Commons Sitting of 6 February 1991

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

  BRITISH RAILWAYS (No. 3) BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions
  SCOTLAND

    Gulf War Casualties
    Mr. Harry Ewing: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement about the availability of national health service hospitals in Scotland to be used for the treatment of casualty victims of the Gulf war.
    Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what extra funds have been made available to health authorities in Scotland in respect of casualties arising from the Gulf war.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Ian Lang): Hospital beds in Scotland will be made available for the treatment of casualties from the Gulf. The number of casualties and their particular treatment needs will determine which hospitals become involved. It is, however, expected that the first hospitals in Scotland to be asked to receive casualties would be those in the Glasgow and Edinburgh areas. As my hon. Friend the Minister of State announced on 16 January, health boards will be reimbursed the full costs of treating any Gulf casualties.
    Mr. Ewing: May I, in advance, pay my personal tribute to the doctors, nurses and all the other support and ancillary staff for the undoubted dedication that they will show the victims of this wholly unnecessary war? Will the Secretary of State give us his commitment and an absolute guarantee that the additional resources made available will not be clawed back and that the beds that will be made available will not be closed down after the emergency is over, in appreciation of the fact that there will be a continuing civilian emergency as a result of the operations and treatments that will have been delayed?
    Mr. Lang: I am sure that the whole House will agree with the hon. Gentleman's tribute to the doctors, nurses and ancillary staff who may be involved in treating casualties from the Gulf, especially those in the medical and nursing professions who have gone to the Gulf to be available there. I am equally sure that most of the House would not agree with his reference to the conflict in the Gulf being unnecessary. I have made it clear that health
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    boards will be reimbursed for the costs incurred. Clearly, the minimum disruption will be caused to waiting lists and other health board interests.
    Mr. Dalyell: Are the maimed, the shockingly injured and the appallingly burnt, many of whom will suffer from long-term psychiatric damage, likely to be better treated than heroes of previous wars? Will the Secretary of State use his position in the British Cabinet to do everything possible to prevent a land war, to stop the inhuman bombing of Iraq and to accept with enthusiasm the tentative proposals put forward by the Iranians who will have to be locked into any stable settlement?
    Mr. Lang: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the British Government are fully committed to assisting in the implementation of the United Nations resolutions. That is why our armed forces are in the Gulf. He may be assured that casualties will be given the best possible care and that the first priority will be to meet the needs of each individual casualty.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Does my right hon. Friend agree that with so many Scots serving in the Gulf on behalf of the United Nations we should assure them that if any of them are injured and return to Scottish hospitals, they will be treated properly and effectively, as only Scots can look after their own? More importantly, will we remind them that, although for years Opposition Members have called on this House and others to support the United Nations, when the chips are down they have been found wanting?
    Mr. Lang: I agree with my hon. Friend. Our first priority must be to ensure that all casualties from the Gulf receive the best possible care. An operations group in the Scottish Home and Health Department will oversee the arrangements.
    Mr. John Marshall: Does my right hon. Friend agree that all the evidence since 2 August is that Saddam Hussein is an evil psychopath and that to give in to his blackmail would be wrong? Does he further agree that the number of casualties would be greater if we waited until Saddam Hussein had a nuclear deterrent, rather than dealt with him now? This unnecessary war has been brought about because Saddam Hussein felt it necessary to attack Kuwait.
    Mr. Lang: I agree with my hon. Friend's every word. It is very much to the credit of the allied operation that every attempt has been made to minimise casualties to our own side and to minimise casualties to Iraq's civilian population.
    Mr. Galbraith: May I return to the issue at stake—the question of casualties? Will the Secretary of State agree to make available the necessary moneys for the prompt treatment of all those patients whose operations will be delayed as a result of casualties from the war? Will the right hon. Gentleman also agree that many of the Gulf casualties will be disabled and will require long-term care and rehabilitation? Facilities for such care in Scotland are at best inadequate and, at worse, non-existent. Will the Secretary of State ask the health boards to identify the numbers requiring such care and the additional services required? Will he then provide the necessary finance to the health boards and the social workers to ensure the long-term care and rehabilitation not only of our service men, but of all other national health service patients?
    Mr. Lang: I have already made it clear that the health boards will be reimbursed the full cost of treating any Gulf casualties and, therefore, none of the funds allocated to those boards for their normal activities will be in any way displaced or jeopardised.
    As to the long-term treatment and rehabilitation needs of Gulf casualties, clearly every effort will be made to give the best possible attention to the needs of each individual casualty.

    Farm Incomes
    Mr. Andrew Welsh: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what are his latest estimates of farm incomes in Scotland; and what financial steps he is taking to ensure the future viability of the agricultural industry.
    Mr. Lang: Latest estimates of farm incomes in Scotland were published by my Department on 21 January and details were placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
    I keep the financial health of the Scottish agricultural industry under regular review and will take what measures are necessary to ensure that the industry is able to compete effectively and to maintain its vital contribution to our rural areas.
    Mr. Welsh: Is the Minister truly aware of the extent of the crisis currently facing the Scottish agricultural industry, with farm incomes at their lowest levels in real terms since the second world war, high interest rates, rising costs and a record number of farmers leaving the industry? Given that whatever threatens agriculture also threatens every rural community in Scotland, why has there been no main payment of the hill livestock compensatory amount
    —HLCA—to the much troubled livestock industry? Why is there no emergency package to prevent the modern-day clearances of the hills and upland areas of Scotland? When will the Government act for agriculture?
    Mr. Lang: I certainly acknowledge that some sectors of the agricultural industry are going through a period of considerable financial difficulty. The Government are keen to respond to that—our record is one of good response. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the HLCA and, in 1990, £48 million was paid to 18,000 Scottish producers. We are keen to deal with HLCA as soon as we can and I hope that the form will be going out within the next few days.
    Sir Hector Monro: May 1 thank my right hon. Friend for the help that he has given to farmers through the large increase in the suckler cow subsidy and through the advance payment of the sheep annual premium? Does he appreciate, however, that the cash flow of many farmers in the hills in particular depends upon the payment of the HLCA? I hope that he will be able to announce the figures soon and that that payment will be made as soon as possible.
    Mr. Lang: I understand and share my hon. Friend's concern on this matter. He rightly drew attention to the sheep annual premium scheme—we were able to accelerate payments of that premium this year—and to the suckler cow premium scheme where we raised the level to the highest rate permitted in the less-favoured areas. I also acknowledge the need to get the funds out to the farmers as quickly as we can.

    Rural Economy, Fife
    Mr. Menzies Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has any proposals to sustain the rural economy in north-east Fife; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Allan Stewart): On the most recent available figures, between 1984 and 1987 total employment in the north-east Fife travel-to-work area increased by 2·2 per cent.; since 1987 unemployment has been declining sharply in north-east Fife; between 1981 and 1989 the population has grown by some 4·1 per cent.
    The Government aim to build on those highly encouraging indicators of economic progress. Fife Enterprise, the local enterprise company for the Fife region, will be able to deliver the Government's economic development, training and environmental improvement programmes in a way which is best suited to the particular needs of the area.
    Mr. Campbell: Does the Minister understand the contribution that the fishing industry makes to constituencies such as mine? Does he appreciate the resentment felt there and throughout fishing communities in Scotland at the folly of the eight-day tie-up rule? Was not that rule imposed on Scottish fishermen, at least in part, because of the culpable failure of the Government to produce an effective decommissioning scheme?
    Mr. Stewart: I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that in negotiations the Government reduced the period from 10 to eight days. I must also point out the key need to conserve stocks in the North sea. I can reassure him on the general implications for the area. The business plan of Fife Enterprise emphasises the changing place of agriculture and fishing in the rural economy and gives a priority to the development of tourism and leisure. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be reassured about the strength of the economy of north-east Fife by the figures that I gave him in my answer.
    Mr. Andy Stewart: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government's policy of providing a strong and diverse base for the Scottish economy helps all regions?
    Mr. Allan Stewart: My hon. Friend is, of course, absolutely right. It is significant that Scotland is the only part of Britain where unemployment is lower than a year ago and that most commentators suggest that Scotland will have had one of the highest, if not the highest, rate of growth in 1990. NatWest has forecast that Scotland will have continuing growth in 1991.
    Mr. McLeish: Is the Minister aware of the importance of Rosyth naval base to the whole of Fife, including north-east Fife? Is he also aware that the Prime Minister has said that he wants to examine closely the implications of closure of that base on Fife's economy? Will he give an assurance this afternoon that the Scottish Office will be fully involved in any such discussions and that the Secretary of State and all his ministerial team will take cognisance of what is happening? Will the Minister come back later and give an assessment of the implications for the Fife economy and the Scottish economy because there will be a dire effect on the local area as well as north-east Fife?
    Mr. Stewart: I appreciate the importance of the hon. Gentleman's point for the whole of Fife. I can confirm that no decision has been made to close Rosyth or, for that matter, any other naval base. The Government fully recognise the implications that any such closure would have for the economy. Those implications would be fully considered and examined by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, along with colleagues before any such decision was taken—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Dewar: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for calling me. My interest in the rural economy of north-east Fife is well known.
    To follow up the important point that the Munster made, he will be aware that there are strong signs that a Ministry of Defence working party has been established, apparently with the specific remit of closing the Rosyth naval base within the shortest possible time scale. Does that exist and is that its remit? What is the Scottish Office doing to ensure that any review of naval bases examines every option on its merits and does not prejudge the issue by putting Rosyth on a hit list of one?
    Mr. Stewart: I share the hon. Gentleman's obvious regret that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Brown) has arrived just after his question was reached. May I assure the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) that, while I clearly cannot comment on alleged leaked documents, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will he fully involved in any such discussions about Rosyth.

    NHS Hospitals
    Mr. Knox: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many (a) in-patients and (b) out-patients were treated in national health service hospitals in Scotland in the most recent year for which figures are available; and what the figures were in 1979.
    The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Michael Forsyth): The number of out-patient attendances and in-patients treated has increased by a staggering 900,000 a year compared with 1979.
    Mr. Knox: Does my hon. Friend agree that those figures above all others show the improvement in the national health service in Scotland since 1979, because they concern patients—human beings who have been treated?
    Mr. Forsyth: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not only are we treating almost a million more patients but we have increased the number of doctors by about 9 per cent. and the number of nurses by 14 per cent.; and expenditure has risen from £1 billion to more than £3 billion, which represents an increase of a third, over and above prices. That is the extent of the Government's commitment to the national health service.
    Mr. Wray: As 40 per cent. of Scottish troops are in the front line and as it is estimated that we shall need 7,500 beds for them, and as thousands of people have given blood since that announcement, how does the Minister differentiate between blood for the Gulf troops and blood to be sold to the private sector?
    Mr. Forsyth: As one who has given blood as part of the appeal by the blood transfusion service—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    Mr. Forsyth: I do not think that this should be a matter of controversy between us. I urge others to register as donors, if they have not already done so as part of the blood transfusion service appeal. The majority of blood donors will take the same view as I do—that blood is freely given to save lives wherever those lives are being saved.
    Mr. Riddick: I start by congratulating my hon. Friend —[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. This is Question Time.
    Mr. Riddick: May I congratulate my hon. Friend and all his colleagues on the excellent opinion poll in yesterday's newspapers which showed that the Conservative party—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. This is Scottish Question Time.
    Mr. Riddick: May I suggest to my hon. Friend that one of the reasons for the excellent showing in the opinion polls in Scotland is the Government's increasing investment in the national health service there? Does he agree that the surest way of ensuring greater patient care and more investment in Scottish hospitals is the re-election of a Conservative Government at the next general election?
    Mr. Forsyth: Surprising as it might seem, my hon. Friend was referring to an opinion poll in Scotland. It is certainly good news. I have no doubt that there are various reasons for it, but the sort of behaviour that we are witnessing today among Opposition Members, who are trying to frustrate our telling the good news about the health service, is doubtless a contributory factor.

    Orkney and Shetland Ferries
    Mr. Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received regarding the Government subvention on the ferry services to Orkney and Shetland in 1991–92.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): I discussed the issue of the subvention to ferry services with representatives of Orkney and Shetland islands councils on 25 January and my right hon. Friend and I continue to receive written representations from organisations and individuals.
    Mr. Wallace: The Minister will know that he and the Secretary of State have acknowledged that freight charge increases of more than 20 per cent. are bound to have a damaging impact on the local economy and that there may well be a need in the longer term to review the operation of the current subvention. Will he accept that we have an immediate problem and that P and 0 has not come up with anything in response to requests to review its projections for the year? If the economies of the islands are not to be damaged in coming months, help is needed, and that help can come only from the department. What is the Minister prepared to do about that?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: We have increased the subsidy by 17·5 per cent. and we have offered to review the situation in the summer to make certain that if P and O's estimates are wrong—we believe that they may well be

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    —we can make some form of arrangement to ensure that the full subsidy is paid—in line with the hon. Gentleman's request.
    As for a different type of subsidy, I made it clear to the islands council representatives that if they want to put forward proposals we shall examine them carefully. This system has served the islands well in the past.

