will be under the same roof. He will not have to visit different departments and different officials, as happens in England.
  I was in New York last year where I helped to promote the Scottish trade exhibition. American business men told me that, apart from Scotland, there was no place in Europe to which they could go where they would meet under one roof all the people that they needed to see. If training is to be combined with the Scottish Development Agency, we shall be able to attract industry to Scotland. Industrialists will not then prefer to go to other European countries.
  8.45 pm
  Mr. Ernie Ross: The hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross, (Sir N. Fairbairn) made a rather obscure reference to his hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Arbuthnot). The hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford publicly insulted the Scottish Development Agency by saying that in the past it had supported lame ducks. I invited him to name one of the lame ducks that the SDA had supported. We do not know what would have happened in the case mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross, because the SDA was not involved. It can hardly, therefore, be described as a lame duck; it never even got there. However, I invite the Minister to give an example of one of the lame ducks that the SDA is supposed to have supported. I am not aware of any lame ducks. I am sure that the SDA would feel insulted if it thought that it was supporting lame ducks.
  The Bill will lead to the axing of one organisation that has a good track record in Scotland. It was the envy of English Members of Parliament on the Employment Select Committee who toured Scotland with me last year and examined the work of the SDA and other agencies.
  The SDA has been investigated regularly by the Treasury and the Industry Department for Scotland. According to the most recent investigation, published in February 1987, the SDA's
  "high standing with the Scottish business community and financial institutions, the generally supportive attitudes of the local authorities and its reputation beyond Scotland are also indicative of the Agency's performance … What the Agency primarily supplies is an integrated delivery mechanism … At a time of continuing rapid structural change in the Scottish economy, there remains a real advantage in having a flexible economic development instrument directty answerable to the Secretary of State … Conversely, the Agency's position at arm's length from the Government has contributed to its achievements, notably in its ability to form constructive partnerships with local authorities and to adopt a distinctive action-orientated and opportunistic style of operation."
  According to a training organisation based in Sheffield, just under a quarter of all employers had a training plan in 1986–87. However, the SDA, which has taken positive initiatives in Scotland, is to be brought under the control of people who are training fewer than 50 per cent. of their employees. A clear case can be made for the SDA to be allowed to carry out its own distinctive role, according to the devolved form of management that the agency devised for itself last year.
  A particular Scottish influence needs to be reflected in any training policy. The Secretary of State sought comfort in the support of the STUC, but he failed to tell the House that the STUC had said that if training in Scotland was to be taken seriously, it had to reflect the Scottish experience and not simply be dictated by the national policies decided by the Secretary of State for Employment. We know all about that in Scotland. Dundee was used for pilot projects for the many schemes which failed miserably. That is why the Government had to look outside Britain and to the United States for examples of how to organise training.
  There have been various references to who was the author of this or that policy. According to the Scottish Office, when the Employment Select Committee was in Scotland in June 1988,
  "The genesis of the White Paper resulted from a suggestion by Bill Hughes of the CBI (Scotland) about the benefit of bringing together the SDA and the training agency. This attracted the attention of the Prime Minister and"—

  893
  —someone whom I cannot identify—
  "was asked by the Secretary of State for Scotland to look at the suggestion. The Prime Minister explicitly adopted the proposal in a speech made to the CBI (Scotland) in September."
  That is just a pile of nonsense. What really happened was that the former Secretary of State for Employment, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), visited the United States, doing the same tour as the Select Committee, saw private industry councils in America and picked up the idea of getting women back into employment by paying for child care. We are tired of hearing that the Government invented that idea as well, because we all know that it came directly from employment practices in the United States.
  Although I do not think that I shall be on the Standing Committee, I hope that it will examine the experience in the United States. The Committee will need to consider the successes and the failures. There are always successes such as Bill Hughes' brilliant idea, although when my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) led a delegation to meet Mr. Hughes, who is also a director of Grampian Holdings, we knew more about the training initiative than he did. It appeared that he had not been paying attention to Kay Stratton who had worked for Senator Dukakis in Boston and who had brought the idea over when she became a personal adviser to the former Secretary of State for Employment. Obviously he listened briefly to Kay Stratton and then had to be filled in later by the person who worked on the proposal so that the Prime Minister could make the speech to the CBI in Scotland in September.
  Initially private industry in America sent minions instead of chief executives to private industry councils in America which took off only when the chief executives became involved. The United States became aware of the demographic time bomb and realised that they needed to get people back into employment. They needed the people whom the American system had failed—the blacks, the ethnic minorities and the women. That is why they began those projects. In the mid-1980s corporate conscience was developing in the United States. Corporate conscience meant that capitalists, instead of looking at the figures at the end of the year to ensure that a firm's accounts were in the black, were quite prepared for it to slip slightly into the red if it was spending money on training people and bringing them back into employment to ensure that the company would prosper in the years when there would be a gap in the work force because of the demographic time bomb and the flattening-out of the baby boom.
  I hope that the Standing Committee will look at the experience in the United States. There are good and bad examples, but, without some guarantee of a corporate conscience, some of the local enterprise companies will make the same mistakes that were made in the United States.
  The private industry councils in the United States showed great concern for ethnic minorities and for those who had fallen through the safety net. When the Employment Select Committee went to Scotland, we examined the failure of employment training to deal with those young people who used to be called "mode B" youngsters on the YTS. They ended up on community programmes having to be employed by organisations such
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  as Goodwill Enterprises. The Select Committee saw no real evidence that the young people who were disappearing from the community programmes like snow off a dyke on a summer's day were being picked up by other schemes. Given the employers' domination of local enterprise companies, they are hardly likely to be concerned with training people without the necessary basic skills. When the Minister replies to the debate, we need to hear that the Government are concerned and have particular proposals for dealing with that problem. The private industry councils in the United States had to concentrate on that if they were to be meaningful in the community.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) referred to the role of the Scottish tourist board which gave evidence to the Employment Select Committee on 13 December 1989. When I asked Tom Band and his colleague what they had done to ensure that there would be sufficient representation from the tourist boards and the tourist industry in the local enterprise companies, he said that one or two people were involved in Scottish tourist board activities. However, the Highlands and Islands Development Board and the Scottish Industry Department's evidence to the Select Committee on tourism make it quite clear that tourism will be the main employer in certain parts of Scotland. Someone who concentrates on tourism obviously has different concerns from someone who concentrates on industry. We must be assured that the needs of the tourist industry in Scotland will be recognised by the local enterprise companies.
  I know that a number of my hon. Friends are still trying to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I should like briefly to return to one of the most important aspects of training. Earlier, I asked the Secretary of State for Scotland a question, which cleverly he did not answer; the Minister of State, Scottish Office may do so when he replies to the debate. The difference between local enterprise companies and the training and enterprise councils in Scotland and England is the performance contract. In the United States, before training managers are paid, the people whom they train must be in employment. We need to know from the Minister whether the local enterprise companies will have to agree such a contract with the central board before they gain control of training finance. If we are not given that guarantee, there will be serious doubts about whether that training will be meaningful.
  8.59 pm
  Mr. Mike Watson: One of the main failings of the Bill is that it represents an abdication of responsibility by the Government. It seeks to encourage others to carry out training rather than the Government financing it themselves. That will not surprise those who have watched the Government in recent years. None of the United Kingdom's main competitors does not have a major responsibility for publicly funded training. They know the value and importance of training in an advanced and advancing economy, but it appears that the Government are content to leave that vital function, like so many others, to the vagaries of the market.
  United Kingdom employers—and Scotland is no exception—have shown over many years that they have little inclination to take training seriously, at least when it costs them money or lost production. Unfortunately, that