    Primary Schools (National Tests)
    Mr. Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received about the introduction of national tests in primary schools.
    Mr. Lang: More than 100 representations about the introduction of national tests in primary schools have been received in the last three months.
    Mr. Bruce: Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that, having been given the chance to choose, parents are overwhelmingly saying that they do not want his national test and that he should now scrap it in favour of co-operation with parents and teachers to meet the genuine demand for diagnostic testing which everybody wants and which can be integral to the five-to-14 programme? Does he agree that that would be a constructive way forward which showed that he believes in parental choice, even when parents do not choose what he offers?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman was not listening clearly to my answer. The figure that I gave of 100 representations should be compared with the 430,000 children in primary schools. It is clear that the test process is part of the general improvement in the handling of the curriculum and assessment for primary school children. It is very much to their advantage and it benefits children, schools, teachers, parents and Scottish education.
    Mr. Ingram: Has the Secretary of State studied the detailed survey that has been carried out in my constituency and organised by St. Leonard's PTA? That survey clearly shows that the overwhelming majority of parents are opposed to this scheme. Will he take account of that view and either guarantee here and now that parents will have the right, if they choose, to opt out of the testing or, more importantly, will he scrap the scheme altogether?
    Mr. Lang: I find the hon. Gentleman's assessment of parental views incredible. These tests are for the benefit of children and Scottish education. They are a small part of an overall and continuing process of assessment and will lead to an improvement in the standards of education in Scottish primary schools.
    Mr. Worthington: Does the Secretary of State accept the legal opinion of what a regional council should do about informing parents about the test? Is it in accordance with section 28 of the 1980 Act about children being educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents? There should be a tear-off slip on the form to allow parents to decide whether their children should be tested. The parents should be given a choice, and the school and the Secretary of State should abide by the decision of the parents.
    Mr. Lang: It is reassuring to note that the Opposition are suddenly so concerned about parents' rights in
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    education, having tried so hard for so long to deny them. It is relevant to remind the House that the Opposition did not oppose the regulations about national tests in primary schools, and did not oppose the provision in the Self-Governing Schools Etc. (Scotland) Act 1989 which brought them into being. I think that the Opposition believe, certainly English Opposition Members believe, that testing is a necessary part of education. Teaching without testing is like cooking without tasting or writing without reading. We cannot have one without the other.

    Sport
    Mr. Canavan: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what Scottish Office initiatives are planned to mark 1991 as the Year of Sport.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: I have found an extra £1·5 million to launch a pound-for-pound funding scheme for local sport club facilities, to help regenerate participation in school-age team sport and to provide for the redevelopment of the Glenmore Lodge training centre.
    Mr. Canavan: When will the Minister make an announcement about the £320 million required to provide the new sports facilities that are recommended in the Scottish Sports Council's excellent document "Sports 2000"? Will the Minister respond to the report about school-age team sport, especially in view of his comments that competitive standards in team sports are a national disgrace? Will he do something about that other national disgrace, Hampden Park, by ensuring that adequate Government funding is provided either to improve Hampden Park or to replace it so that Scotland has a national stadium of which the Scots can be proud?
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman should be aware that I made an announcement about those matters over the weekend in a speech which, I regret to say, was not reported, no doubt because it contained more good news. The "Sports 2000" document is addressed to government and local authorities. Local authorities have to respond to it and they would be in a better position to do that if people such as the hon. Gentleman paid their community charge.
    The hon. Gentleman asks about team sport. If he had listened to my answer, he would have heard me say that I made £400,000 available for co-ordinators to be put in place to try to get team sport back and functioning. He also asked about Hampden Park. We have made it quite clear to the football authorities that we should like to see a new national stadium. They have still to decide the best way forward for that and the Government have said that they are prepared to help.
    Mr. McAllion: Does the Minister remember that the Government once offered to contribute £8 million towards the cost of a new national stadium, although that offer was subsequently withdrawn? Index linked and allowing for inflation, that offer would be worth £20 million. Would not it be a valuable and worthwhile way to mark the year of sport to make that offer again? Will the Minister have discussions with the Scottish Football Authority about the best way to make an offer of £20 million towards the recreation of a new Hampden Park?
    Mr. Forsyth: I have been having discussion with the SFA formally and informally on this matter for some time. At the splendid international at Murrayfield, I took the

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    opportunity to have further discussions with the football authorities about this, and they are deciding the best way forward. It would be foolish to come to any conclusions about the Government's contribution in advance of any scheme being endorsed by the football authorities. The hon. Gentleman will, I think, find that a number of his hon. Friends share that view.
    Mr. John D. Taylor: How much of the additional money that the Minister has announced will be made available to improve the standard of rugby in Scotland, in view of the probable defeat of Scotland by Ireland?
    Mr. Forsyth: I had no idea that the right hon. Gentleman was such an optimist. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to what the rugby authorities have done to encourage youngsters to become involved in team sports, which has played no small part in achieving the splendid quality of rugby football that we have seen in recent years in Scotland.
    Sir Hector Monro: I thank my hon. Friend for his pound-for-pound scheme, which will be valuable for sports facilities. When will he introduce regulations to give a fair deal to football clubs on valuation rating? Is he aware that of the two recent new grounds, Scunthorpe in England pays £12,000 and St. Johnstone in Perth pays £90,000? That cannot be fair? Will my hon. Friend take action?
    Mr. Forsyth: My hon. Friend is on to something which has also been raised with me by the all-party sports group. At that time, I gave a clear commitment that we would take action. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart), the Minister with responsibility for local government, is aware of this and we plan to meet the SFA to discuss how we can bring the matter to a satisfactory conclusion.
    Mr. Wilson: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he is Minister with responsibility for the national health service in Scotland and for sport in Scotland on the ground that he cares as much about the one as about the other'?
    Will the hon. Gentleman stop avoiding responsibility for "Sports 2000" and tell us why the Scottish Sports Council, two and a half years after presenting its major strategy document to him, has not yet had the courtesy of a response from the Scottish Office? Will he stop passing the buck by saying—to pre-empt his answer—that the "Sports 2000" campaign is aimed at local authorities when in fact it is aimed at the Government and Government Departments? Given the Minister's dual role, will he acknowledge that the main thrust of that document was the establishment of the important link between sports participation, investment in sports facilities and public health in Scotland?
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman arrived late to the meeting of the Scottish Association. of, Local Sports Councils on Saturday, which is no doubt why he missed my great unpublicised speech making it clear that we were committed to "Sports 2000" as an important working document setting out the future, addressed both to local government and to central Government. If the hon. Gentleman is not aware of it, I will repeat it once again. When the document was published, I met the chairman of the Sports Council, gave him our support and said that we saw this as a useful means for long-term planning. Our
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    commitment to sports in Scotland is indeed as great as our commitment to the health service. That is why we increased funding for sports in Scotland by no less than 28 per cent. this year, just as we have increased funding to the health service by one third in real terms. Under the Labour Government, funding for both was cut.

    Law Centres
    Mr. Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has any plans to create more law centres in Scotland.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: There are no plans at present to create more law centres in Scotland.
    Mr. Vaz: Will the Minister join me in commending the work of the Castlemilk law centre in Scotland for its excellent work on behalf of the people of Scotland? Does he accept that the work load of the two law centres has increased dramatically over the past two years as a direct result of the Government's policies, especially in areas such as debt, housing and social security? Will the Minister undertake to come to the House with proposals to increase the number of law centres in Scotland, at the very least to the same number that currently exist per capita in England?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: There are four law centres in Scotland. In response to the point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) in Committee in the summer, we changed the law to ensure that there was no statutory barrier to solicitors working in them and receiving a fee. That has all gone through. There is the Castlemilk law centre, to which the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) paid tribute, the Scottish child law centre, the Scottish legal services agency and the ethnic legal services project. If a local authority feels that there is a need for such a centre, it should submit an application for urban aid and we shall look upon it sympathetically because the law centres have an important role to play. The ethnic legal services project is funded through the urban programme. As I have already mentioned, we have changed the law to ensure that there is no statutory bar to further expansion.

    Steel Plants
    Mrs. Fyfe: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what information he has given to the Office of Fair Trading concerning expressions of interest from potential buyers of Scottish steel plants from British Steel.
    Mr. Lang: I have given no information on potential buyers of Scottish steel plants to the Office of Fair Trading. The expressions of interest received by the Scottish Office were made in the strictest confidence and it would not be appropriate to release the details to third parties.
    Mrs. Fyfe: Will the Minister explain further why he gives such an enormous advantage to British Steel? Does he think that the people of Scotland will ever forget that he preferred to put steel workers on the dole than to upset the board of British Steel?
    Mr. Lang: British Steel's decision to close the hot strip mill at Ravenscraig and the Clydesdale tube works was taken by its board on commercial grounds. It is not a matter for the Government, who have no direct

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    responsibility. My concern is to ensure that the economy of Lanarkshire and the rest of Scotland is in as healthy a state as can be achieved, and it is to that that I am bending my efforts.
    Dr. Bray: Is the Minister aware that casual inquiries in the United States and Tokyo by Locate in Scotland or itinerant Ministers is not a serious sales effort and will he ensure that a proper sales prospectus is prepared for British Steel assets in Scotland?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman knows better than most that those assets are not mine to sell and I am not responsible for selling them. Nor is British Steel in such a dominant position as Opposition Members imply, when only some 17 per cent. of the capacity available to British Steel users is in the hands of British Steel.
    Mr. Holt: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one thing that would help the Scottish steel industry in selling off its assets would be a clear, unequivocal undertaking from the Labour party that it would never seek to impose ministerial interference and renationalisation of that great industry?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend makes his point clearly and I fully understand his close interest in the steel industry.
    Mr. Dewar: The exchanges that we have just heard suggest that the Secretary of State has given up the fight entirely. Is it still his position that the Government are challenging and attempting to reverse the decision to close the strip mill at Ravenscraig? Is he really prepared to tolerate a situation in which British Steel, in its prejudice, is blocking all expressions of interest in the purchase of the strip mill? Is not that a negation of competition policy? Knowing of such interest—it was the Secretary of State who revealed it—is he not prepared to do anything to test the market? Does he intend to allow British Steel to stifle competition in a way that cannot be in the public interest?
    Mr. Lang: I think that the hon. Gentleman knows that the European Commission's competition directorate has given its provisional view that under the treaty of Paris the actions of British Steel are not anti-competitive. I think that he is also aware that the Director General of Fair Trading has concluded that on the basis of the evidence available to him at present, he has no reason to exercise his competition powers. Anyone wishing to bid for any of the assets of British Steel is free to approach British Steel and welcome to do so.
    I have not given up—if there is any possibility of saving any steel jobs in Scotland, I am willing to help towards that end. The trade unions have decided to accept negotiations, and the Arthur D. Little report has said that the overall climate for steel investment in Scotland is not attractive and that Scotland is not well placed to compete. I think that most people in Scotland are realistic about the situation. I certainly regard my primary responsibility as being to help regenerate the economy of Lanarkshire.
    Mr. Oppenheim: Did not the type of meddling now being advocated by Opposition Members for the steel industry result in a disastrously inefficient industry in the 1970s, and has not British Steel actually flourished since the politicians relinquished their grip? How can we take seriously professions of concern from Opposition
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    Members when we remember that it was their union chums who led to the Ford plant going to Spain rather than to Dundee?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is absolutely right and makes the point extremely well. Between 1975 and 1985, at today's prices, the taxpayer had to contribute no less than £14 billion—the equivalent of £25 million per week—to the steel industry. That did not improve competition, output, productivity or efficiency—all that it did was to prop up uncompetitive jobs at extreme cost to the taxpayer and considerable damage to other jobs in the economy.

    Constitutional Reform
    Mr. Norman Hogg: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has considered the proposals for constitutional reform approved by the Scottish Constitutional Convention; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Allan Stewart: The so-called convention's proposals would lead to more government and more taxes being foisted on Scots. This would not be in Scotland's interest.
    Mr. Hogg: Why have the Minister and the Secretary of State for Scotland set their minds against any discussions with the leaders of the Scottish Constitutional Convention? Why are they ignoring the claim of right—and the right—of the Scottish people to determine the arrangements for their own government? Would not it be better to enter negotiations now so that a parliament could be achieved within the United Kingdom, thus strengthening the union?
    Mr. Stewart: The hon. Member ignores the fact that the so-called convention either avoids or disagrees on every difficult decision that it faces. I will give him an example. Last week a Labour campaign for electoral success was set up to stop proportional representation. The campaign is under the leadership of Mr. Eric Milligan, Mr. Pat Lalley and the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes), who are arguably—or perhaps unarguably—the three most important and powerful men in the Scottish Labour movement. The response from the Liberal Democrats appeared in today's Glasgow Herald, when the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) contended that Labour was the most conservative force in Scottish politics—the dinosaur where messages take a long time to reach the brain. I have every hope and expectation that the plans of the so-called convention will meet the same fate as the dinosaur.
    Mr. Foulkes: Is the Minister aware that, although there may be differences of view about the voting system, there is absolutely no difference of view between the Liberal Democrats and all members of the Labour party that we need a Scottish assembly to deal with Scottish business, that in denying the Scottish people that assembly, the present minority Government are standing against the wishes of the Scottish people, and that that verdict will be given not just in Scotland but in the United Kingdom at the next election, when the Minister will once again return to the Back Benches, but on the Opposition side?
    Mr. Stewart: On the last point, the hon. Member cannot have read the recent Scottish opinion poll, which

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    put the Conservative vote at 30 per cent.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—a good base on which we will build further. On the hon. Gentleman's substantive point, many people, when asked, will say that a Scottish assembly seems a good idea, but every time the hard questions are asked—how it would work, how it would relate to the United Kingdom, and what role the Secretary of State would play—there are no satisfactory answers.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: May I ask my hon. Friend the Minister not to dismiss too lightly the concept of constitutional change within the United Kingdom in terms of Scottish interests? Many United Kingdom taxpayers would like equality of financing as between England, Scotland and Wales—and equality of representation in this House. Scottish taxpayers could meet the full cost of the new assembly if they wished, but I believe that when the figure became known, the case for keeping things as they are would be unanswerable.
    Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend puts his finger on an important point and raises a question that the so-called convention has not satisfactorily answered. My hon. Friend is also right to remind the House that identifiable expenditure per head is 23 per cent. greater for Scotland than for England.
    Mr. Salmond: If the Minister wants to ask hard questions, why does he not do so in a referendum offering a choice between the convention's scheme, independence in Europe, and the status quo? Does not the Government's refusal to do so owe much to the fact that they know that in an independent Scotland no Minister with responsibility for industry would stand idly by and watch the destruction of the Scottish steel industry while enormous potential remains in the North sea market?
    Mr. Stewart: I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman is sounding a little less confident than usual. The last Labour Government put specific legislative proposals to a referendum, but no specific proposals now exist to be put to a referendum or otherwise considered. The real test of who governs the United Kingdom is which party wins the largest number of seats in the United Kingdom Parliament. I am sure that at the next general election that will continue to be the Conservative and Unionist party.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Does my hon. Friend agree that the convention fails to meet its own criteria? One is that the new assembly should be accountable, and it fails that test. [HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."] Does my hon. Friend further agree that the failure to address the Goshen-Barnett formula and also the number of Members of Parliament required to represent Scotland in this House—[HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I believe that the hon. Member was merely casting his eyes down.
    Mr. Walker: I do not need to read this, Mr. Speaker. The convention also fails to address the 'Tam' West Lothian question. Until those three matters have been addressed, the convention will be neither credible nor accountable, and none of its measures would ever get through this Parliament.
    Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend is absolutely right on each of the three points that he made. The convention fails to address any important questions, including those to which my hon. Friend drew attention.
    Mr. Malcolm Bruce: Will the Minister acknowledge that debate on those matters has not taken place because the Conservative party and the Government refuse to accept the legitimate demands of the Scottish people to play a constructive role in responding to them? If the Minister believes that certain issues should now be addressed, will the Government start to participate in the convention and make constructive proposals? Is it right for the Minister to continue abusing the convention when even the Confederation of British Industry and business interests in Scotland acknowledge that Scotland will have its own parliament and that they will need to work with it?
    Mr. Stewart: The convention is an entirely self-appointed body. As regards business opinion, I refer the hon. Gentleman to page 20 of The Scotsman today, where a leading multinational industrialist gives his views, under the heading,
    "Silicon Glen chief warns of devolution 'suicide'".
    He pointed out what the reaction of multinational business, which has such an important role in the Scottish economy, would be if any of these absurd proposals ever showed any likelihood of being implemented.
    Mr. McKelvey: No one on the Opposition side of the House would grudge the Minister, or any Conservative, their apparent joy in the fact that almost a third of the people in Scotland might vote for them in a forthcoming election. Nevertheless, does the Minister agree that the Conservatives are dodging the issue again, just as they have dodged the issue—and their responsibility to Scotland—by failing to serve on a Select Committee on Scottish Affairs? The people of Scotland know precisely what is going on in the House and they will not accept that situation. The Government should not be afraid to put the matter to the test. We argue that if we are fighting a war to protect some sort of democracy, the call for democracy in Scotland has to be answered—and it will only be answered when the people of Scotland get the opportunity, in a referendum, to decide how Scotland is to be governed.
    Mr. Stewart: The Government will put their policies to the test at the next general election, when the people of the United Kingdom will decide.
    Mr. Maxton: The Minister can no longer pretend that the Scottish Constitutional Convention has no democratic credibility in Scotland when he and the Conservative party have none whatever. The Government do not have democratic backing from the Scottish people for any of their proposals. Is it not time, as the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) said, that the Tory party came into the convention and discussed the proper way forward as regards constitutional change in Scotland so that a Scottish parliament can be established, which would give the people of Scotland the right to decide their own affairs within the framework of the United Kingdom? Is the Minister aware that the Conservative party's stubborn refusal to accept the Scottish people's demands for that change is putting the union itself at risk?
    Mr. Stewart: If that is true, it is surprising that the Conservative vote is going up in the opinion polls. I should

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    also point out to the hon. Gentleman that the convention started out as a so-called broad front of all those against the unionist position. The Scottish National party left fairly quickly, the Greens left more recently, and now it sounds as though the Liberal Democrats may be leaving, despite the fact that their position in the opinion polls suggests that they would probably remain members of almost anything that would have them.
    Mr. Norman Hogg: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the most unsatisfactory nature of the Minister's replies, I shall be seeking to raise the matter on the Adjournment.
    Mr. Speaker: I am grateful for the information, but it is not legitimate to raise this matter since it was not the hon. Member's question. [HON. MEMBERS: "It was."] I am sorry. In that case, I withdraw my comment. I am glad to know that the hot. Gentleman will seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

    Rural Ambulance Service
    Mrs. Ray Michie: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last met the director of the Scottish ambulance service to discuss the ambulance service in rural areas.
    Mr. Forsyth: I spoke with the new general manager of the Scottish ambulance service recently and have provided an additional £8 million to strengthen the service in rural areas by eliminating single manning, to increase the numbers of ambulance men with paramedical skills and to fund the new helicopter service.
    Mrs. Michie: The Minister knows of my concern about single manning of ambulances in rural areas. Does he agree that his recent announcement of more money is not sufficient to make an immediate difference in rural areas, where there is a crying need for extra ambulance personnel? They are urgently needed in my constituency and in other parts of Scotland. When will this unacceptable practice end?
    Mr. Forsyth: I share the hon. Lady's enthusiasm for progress on this matter. We have provided an increase of about 20 per cent. in resources for the ambulance service this year and I am confident that we shall move towards the elimination of single manning. I know that the hon. Lady takes a great interest in the ambulance service in rural areas, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro). I know, too, that one of the matters that have caused concern is the question of the new centralised control of the service. I have spoken to the new director, who has given that matter his attention, and I am happy to tell the hon. Lady that we can help in that respect.
    In rural areas, where circumstances merit it, we shall return to the old system enabling general practitioners to make direct contact with local ambulance crews for non-emergency transport, provided that central control is also informed. I hope that the hon. Lady will recognise that we are going some way towards meeting the anxieties that she and others have raised.

    Housing, Foxbar
    Mr. McMaster: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has any plans to visit the Foxbar area of Paisley to assess its housing needs.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: My right hon. Friend has no plans at present to visit the Foxbar area of Paisley.
    Mr. McMaster: At the risk of disappointing the Minister, I must tell him that I learned yesterday that he had visited Foxbar before, but that his visit went largely unnoticed. Will he consider returning, and perhaps this time trying to achieve some results for the people of Foxbar as his previous visit did not make one bit of difference to the standard of living there? While he is there, will the Minister make a day of it and come with me to Ardgowan court, Hunterhill and other places in Paisley, Johnstone and Elderslie, to see the damp and decaying houses in which people have to live as a result of his housing policy?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I have visited the hon. Gentleman's district several times, and I have been to Foxbar twice. On the first occasion, I was photographed under a large placard saying, "Foxbar says no to Scottish Homes". Since then, however, Scottish Homes has indeed become established. I was pleased to learn that it had contributed some substantial and positive work in the area, as well as substantial funds. That will continue.
    The question of allocations for the other districts was raised with me by the district councillors whom I met in the summer. The provisional allocation has been £17·604 million, a higher allocation per council house than last year's. I shall, however, keep in mind the points made by the hon. Gentleman before the final allocation is made in March.

    Manufacturing Output
    Mr. Riddick: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the change in manufacturing output in Scotland for each of the last six years for which figures are available.
    Mr. Allan Stewart: The latest available full-year figures relate to 1989. In the six-year period from 1983 to 1989, manufacturing output rose by over 21 per cent.
    Between 1983 and 1984, output rose by 4·6 per cent.; between 1984 and 1985, it rose by 2·2 per cent.; over the next year, there was a fall of 2·1 per cent.; between 1986 and 1987 there was a rise of 3·0 per cent.; a large rise of 7·7 per cent. was experienced between 1987 and 1988; and between 1988 and 1989, output rose by 4·5 per cent.
    Mr. Riddick: Does my hon. Friend agree that the excellent increase in manufacturing productivity has fed through directly to increase the prosperity of the people of Scotland and that it has come about as a result of the Government's economic policies there? Does not that represent another reason why the Conservative party's opinion poll showing in Scotland has improved so dramatically? Do not the figures compare strikingly with the period under the last Labour Government when manufacturing output actually fell?
    Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the first quarter of 1990, output was some 11 per cent. higher than in 1979, and some 6 per cent. higher than the previous

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    peak. My hon. Friend is right to point to the record of the last Labour Government—[Interruption.] Hon. Members should listen to this. Under the last Labour Government, manufacturing output in Scotland fell by 1·5 per cent.

    Council of Ministers
    Sir Russell Johnston: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he will next attend a meeting of the European Council of Ministers.
    Mr. Lang: I am ready to attend a meeting of the Council of Ministers whenever the circumstances require it.
    Sir Russell Johnston: It would be interesting to know how often in recent times the circumstances have required it—quite often, I should have thought. Is the Secretary of State aware that all the German Lander and many of the regions of France and Spain maintain separate offices in Brussels? Does he agree that that is to their advantage? Why does not the Scottish Office do likewise?
    Mr. Lang: As the hon. Gentleman probably knows, comparisons between Scotland, as part of the United Kingdom, and the Länder of Germany are irrelevant and spurious. In the European Community, Scotland's interests are very well represented through the United Kingdom's representative organisations. The hon. Gentleman may like to know that since 1979 Scotland has derived no less than £1·3 billion of benefits under various European schemes. That is six times as much as Denmark has received.

    Scottish Homes
    Mr. Ernie Ross: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next expects to meet the chairman of Scottish Homes to discuss its budget.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Scottish Homes is expected to submit its draft expenditure programme for 1991–92 later this month. My right hon. Friend and I expect to meet the chairman thereafter to discuss this and other matters.
    Mr. Ross: Does not the proposed budget of Scottish Homes make nonsense of the rural conference that was held last year and of all the aims that were stated there? How does the Minister reconcile those aims with the proposed budget, under which none of the housing associations in Scotland will be able to provide a single new start?
    Lord James Douglas Hamilton: I have not yet received the Scottish Homes programme, which has to be approved by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I can say, however, that £200 million will be allocated to housing associations. I believe that full account will be taken of the needs of traditional clients. Over the years, the role of housing associations has broadened and widened to take into account the interests of not just those who live in urban areas but those who live in rural areas. I believe that that will, indeed, be done. I am confident that Scottish Homes and its board will come forward with sensible proposals.
    Mr. Tom Clarke: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: I will take the point of order after the application under Standing Order No. 20.

Cold Weather (Elderly People)
3.31 pm
Mr. David Winnick: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the urgent need for assistance for heating to be given to the elderly of limited means during the very cold weather."
The matter is specific, because of the cold weather that is being experienced all over the country. It is important, because a very large number of pensioners on very small incomes simply do not have anything like the means to keep their accommodation adequately heated. It requires urgent consideration, because it is downright scandalous that so many pensioners on such incomes should have to suffer in the present cold spell—the coldest we have had since January 1987.
The Government's cold weather payments are far from adequate. When all the conditions have been met, all that is paid is £5 a week. One could hardly describe that as a large sum of money. How many right hon. and hon. Members could keep their homes adequately heated on £5 a week? In today's Evening Standard, there is a cartoon that adequately sums up all the bureaucratic red tape that has to be cut through before the £5 is actually paid.
Let me relate to the House the information that I have. There are 64 weather stations in the country. In the areas of only a very small number of those—nine or 10—have the conditions for making the payments been met. That means that, in the great majority of areas, the payments, however inadequate, are not being made. Why is it that, in this country, 10 to 20 per cent. more elderly people die during the winter months than at other times of the year, and why is the figure here far higher than that in other European countries? In most European countries it is about 5 per cent. Surely this demonstrates the hardship, misery and deprivation that so many elderly people in this country suffer during the winter months. It is time the Government took action. It is time they allowed elderly people cold weather payments—and more.
I hope that, in view of all these circumstances, Mr. Speaker, you will consider the matter sufficiently important to allow a debate to take place.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
"The urgent need for assistance for heating to be given to the elderly of limited means during the very cold weather."
As the House knows, under Standing Order No. 20 I have to announce my decision to the House without giving any reasons. I have listened with concern to what the hon. Gentleman has said. As he knows, I have to decide whether the application comes within the Standing Order and, if so, whether a debate should take place today or tomorrow. I regret that the matter that he has raised does not meet the requirements of the Standing Order and I therefore cannot submit his application to the House.