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  applies evenly across the spectrum in Scotland, from manufacturing industry to the service sector and particularly to insurance companies. Given the low priority that the private sector consistently gives to training its work force, on what basis can it or should it be assumed that it can be galvanised to take on a leadership role in training provision?
  The Secretary of State was quite happy to refer to the support of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, but it said:
  "Scottish employers … have been unwilling to invest in training programmes; they have not taken a pro-active role in respect of the unemployed; and they have not been prepared to assist in long term planning. It is unlikely, therefore, that employers will be able to deliver on their own the strategy as outlined by the Government."
  Yet, quite perversely, the private sector has been given an in-built guaranteed majority on Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise and on the local enterprise companies.
  Surveys in Scotland have shown that fewer than one in three employers have a training plan or training targets, yet they are to be given two of the three places on local enterprise committees. They have clearly illustrated an inability to plan or even to appreciate the value of training, yet they are to be entrusted with the responsibility for planning and implementing training programmes for entire communities or areas. If there is a logic in that, it is beyond my wit to find it.
  Local authorities, education departments, trade unions and voluntary bodies make no provision to ensure that they are able to make the positive contribution that they are clearly qualified to make. Indeed, the voluntary sector in Scotland currently provides one third of all employment training places involving a budget of more than £40 million annually. Surely such expertise should be taken advantage of, or treated as the undoubted resource that it is, to allow the voluntary sector a guaranteed role in the local enterprise companies. Surely it should be regarded as a partner, not a client. To do otherwise is simply wasteful.
  Local authorities in Scotland have promoted economic development with conspicuous success in recent years. The Glasgow eastern area renewal, the Dundee project and the Govan initiative, which were all mentioned earlier, are good examples of local economic regeneration and the creation of jobs on both sides of Scotland. They are examples of projects in which vast investment was demand-led and often involved the channelling of resources to areas of deprivation. Where is the incentive in this legislation for the private sector to channel investment into such areas? The White Paper made no mention—nor, as far as I could detect, did the Secretary of State—of the long-term unemployed, many of whom are poorly educated, live in poor housing and feel alienated from the real world. Who will want to invest in them?
  That begs the question about the intention of the Bill to tackle the chronic problem of long-term unemployment, which has been mentioned too infrequently in the debate. It seems much more likely that the local enterprise companies will be content to churn out trained workers for the hi-tech industries. To do that would he to betray the thousands of Scots who desperately want real training to enable them to re-enter the job market. Unemployment remains a major blight on Scotland's economic landscape. That is especially true of youth unemployment, which, in the west of Scotland, stands at 25 per cent. One in four of all young people seeking work cannot find it.
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  For that reason, how employment training and the youth training scheme will be dealt with under Scottish Enterprise needs urgent clarification. The employment training scheme continues to be virtually ignored in Scotland, where employers have almost no interest in it. When they have taken it up, it has been well exposed in the media that there have been many abuses of public funds and of the training needs of thousands of Scots who find themselves used as cheap labour. The Secretary of State should spell out clearly whether local enterprise companies will have the right to opt out of employment training and the YTS in favour of real training initiatives or whether, as many of us suspect, they will be welded irrevocably to the United Kingdomwide task force of the Secretary of State for Employment, which fails completely to take account of local needs.
  The establishment of Scottish Enterprise will mean the disappearance of the Scottish Development Agency. It is clear that over the past 10 years the Government have found it difficult to accept the successes that the SDA has achieved. The roots of that go back to 1975, when the SDA was established by the Labour Government, which is clearly a sore point for those currently in control at the Scottish Office. Having cut the funding of the SDA by 25 per cent. in real terms over the past decade and still having failed to damage it seriously, the Government have resorted to getting rid of it by subsuming it in Scottish Enterprise.
  In doing so, the Government are discarding wantonly several vital assets. As we have heard today, many of the high-calibre staff of the SDA have been leaving for some time because they are dismayed by the prospects that face them under the Bill. Even more damagingly, the establishment of Scottish Enterprise and the local enterprise companies will destroy the strategic Scotlandwide analysis of economic development, leaving a dangerous vacuum at the centre. The central role that the SDA has carried out successfully will also be lost. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, in its submission, to which the Secretary of State referred, said:
  "the convention's view is that the national bodies should retain sufficient responsibilities centrally to provide the strategic context for the rational and effective development of the LECs."
  That is a vital resource, which should not be allowed to be discarded.
  A more tangible disposal of assets can be seen in the decision to dispose of the portfolio of investments that the SDA has assembled to underwrite its initiatives. Taken in totality, the plans represent nothing less than a criminal waste of talent and resources for the people of Scotland. Unfortunately, they are yet another example of the Government's narrow thinking in an area where additional public resources channelled to those with expertise and experience allied to the necessary will could have achieved so much more.
  In his opening remarks, the Secretary of State encouraged Opposition Members to amend the Bill in Committee. It remains to be seen whether it will be possible to insert some safeguards or whether, as has so often been the case, the minds of the Secretary of State and his colleagues are already firmly closed on this issue.
  9.8 pm
  Mrs. Maria Fyfe: Earlier today I asked the right hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) how he expected that we should get enough employers from a sufficient variety of enterprise to conduct training when the unemployment level in some areas was so high. I reminded him that unemployment in Glasgow was especially high. I must add now that the current unemployment level in Glasgow is 52,000. In Scotland as a whole, there are 40 travel-to-work areas where the unemployment level is higher than the United Kingdom average. In those circumstances, how will training be conducted for the industries that do not exist in some localities yet are needed for the economic regeneration of the country as a whole? We have been putting that point all day, and we are still waiting for an answer.
  I also worry about the thoroughness of training and the wider education of those who are being trained for industry. It seems obvious to the Opposition that the local enterprise companies will naturally be tempted to concentrate on the narrow needs of the employers who are running the enterprise companies.
  In recognition of that, and in an attempt to overcome the narrow interests of particular employers, craft training has in the past been conducted at work, in the firm, and craft apprentices have gone out for training to local further education colleges where they could learn how other companies performed various tasks. Hon. Members will appreciate why we are now worried lest the scope of training is narrowed to such an extent that any training that is given is inadequate.
  Nothing has been said about the wider education implications of what is proposed for young trainees, remembering the importance of training for their future. If they are trained simply to carry out narrow tasks, without having a wider idea of craft skills—I shall not go into the question of time being spent on their general education —they will be less able to transfer such skills as they have elsewhere, to other employers. That will, in turn, make them less able to conduct themselves as good adult citizens, effectively promoting their own rights. We are concerned about those and other dangers.
  It is incredible that local employers are to be put at the forefront of the proposed scheme, with local authorities and people who have spent their lives in education being pushed to the back, their views and experience not receiving consideration. Running training courses is not something for amateurs. To set achievable targets for learners, to devise suitable written lessons and practical work and to test students' achievements are matters in which success has not always been achieved, even in the circumstances I have described, when we have brought together local authorities, educationists and employers.
  I have witnessed students failing courses partly through their own immaturity but partly through inadequate standards being set for them and the poor monitoring of their performance. Instead of responding to the worries that we have on those scores and improving the present system, it seems that the Government are creating a system under which those shortcomings will be even more likely to occur because of inadequacies in monitoring and shortcomings in devising lessons.
  Unless there is a preponderance of people with experience of preparing lessons, marking exams and running courses, we shall continue to worry about the
  898
  outcome of the new scheme. In tandem with what is proposed, industrial training boards have been abolished. That gives us more reason to worry about the future.
  Several other aspects of the same problem have not received much airing in the debate. Clause 16 of the Bill says that it would be unlawful to discriminate against any person providing training. Such a provision is to be welcomed, but how does the Minister square that with the views of the former Secretary of State for Employment, who has denied the child care allowance to married women who apply for training?
  It seems incredible that when a married woman with three children under five whose husband's pay could not stretch to three lots of child care appealed against being refused child allowance for training, and then won her case at an industrial tribunal, the Government threw the might of the state against that solitary woman and appealed against the tribunal's decision. That step was taken by the bunch we see on the Government Benches who say that they are interested in equality of opportunity and in women having equal rights to training—[Interruption.] Is the Minister not even interested in listening to the points that I am making?
  I would be interested to hear about the track record of those who will be running local schemes, in particular their track record on training opportunities and securing jobs for women. I dare say that some of them are adequate, but one is left wondering whether such matters have been examined in a coherent way.
  Does the Minister intend to establish a body to monitor his proposals? If so, may we be told? Not a word has been said about how the scheme will be monitored. We are left to worry lest, as usual, women's job and training opportunities are limited in the main to a narrow range of skills and low-paid jobs with little opportunity for women to obtain the traditional skills which have normally been held by men.
  If women are to receive proper employment and training opportunities, the whole issue must be examined more seriously than the Government have shown any signs of doing so far. It is all the more vital that the Scottish Trades Union Congress proposal to set up an independent body to examine the scheme is acted upon. The Ministers have shown no sign of taking any interest in those matters. They have not even seen fit to mention them tonight. That is how interested they are in the training of girls and women in Scotland.
  The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Ian Lang): I shall not use up too much time. Not only was I listening to the hon. Lady, but if she looks at clause 2(4)(a) she will find that specific provision is made to
  "include arrangements for encouraging increases in the opportunities for training that are available to women and girls or to disabled persons".
  Mrs. Fyfe: That proves that the Minister did not listen to what I said earlier. I said that if married women are not given an allowance for child care clauses 2 and 16 will be utterly meaningless. They are just words unless they are followed through with proper child care allowances for married women in particular. When the Minister says that opportunities will be given to women, let him spell them out. Local enterprise companies have been talked about for months, yet no ground has been broken in terms of training opportunities for women. If the Minister can give concrete examples in his reply, I shall be all ears. For all