Points of Order
3.35 pm
Mr. Max Madden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I shall take first the point of order from the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke).
Mr. Tom Clarke: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I hope that you will accept that what I am about to say is not even an implied criticism of you. Those who follow our proceedings carefully will have been greatly surprised this afternoon that the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick), who is no longer in the Chamber, asked two questions when some of us did not even have an opportunity to ask one.
There could be a great deal of confusion in the minds of those who follow our proceedings, because we have now adopted a system whereby, although hon. Members, including myself, may have tabled questions a fortnight ago, if we were not in the top 40, our questions do not appear on the Order Paper. Is it possible to look at that, because it is causing confusion that we all want to avoid?
Mr. Speaker: I am sorry that I was not able to call the hon. Gentleman. I think that that is really the reason for his point of order. I debated with myself whether to call the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) on question 17, since we did reach it. I could have stopped there, but that would have been to the detriment of the hon. Members for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) and for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross). I judged that, on balance, I should call Question 17.
Mr. Alexander Eadie: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. With all due respect, perhaps you did not grasp the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke). He was trying to say that hon. Members table oral questions to particular Ministers but their names may not appear on the Order Paper. For example, I have tabled three successive times for Energy questions and my name has never appeared on the Order Paper, and I have tabled questions for three successive Scottish Question Times and my name has never appeared on the Order Paper. Our constituents may begin to think that we are not trying to table questions. My hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West made a substantial point, which requires looking into. I am sure that you will see, Mr. Speaker, that hon. Members are trying to table questions to respective Ministers.
Mr. Speaker: I did get the point. The hon. Gentleman will know that there was a debate on this matter before Christmas and it was agreed that there should be an experiment on printing the first 40 questions. [Interruption.] Well, that is so. The Procedure Committee has the matter under review. The hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) has raised the substantial point that his constituents may feel that he is not tabling questions. He should put that point to the Procedure Committee which, is I have said, as currently looking into the matter, and it may come forward with an adjustment that would meet the hon. Gentleman's point.
Mr. Max Madden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sure that you, like most other

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people, would agree that is easier to decide how many angels could fit on the head of a needle rather than what triggers the Government's severe cold weather payments. Will you confirm that the Minister for Social Security, and Disabled People who is responsible for these matters and who was giggling and chatting to his neighbour during the Standing Order No. 20 application by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), has nothing to prevent him from coming to the Dispatch Box to explain to you and the House when the Government are going to stop elderly people from freezing, and when they are going to make the cold weather payments?
Mr. Speaker: The Minister was here and undoubtedly heard what was said. I cannot comment on the other matters that the hon. Gentleman has raised.
Mr. John McFall: Further to the point of order of my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke), Mr. Speaker. Could not questions be shown on the Order Paper on the first possible day, so that we could show our constituents? They are becoming increasingly frustrated about hon. Members from English constituencies asking two questions, whereas we can ask none. I suggest that you concentrate on Scottish Members so that names such as Lochaber—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Does the hon. Gentleman expect to be called during questions in which English Members are involved?
Mr. McFall indicated assent.
Mr. Speaker: That is right—he does, because this is a United Kingdom Parliament. I must ensure a proper balance in this place, and I seek to do so.

Disability Discrimination
3.40 pm
Mr. John Hughes: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to render unlawful certain kinds of discrimination on grounds of disability; and for connected purposes.
After years and years of endless rhetoric, nice noises, reams of paper and innumerable reports, there is still an astonishing degree of public and national and local government indifference to the needs of disabled people. The process of education has failed miserably and attempts to create public and establishment awareness have been lamentably unsuccessful. It has been a waste of time—especially for disabled people and their carers, whose time is of the highest premium.
Nothing short of a national scandal exists. Every hour of every day, an employer, a transport provider, a shopkeeper, Department after Department and even hospitals discriminate against disabled people. Disgracefully, public and establishment ignorance, indifference and prejudice subjects disabled people daily to the most arduous and unnecessary physically and mentally exhausting tasks. People fail to realise that carrying out the simplest, yet essential, bodily function can become an ordeal. Unlike any other member of the public, who can pop into the nearest toilet, a disabled person who does not own a toilet key under the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation scheme or who has mislaid or lost his key is in real trouble, and may be confronted with a considerable trek to obtain relief.
A constituent of mine declares that even a routine hospital visit can be a humiliating nightmare. When she is forced to leave her most essential aid at home, she becomes, as she aptly puts it, a piece of furniture that is moved on and off an ambulance and deposited at hospital into a typist's swivel chair over which she has no control.
That problem is not unique. It affects many of my constituents and the constituents of every Member of Parliament. It is the norm, which the House and the Government have failed to do anything about. The situation is worse than that, because, in their latest proclamation, the Government are setting out to erode the meagre employment benefits of disabled people. Disgracefully, the Government ignore unjustifiable discrimination, which frustrates employment opportunities for otherwise able people.
Examples of that enormous problem, which the Government choose to ignore, are available from the many organisations that represent disabled people. They have it on record that the head of one civil service department prefers the aspidistra, rubber plants and yucca plants to a disabled person in a public place. Consider the effect of that message on an employee who is forced to sit in an office unemployed because the boss of the department did not want an executive officer with cerebral palsy dealing with the public. Can hon. Members imagine the feeling of a person with an upper limb disability because of the drug thalidomide who was turned down for a job because the interviewing panel decided that the applicant could not write as her arms looked different, even though she had completed a comprehensive job application by hand?

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The upset and trauma that results from such insensitivity are unimaginable. Many other reasons why disabled people are humiliated are just as extreme and disgraceful. Disabled people are rejected for jobs because the managing director's dog does not like wheelchairs. They are refused access to a company pension scheme because they have scoliosis, which is a lateral curvature of the spine and has no effect on life expectancy or ability to do a job.
Surprisingly, even the magic of money, which is normally the key to any door, fails to dent the barrier of discrimination. Even a millionaire can be discriminated against. A millionaire can go along to a Giro bank and open an account, but a disabled millionaire can forget it. Giro is not interested. The extent and form of discrimination is unbelievable.
Regrettably, I even found it necessary to draw to the attention of the House in an early-day motion the circumstances of many of my disabled or elderly constituents who were effectively imprisoned in their homes for seven weeks while a major renovation programme was carried out on the lift that served their homes. In this day and age, those circumstances are unacceptable. No elderly or disabled citizen's freedom of access, or exit from his or her home should be subject to such restriction. No elderly citizen or disabled person should be housed above ground level if the accommodation is not served by two lifts.
The needs of the disabled are of the greatest magnitude. More than 6 million people are affected. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) and my right hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) and for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) have ably presented Bills on
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this important subject. Each Bill set out to eradicate this form of discrimination. However, even after their efforts the problem still exists. It must be tackled now. The disabled cannot wait until education has erased the prejudice that prevails in every private and Government organisation.
Ideally, the first item on the agenda of any national or local government meeting should require committee members to consider whether any other item of their business discriminates against disabled people. That could be done easily and without legislation now. That simple measure, however, cannot take care of the multitude of sins against the disabled buried in present legislation, with which we cannot afford to play around. The slate needs to be wiped clean and the present legislation replaced by one Bill only, as happened in America.
The key to the problem is here in the hands of hon. Members. My Bill sets out to establish in terms of employment, transport and access, a clear and comprehensive prohibition of discrimination on the basis of disability. I welcome this opportunity to present a Bill which is supported by many major organisations representing disabled people.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. John Hughes, Mr. Don Dixon, Mr. Martin Redmond, Mr. Dave Nellist, Mrs. Audrey Wise, Mrs. Alice Mahon, Ms. Dawn Primarolo, Ms. Mildred Gordon, Mr. Frank Cook, Mr. Harry Barnes and Mr. Dennis Skinner.

Disability Discrimination
  DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION
  Mr. John Hughes accordingly presented a Bill to render unlawful certain kinds of discrimination on grounds of disability; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 22 February and to be printed. [Bill 78.]
Opposition Day
  5TH ALLOTTED DAY

    Training
    3.49 pm
    Mr. Speaker: I must announce to the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
    Mr. Tony Blair: I beg to move,
    That this House deplores the fact that at a time of deepening recession, with thousands more each day facing unemployment, the Government is cutting back on investment in training; believes this sends entirely the wrong signal to industry; and condemns the Government's failure to deliver the training policy Britain needs to boost skills and provide for the country's industrial future.
    Let me remind the Secretary of State of the background to the debate. This year, 25,000 companies will go to the wall; this month, tens of thousands of new redundancies will be announced; last month alone, it was announced that 1,200 jobs were to go in Derby, 1,200 at British Rail Engineering Ltd., 1,000 at London Transport, 450 at Mattessons Walls and 350 at GEC, and 3,500 jobs are in jeopardy at Lewis's stores. There are countless more thousands of jobs in jeopardy up and down the country.
    When the Minister speaks, I defy him to tell us that he has any reason to believe that, when he announces next week's unemployment figures, they will be any lower than the appalling 80,000 rise in unemployment announced in December. If that is right, it means that, today and every day, 3,000 more people join the dole queue. That is the reality in Britain today under the Government.
    The recession is not some distant theory, it is here, it is now and it is everywhere. A short time ago, the new Prime Minister promised us a classless society; instead he has only brought us a classless recession, hitting everyone in equal measure.
    Let us be clear that the distinctive feature of this recession is not that it is happening in the south and not in the north, but that it is happening everywhere—in the south-east and the south as well as in the north and in Wales and Scotland. It is affecting new technology and old, manufacturing as well as services. It is affecting every region of Britain, in every sector of industry, in every occupation at the workplace.
    It is the extraordinary achievement of the Government that, having divided the nation for 11 years, they have finally united it in recession. Yet not one word of apology have we had, nor one expression of regret. We have not had one new initiative to tackle the rising unemployment that the Government have created. Let us examine the ministerial gloss that has been put on the unemployment figures by right hon. and hon. Members.
    When unemployment first rose in the spring, we were told that it was
    "a short period of slower growth, concentrated in the south, not the north".
    In the summer, as unemployment rose higher, we were told that it was
    "concentrated mainly in the south."
    In the autumn, as the figures rose again and the desperation grew greater, we were given the rather implausible excuse that it was
    "concentrated on men, not women."
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    Finally, two weeks ago, when unemployment levels had risen in every area of Britain, covering all categories of people, the Minister fell back on the final refuge of all failed Ministers. He told us that we must
    "get these figures in perspective."
    Let me tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman the perspective of my constituents and that of countless thousands and millions of other people. They were told that this Government had created an economic miracle, and they have not. They were told that the problems would be temporary, and they are not. They were promised that there would be no recession, and there is. Promises followed by betrayal, boom followed by burst, that is the record of this Tory Government and all Tory Governments.
    The Government, having created the recession, surely cannot duck their responsibilities for the victims. Perhaps what is most devastating of all in this period of rising unemployment is that we still suffer skill shortages in vital areas of industry. In the north-east for example, a report published a few days ago said that more than 20 per cent. of firms in the region experienced shortages of skilled labour. In the north-west, where unemployment has risen by about 15,000 recently, 30 per cent. of manufacturing firms were found to have major skill shortages. In the west midlands, where unemployment has risen sharply in the past few months, the Black Country development corporation conducted a survey among more than 1,800 companies. Despite the high unemployment, it was not plant capacity but skill shortages that were inhibiting expansion.
    Just a week ago—just a few days ago—the Financial Times told us that a report commissioned into the leather-making industry, a key area of trade which does £150 million-worth of trade every year, showed that the constraint to growth was lack of skills. Yet the chamber of commerce survey for the fourth quarter of 1990, bang up to date for last December, gave the staggering figure that over 50 per cent. of manufacturing companies and almost 50 per cent. of service companies reported recruiting difficulties. There was not a single area of the country where such companies did not suffer a shortage of skilled labour.
    Can there be any more fundamental indictment of failure than that—that, at a time of rising unemployment, we still cannot provide the skilled labour we need for our future? The shortages are concentrated in the very areas in which we most need to compete effectively;, the areas where we have the largest balance of payments deficit and the areas of most acute skill shortages are correlated.
    We need to train, not simply to develop people at the workplace but, crucially, for the economic success of this country.
    Mr. Patrick Nicholls: If the hon. Gentleman is as worried about these skills shortages as he says, perhaps he would care to tell the House why the Labour party has opposed every single training initiative since 1979. While he realises that the word for which he is groping is no, perhaps he will reflect that spending by this Government on training is exactly six times in cash terms as much as that of the Labour Government. That is the record and the case which the hon. Gentleman should answer.
    Mr. Blair: That is an extraordinary intervention in a week when the hon. Gentleman's Government have