  899
  the reasons given by other hon. Members, and for the reasons that I have outlined, I for one will vote against the Bill.
  9.15 pm
  Dr. Norman A. Godman: I promise that I shall be brief. I have been here during the whole debate, as you know. I am not sure that it has been a worthwhile exercise. We have listened to fair-minded criticisms of the Bill, and if I thought for one moment that the Government would take some of them on board by way of reasonable amendments, I should have a lot more faith in this Parliament. However, the reverse will be the case. Ministers hate honestly awkward critics on the Opposition Benches and they despise honestly awkward critics on the Conservative Benches, not that any of them are present now.
  I despair about the passage of the Bill. If it were amended along the lines suggested by Opposition Members, including suggestions from the Liberal party and the Scottish National party—the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) is not present—I should be more hopeful.
  I should like the Minister to answer a specific question on clause 3(3), which says:
  "In exercising its functions, Scottish Enterprise shall have regard to the requirements of agriculture and efficient land management"
  It goes on to mention the desirability of safeguarding the environment. In the Minister's view, is fish farming an element of agriculture? Another important indigenous industry is the fishing industry. Will it, too, benefit from Scottish Enterprise having regard to the requirements of its employees? Training for fishermen is important, especially on safety.
  We know that the local enterprise companies will be dominated by the private sector, with two thirds of their members coming from business and the remaining third from elsewhere. Apparently, the idea is that business men and women will give up their time to run the local boards. The Secretary of State said in the Scottish Grand Committee:
  "They will be the non-executive directors of the local agencies. It may require a few hours a week—less in some areas and a little more in others."—[Official Report, Scottish Grand Committee, 20 March 1989; c. 9.]
  That is an appallingly complacent attitude on the part of the Secretary of State. I have witnessed the failure of the Inverclyde initiative, a privately led initiative to deal with the serious problems of unemployment in my constituency and part of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham). I think that my hon. Friend will agree with me that that privately led initiative has, to a considerable extent, been a failure.
  I view the proposals outlined this evening with despair.
  9.21 pm
  Mr. Tony Worthington: I am grateful to my hon. Friends for their speeches and continued attendance. One could not make a similar comment in respect of Conservative Members.
  The Secretary of State said that the whole country was behind Scottish Enterprise. That was because the question that had been asked was whether the country was in favour of stronger links between economic development and training. Everybody is in favour of that. It is like asking
  900
  whether one is in favour of truth and beauty. Of course one is in favour of better links between economic development and training. No one can possibly imagine anyone voting against that.
  The Opposition are concerned about the muddle that lies behind the Bill. We are faced with a conundrum. The private sector is to lead us into the promised land. After 10 years of free enterprise and a market-led economy, we apparently need a new flagship Bill. That immediately poses the problem, "Why has the private sector not already reached the promised land?" Why are we in the House—the centre point of the public sector—preparing to take a great deal of parliamentary time to let the private sector take the lead? Surely the private sector can just get on with it. Why do we need to pass a Bill when the private sector has been given all that it needs.
  Look at what the Confederation of British Industry demanded in the early 1980s. The CBI said, "We want the removal of price and dividend restrictions, growth in profitability, restrictions on trade unions and cuts in income tax and corporation tax." All that has been granted to the private sector, yet we are still a long way behind our major competitors.
  "If the relative growth of output per worker were maintained at its 1983–87 levels, it would take us about 10 years to catch up with the present levels in France and West Germany, and the United States and Japan are even further ahead".
  Who said that? The CBI, in its latest training document.
  The truth is that the Bill quite inadequately attempts to create an optical illusion to try to persuade us that we are talking about a private sector initiative when all that is happening is the laundering of £0·5 billion of public money, which is to be handed over to business people. It is being made to look like a private sector initiative.
  Another muddle that lies behind the Bill is that we have been told for 10 years that the business sector needs incentives to operate effectively. If it does not have carrots, it does not work hard. That is why we have the so-called enterprise culture—tax cuts, and high, even exorbitant, salaries for business leaders. Yet here we have a Bill that offers no profit or wages, just, in the words of the Secretary of State, an opportunity to serve the local community—to do good rather than make money. It seems strange that the Government should now believe that this will work. There could be a strong inducement for the wrong kind of business man to become involved because local enterprise companies will have access to privileged information. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) about the potential for corruption has not been tackled at all. It is difficult to believe that top business men will devote much time to LECs. If an entrepreneur gives his or her time to LECs it cannot be anything other than damaging to their own company.
  This is an enabling Bill. Regrettably, there is little detail in it—we must look at White Papers and the handbook on the subject. The Opposition's major fear is that the Government are deeply muddled about the SDA, which they do not ideologically back but which has been proved to be successful. It is an interventionist Socialist body and the Government are embarrassed by its success because they do not believe that it should be necessary—the SDA should be able to do it all. Opposition Members believe that there will always be an essential place for an SDA, and most successful economies would agree with us.

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  However, the Government are setting up Scottish Enterprise, expecting it to go out of business. That is stated in the section on the financial consequences of the Bill. The ultimate objective is the creation of a dynamic, self-sustaining Scottish economy in which investment and training are private sector led and financed. In other words, the Government regard financing the body as regrettable and as a sum to be reduced and then removed from the public sector. They regard the present £500 million as a reducing budget.
  Opposition Members regard training and economic development as woefully resourced. What is the Government's attitude to funding? For example, if, for demographic or other reasons, numbers for the youth training scheme or employment training fall what will happen to funding of the training budget? The Government seem to claim that if the number of people out of work falls, we will need to spend less on training. What nonsense, as the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) said in the debate on the Queen's Speech. The major problem with training is that we need to train better those who are already in jobs, the right hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) seems not to realise that there is no money in the budget for those who already have jobs.
  How well funded is the SDA at present? Its budget last year was about £150 million, of which 60 per cent. was grant in aid and 40 per cent. was income earned by the SDA. About £90 million was directly spent on the SDA. For what else do the Government pay that sort of money? They correctly spent £150 million on compensation for the third or fourth-rate Barlow Clowes investment company. They have been spending £140 million in subsidies to Network SouthEast. It costs £4·5 million to train a Tornado pilot. For the SDA, £90 million would buy 20 Tornado pilots. The Government will spend £200 million on 1,800 metres of road in Limehouse in Docklands. On that criterion, one could get 800 yards of London road for the SDA. The Government want to reduce that sum.
  The Government believe that the economy has been transformed during their years in office. So it has been. In July 1979, there were 141,000 unemployed. In July 1989, there were .,233,000 unemployed. One third of all manufacturing jobs in Scotland have been lost—in Strathclyde the figure was one half. According to a European Community report a fortnight ago, the number of people in poverty in Britain has doubled since the mid-1970s. Britain's inflation rate is well over the rates of France, Germany and Japan. We are running a £20 billion deficit, and 53 per cent. of Scotland's exports are dependent on whisky and office technology.
  Using the acid test of whether people want to live in Scotland—net inward and outward migration—in 1978–79, we lost 7,000 people. In 1987–88 we lost 17,000 people, while in contrast Wales—as always—gained 18,000 people, which was three times as many as in 1978–89. We have had a transformation but not one about which to boast.
  There is no reference in the Bill to the links between the central Scottish Enterprise and the local enterprise company. The Government are asking that at least two thirds of the directors must be senior figures from the private sector. Will those people turn up and stick at it or
  902
  will they be anything other than names on the top of the notepaper? It is absurd to think that one can gather a dozen senior figures from private enterprise at a table and expect them to work together in partnership.
  The Government frequently pay tribute to the enterprise trust movement. I compliment those organisations that have done much good—but how much? How good are they and how many front-rank business leaders have been involved? Are they not really private sector fronts for public sector money? Who supports and runs them?
  The annual report of the enterprise trust movement shows that the Ayrshire enterprise trust comprises of four district councils, the Strathclyde reegional council, the Irvine Development Company, the Department of Employment and some local employers. That, apparently, is a private sector-led enterprise. The north-west Fife rural initiative is a partnership between the SDA, Scottish agricultural colleges, Fife regional council, North-East Fife district council and the north-east Fife enterprise trust. That hardly sounds like a private sector-led initiative. Glasgow Opportunities had some private people. The Glasgow Easterhouse partnership is all public —the Department of Employment, the SDA, Strathclyde regional council, the Training Agency and the Drumchapel initiative. That is the enterprise trust in that area.
  Some 60 per cent. of funding for the whole of the enterprise trusts in Scotland is public sector finance. If public money was withdrawn from the enterprise trusts, they would all collapse, but if private sector involvement was withdrawn, they would still operate, even if at a reduced level. I have grave doubts whether those bodies dominated by private sector—[HoN. MEMBERS: "It is the cavalry".] At last my groupie, the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) has arrived.
  Even if the private sector was serious and was committed to training and economic development, disillusionment would soon set in when it found that it was overwhelmingly expected simply to administer the United Kingdom-wide youth training and employment training schemes. That is what it is being asked to do. How can that be a Scottish answer to Scottish problems? The Secretary of State has lost out. He was in conflict with the Department of Employment because he would have liked Scotland to control its employment training and YTS but the Department of Employment would not give that control.
  It is important that we have compatible training schemes throughout the United Kingdom, but that does not mean identical schemes. Nothing would be lost if employment training was scrapped and the money used for proper serious training on a Scottish basis. The CBI said that the YTS has only reached the embryo stage of a training system.
  What will business people say when they find that they will have to administer the appalling employment training scheme? What will they say to two of my constituents who have successfully completed the employment training scheme? One wanted training as a typist but never saw a typewriter and the other was promised training as a barman, but never saw the inside of a bar. They spent their days playing Scrabble, Cluedo, Trivial Pursuits and cards. They were asked to list the items for survival on the moon in order of importance. They sang religious songs and