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    announced the collapse of employment training, the scheme which they introduced. If he examines the comparisons between Britain and our main competitors, he will see that the areas in which we most need skills to be developed, are the very areas where skills are most lacking.
    For example, in the decade up to 1988, the number of people with intermediate vocational qualifications grew by just 3 per cent. in Britain to the paltry figure of 26 per cent. That is a critical area for manufacturing and industry. In France, the figure rose by 8 per cent. to reach 40 per cent. and Germany is already 64 per cent. ahead in that category.
    Mr. Nicholls: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Blair: I give way out of generosity.
    Mr. Nicholls: Why, then, has the Labour party opposed every single major training initiative since 1979? That is the question. That is what we need to hear from the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Blair: The subject of our debate is the Government's failure. The reason why we did not support the Government's training policy was that we disagreed with it. I should have thought that even the hon. Gentleman would realise that that is why we are debating this motion today.
    If the comparitive figures are broken down, for example in the critical areas of engineering and technology, we find that an astonishing gap opens out at the craft level. In Britain every year, 35,000 craftsmen and women gain their qualifications. In France, the figure is 92,000. In Germany, the figure is 120,000. Is it any wonder, when our competitors develop their skills to so much greater a degree than us, that we have the manufacturing deficit in our trade of which we are all aware? Those figures will be confirmed by a major new study as yet unpublished, by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research into intermediate skills in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. It is worth referring to that study.
    Mr. Frank Haynes: Does my hon. Friend agree that the ex-Minister responsible for training, the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls), has a nerve? We are having the debate today because the Government have been a complete failure in training and this nation needs the opportunity of a proper training programme, not the programme which the hon. Gentleman pushed forward as a failed training Minister.
    Mr. Blair: As I am well acquainted with the hon. Gentleman, I am not the least surprised by his nerve.
    The most up-to-date comparison of numbers of technicians in manufacturing in Britain, France and Germany gives us some clue to our economic performance. Whereas Britain has 31 per cent. of technicians with no qualifications at all, France has only 27 per cent. and Germany only 8 per cent. At the critical intermediate level of those who are qualified, we find that France is about 10 or 15 per cent. ahead of Britain and Germany is producing 30 per cent. more qualified people a year.
    The report goes on to study the effect of this skills gap on our companies. Based on interviews conducted with people in British industry, it concludes:
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    "In Britain foremen in both spinning and engineering frequently mention that crisis management, chasing missing materials, rescheduling to cope with machine breakdown or training new staff where turnover was very high and new employees were normally untrained occupied the greater part of their time."
    The study goes on to compare the numbers of foremen and supervisors with qualifications in different countries. In the past decade, Britain has trained about 50,000 of them; in the same period, Germany has trained 50,000 every single year. Surely that is why we are not doing as well as we should.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Surely the statistics that the hon. Gentleman quotes so eloquently tend to show that the amount spent by this Government is broadly comparable with that spent by the other Governments he has mentioned. Unfortunately, our manufacturing industry has not spent as much of its own money on training as its European counterparts and has failed to see the advantages that it would derive from spending as much. Surely hon. Members on both sides of the House should urge industry to appreciate that.
    Mr. Blair: I do not believe that that is correct, but in any event I know of no main industrial competitor that would cut its training budget at a time of rising unemployment. The hon. Gentleman should pressurise Ministers to realise that.
    Mr. Phillip Oppenheim: Will a future Labour Government make an increase in the training budget an immediate priority or does the hon. Gentleman agree with the shadow Chief Secretary, who has said that the only immediate priorities for a future Labour Government would be child benefit and pensions?
    Mr. Blair: What we would not do is cut the training budget at a time like this. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would be worried about the 25 per cent. increase in unemployment in his constituency in the past few months.
    Virtually all other international comparisons show the same trends. France and Germany have four times as many electricians as we do. Germany has five times the number of mechanical engineers and 10 times our output of trained staff in clothing and textiles. It produces 10 times the number of people qualified in office work every year. France produces seven times the number of people in the retail trade every year—
    Dr. Kim Howells: Is not it true that the implications of what my hon. Friend is discussing are significant for large areas of this country, because, although it is important to areas such as south Wales to have inward investment, all too often it is concentrated on assembly line factories, not on primary production or research and development, which would provide real money, real jobs and real security of employment?
    Mr. Blair: My hon. Friend is right. He mentions one of the main reasons for investing in those skills.
    The comparisons in relation to virtually every sector of industry are frightening. If we agree that we need a training revolution, surely it must start with our young people. However, in such training we have the biggest gap with the very countries with which we need to catch up. Britain is virtually the only country that is cutting capital spending on schools as a real percentage of GDP. It is the

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    only country in the industrialised world with fewer than 40 per cent. of young people staying on in higher education and training.
    If young people were leaving school and going into first-class training, that would give some satisfaction. There are 300,000 or more young people on the youth training scheme. On the Government's own figures, fewer than half of those receive a proper qualification at the end of the training. More than 50 per cent. of the young people employed, unemployed or in employment outside YTS receive no training whatever.
    At the very time when that is happening in Britain, Germany will this year increase the number of apprenticeships to almost 2 million. Now we can see why this country has fallen behind. Against a background of rising unemployment, skill shortages and a skills deficit in vital areas of trade, we look to see how the Government are responding.
    Mr. James Arbuthnot: The hon. Gentleman finds it difficult to answer the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Mr. Oppenheim). Would extra spending by a Labour Government be a priority or would it come about as resources allowed?
    Mr. Blair: The answer is obviously yes. If the hon. Gentleman had been here for the speech by the shadow Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith), he would have heard him say exactly that. Of course that is one of our priorities. The Government are betraying the future of the country by cutting skills.
    The Government say that, because fewer young people are coming on to the Labour market, they want to cut expenditure on training. On our calculations, the youth training budget will be cut in real terms by about £100 million over the next few years. If that is because fewer young people are coming on to the labour market, would not any sensible Government, given the state of qualifications among our young people, reallocate that money and provide better quality training? The real dereliction concerns the 100,000 young people who leave school every year, go to work and receive no training whatever. In other countries it would be unthinkable—indeed, unlawful—for that to happen.
    Mr. Nicholls rose—
    Mr. Blair: I shall not give way. I should be happy to educate the hon. Gentleman, but this is a debate, not a seminar.
    There is growing support for Labour's policy of some form of intervention for young people that would put training within a proper legislative framework and ensure that public money provided decent training and proper qualifications. We are today beginning a new process of consultation on our proposal with training and enterprise councils, industry and unions. Why does not the Secretary of State do that? He should consult people to see whether there is support for proper legislation to ensure that young people are helped.
    Mr. Andrew Mitchell: I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, who is now dealing with TECs. I am a great supporter of TECs, and I understood that the hon. Gentleman also supported them. When he was recently out of the country, his hon. Friend the Member
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    for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) gave an interview on, I think, Radio Sheffield, and deliberately rubbished TECs. Is the Labour party in favour of TECs or not?
    Mr. Blair: That is complete nonsense, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) will tell us.
    The cuts in youth training are bad enough, but those in training for the unemployed are savage. Some 30 per cent., or £300 million, will be taken out of the budget for training the unemployed next year alone. Thousands of those presently receiving training will be denied it. Would any other Government, at a time of rising unemployment, when training and retraining have never been more important, cut and savage the budget for training the unemployed?
    We are proffered the reason that the Government have discovered that training is not always the best thing for the unemployed. I have only two things to say to that. First, that is a mighty curious thing to say. I remember when the predecessor of the Secretary of State for Employment introduced employment training. He told us that the reason why it had to be introduced, replacing the community programme, was because training was what the long-termed unemployed required. What has changed? Did he decide that training was no longer necessary and make the budget cut, or did he agree the cut in the budget and then cast around for an excuse to justify it?
    Secondly, in all the criticisms of employment training and in all the campaigns to change it, and in all the studies and reports of its inadequacies—including those of the South Derby TEC and the Manchester TEC, which published reports last year, that of the Select Committee on Employment, which published a report last year, and the Department's evaluation study, no one has ever said that the problem with employment training was that there was too much of it.
    When we see the cuts in youth training and employment training, we are entitled to look for some help in training for those already in work. It is here that we find the most serious gaps in Government policy. We know that, in the year 2000, 80 per cent. of those in the work force now will still be employed. We know that, in a recession, training will always be cut. A recent CBI survey shows a declining trend of those companies still wanting to invest more in training. There is no proper policy for in-work training whatever, apart from exhortation.
    The Secretary of State has endorsed the standard, developed by industry, unions and others, of investors in people. He has endorsed the kite mark for training excellence, which is given to employers who have proper training plans drawn up in consultation with their work force, involving each employee in the upgrading of his or her skill and evaluated or costed according to a universal standard. His predecessor set out as a Government target the aim that, by 31 December 1995—less than five years away—all employers, large or small, should become investors in people.
    Why can the Secretary of State not accept what the Labour party urges—that he will not succeed in that target by exhortation alone? If all that were required were persuasion, even these Ministers could have succeeded long ago. Even if he cannot accept our case on that, he should have retained the Department of Employment budget so as to find other ways to use that money to stimulate training. Are we really saying that, with some

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    imagination, we could not have put together a programme for management training, for a crash course for TECs to deal with skilled shortages, for improving the profile for national vocational qualifications? Any of these things could have been done, with foresight, imagination and a restored budget.
    At a time of recession, investment in skills must be maintained and increased. Is that not the case that the Government take out to industry day after day? How can the Secretary of State expect industry to heed his call to keep up its training investment when the Government set a bad example by cutting their training investment, as we can see from the recently announced figures? Only a Tory Government could have allowed Britain, the one country with the unlooked-for bonus of North sea oil, the one country with the God-given means to invest in skills and training and to prepare for our future, to be the one country that, before the single European market takes effect, will cut training investment. That is why we condemn the Government.
    The Government are not merely not investing in training; they are incapable of understanding that training policy cannot be a response to the short-term changes in the labour market. The essence of any training policy is that it should plan for the long term. It is not simply that long-term planning is incompatible with the Government's dogmatic obsession with market forces: it is that it requires a different attitude of government, a different culture in industry, a different relationship between Government and industry.
    The Government's failures in respect of training are not just those of policy, gross though they are; they are fundamental failures of leadership on a vital issue for our industrial future. If the Secretary of State really meant what he said about supporting our idea for a training revolution, he would be a spectator, not an extra in the crowd. He would be leading that revolution, creating the partnership in industry necessary to achieve it, using the power of government to legislate for our young people, providing the incentive for employers to upgrade skills, extending his Department's training initiatives.
    Other countries are not standing still. Between 1988 and 1990, when we have lost some £1,000 million from our training budget, French expenditure on training will rise by about 30 per cent. in real terms. In Italy it is also rising. We are not struggling to catch up with our competitors parked by the roadside. The distance that we have to travel is not between us and some fixed point. We have to catch up with a vehicle that is moving ahead fast, with the driver's foot on the accelerator. When we consider where we are and where we need to be, we can see that we are not even in the right business of getting our skills training right.
    The activities of our competitors are the product not just of their national pride but of economic necessity, because they know that the world of work is changing. This is the age in which the person in the workplace will become the pivot upon which the success of the enterprise turns. It is not just that we face skill shortages at a time of rising unemployment; it is not only that that is in the areas in which we most directly need to compete: it is in those very areas that the demand for skilled labour will grow.
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    Any analysis of occupations in the future shows that it will be in the professional occupations, the skilled manual occupations, that employment will grow, and it is in the unskilled jobs that it will fall. Most other countries know that. They appreciate that the markets of the future will be high-value-added markets where the advanced technology is applied by the most skilled people. The technology revolution of the 1960s will give way to the people revolution of the 1990s. The products from Japan and Germany are increasingly customised, individualised, precision goods, leaving mass production to other, less-developed nations.
    How long will it be before we have debates in the House where the adverse comparisons that we make are not with Germany, France and Japan but with Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Indonesia? That must not be allowed to happen, yet it is happening under this Government. It is because of that, because they have no answers to the recession or the problems that lie beneath it, because they have mismanaged the short term and failed the long term, that Britain needs a new start with new policies for the new challenges we face, one which combines commitment and a sense of urgency. The Government will never complete the task. That will be left to a Labour Government.
    4.18 pm
    The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Michael Howard): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
    `welcomes the Government's creation of a climate and strategic framework which is encouraging employers to improve their already substantial role in the national training effort, in which participation in training and the attainment of skills is rising, and which is set fair to meet the United Kingdom's skill needs in the 1990s and beyond.'.
    We have had this afternoon from the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) the usual litany of woe which he brings to our debates on this subject.
    The Government's training policy is designed precisely to achieve the objectives that are set out in the Opposition's motion—the need to boost Britain's skills and to provide for our industrial future. We are addressing those objectives, we are succeeding in achieving them, and the hon. Gentleman's speeches would have a good deal more credibility if he were to recognise and give credit for the extent to which that is the case.
    If hon. Members want to test the truth of what I have just said, all they need do is take as their text a speech made last week by the hon. Member for Sedgefield. In that speech, he set out the policy of the Labour party towards the training of young people. He said that training should be based on qualifications gained, not on time served. That is precisely our policy. It is a policy that we have put into effect. Since last spring, youth training has imposed no time limit on the training offered to young people and has been designed to ensure that those who complete it reach a minimum qualification.
    The hon. Gentleman also said that qualifications for young people undertaking training should be certified by the National Council for Vocational Qualifications. I agree. Great progress towards the achievement of a national vocational qualification for every young person in training is already being made. In fact, more than two thirds of those who complete youth training already gain a vocational qualification.

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    The hon. Gentleman also called for closer integration of education and training. Almost 10 years ago, the Government launched the technical and vocational education initiative to achieve precisely the aim of bringing education and training closer together. We did so at a time when the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock), then his party spokesman on education—I am delighted that he is with us—was parading up and down the country denouncing vocational education as fit only for second-class citizens and appropriate—he has always had the gift for a phrase—only for
    "hewers of wood and drawers of water".
    That was the phrase used by the Leader of the Opposition about TVEI. But I am always delighted to welcome late converts to the truth, and I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman recognises the merits of what we are doing.
    It would be difficult to gain the impression from the speech that we have just heard by the hon. Member for Sedgefield that most of the policies which he advocates on youth training are already in place. Yet that is the fact: we have given all 16 and 17-year-olds a right to training if they want it—the only country in Europe to do so. No such right existed under the last Labour Government.
    The fact is that nine out of 10 of our 16-year-olcls are today undertaking education or training—an improvement of a third since Labour was in power. We will have in place by the end of next year a system of vocational qualifications covering 80 per cent. of the occupations in Britain, which will offer every worker in those occupations a ladder of opportunity which they can climb rung by rung and which will make it possible for them to train towards a qualification.
    Of course, the availability of a national system of job-related qualifications is relevant not only to our young people but to our adult population, employed and unemployed, and there is a mass of evidence that our people are taking full advantage of the opportunities available to them.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Before my right hon. and learned Friend leaves recent speeches by Labour Members and the speech of the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), can he tell us whether there was any mention in that speech of the Labour party's decision to levy on every employer a large slice of turnover, to be given to bureaucracy, who would meddle yet again in training which ought to be done by employers?
    Mr. Howard: I was astonished by the total failure of the hon. Member for Sedgefield to say a word in his speech about the training levy, which he announced just two days ago and of which our newspapers yesterday were full. The reason why he did not say anything about it today might be that the Leader of the Opposition was sitting on the Front Bench. On 4 April last year, the Leader of the Opposition dropped the levy from his party's policy. Two days ago, we heard that the hon. Member for Sedgefield was bringing it back. No doubt because the leader of his party was sitting next to him, he did not feel able to say a word about it today.
    Employers are spending about £20 billion a year on training. The number of employees that they trained increased by about 70 per cent. between 1984 and 1989. The new training and enterprise councils are two years ahead of schedule, with 1,200 business people of the highest calibre engaged in an unprecedented partnership with Government.
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    We launched a major new initiative, "investors in people", which will increase employer commitment to training still further in the years ahead, and which, I was happy to note, obtained the enthusiastic endorsement of the hon. Member for Sedgefield in his remarks on Monday.
    Most encouraging of all, perhaps, the latest Confederation of British Industry quarterly trends survey indicated that, even in these difficult times, more than four times as many companies intend to maintain or increase their investment in training as intend to reduce it. If ever there was evidence that we are succeeding in revolutionising employers' attitudes to training, that survey proves it.
    Mr. Andrew Mitchell: The Opposition's confusion over levies is mirrored—despite the remarks of the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) in response to my earlier intervention in respect of training and enterprise councils. The hon. Gentleman denied that there was any lack of support for TECs among members of the Opposition Front Bench, but, on 30 December 1990, the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) said on BBC Radio Sheffield that TECs placed
    "a completely false emphasis on the nation's needs."
    Is it not the case that the same Opposition confusion exists in respect of TECs as it does in respect of levies?
    Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend is right. Confusion runs through all Labour party training policies, and I shall comment later on the remarks made by the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish).
    Dr. Kim Howells: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman completely satisfied with the nation's training? If so, is that the cause of the complacency that has led to his decision to cut the money available for that activity?
    Mr. Howard: I confess to some disappointment, because I had hoped that the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) was about to clear up the confusion surrounding the Opposition's policies. Of course there is more to be done with training, and of course we are in the middle of a revolution that is not yet complete. Of course we must do more to transform the attitudes of employers and individuals. Nevertheless, we ought to acknowledge that progress has already been made, and that the right policies are in place to continue and to complete that progress.
    Mr. Blair: Does the Secretary of State agree with his predecessor's comment: "We have a mountain to climb"? If so, why is he cutting training expenditure?
    Mr. Howard: If the hon. Gentleman will contain himself for a moment, I will address that point.
    Of course the Government also have a crucial part to play. Expenditure by my Department—as my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) pointed out has risen from the £377 million a year spent by Labour when in office to £2·6 billion a year today—six times more in cash terms, and two and a half times more in real terms. That is why we increased the planned spending on youth training for the coming year. That is why we welcome with enthusiasm the undoubted improvement in the quality of training that has occurred.
    Mr. Matthew Taylor: Much of the criticism so far has centred on the Government's failure to spend enough on training. Will the right hon. and learned

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    Gentleman comment on reports that criticised the administrative procedures used by some TECs, whose consequences included mispayments? That is an important matter, whatever the overall issue. Can the Secretary of State give the average cost for each non-vocational qualification course, to level 3 or equivalent? Some very high figures have been circulated.
    Mr. Howard: On the first of the hon. Gentleman's questions, he will appreciate that the deficiencies to which he referred were identified by the audit arrangements, which were instituted by my Department. The information which became available a few days ago is evidence of the effectiveness of those audit arrangements. They will continue to remain in place, and those weaknesses will be remedied, because the TECs will improve their administrative arrangements to ensure that those difficulties do not recur. That is already happening.
    Mr. Matthew Taylor: I am sure that that is what the Minister wants to happen. One of the worries about TECs is that, once one is in place, there are precious few ways in which Ministers can regain control of the organisation if it is badly managed. That is partly because, in effect, it is a self-perpetuating organisation. How does the Minister intend to exert control on TECs which are making the sort of mistakes—deliberate or otherwise—which appear to have been revealed by the Government's audit?
    Mr. Howard: The audit arrangements will continue, and TECs will continue to have to operate in accordance with the contracts that they signed with me. A considerable range of monitoring arrangements exist to ensure that they continue to provide the high-quality training that we intend them to provide.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge said in his intervention, each and every initiative which has led to the improvements in training in this country in recent years has been opposed by the Opposition. They opposed the technical and vocational education initiative when it was launched. They opposed employment training at their 1988 party conference, and called on their local authorities to boycott it, which 13 Labour-controlled local authorities did. Now the Opposition admit that they were wrong and they seek to pose as the defenders of employment training.
    The Opposition opposed training and enterprise councils when they were announced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), who is in the Chamber today. Now they admit that they were wrong and they support them—at least, the hon. Member for Sedgefield says they support them. In a moment, we shall consider the extent to which the Opposition speak with one voice on training and enterprise councils.
    Time and time again, the Opposition have simply copied our policies, after a respectable period of time has elapsed, and ditched their own. This week the hon. Member for Sedgefield placed our "investors in people" initiative at the centre of his latest proposals.
    The hon. Member spoke at length about the alterations in training funding that we should be making from next April. Not surprisingly for him, he did not refer once to the significant increase that we shall be making in planned spending on youth training. He did not refer to the transfer of responsibility and money for work-related further
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    education to the training and enterprise councils, and he left out altogether any reference to the important additional flexibilities that will be given to TECs to increase the value for the taxpayer of the investment that we are making in training.
    Perhaps that is because the hon. Gentleman agrees with his five Front-Bench colleagues, who signed an early-day motion a few weeks ago, describing as "disasters" those flexibilities requested by training and enterprise councils —and warmly welcomed by TECs.
    Mr. Bob Cryer: Could the Minister explain the flexibilities that he gave to skill centres when he handed over £14 million to his friends and to friends of the Tory party, which resulted in the flexibility to close down a fair proportion of the skill centres, to sell off the sites, because they were also handed over free and gratis, and to sell off the machinery, other training equipment and facilities? What benefit is that for skill training?
    Mr. Howard: We transferred skill centres, which had been making a substantial loss for some time, to the private sector because we were convinced that that was the way in which they could provide more efficient training than they had previously made available. The evidence is that that is precisely what has happened.
    The hon. Member for Sedgefield mentioned changes in funding of employment training. The fact of the matter is that he does not have a leg to stand on when it comes to discussing funding. We might be able to take what he says a little more seriously if he had succeeded in persuading the shadow Chief Secretary that training would be one of the areas on which Labour would immediately increase spending. He constantly tried to give the impression that that would be the case. However, we know that it is not the case: the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) keeps telling us that it is not the case; the Leader of the Opposition keeps telling us that it is not the case. Training, they tell us, is something on which they hope to spend more as resources allow. I fear, Madam Deputy Speaker, that if a Labour Government ever returned to power and you were waiting for "resources to allow" you would have to be very patient.
    Mr. Thomas Graham: Does the Secretary of State realise that, in Renfrewshire, our young folk were guaranteed a training place? That has never come about, however. The places cannot be filled. Does he also realise that the money to finance training for my constituents has been cut?
    Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman is talking about the youth training guarantee. That guarantee applies and will continue to apply, and young people who cannot find jobs will continue to be guaranteed a training place. As I said earlier, this is the only country in Europe to guarantee two years' training for all 16 and 17-year-old school leavers who cannot find jobs.
    We have explained many times the reasons behind our decision to alter the funding of employment training next year. I do not expect Opposition Members to understand, because to them the unemployed remain a mass of undifferentiated people to be lumped into a category, used for political purposes and treated as a lumpen proletariat.
    We take a different attitude. We believe that the unemployed deserve to be treated as individuals, and we want to give them individual help. That is why, for the first

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    time, since January this year every person who signs on at an unemployment benefit office is interviewed for up to three-quarters of an hour, and receives an individual back-to-work plan tailored to his individual circumstances and showing him the best route back to work.
    That is why we have taken heed of the detailed studies that we have conducted into the local labour markets in Bristol, London and the west midlands, which clearly showed that a significant proportion of the long-term unemployed already possessed the qualifications to match the vacancies in their areas. It has become very clear that, for many people, a lack of skills is not the prime obstacle to finding a job: for many, the main difficulty is lack of morale or lack of motivation. That is why we are determined to provide the unemployed with the widest possible range of help to assist them to return to work as quickly as possible.
    Mr. John P. Smith: The Secretary of State has mentioned attitudes to the unemployed, and the way in which they are treated as a homogeneous mass. Will he explain why, in September 1982, the Government —for some inexplicable reason—stopped conducting an occupational analysis of the unemployed and keeping the statistics?
    Mr. Howard: I must confess that my memory of these matters does not go back to September 1982. If the hon. Gentleman was listening to what I was saying, however, and understanding the information that a range of help was now available for people who had lost their jobs, he will know that that range is wider than it has ever been before.
    Because we want to ensure that we provide a wide range of help, we shall be increasing the number of places at job clubs, and in the job interview guarantee scheme, by up to 100,000 next year. Employment training, on which we shall still be spending £750 million next year, will have an important part to play. Training, however, is not the only, or always the best, way in which we can help people without jobs back into the world of work.
    You would never guess, Madam Deputy Speaker, from the language of the Opposition, that those who lost their jobs when unemployment doubled under the last Labour Government had no access to employment training or a restart interview, no chance of a place in a job club, no prospect of assistance through the job interview guarantee scheme and no guarantee of an in-depth interview with a new client adviser as soon as they registered as unemployed. The present Government introduced this comprehensive package of assistance for the unemployed, and created the conditions for a record number of jobs—2 million more than existed in 1979. The present Government have presided over the creation of more jobs in recent years than any other European Community Government.
    It is, of course, the case that at the heart of our policy on training lie the training and enterprise councils. These councils provide a direct solution to the problem that has plagued Britain's training performance for the last two centuries—the difficulty of securing active employer involvement and commitment to training. The Labour party believes that it is possible to achieve employment commitment to training only by taxing employers, by penalising employers and by legislating against employers.
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    At the very most, such negative policies could only secure grudging employer involvement, and would generate great resentment amongst them.
    Mr. Blair indicated dissent.
    Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. Is he abandoning the levy announcement that he made as recently as Monday? If not, what is the levy but a tax on employers?
    Mr. Blair: What we are saying is that the "investors in people" standard can be made to work, and the target set out by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's predecessor met, only if those employers who do not meet it make some contribution to overall training, and those who do meet it do not make a contribution.
    Mr. Howard: Of course it will be a tax. Or will it be a voluntary contribution? What on earth is a compulsory contribution except a tax? Policies of compulsion—perhaps "compulsory contributions" is the phrase that we should use—were tried in this country in the 1960s and the 1970s, and they failed. They led to a climate in which employers were forced into training by numbers and mindless form-filling in order to avoid levies.
    The hon. Gentleman need not take my word for it. These are the words of the CBI just last month:
    "The CBI members continue to reject the use of statutory measures as a means of increasing training activity. No legislative approaches have been devised that relate training to business needs."
    Coercing employers is not the way to secure the full-hearted and genuine commitment to training that we need if we are to secure the high levels of skills that will be very important in the years ahead.
    Training and enterprise councils provide the solution. They engage employers because they are led by employers; they have an impact with those working in the private sector because they are private sector bodies; and they can deliver increased commitment to training from employers because they are led by employers with a demonstrated commitment to training themselves.
    Mr. Rhodri Morgan: The Secretary of State talks about getting a more active commitment from employers via the TEC mechanism. Would he care to comment on the case of the South Glamorgan TEC, which covers my constituency? The chairman of that body—Mr. Helliwell, of the building company William Cowlin and Sons—asked one of the civil servants who had been loaned to the TEC to shred the two tenders submitted in competition with that from his own firm to build the TEC's offices. The contract is worth about £450,000.
    Is that what the Secretary of State means when he talks about getting more active involvement by employers in the affairs of the TECs? Can he tell us what the outcome of this case will be? I understand that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales had to ring up Mr. Helliwell and tell him not only that his firm should not proceed with its now winning tender, the other two having been shredded by his civil servants—reluctantly, obviously, but on instruction from the chairman of the TEC—but that it should not take part in the re-tendering processes suggested by the Secretary of State for Wales in direct communication with Mr. Helliwell.
    Mr. Howard: I have no detailed knowledge of the circumstances to which the hon. Gentleman refers. What