  903
  successfully completed their employment training scheme. How did that train the workers without jobs for the jobs without workers?
  All too frequently Ministers say that ET is the biggest scheme ever mounted. They are right, but it is also the worst. It bears as much resemblance to serious training as Zsa Zsa Gabor does to monogamy. It is designed to lower the unemployment figures. It is about the numbers game. It is the largest massage parlour ever opened. It has all the characteristics of a massage parlour—it provides only temporary relief and does nothing about the reason why the person went to the massage parlour in the first place, which in his case is to acquire serious training.
  When he replies to the debate the Minister of State will have the opportunity to make quite clear what can be done in Scotland and what has to have London approval. I asked the Minister of State a simple test question in a written question recently—whether there were any proposals to alter the level of travelling expenses available on an ET scheme. The question was referred to the Department of Employment. It was a trivial issue, but it was referred. Will the Minister of State have control over the travelling expenses on ET schemes in the future? Will it be as big a control as that?
  How are the local enterprise companies to exercise their training function when there is no guaranteed place or places on the board for the body which does most of the serious training in any area and which is the major preparer for careers—the local regional council's education department? The reason for their absence is the Government's continuing hostility to local authorities. Every submission wants the local authorities to be involved, but the Government continue to be hostile. When everyone else wants the boundaries between the public and private sectors to be lowered, the Government build obstacles.
  There are gratuitous insults to the public sector in everything the Government do. There is the absurd pretence that the best people or the only people with enterprise are to be found in the private sector when over the past 10 years at least the truth is that the real drive for development in Scotland has come from the local authorities and the burden has been the Scottish Office.
  During the Bill's passage we shall be pressing for full local authority representation as of right. 'The Government should also learn to work with the trade unions which would be working to promote quality training and which recognise the importance of the unemployed and the needs of those in work.
  We recognise the valuable contribution of the voluntary organisations. One of the scandals that has been inadequately defended by the Minister was the amount of community care that callously collapsed when the community programme was converted into the employment training programme.
  I am grateful to hon. Members who have spoken about the Highlands and Islands because there is a real fear that the provisions mean change for change's sake. Something much more evolutionary should have been tried. Labour Members who represent the new towns—my hon. Friends the Members for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Lambie), for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Mr. Hogg) and for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram)—put their fears about the proposals on the new towns extremely well. Those dynamic public enterprise-led agencies, which have been praised by the Government, have achieved considerable
  904
  success in inward investment. However, what will replace the new town teams when they are broken up? East Kilbride will spend £70 million on its capital programme this year—£30 million of its own money and £40 million of private money. What will replace that? Too rapid a wind-up will dissipate the force of the new town corporations. It is a fundamental right for new town corporation tenants to be able to choose to become district council tenants.
  We have tabled a reasoned amendment to expose the muddle at the heart of the Bill. We all want to improve this country's training system. The Bill will not do so. We all want to end the north-south divide. We all believe that unemployment and poverty are far too high in Scotland, we need new high value added jobs in manufacturing and services, and better links should exist between training, education and economic developments. That would greatly improve matters. However, the underfunded, dogmatically biased and confused way in which this measure is being introduced by the Government undermines those aims, which is why we tabled the amendment.
  9.40 pm
  The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Ian Lang): As my right hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) said—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] He has apologised to me and to Opposition Members for not being here because he has an unavoidable commitment outside the House.
  The debate has revealed no major philosophical objection of principle to the proposals. Instead, a large number of Committee and niggling points have been raised by Members of the Opposition parties. I shall answer as many of them as I can in the time available and return to the rest in Committee.
  The hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) made an unfortunate start to his new role as spokesman on these matters when he complained that we had rushed the Bill out in a furtive manner at the end of the previous Session. The Bill was published in a perfectly normal way and presented to the House when it was sitting. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman may have pushed off home for an early Christmas. He made matters worse by reading the Bill over Christmas and making a number of assertions, such as that local business men would have the power compulsorily to purchase land, and be able to avoid local planning permission and to obtain confidential information on planning matters—a point that he repeated in his speech tonight. He tossed in a gratuitous insult to the entire Scottish business community by talking about the potential for corruption and insider dealing. He was wrong on all counts, and if he looks at clause 17(2)(a), (b), (c) and (d), he will find those points covered, and I dare say that we shall return to them in Committee.
  I fear that, as so often when legislation is going through the House, the Labour party will pursue its usual policy of raising scares and alarms that have nothing to do with the reality of our proposals. The Labour party is friendless in its opposition to the Bill, if we discount its satellites in the Scottish National party and the Social and Liberal Democrats. It is out of tune, just as it was out of tune over the sale of council houses and with the mood of Scotland over the setting up of school boards.

  905
  As has been said, when organisations such as Scottish Business in the Community, COSLA, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, the Scottish Trades Union Congress and the Church of Scotland Committee on Church and Nation all support the principle of the Bill, we can see how isolated the Opposition are. The Opposition do not like the Bill because they do not like, trust or understand enterprise. Above all, they dislike and distrust decentralisation, which is one of the keys to the concept of Scottish Enterprise.
  Our policy is one of devolution, which the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) said that he wants. However, our devolution is that from the centre to the rest of Scotland, from the Government to the people, whereas the Opposition parties' idea of devolution is to set up another centralised body, imposing a still larger burden of taxation on the Scottish people. Nothing could be more ruinous to the future of enterprise in Scotland. Ten years ago Scottish Enterprise would have been inconceivable because of the state to which the Labour party had brought the Scottish economy when in government. Successive bouts of Socialism in the 1960s and 1970s had undermined and weakened the economy.
  Mr. Graham: Ten years ago there were 166,000 manufacturing jobs in Strathclyde alone. They no longer exist under this Government.
  Mr. Lang: Ten years ago industrial output in Scotland was 6·5 per cent. lower than it is now, even with that large number of extra employees. It is the improved competitiveness, output and productivity rate which has taken Scotland from the bottom of the productivity league to the top during the past decade and which has given us the competitiveness to enable us to bring forward our proposals. That is why employment is now at its highest for the past nine years and unemployment is at its lowest for the past nine years. That is why we see enterprise emerging through the establishment of large numbers of new company registrations—50 per cent. more than there were a decade ago—and huge increases in self-employment, up to record levels. That is the evidence of emerging enterprise in Scotland as a result of the new, stronger and broader economic base that the Government's policies have created. That is what has made Scottish Enterprise possible.
  But what makes Scottish Enterprise necessary is that, despite the improvements in our competitive position and industrial base over the past few years, we face new challenges. We face the challenge of demographic change that has been referred to this evening whereby the number of school leavers will fall over the five years to 1994 by some 50 per cent. We face the challenge of the single European market and the need to be more competitive to retain our European markets and to build on them still further. We face the challenge of the opening up of the economies of eastern Europe, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) referred.
  What we have done over that period is to build on the changes to the SDA that were introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ayr when he was Secretary of State. He rightly paid tribute to the SDA, to the establishment of its regional offices, to its co-operation with the private sector and local authorities, and to its
  906
  work in various individual initiatives around the country, particularly Glasgow. It does great discredit to the hon. Members for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Lambie) and for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) to denigrate the SDA area initiatives and the work done in the Garnock valley, in Ayrshire, and in Inverclyde. Those initiatives were set up in response to pressing needs and job losses in those areas. They have cleared industrial dereliction and have provided modern industrial premises. They have created new job opportunities and have laid the foundations for future economic growth.
  Just as my right hon. Friend the Member for Ayr inherited an SDA which was an instrument of Socialist policy, as the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie said, acquisitive and interventionist, in danger of displacing enterprise, so it has gradually converted to a more catalytic role, an enabling role, helping companies and individuals to do things for themselves, working in partnership with the private sector. I can assure the House that all the skills and experience acquired by the SDA during those years will be reflected in the new arrangements and will be carried forward into the new Scottish Enterprise.
  The hon. Member for Garscadden asked many questions, most of which he acknowledged would be best dealt with in Committee, but let me deal with one or two points that he raised. The relationship between the Scottish Office and Scottish Enterprise will reflect the present relationship with the SDA. We will set the policy framework, but it will have substantial powers and, I am sure, the initiative to operate creatively and innovatively as the SDA does now.
  The Secretary of State for Employment will retain lead responsibility for training policy generally and, in consultation with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, will continue to set the national framework. But we shall set the policy framework for Scottish Enterprise and it will be responsible to the Secretary of State for Scotland. Scottish Enterprise and local enterprise companies will have the flexibility to develop their own training and enterprise initiatives in the light of Scottish circumstances.
  Mr. Worthington: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Lang: I am short of time. We shall never agree on this point this evening, but let us develop it in Committee.
  Mr. Worthington rose—
  Mr. Lang: I give way.
  Mr. Worthington: During the debate I asked a simple question. In future, will it be possible in Scotland to decide the level of travelling expenses on an ET scheme?
  Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman knows the answer because I gave it in reply to a parliamentary question the other day.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood said that he welcomed the boundary decision affecting the Glasgow local enterprise company and those in Dunbartonshire and Renfrewshire. Those are difficult decisions and, to some extent, they have to be subjective, but it is right to take account of the need to ensure a viable company in Dunbartonshire and Renfrewshire, and I believe that we have got the boundaries right in those cases.