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    is the purport of his question? Is he suggesting that that is a basis for opposing the development of TECs? Is he suggesting that opposing TECs should therefore be the policy of his party? If so, he should have a word with the hon. Member for Sedgefield.
    Mr. Morgan: The point that I am making is that there are limits to the degree of freedom that employers may be given to run organisations that spend public money. If the Secretary of State's Department were to set up a more efficient monitoring organisation to watch what is happening in the TECs, we should be much happier about the expenditure of public money by private sector organisations, which he seems to think is the be-all and end-all of policy making in this field.
    Mr. Howard: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have effective monitoring arrangements and that we shall make sure that TECs behave in accordance with the contract that they have signed and in accordance with the high standards that we expect of them.
    Mr. Morgan: High standards?
    Mr. Howard: Yes, high standards.
    Already, training and enterprise councils have secured greater employer involvement in training at a senior level than has ever been achieved before in this country. More than 1,200 of the most important business people in the country have committed themselves to their local TECs. By last October every TEC had entered at least its development phase, completing the national network two years ahead of the schedule we set in 1988. In fact, 51 of the 82 across the country are already operational.
    I am the first to welcome expressions of support for Government policy from the Opposition, so I am delighted that the hon. Member for Sedgefield has gone on record repeatedly in support of training and enterprise councils. But it is a pity that his enthusiasm is not always shared by his own Front-Bench team. No sooner had the hon. Member told the "Today" programme on Radio 4 that TECs were important because of the extent of employer commitment to them than his Front-Bench colleague, the hon. Member for Fife, Central, launched what will no doubt go down in the history of these matters as his Sheffield initiative.
    On 13 December the hon. Gentleman went to Sheffield. His first call was at a trade union meeting organised by those in the Department of Employment who were understandably concerned about the consequences for their jobs of the changes that we are making in the way in which training is organised.
    We all know that the first rule of Labour party politics is that, when a Labour spokesman is addressing a trade union audience, he tells them what they want to hear. The hon. Member for Fife, Central behaved like a model Labour party spokesman when he went to Sheffield on 13 December. He told the trade union meeting that he regarded TECs as "new and unproven", and he urged the Government to "ease up" on the speed of their introduction. He said that the Labour party was opposed to the reductions in the size of the national administrative staff—reductions that are, of course, an inevitable consequence of a move to a locally based system. He supported the criticisms of the new financial flexibilities
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    granted by the Government to training and enterprise councils at their request, made by some 60 Labour Members of Parliament, including five Front-Bench spokesmen, in an early-day motion in November last year.
    The hon. Gentleman's second call was at BBC Radio Sheffield. By the time he got there, his blood was up. He said that the Government were moving far too quickly in establishing TECs, which he considered to be
    "a completely false emphasis on the nation's needs."
    I do not know how significant it is that the hon. Member for Sedgefield was out of the country on 13 December. I do not know how much this episode really was a case of "when the cat's away, the mouse will play", but I do think that the House and the country are entitled to a clear explanation of who it is that speaks for the Labour party on these matters. Which is the authentic voice of the Opposition? Is it the hon. Member for Sedgefield, the pro-TEC Dr. Jekyll? Or is it the hon. Member for Fife, Central, the anti-TEC Mr. Hyde? Or is it simply that the party is in favour of TECs when the hon. Member for Sedgefield is in the country but against them whenever he goes abroad?
    I have already outlined the progress that we have made in providing training opportunities for our young people.
    Mr. Blair: Perhaps the Minister would like to say whether he agrees with this comment in The Economist a couple of weeks ago:
    "Almost two years after its launch, to the sound of grandiloquent claims from Tory Ministers and loud cheers from businessmen, the Department of Employment's market-led training policy is in danger of falling apart."
    Mr. Howard: I do not agree with that comment in The Economist, but the person who wrote the article does not sit beside me on the Front Bench. The hon. Gentleman might expect rather more sympathy and support from his colleagues who sit beside him.
    In less than three months, we shall be launching training vouchers in 11 pilot areas. In those areas every school leaver will be issued with a voucher, worth an average of £1,500, with which they will be able to purchase any approved training course of their choice. They will be able to use their voucher with an employer, at a further education college or at any other local training provider approved by the relevant training and enterprise council.
    Training vouchers directly address the issue of increasing the proportion of our young people who receive training. They define very clearly the difference between the Government and the Labour party. We want to encourage young people by giving them choice and by giving them control over resources. We will give them the very best advice and guidance available, but we will then leave it up to them to make their own decisions.
    The Labour party, on the other hand, wants to force young people to fit into the pattern that it would design for them. It would close down opportunities to those young people who wish to pursue careers which do not require training from the very beginning, and it has no interest at all in transferring control of resources from the national to the local level, let alone into the hands of young people themselves.
    Mr. Ron Leighton: The Secretary of State has made a welcome announcement. To give real freedom of choice, will he also pay an allowance

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    to youngsters staying on at school after 16? It is important that many youngsters stay on at school, and we should not just pay them money and bribe them to leave school.
    Mr. Howard: It is important that young people should stay at school and, as the hon. Gentleman will know, they are doing so in increasing numbers. The voucher is designed to pay for training and not for anything else, so the hon. Gentleman's comparison is inappropriate.
    I have already referred to the astonishing omission from the hon. Member for Sedgefield's speech of his proposal, repeated earlier this week, for a training levy. If we look at the history of total confusion on this issue, we shall understand why he decided that it would be prudent to remain silent.
    The story begins in November 1986, when the Labour party's then employment spokesman, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), committed his party to introducing a training levy of 1 per cent. on the turnover of all companies. Two days later, he was flatly contradicted by the then shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), who ruled out such a levy by saying:
    "I can't imagine it's going to be the policy."
    It was not long before the Leader of the Opposition tried to perform his usual act of reconciling the irreconcilable. On 20 March 1987 the right hon. Gentleman said
    "A levy on turnover would not be appropriate in many industries."
    That was the "maybe a levy" stage in the evolution of the Labour party's policy. By the time we get to 1989, we find a different levy. In "Meet the Challenge—Make the Change", we read that a major source of funding for the national training fund will be a contribution by all enterprises of 0·5 per cent. of payroll, to be known as the training investment contribution.
    Just a few months later, on 6 February 1990, the hon. Members for Sedgefield and for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) launched a new policy document covering technology which did not mention the levy at all. In March last year, in another document, "Investing in Britain's Future", there was again complete silence about the levy.
    On 22 March last year, in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Circencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East brought the levy back. He said that it was still a part of the Labour party's proposals. That was affirmed later that month by the hon. Member for Sedgefield in a debate on training.
    On 5 April last year, the Leader of the Opposition re-entered the fray. The Independent of that date said:
    "Labour's plans to impose a £1·25 billion job tax on company payrolls to help finance the national training programme were quietly dropped yesterday. The unheralded climbdown was made by the Leader of the Opposition".
    A month later the Labour party produced yet another document, which made a proposal for a different levy. It said:
    "A purely voluntary approach will not work. We will therefore set employers … an initial minimum of 0·5 per cent. of their payroll to invest in high quality training to clear and agreed standards."
    Yesterday there was yet a further version of a levy, this time tied up with investment in training.
    Those dizzying changes of direction make the Labour party look ridiculous. The hon. Member for Sedgefield
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    resembles nothing so much as a spinning top, and it is not surprising that he omitted all reference to the levy from his speech.
    I want to make a serious offer to the Labour party, which is directly relevant to the question of skills shortages to which the hon. Member for Sedgefield referred. There is one thing that we need above all if we are to succeed in transforming the skills performance of our country in the decade ahead. We need to make sure that the attainment of relevant skills is suitably rewarded. That means recognising the importance of differentials in pay.
    There is not a great deal that Government can do to help achieve that objective, but there is an enormous amount that the Government can do to hinder it. Nothing would hinder it more than the introduction of the minimum wage to which the Labour party is so devoted. On even modest assumptions about consequential effects on differentials, a minimum wage as proposed by the Labour party would lose 750,000 jobs. They can only deny the validity of that estimate by suggesting that no attempt would be made to maintain differentials after a minimum wage was introduced. If that were to happen, it would sound the death knell of our hopes for improving the skills of the British people. If the Labour party is serious about the need to improve skills, it will abandon its proposals for a minimum wage. The two objectives are utterly inconsistent.
    There is a very clear choice on the issue of training lying before the House and the British people. It is a choice between a Government who set the pace on training and an Opposition who struggle to catch up. It is a choice between a Government committed to work in partnership with British employers and an Opposition pledged to work against them. It is a choice between a Government who have already delivered a massive increase in spending on training and an Opposition unable to comment on their spending plans.
    It is a choice between a Government committed to expanding training choices and opportunities for our young people and an Opposition determined to conscript them into a rigid framework. It is a choice between a Government determined to deliver training on a local basis, matched to local needs, and an Opposition pledged to centralise, regulate and nationalise. Above all, it is a choice between a Government who have already delivered the most significant improvements in this nation's training performance in our history and who have put in place the policy for a dramatic leap forward in our national training performance in the 1990s—and an Opposition condemned by their own blinkered ignorance to a policy mish-mash of cheap imitation and impractical extremism.
    Training is a serious business. It requires a serious Government, certain of the way forward and committed to work with every part of our society to deliver improvements in our training performance. There is only one party in the House and the nation able to form such a Government. That is why we shall stay on the Government Benches long after the next general election.
    4.57 pm
    Mr. Ron Leighton: In the war in the Gulf we are continually told two things about our service men. We are told about the quality of their equipment and the standard of their training and that a

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    land battle will not begin until the troops are adequately trained. Training makes for success or failure, victory or defeat.
    There is another war that is possibly more important and of greater long-term significance for the future of this country and that is the battle for economic survival in an increasingly competitive world. Our responsibility is to give our people the best equipment and training for that battle. We are not doing so. We are failing our people. While our competitors forge ahead with state-of-the-art, high-tech equipment, investment in Britain is negative. Our training is woefully and scandalously inadequate. We are sending our people into the battle of economic competition with one arm tied behind their back. We have the worst educated and trained work force in the industrialised world. We have a staggering skills shortage alongside large-scale unemployment, often in those industries where the balance of payments deficit is greatest.
    That failure is deep-seated. More than a century ago, in 1884, the Royal Commission on technical instruction said:
    "Neglect of training is the key reason for Britain's lack of competitiveness."
    There has been a history of failure and neglect.
    One country that we must match is Germany. In simple industries such as furniture, nine tenths of German workers have served a three-year, externally examined apprenticeship, whereas in Britain the figure is fewer than one in 10. Is it any wonder that German productivity is 60 per cent. higher than ours and that much of the kitchen furniture sold in this country is made in Germany? Hon. Members may have noticed that high-quality garments and textiles also bear the "Made in Germany" tag. Eighty per cent. of German machinists have served a three-year apprenticeship, but hardly any British machinist has done so.
    The same is true in virtually every other trade, such as the hotel trade. German sales assistants have product knowledge. One rarely meets a British shop assistant who is able to explain what he is selling. Countries such as Germany are not standing still, but are making progress all the time and at a much faster rate than us. They have three, four or five times as many skilled workers, which gives them an enormous competitive advantage.
    We have fallen behind not only European countries but countries of the Pacific and the Pacific ring. We face not only the powerful economy of Japan, but countries such as South Korea, which hopes that by the end of this decade 80 per cent. of its young people will reach university entrance standards. We are hoping for 30 per cent. The position is dire. The industrialised world is undergoing a technological revolution. Evidence that the Select Committee on Employment has received shows that in the next decade between 70 and 80 per cent. of new jobs will require brain not muscle power, and that almost half of them—roughly 40 per cent.—will require brain skills equal to a university degree or its equivalent. Unless we take drastic action, the revolution will pass us by.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Robert Jackson): May I attempt to correct an often-quoted mistake in the interpretation of the higher education figures, which I recall from my previous responsibilities for education? The hon. Gentleman is comparing the proportion of our young
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    people who enter higher education with that in other countries. A relatively low proportion enter higher education in Britain because we have a selective system of entry, unlike other countries, where everyone who attains the equivalent of our A-level has a right to higher education. The benefit of our system is that people do not drop out of it; more stay in higher education than elsewhere. The proportion of our young people who graduate with degrees and diplomas is one of the highest in the world.
    Mr. Leighton: I am always interested to hear the hon. Gentleman on these matters, on which he is an expert. I hope that he is not being complacent. The figures that I have show that at the end of the decade about 30 per cent. of British youngsters will achieve university entrance standards, whereas South Korea is aiming for 80 per cent. The point that I am making is that we are falling behind not only western Europe but the countries of the Pacific and that, because we do not grasp the gravity of the problem, we are in danger of falling further behind. We led the first industrial revolution, but I fear that unless we take more drastic action we shall fall behind and be relegated to the low-wage, low-productivity third division of nations. The relative decline in the British economy is accelerating and it will be extremely difficult to reverse.
    Surely the facts are known; our failure in training has been analysed to death. There has been a stream of reports, which we all know about, but what are we going to do? The Government's record is hopelessly inadequate. The ever-worsening skills gap surely is testimony to their failure. We have had YOPS, TOPS, the community programme, the youth training scheme, and the new JTS and ET. All those measures were much trumpeted, but most of them have been scrapped. All were underfunded, largely cosmetic and had as much to do with massaging the unemployment figures as with training.
    We had the Manpower Services Commission, which was a tripartite body. The Government dislike tripartite bodies and are hostile to unions. They robbed the MSC of its independence, leaned on it, gave it instructions and treated it like a puppet. They kicked the trade union representatives off it, swamped it with employers and killed it.
    Next, we had the Training Agency, but the Government killed that. We now have no national body with overall responsibility for training. The industrial training boards have been abolished, and in their place we have small and weak industry training organisations, which again are under-resourced. The unions are being kept out. They are neglected and few people know that those organisations exist.
    After two or three years of further upheaval and reorganisation, training and enterprise councils were introduced. The launch of the TECs was accompanied by substantial reductions in funding. As the Secretary of State knows, there was disappointment among business men on TECs and they expressed their doubts and despondency. They felt that the reduction in funding undermined the credibility of the Government's commitment. What a way to start an initiative. What a way to launch the TECs—greatly to reduce the funding available.
    If we are to achieve world-class results, it will cost money. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) pointed out, the training budget of the Department of Employment has been cut every year since