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  The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) referred to the Moray district boundary. We have made it clear that the present HIDB boundary will remain the same for Highlands and Islands Enterprise. The bid from the Moray consortium has been received and will be considered on its merits, but a local enterprise company straddling the boundary would have to resolve substantial practical difficulties.
  The hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Mr. Hogg) suggested that new towns were a Socialist idea, but the Reith committee was appointed in 1940 by a coalition Government, and the New Towns Act 1946 was not opposed by the then Conservative Opposition. The hon. Gentleman paid tribute to the achievements of new towns, and I join him in that. They have been a great success story in providing for the overspill from our major industrial conurbations and suitable locations for the development of indigenous investment and for attracting inward investment. However, the Government, in winding up the new towns, are not motivated by any ideology, for their winding up was always envisaged in the 1946 Act. That will not be pursued in any doctrinaire way but will be undertaken in an orderly fashion, taking account of the degree of development already reached by each new town —and phased over the next decade on that account.
  As to the housing waiting list in Cumbernauld, both public and private sector house building in that town remains at a high level, with 456 completions in the current year and 486 next year, including 265 houses for the development corporation. Cumbernauld has £6·9 million available in the year ahead for its housing capital programme, which will provide further accommodation. I will not be able to do justice in the time available to me to the hon. Gentleman's questions on planning in the new town corporations and on the circumstances of the staff. However, I shall not forget that he raised them, and I hope that we shall return to them in Committee.
  The hon. Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) raised the issue of the role of local authorities in local development companies, but I emphasise that they are not intended as straightforward successors to the corporations. They are designed to fulfil the property development function which the corporations currently undertake and which otherwise would be lost on winding up. There will be no scope for local authority representation as such in such companies, which will essentially be commercially driven.
  A number of hon. Members raised questions concerning new town housing. I emphasise the importance of choice to the tenants of new town corporations, but it must be based on an informed assessment of the alternatives. It is clear from the independent survey undertaken at the Government's request, and from the number of houses that have been purchased, that the most popular choice of all in new town areas is private ownership. More than 50 per cent. of all new town development corporation houses are privately owned, and sales doubled in the first eight months of last year. The survey confirmed that no less than 40 per cent. of tenants of houses remaining in public ownership are interested in home ownership. That interest and the need for more information were the two clearest features to emerge from the survey, which is why we are distributing an information leaflet setting out the range of choice available to new town tenants.
  Mr. Lambie: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During the debate, the Minister gave a guarantee that he would say whether new town tenants would be given the choice of having the district council as their new landlord. He has not answered that question.
  Mr. Speaker: He has not been given an opportunity to do so.
  Mr. Lang: I was about to move on to that very point.
  I repeat that the desire for private ownership and the need for more information were the two strongest features to emerge from the survey, which is why we are distributing a leaflet putting the choices to tenants.
  The concern over the possible transfer of houses to district councils is much stronger among the councils themselves—who seem more concerned with the acquisition of assets than with the provision of services—than it is among new town residents. I emphasise that we have not ruled out the possibility of transfers to district councils, which are specifically mentioned as one of the options that we shall consider during the wind up. However, there is no need to take a decision now—and we would narrow the choice if we were to do so. As the hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Lambie) himself pointed out, it will be 10 years before Irvine's wind up is completed, and there would be no point in moving now from one public housing body to another.
  The survey showed that, of those surveyed, less than 20 per cent. would now choose to go to a district council. The hon. Gentleman will find that in paragraph 5.9 of the report. At the time of wind up, of the four out of five people who wanted that choice only half would choose a district council and more than a third did not know what they would choose.
  I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ayr for welcoming the transfer of training activities to Scotland that is reflected in the proposals. I agree with him that, as a nation, we do not take training seriously enough, and I hope that the Bill will increase the recognition of the importance of training. As my right hon. Friend acknowledged, local enterprise companies will lead to that. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland said, training is an investment. Local enterprise companies will integrate with other economic initiatives and make the best use of local skill resources.
  A recent survey carried out by the Confederation of British Industry, which appeared in yesterday's Scotsman, revealed that companies expect to invest more next year on marketing, research, product development and training. They recognise that training is essentially the responsibility of industry.
  I do not believe that the hand-wringing of the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie about the lack of investment and training is very persuasive when one looks back at the commitment to training schemes made by the Labour Government between 1978 and 1979 of some £471 million compared with the approximately £3 billion that we have put into such training schemes. We now spend more as a percentage of gross domestic product on training than Germany, the United States or Japan. One can see the increased priority that we are giving to training.
  The youth training scheme now has a success rate of more than 80 per cent. of those who complete the course moving on to employment, further training or higher education. The employment training scheme, which the

  909
  hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie so derided, is filled to the extent of some 26,000 places in Scotland, and 59 per cent. of those completing the scheme go into jobs.
  An important aspect of our proposals is to involve the private sector more so that they accept their responsibilities for training. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan was among hon. Members who made that point.
  Paragraph 2 of the handbook emphasises the degree of flexibility that the local enterprise companies will be able to bring to bear on their priorities for training, maximising flexibility, shaping the balance of skills training and the geographic distribution of opportunities, determining which contractors to use and the levels of payment to sub-contractors, and in changing the design and content of programmes to meet local needs.
  The Opposition dislike not just the nuts and bolts of the Bill, but the whole concept of enterprise. They do not like the idea—it is alien to them. We have not invented enterprise. It is a natural part of the human spirit—a quality or talent that is in all of us to varying degrees. The Government's contribution has been to release enterprise and provide it with a favourable, stable economic environment, free from the burdens of high taxation and the excessive regulation of centralised control and of nationalisation, and all the doctrinaire trappings of Socialism.
  The independence of mind that enterprise engenders runs counter to Socialist philosophy, and that is why the Opposition see it as a threat. We see enterprise as a strength, a natural resource. The drive, energy, knowledge and commitment of individuals all over Scotland will help to build up employment and prosperity and enable people to realise the full potential of each area and to accelerate the national regeneration. That is how to spread the economic successes of recent years further and deeper. It is not what the Government do, but what they enable people to do for themselves. Enterprise is the antithesis of state control, and that is why the Labour party resists it. It is the antidote to Socialism, and that has been rejected all over eastern Europe as it is irrelevant, limited and sterile.
  We see enterprise as a power for good that will allow a free and prosperous society to grow and flourish. That is the philosophy that drives the proposals in the Bill. The Bill will give a new boost to enterprise and employment growth in Scotland, and I commend it to the House.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 213, Noes 253.

  Division No. 31]

  [9.59

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Blair, Tony

  Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

  Blunkett, David

  Allen, Graham

  Boateng, Paul

  Anderson, Donald

  Boyes, Roland

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Ashton, Joe

  Buchan, Norman

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Buckley, George J.

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Caborn, Richard

  Barron, Kevin

  Callaghan, Jim

  Battle, John

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Beckett, Margaret

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

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

  Canavan, Dennis

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  910

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Lambie, David

  Clay, Bob

  Lamond, James

  Clelland, David

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Leighton, Ron

  Cohen, Harry

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Coleman, Donald

  Lewis, Terry

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Litherland, Robert

  Corbett, Robin

  Livsey, Richard

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Cousins, Jim

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Cox, Tom

  McAllion, John

  Crowther, Stan

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Cryer, Bob

  McCartney, Ian

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Cunningham, Dr John

  McFall, John

  Dalyell, Tarn

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Darling, Alistair

  McKelvey, William

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  McLeish, Henry

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Maclennan, Robert

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

  McNamara, Kevin

  Dewar, Donald

  Madden, Max

  Dixon, Don

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Doran, Frank

  Marek, Dr John

  Douglas, Dick

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Eadie, Alexander

  Martlew, Eric

  Eastham, Ken

  Maxton, John

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  Meacher, Michael

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Meale, Alan

  Faulds, Andrew

  Michael, Alun

  Fearn, Ronald

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

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

  Mitchell, Austin (G'f Grimsby)

  Fisher, Mark

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Flannery, Martin

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Flynn, Paul

  Morley, Elliot

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Foster, Derek

  Mowlam, Marjorie

  Foulkes, George

  Mullin, Chris

  Fraser, John

  Murphy, Paul

  Fyfe, Maria

  Nellist, Dave

  Galloway, George

  O'Brien, William

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  George, Bruce

  Pendry, Tom

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Pike, Peter L.

  Gordon, Mildred

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Graham, Thomas

  Prescott, John

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Randall, Stuart

  Grocott, Bruce

  Redmond, Martin

  Hardy, Peter

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Reid, Dr John

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Richardson, Jo

  Haynes, Frank

  Robertson, George

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Rogers, Allan

  Henderson, Doug

  Rooker, Jeff

  Hinchliffe, David

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Ruddock, Joan

  Hood, Jimmy

  Salmond, Alex

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Howells, Geraint

  Sheerman, Barry

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Hoyle, Doug

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Short, Clare

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Illsley, Eric

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

  Ingram, Adam

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

  Janner, Greville

  Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Snape, Peter

  Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

  Soley, Clive

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  Stott, Roger

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Strang, Gavin

  911

  Straw, Jack

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Wilson, Brian

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Winnick, David

  Turner, Dennis

  Worthington, Tony

  Wall, Pat

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Wallace, James

  Walley, Joan

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Mr. Robert N. Wareing and

  Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

  Mr. Frank Cook.

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Forman, Nigel

  Alexander, Richard

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Amess, David

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Amos, Alan

  Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

  Arbuthnot, James

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Atkins, Robert

  Grist, Ian

  Atkinson, David

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Baldry, Tony

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Bendall, Vivian

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

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Harris, David

  Benyon, W.

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Hayes, Jerry

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Hayward, Robert

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Boswell, Tim

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Bowis, John

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Hill, James

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Hind, Kenneth

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Brazier, Julian

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Bright, Graham

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

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Burns, Simon

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Burt, Alistair

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Butcher, John

  Hunter, Andrew

  Butler, Chris

  Irvine, Michael

  Butterfill, John

  Jack, Michael

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Jackson, Robert

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Janman, Tim

  Carrington, Matthew

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Carttiss, Michael

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Chope, Christopher

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

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

  Key, Robert

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Knapman, Roger

  Colvin, Michael

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Knowles, Michael

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Knox, David

  Cormack, Patrick

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Couchman, James

  Lang, Ian

  Cran, James

  Latham, Michael

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Curry, David

  Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

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

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Day, Stephen

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Devlin, Tim

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Dunn, Bob

  Lord, Michael

  Durant, Tony

  Luce, Rt Hon Richard

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Fallon, Michael

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Maclean, David

  912

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Shelton, Sir William

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Malins, Humfrey

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Mans, Keith

  Shersby, Michael

  Maples, John

  Sims, Roger

  Marland, Paul

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Speller, Tony

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Mates, Michael

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Squire, Robin

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Steen, Anthony

  Mellor, David

  Stern, Michael

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Stevens, Lewis

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Mills, Iain

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

  Mitchell, Sir David

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Moate, Roger

  Sumberg, David

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Summerson, Hugo

  Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Mudd, David

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Neubert, Michael

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Thorne, Neil

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Thurnham, Peter

  Norris, Steve

  Tracey, Richard

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Trippier, David

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Trotter, Neville

  Page, Richard

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Paice, James

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Patnick, Irvine

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Patten, Rt Hon John

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Waller, Gary

  Pawsey, James

  Ward, John

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Portillo, Michael

  Warren, Kenneth

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Watts, John

  Price, Sir David

  Wells, Bowen

  Redwood, John

  Wheeler, Sir John

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Whitney, Ray

  Riddick, Graham

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Wilshire, David

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Rost, Peter

  Wolfson, Mark

  Rowe, Andrew

  Woodcock, Dr. Mike

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Yeo, Tim

  Ryder, Richard

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Sainsbury, Hon Tim

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Mr. David Lightbown and

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Mr. Tom Sackville.

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Main Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 60 (Amendment on Second or Third Reading), and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That, at this day's sitting, the Ways and Means Motion may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Greg Knight.]

  ENTERPRISE AND NEW TOWNS (SCOTLAND) BILL [MONEY]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Enterprise and New Towns (Scotland) Bill ("the Act") it is expedient to authorise—
  (1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

  (a) sums required by the Secretary of State for paying sums to Scottish Enterprise in respect of the exercise of its functions, other than those to which public dividend capital relates, and in respect of its administrative expenses, so long as the relevant aggregate amount outstanding shall not exceed £1,500 million;

  (b) sums required by the Secretary of State for paying grants to Highlands and Islands Enterprise in respect of expenses incurred by it in the exercise of its functions and powers;

  (c) sums required by the Secretary of State by virtue of the Act for paying grants under the New Towns (Scotland) Act 1968 in respect of a disposal of land by a development corporation, or of any transfer of lands under a transfer order, or of expenditure incurred or to be incurred in providing facilities specified in the said Act of 1968;

  (d) sums required by the Secretary of State for paying public dividend capital to Scottish Enterprise, so long as the relevant aggregate amount outstanding shall not exceed £1,500 million;

  (e) sums required by the Secretary of State to defray any deficit arising from, by virtue of the Act, the winding up under the New Towns (Scotland) Act 1968 of a development corporation;

  (f) increases attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other Act;

  (g) administrative expenses incurred by the Secretary of State or the Treasury in consequence of the provisions of the Act;

  (2) the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of any sums required by the Treasury for fulfilling guarantees given by them in respect of sums borrowed by Scottish Enterprise from persons other than the Secretary of State, so long as the relevant aggregate amount outstanding shall not exceed £1,500 million;
  (3) the payment out of the National Loans Fund of any sums required by the Secretary of State for making loans to Scottish Enterprise for the purposes of the exercise of any of its functions, so long as the relevant aggregate amount outstanding shall not exceed £1,500 million;
  (4) the reduction of the assets of the National Loans Fund by amounts corresponding to such liabilities of a development corporation to the Secretary of State in respect of advances made by the Secretary of State to that corporation as the Secretary of State may by virtue of the Act by Order extinguish under the New Towns (Scotland) Act 1968.
  In this Resolution—
  "development corporation" has the same meaning as in the New Towns (Scotland) Act 1968;
  "general external borrowing" has the same meaning as in the Act;
  "public dividend capital" has the same meaning as in Schedule 2 to the Act but includes such capital within the meaning of Schedule 2 to the Scottish Development Agency Act 1975;
  "relevant aggregate amount outstanding" means the aggregate amount outstanding, otherwise than by way of interest, in respect of—

  (a) the general external borrowing of—

  (i) Scottish Enterprise and its subsidiaries; and

  (ii) the Scottish Development Agency;

  (b) sums issued by the Treasury in fulfilment of guarantees under Schedule 2 to the Act or Schedule 2 to the Scottish Development Agency Act 1975, being sums which have not been repaid to the Treasury;

  914

  (c) sums paid to Scottish Enterprise by the Secretary of State out of money provided by parliament but with there being deducted—

  (i) any such sums repaid to the Secretary of State by the body other than in consideration of the receipt of public dividend capital;

  (ii) any such sums paid in respect of enhancing skills and capacities relevant to employment in Scotland and assisting persons to establish themselves as self-employed persons there; and

  (iii) any such sums paid in respect of the administrative expenses of Scottish Enterprise;

  (d) sums paid to the Scottish Development Agency by the Secretary of State out of money provided by Parliament but with their being deducted—

  (i) any such sums repaid to the Secretary of State, other than in consideration of the receipt of public dividend capital, being sums repaid either by the Scottish Development Agency or by Scottish Enterprise; and

  (ii) any such sums paid in respect of the administrative expenses of the Scottish Development Agency; and

  (e) loans guaranteed by Scottish Enterprise and by any of its subsidiaries;

  "subsidiary" has the meaning given by section 736 of the Companies Act 1985; and
  "transfer order" has the same meaning as in the New Towns (Scotland) Act 1968 as amended by the Act. —[Mr. Greg Knight.]

  WAYS AND MEANS

    ENTERPRISE AND NEW TOWNS (SCOTLAND) BILL
    Resolved,
    That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Enterprise and New Towns (Scotland) Bill ("the Act"), it is expedient to authorise—

    (1) payment into the Consolidated Fund of amounts payable by Scottish Enterprise in consideration of the receipt of public dividend capital or in reduction of public dividend capital;

    (2) payment into the Consolidated Fund of any surplus arising from, by virtue of the Act, the winding up under the New Towns (Scotland) Act 1968 of a development corporation;

    (3) payment into the Consolidated Fund of payments in or towards repayment by Scottish Enterprise of sums issued in fulfilment of guarantees given by the Treasury;

    (4) payment into the National Loans fund.

    In this Resolution—
    "development corporation" has the same meaning as in the New Towns (Scotland) Act 1968;
    "public dividend capital" has the same meaning as in Schedule 2 to the Act but includes such capital within the meaning of Schedule 2 to the Scottish Development Agency Act 1975.—[Mr. Greg Knight.]

    ENTERPRISE AND NEW TOWNS (SCOTLAND) BILL
    Ordered,
    That the Enterprise and New Towns (Scotland) Bill may be proceeded with as if it had been certified by Mr. Speaker as relating exclusively to Scotland.—[Mr. Greg Knight.]

PETITION

  Broadcasting (Deaf People)
  10.15 pm
  Mr. John McAllion: With your leave, Mr. Speaker, I wish to present a petition that has been signed by 1,125 people who live in the Dundee and Tayside areas. It asks the House to recognise that Britain's 4 million deaf people have the same rights of access to television as every other citizen and calls on the House to ensure that legislation be passed placing an obligation on television channel operators to provide complete coverage with teletext and subtitles of all programmes by a specified date.
  The Government have not yet given that commitment, but I urge on them the necessity of doing so at an early date.
  To lie upon the Table.

Mobile Homes
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Greg Knight.]
10.16 pm
Mr. Rhodri Morgan: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise and to place on record the quite extraordinary state of affairs in my constituency at the Cambrian trailer park at Culverhouse Cross. It is the only residential caravan park in Cardiff, and in some ways it is the only remaining bastion in Wales of unfettered landlordism. Ceausescu and his wife may be dead, the Berlin wall may be crumbling, most of the east European and South American dictators may have disappeared, but I am afraid that in one small corner of my constituency people feel as though they are living in a police state.
The trailer park is owned by Maurice Lubin and the company that he owns, called Property Developers Mortgage and Loan Company. It is a private property company, and without question Maurice Lubin is a home-grown Rachman in Wales. He is creating a climate of fear and is acting like the godfather to the 147 caravan dwellers in the park. I should like to give some examples of the more inhuman aspects of his behaviour according to the information that I have received from the residents' association.
On Christmas day, he threatened to cut off the electricity of the caravan of a severely disabled, wheelchair-bound elderly lady who had recently returned from hospital. In early December, he sent an eviction notice for alleged arrears of rent, which do not exist, to a 92-year-old man living alone. On the same day in early December, he sent an eviction notice to a widow. She had been widowed on Wednesday and he sent the eviction notice the following Saturday. In November, he sent an eviction notice for overcrowding to a family on the very day that their newborn baby was delivered. He has threatened parents whose children, as young as six years old, ride their kiddies' bikes around the site.
The landlord has also taken strong measures to try to discourage the continued existence of the residents' association because the association has been in dispute with him. In October last year, it won a case on the level of ground rents to be set. He is trying to split people from the residents' association and in general he is creating a climate of fear.
For the benefit of the House, I shall quote from a letter that I have received. Unfortunately, I cannot give the name and address because of the request of the person who wrote it and when I read the relevant parts of the letter the House will understand why. The gentleman who wrote the letter is a young father with a wife and daughter. He says:
"He"—
that is Mr Lubin—
"has told me that I will not be able to live in my unit for much longer as it is too old and wants smashing up … My wife is frequently upset and cries a lot because of what this man says. She thinks we'll be out on the street with no-where to go because the £2,000 I have been offered for my unit will not even pay back half of my personal loan I am using to pay for it."
On the last page he says, even more tragically:
"I would be very grateful if you would treat this letter in confidence and not use my name or address for fear of retribution by the owner and I do not wish to put my wife through any more trouble."

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If anything illustrates a climate of fear, that is it. It is the general feeling on the site, which is by no means restricted to that man, his wife and child. It is a general pattern that has been created by the behaviour of the landlord. People living on the site have said to me that they are living in a police state. That is wholly unacceptable.
To illustrate the landlord's attitude to the residents' association and his attempts to break it up, I want to quote again from a letter that he wrote recently to one of the members of the association. Regarding alleged rent arrears —which do not exist—Mr. Lubin says:
"I am writing to you personally in view of the good relationship which existed between us prior to your wife becoming a member of the resident's association Committee and because I feel that possibly you are not receiving the best advice."
He then quotes at length from the agreement that he has with this particular tenant and says that he and his family can have an arbitrator appointed if they so wish. That is fine.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Christopher Chope): I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is referring to a case before the court. I understand that one case was before the courts, but I may have been misinformed.
Mr. Morgan: I was referring to cases that have already been determined by the courts. There may be further aspects coming before the court for a different form of determination, but my quotation relates to the court case that has already been determined.
As is common in agreements involving caravan site owners and caravan owners, in this agreement there is a procedure for referring matters to arbitration. That is fine when the procedure is used in good faith by both sides. If, for example, there is a disagreement on how to apply the formula, on how much the retail prices index was last year, or on how much the owner has spent on improvements and how that money should be divided, that is fine, but the law can be used and abused by the owner rather than being used constructively as is intended, as is shown in the letter that I was about to quote when the Minister intervened. It says:
"All requests for arbitration will be made to the Cardiff County Court on an individual basis. With full costs being asked for if the application is successful."
That is using the law not as it was intended to be used, but as a threat.
The landlord is not saying that there should be a test case before the county court and that people would see how the county court judge determined one case so the formula could then be applied to the other 146 caravans on the site, which would be acceptable. All the owners would then not need to go through the rigmarole. However, this landlord is threatening that every case will be taken to Cardiff county court on an individual basis, which is clearly meant to scare people off from using the arbitrator formula at all, especially as he says
"full costs being asked for if the application is successful."
That is threatening the cost of legal proceedings on the less well-off in society. It is saying, "Don't you dare use the arbitration formula as laid down in your agreement with me because it will cost you a lot of money to do so." That
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way of proceeding—the landlord using the unequal relationship between landlord and tenant—seems a complete abuse of the legal process.
I am not willing to see my constituents being pushed around by this godfather in that way. His sole technique is to put the frighteners on people when they are in a vulnerable position, using the legal process. It is all done under the Mobile Homes Act 1983, which is supposed to confer security of tenure and the reasonable and peaceful occupation of caravan sites, subject to the agreement not being broken on either side.
There are major incentives for any trailer park owner who is greedy not to confer security of tenure. A trailer park owner makes his money fast by destabilising the site. He wants to increase the ground rent, but he finds when he buys the site that it is governed by a formula agreed to by the tenants when they originally bought their vans. By that formula, the rent can go up only by the rate of increase in the retail prices index, plus an allowance for what the owner has spent on the site. Hence, he cannot increase the rent fast, unless he spends a great deal of money, in which case he must spend the money before he can get it back, and if he is greedy he is not happy to do that.
The owner can make much more money when a tenant leaves because he can buy the van from the tenant cheaply. When a new tenant comes in, the owner sells the same van for six or seven times what he paid for it because the tenant must buy the van through the owner of the site. By that means, the owner makes perhaps £10,000 or £20,000 per van every time there is a change of tenancy.
That shows that there is a major incentive to get existing tenants out and new ones in. There is no incentive under the Mobile Homes Act 1983 to confer reasonable security of tenure on tenants. On the caravan site of which I am speaking, Maurice Lubin is harassing the tenants so that they feel they must leave, that they cannot cope any more because their wives are crying and they fear that they cannot carry on much longer before they will have to go, despite the fact that the Mobile Homes Act is supposed to confer on them reasonable security of tenure.
I am anxious to avoid dealing with a court case which will proceed in February in relation to further increases in rents in the years 1988–89 and 1990. If I were to deal with that, the Minister would be unable to give a reasonable response to my remarks. In other words, I am endeavouring to avoid referring to current court action.
What is the solution to the problem? There is great incentive for the owner of a caravan site to remove security of tenure, not through the law but by all other means at his disposal—by leaning on tenants and coming the heavy with them so that their lives are made miserable—then new tenants will sign new agreements containing different ground rents and different formulae governing annual increases in the ground rent and so on. That incentive is undoubtedly there.
We need an additional power, over and above that contained in the Mobile Homes Act 1983, to prevent that incentive to get existing tenants out and new ones in from acting as a means of making every mobile home site owner greedy. We need a formula similar to that conferred on the Housing Corporation, and on Housing for Wales or Tai Cymru in Wales to license not merely the site, which is already the case, but the owners of sites.
I recall our debates in Committee when what is now the Housing Act 1988 was going through Parliament. A beneficial side effect of what was otherwise a bad measure

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was the way in which it conferred some useful quasi-judicial powers on the Housing Corporation and its equivalent body in Wales to license people who wanted to be owners of parts of the municipal housing stock. In other words, if one applied to be a new private owner, a housing association, a co-operative or any other body wishing to take over some of the existing housing stock, one had to register and be approved by the Housing Corporation. One could be unapproved afterwards even if one had been approved in the first instance.
Such a power would license not only the site, which is done annually by the environmental health departments of all local authorities, but the owner to ensure that his or her behaviour towards the tenant complies with the intention of the Mobile Homes Act 1983 to confer reasonable security of tenure and peaceful enjoyment of what, after all, are the tenants' caravans on someone else's ground. If the landlord infringed to an unreasonable degree the basic intention to confer security of tenure and peaceful enjoyment, he could have his licence removed because he was not a fit and proper person or company to own a trailer park or mobile home site. That would provide the power to say, "You have misused the law and your power over people who are frequently in a vulnerable position, very often elderly or young families with small children." If he threatened them and made their lives a misery in order to get them out and put in new tenants at much higher ground rents, the Housing Corporation or Housing for Wales could step in and issue a warning and then remove the licence to be a mobile site owner. He would no longer be considered a fit and proper person to be an owner and would have to dispose of his interest in the site. A new licensee, whether an individual or company, would have to take over and run the site perhaps at a slightly lower rate of return but in a more reasonable way with regard to the tenants' security of tenure and enjoyment of life on the caravan site.
I ask for such a power without great hopes of the Government providing it. However, there is some hope. After the Housing Act 1988 became law, there was excitement among the less desirable fringe of the landlord community. Many individuals and companies made inquiries about acquiring parts of the municipal housing stock. I understand from Housing for Wales that the only material inquiry about acquiring part of the municipal housing stock of Cardiff city council was by Maurice Lubin and the Property Developers Mortgage and Loan Company. It did not get as far as a serious inquiry but it was the only one that made it to the starting gate, much to my surprise.
Although the Housing Act 1988 was clearly intended to open the door to all manner of extensions of what is, to me, unacceptable, unfettered landlordism, I am glad to say that it has not worked out that way. I hope that the Government will consider seriously the idea that I suggested. The people involved are my constituents and could be those of the Minister. They all deserve better than they get now. Everyone likes to think that they live in a free country and can bring up their family and live out their old age without harassment or living in a climate of fear. They wish to live in the highest standard of freedom that this country and the laws provided by Parliament can allow.
10.33 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Christopher Chope): I congratulate the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) on this Adjournment debate. It follows an early-day motion which he and several other hon. Members signed.
I listened with interest to what the hon. Gentleman has had to say about the difficulties which his constituents who are resident on the Cambrian trailer park at Culverhouse Cross in Cardiff have recently encountered. As the hon. Member recognised, I cannot discuss the particulars of this site, not least because it is currently the subject of action in the county court. Nevertheless, the case raises several broad issues concerning mobile homes legislation and I should like to comment on them.
The system under which mobile home residents own their homes and yet rent the pitch on which the home stands is unique, and legislation has to cater for its particular requirements. Before 1983, mobile home residents lacked long-term security in their homes, but the Government passed the Mobile Homes Act 1983 that year to provide security of tenure, and it gave other important rights including the right to sell the home on the site.
Unless the planning permission for the site, or the site operator's interest in the land, is subject to a time limit, the resident has indefinite security of tenure and his agreement can be brought to an end only for one of the three reasons prescribed by schedule 1 to the Act: that the resident is not living in the mobile home as his or her main residence; that, because of its age or condition, the mobile home is having a detrimental effect on the amenity of the site; or that the resident has broken a term of his agreement, and has been told of this and given a reasonable time to put things right but failed to do so. In that last case the court must also consider whether it is reasonable to terminate the agreement on that ground. A site owner cannot bring an agreement to an end without going to court and cannot evict a resident without an order from the court.
The Act provides that the main rights that it gives are implied in every agreement. The resident has those rights whether they are mentioned on the face of the agreement or not. Other terms of the agreement, such as those covering pitch fees and the mechanism for reviewing them, are not specified by the Act but may be included as "express" terms in individual agreements. Such terms are open to negotiation within the legal framework provided by the Act and, once agreed, are legally binding on both site owner and resident. Unless an agreement says that he can, a site owner cannot normally impose new terms without the resident's consent. If the pitch fee is increased or new rules are introduced, it is always open to a resident to challenge in court the site owner's interpretation of the express terms of the agreement.
I appreciate that many people—especially the elderly —find the idea of going to court daunting and are worried about the cost, but county courts are not the forbidding places that some people imagine. In the longer term, the housing action proposed by my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor as part of his review of civil justice should offer a lower-cost, informal and accessible form of resolving disputes through the courts, and I hope that it will be used for mobile homes cases. The review proposed that the housing action would provide for arbitration by a registrar, with hearings kept informal and the parties not needing legal representation. It would be not unlike the

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present small claims system. But until such arrangements are available, mobile home residents must have confidence in their ability to enforce their rights through the present system if they disagree with what a site owner is doing.
If residents accept that a proposed increase in rent for a caravan or in pitch fees is fair but it is nevertheless likely to cause them hardship, they can apply to the local authority for help in the form of housing benefit.
The fact that this debate has arisen from a case that has gone to court should not be taken to mean that the legislation is not working. There were some teething problems after the 1983 Act became law, and my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young), when he was Under-Secretary, instigated a review of the Act that involved discussions with representatives of residents and site owners to see whether the problems could be sorted out.
The review concluded that there was no need for new legislation, but it led to some important initiatives, one of which was the issue of a code of guidance by the mobile home industry for members of its associations. The code gives guidance on issues that had been the source of some concern. It encourages site owners to recognise residents' associations. It condemns harassment and it gives an undertaking that disciplinary action will be taken against members where harassment is proved, or even where it is not referred to a court of law.
The review also led to a review of the model standards for park home sites, and new standards were issued last year. Finally, the industry introduced an arbitration scheme for pitch fee disputes—which has now been set up by the Confederation of Park Homes Industry—known as COPHI—and an informal scheme whereby the industry agreed to look into complaints against individual site operators. COPHI hopes to put draft proposals for a formal complaints scheme to the Office of Fair Trading in the near future.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, West argues that such initiatives by the industry are not enough. He thinks that we should have formal licensing of site owners and give mobile homes residents rights similar to those enjoyed by local authority tenants under the tenants' choice arrangements, although I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman would press the point or whether he believes that it would be appropriate to introduce a tenants' choice system. We have established the tenants' choice system for tenants who rent their homes in the public sector, whereas in this debate we are talking about home owners in the private sector, who rent the pitches on which their homes stand.
Mr. Morgan: I think that the Minister may have misunderstood what I said. The licensing to which I referred was an extension of section 94 of the Housing Act 1988, under which would-be purchasers of municipal housing stock have to be licensed by the Housing Corporation or Tai Cymru in Wales as fit and proper persons or companies. I was asking for that extension to determine whether landlords of trailer parks should also be licensed as fit and proper persons in the light of the circumstances that I have revealed.
Mr. Chope: I had misunderstood the hon. Gentleman. He is asking about approved landlord status and a system
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of formal licensing. That would be unnecessary and would go much further than the Government would think appropriate.
Mr. David Mudd: My hon. Friend the Minister will accept that the 1983 Act was private Member's legislation which was piloted through the House by our right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), the Secretary of State for Defence, when he was Secretary of State for the Environment. Serving on the Committee was our right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell), who is currently Her Majesty's Solicitor-General. Therefore, on the fairness and liberalisation of the law, there is no doubt about what was intended. It has taken many complaints off the boil. The House now hears far fewer complaints than ever before.
I must ask a hypothetical question. If the law were to be amended to proscribe certain people as being park operators, should it not be extended further to proscribe certain people as ever having rights to be tenants on caravan sites?
Mr. Chope: My hon. Friend has a good point. It underlines the Government's concern about having more controls over the people who can operate sites, and the same applies to people who apply to move on to sites. There is an absolute discretion at the moment. The answer is to have more competition between site owners, and that means having more sites developed. If there were more sites there would be more choice for potential tenants, and in the marketplace only the best site owners would flourish. That would ensure that people were not forced on to sites where they were likely to encounter problems.
Local authorities already have powers to control physical conditions on sites. There is a remedy in the hands of local authorities who need to consider the role that mobile home sites can play in their areas. They can control conditions on sites and they can also, through their planning powers, facilitate the development of more sites and thereby encourage more competition.
We are conscious of the need to have a comprehensive, up-to-date picture of the conditions on mobile home sites and the changes that have taken place over the last few years. As the hon. Gentleman may know, we have commissioned research into local authorities' policies and practices on mobile homes and into the physical conditions on sites and the views and experiences of site owners and residents.
The first part of that research, the local authority survey, is complete and should be published in the spring. Its findings were encouraging and bear out what my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Mudd) said. Complaints from residents were fairly infrequent, and were mostly dealt with successfully by informal arrangement between the site owner and the authority. Contraventions, mainly of site licence conditions, occurred on a minority of sites.
On the much larger physical and social survey so far we have only had the results of a pilot study, including a study of a site in Wales, which have also been very encouraging. A pilot study is not the same as a full survey, and it would be wrong to assume that the national survey will necessarily tell the same story. But the survey has revealed a high degree of satisfaction among mobile home residents and standards which are continually improving. The

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Department is proceeding with the full survey on a national scale this year, and the results should be available towards the end of the year. The indications from both surveys are that problems of the kind the hon. Gentleman has been talking about do not appear to be widespread and would certainly not justify changes in the existing legislation.
I should like to say a little more about the problem of residents who are, or who feel they are, harassed by the site owner. Harassment is a very serious issue and one on which this Government have shown their determination to stand firm. We strengthened the law on harassment in the Housing Act 1988 and introduced a new right to civil damages. Local authorities have powers under section 3 of the Caravan Sites Act 1968 to prosecute site owners whom they consider guilty of harassment or of attempts at illegal eviction. Allegations of harassment must be very carefully looked into; often it may be a matter of the parties misunderstanding each other's behaviour—the sort of issue which an established residents' association could sensibly handle with the site owner. However, where it is
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a more serious issue, the necessary powers exist and it is for the local authories to use them to protect people living within their boundaries.
I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern for his constituents, but, as I have said, I cannot comment on a specific case that is before the courts. In general, I believe that the evidence is that those who have made agreements under section 1 of the Mobile Homes Act 1983 are adequately protected and that we do not need to introduce further changes to back up the protection given by that Act, the Caravan Sites Act 1968 and the initiatives that I am delighted were introduced by the industry.
If, after court proceedings are finished, the hon. Gentleman has further points arising from this case that he wishes to discuss with me or with my colleagues in the Welsh Office, we shall be delighted to listen. In the meantime, it has been of value to us all to listen to his comments in this debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at fifteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.