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    1986—87. Provision for next year is three quarters the amount for 1986—87 in real terms. Provision for ET this year is 29 per cent. down on last year and next year there will be a further cut of 34 per cent. Next year's resources devoted to ET will be less than half the total of two years ago.
    Employers have been complaining about the cuts. I shall mention the industry with which I am connected—the printing industry. I had dinner last night with the British Printing Industries Federation, the body which represents printing employers. It said that reports in the national press on 29 January of a reduction of £79 million in the youth training budget for 1991–92 confirms its worse fears. In 1987, as a national managing agent, the BPIF was able to offer grants to companies of nearly £28 a week. In a briefing, it says:
    "As a direct result of reductions in Government expenditure on YT, we are currently able to offer only £16 a week. Allowing for the effects of inflation between 1987 and 1990, the grants have been eroded by 54 per cent. in real terms. The incentive value of the grants is already weak. A further cut … combined with the effects of inflation, would almost certainly rule out any BPIF participation in future."
    That is the printing employers. Cuts have made them so despondent that they are likely to opt out, resulting in the elimination of 1,200 high-quality training placements each year—a significant loss not only to the printing industry but to the new TECs. If the Secretary of State does not take any notice of what I say to him, I hope that he will listen to the printing employers.
    We all wish the TECs well, if only because they are the only show in town. The best that can be said of them is that they are unproven. We cannot say what they have done because they are only just coming into existence. They have not done anything yet, so they are still unproven. Their chief feature is that they are employer-led. Of course we must involve employers, but this is where the scepticism comes in. Can training be left to employers? What has stopped them training hitherto? No one has prevented them from doing so. The yawning skills gap, of which we are all aware, exists precisely because employers failed us in the past. Many employers can see no further than their noses. They regard training as an expendable overhead. It goes first when times get hard. They take a short-term view. Many prefer to poach rather than to train employees
    Dr. Kim Howells: Does my hon. Friend agree that there are employers who recognise the importance of training and have good training programmes? Does not that reinforce his remark that all too often they find their trained personnel poached by employers who do not train their staff? Does he agree that that is a serious consideration for any industry investing in any area?
    Mr. Leighton: That is absolutely true. All successful employers, businesses and companies train staff. We must ensure that their efforts are not undercut by bad employers who do not train, but poach. That is the argument for a levy. We should not apologise for speaking about a levy. It is exactly what we want. It is difficult to have confidence in an approach which leaves everything to employers.
    My main criticism of the Government is that, when a radical improvement in national training and education is needed urgently and badly, they abdicate all responsibility. If anyone asks about training, he is always referred back to the TECs. It has nothing to do with the Government. Ministers repeat endlessly that training is a matter for employers and nothing to do with the Government. They
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    wash their hands of it. That is the Government's major sin of omission. It is a view driven by dogma. They have an ideological aversion to intervention. That is the nub of the issue and where things have gone wrong. It is incredible that the Government should be so shortsighted. The market mechanism—the invisible hand of Adam Smith —will not produce enough training. In the present recession manufacturing companies are struggling to survive. They are cutting anything that can be cut and often training is one of the first casualties.
    Mr. James Paice: The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that in the past training has been one of the areas to be cut. Is he aware that in these present difficult times that is not happening? The CBI is saying that for the first time industry is recognising the importance of maintaining its training budgets and that they are not being cut.
    Mr. Leighton: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the best employers now understand the importance of training. Nevertheless, this is not an economic climate which encourages training, as the hon. Gentleman will agree from his knowledge of these matters.
    Employers' interests are often the short-term, specific training needs of their particular company. It should be fairly simple for everyone to grasp that the aggregate of the present needs of individual companies does not equal the national need or national interest. Somebody must look not just at the perception of present needs, but at the country's future needs. Who can speak up for the nation's needs in the overall national interest? Only the Government, not individual employers. That is what divides us in the House.
    We in the Labour party think that the Government should accept that responsibility. Obviously, there must be local efforts, but they must add up to a national strategy. The seriousness of our situation means that it cannot be left to a purely voluntary approach and to market forces. Statutory underpinning is needed. The Government should set clear, national targets and monitor progress regularly.
    The previous Secretary of State, who I am pleased to see always attends our debates on these matters, advocated setting national targets. He was on the right lines. The new Secretary of State has reneged on all that. He has made a dramatic U-turn and gone backwards.
    Mr. Howard rose—
    Mr. Leighton: Perhaps the Secretary of State will change his mind and say that he accepts the targets laid down by his predecessor.
    Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman will know that I have said that targets must be clearly related to responsibilities. I set out the responsibilities of those who have a role to play in these matters in my national strategic guidance which I issued in the autumn. I have welcomed the CBI's initiative. It is consulting about national targets. I have said that when the CBI's initiative is complete, I shall consider with it how best the Government can be associated with the targets that come from that exercise, so long as they are closely related to the relevant responsibility.
    Mr. Leighton: Perhaps the present incumbent has not completely fallen back on the previous position. Perhaps

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    he is on a learning curve and is coming round to the idea of accepting the responsibility of setting national goals. Last night, I had the chance of speaking to Sir Bryan Nicholson of the CBI who has done a great deal of work on this issue. He has the right idea and the previous Secretary of State had the right idea. I hope that the present Secretary of State will come round to it. I should be grateful if he would write to me and set out exactly what his policy is on these matters.
    All 16 to 18-year-olds should get education and training leading to a recognised qualification. I was pleased to hear what the Secretary of State said about that today. It should be unlawful to employ youngsters without training.
    In order to provide a real choice for youngsters of whether to stay on or to leave school at 16, an allowance should be paid to those who stay on. A youngster who leaves school and goes on a youth training scheme receives an allowance. In other words, we pay people to leave school. We should pay them a similar amount to stay at school from the age of 16. That point must be addressed.
    It is not only the young; all workers need training. Every year time should be allocated for training. All our people at every level, now and throughout their working life, need training to cope with the changing world. I am attracted to the idea of everyone having a training passport. It would outline their entitlements to training —their rights. It would also outline the details of their achievements. We need to make a special effort to reach out to women, especially those who return to work, and ethnic minorities. There should be training committees in every work place just as there are safety committees. We should ensure that good firms are not undercut by bad ones—that those who train are not undercut by those who poach.
    How are we to pay for this? In my experience, everything comes back in the end to money and who pays. The hon. Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Bruce) said that the British Government put as much money into training as continental Governments and that historically British employers have not invested an equal sum. We could gain by looking at the French practice. The French have a levy on pay bills to be spent on training. I think that it is 1·4 per cent., but we can discuss how much it should be. The great merit of that is that there is no bureaucracy. When a firm's accounts are audited, if the money has been spent on training, that is fine and if not, it is taken in tax. The levy should be linked to the National Council for Vocational Qualifications, which Sir Bryan Nicholson is promoting. In that way training will be seen not as a cost, but as an essential investment leading to increased productivity and competitiveness. It would be a way of getting more out of the work force by having less machine downtime, the ability to use more advanced technology, to innovate and respond to change. A systematic investment in our greatest renewable resource—our people—will yield increasing results and returns over time. For the individual, training is the gateway to opportunity, to rewards, to success and to job satisfaction.
    My criticism of the Government is their failure to respond to the challenge and to accept their responsibility. They have refused to set targets, but, given what the Secretary of State has just said, I look forward to targets being set. The Government have refused the money that is
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    available, which is the wrong signal to send now. They persist in relying upon voluntaryism, and in that way they have failed the nation.
    5.19 pm
    Sir Norman Fowler: I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) in his concern for training for the long-term unemployed. I am also touched by his concern for employment training and the employment training programme. However, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) that that concern would be a darned sight more convincing if it had not arisen after a period in which many in the Labour party had campaigned against employment training and proper training for the long-term unemployed.
    The previous shadow spokesman on training went round the country seeking to campaign against employment training. The Trades Union Congress did the same, and went against it at its conference. Its decision was not only against my advice, but against the advice of the Leader of the Opposition. I am sure that the hon. Member for Sedgefield remembers that his right hon. Friend pleaded with the TUC to reconsider its decision. The Labour party is not in such a strong position now as the hon. Member for Sedgefield suggested it was to take a moral stand on training.
    Mr. Blair: Surely the criticism of employment training was based not on the notion of training for the unemployed, but on the insufficiency of training within the scheme. If that is so, surely the important thing is to use any extra resources to improve the quality of training.
    Sir Norman Fowler: The hon. Gentleman is trying to re-write history. I understand his embarrassment, but it is all down on the record. Despite the hon. Gentleman's considerable techniques as a lawyer, I do not believe that even he can square the fact that the leader of his party went to the TUC to ask it to vote one way, but it voted the other way. If that is a victory for the Labour party, may it have many similar victories in other areas.
    Mr. Tony Worthington: I advise the right hon. Gentleman not to pursue that argument too far, because he should know that his successor is backing away at speed from employment training because he has realised what a waste of money it has been in terms of outcome.
    Sir Norman Fowler: That is not right; it is yet another fundamental misconception of employment training. I accept that employment training is not sacrosanct, but there is no proposal to abolish it.
    There is more agreement on both sides of the House about training than this debate has so far illustrated, which is a pity—the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) touched upon that. Some schemes and programmes have been remarkably successful, for example, the compacts. Under that scheme, industry and schools have come together so that children who meet particular requirements have a job with training. That scheme was long overdue. The first compact initiative was a scheme undertaken in Newham, but the major initiative was carried out by the Government after I had visited Boston.

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    I would have been happy if we had had four or five compacts as a result of our initiative, but we now have 47 and another 16 are on stream. About 5,0000 employers take part in those compacts, and 25,000 jobs with training are available. That is an outstanding result. For years we have all spoken about the importance of industry and education working closer together. The compacts have achieved just that, for the benefit of young people.
    There are two ways in which we can approach this debate. First, we can treat it as a party knockabout, in which the Opposition seek to establish that all the problems in training have suddenly arisen in the past 10 years. That is a silly argument and anyone who knows anything about training knows that it is nonsense. If we pursue such an argument, it will not add a great deal to our debate. Alternatively, we can recognise that training and the lack of training are a long-term problem.
    In terms of training, this country has a great deal about which to be modest. We have run behind countries such as Germany not just for 10 or 20 years, but for the entire century. The hon. Member for Newham, North-East, with his knowledge of the subject, made that precise point. In terms of training we have run behind our major competitors in western Europe for the past 90 years. If we accept that, however, we should try to put together the best ideas available so that we can make a recovery. That recovery has started in the 1990s, and it must go on into the next century. However, we shall not be able to change the whole basis of training in a matter of a few months or years—such change must continue decade after decade.
    Given the problems faced by British industry, this may seem an odd time to raise the subject of training, but training is a long-term policy that must be followed. In one respect, we are better placed now to tackle the problem of training than at any time in the past 40 years. In the past, many of our managers had to deal exclusively with strikes and other industrial relations problems. However, in part due to reform of the industrial relations law, such disputes are not anything like as much a problem now as they were in the 1960s. Industrial relations are much better than they were, and I am sure hon. Members will welcome that improvement. The question for the Government and the nation is, what is the next step?
    Mr. Mark Wolfson: I agree with my right hon. Friend that now is a good moment to ensure that there is a greater emphasis on training on the part of employers. Does my right hon. Friend also agree that there is a necessary requirement to raise the quality of goods and services, and that to link quality with training is a necessary step forward?
    Sir Norman Fowler: Yes, the challenge now facing the country is to make its work force as skilled as possible.
    A range of actions are required to improve the skills of our work force. We should be open to the challenge, and we should consider all the options. I am sure that all hon. Members recognise that we must ensure that those in the 16 to 19-year-old age group are trained well. We know about the shortage of young people coming on to the labour market, and we must ensure that that age group is treated for what it is—a scarce resource. Too many young people go into jobs without training and the time has come to consider radical steps to ensure that that no longer happens.
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    We should not, however, run away from the consequences, and if that means some kind of mandatory training, so be it. I strongly advocate that that issue be considered anew. The public would support some change if the reward was better training for young people and that people in the 16-to-19 age group did not enter the labour market without any training or prospect of training.
    We must also remember that people who are beyond school age and youth training, even though it goes up to the age of 19, are at work now. It is important to realise that training does not simply take place at an initial, introductory stage, but must continue through life. We must be signed up to that concept.
    We have a duty to unemployed people: there is no question about that. We have a particular duty to the long-term unemployed. When I examined some employment training programmes, it struck me that there was a great deal of talent among long-term unemployed people if only we could use it properly. There is a massive agenda for training.
    There is a mountain to climb in training. No matter which party is in power, that mountain exists, because the problem is so long-standing in Britain. I make three suggestions for the future. First, there must be some consistency in training policy. Clearly, schemes can be changed and developed. Changes in employment training are not a source of criticism, but the basic structure should remain. It is important to have national standards, but it is also vital to have local delivery. In that I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. The training and enterprise councils are of fundamental importance because they involve local industry, local commitment and some excellent managers.
    The hon. Member for Sedgefield referred to the comment in The Economist. I believe that The Economist has got it entirely wrong on training and enterprise councils. It published an article on their history which I knew from my knowledge and experience was entirely misplaced and wrong. The chairman of the National Training Task Force replied to the article and The Economist has returned to the fray. It does no good. It simply betrays the fact that it is not aware of the developments taking place in training in Britain.
    Having created training and enterprise councils and attracted some outstanding managers to them, we must devolve to the TECs. There must be no question of lingering bureaucracy or, dare I say it, the Department of Employment, or a part of it, remotely getting in the way or drowning the councils in forms and regulations. The TECs must have the freedom to deliver.
    My second suggestion is that it must be recognised that Government have a financial duty and responsibility to train unemployed people. I hear what is said about employment training. I agree that one of the major problems—the hon. Member for Newham, North-East will accept this—is to persuade people to consider the training schemes and opportunities on offer. Often it is not a case of people going on employment training programmes or to job clubs and saying, "We do not like this. It is inadequate." People simply do not go, even if they have agreed to do so. If anything could be done to alleviate that problem, everyone would be happy.
    The London survey, and to a lesser extent the west midlands survey, showed that a great number of long-term unemployed people had qualifications. Many had a

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    degree. It was not a lack of training that was at fault but a lack of will—perhaps motivation is a better word—to return to employment.
    When unemployment falls, as it did in the past two or three years, the cash for training unemployed people is reduced. I agreed to reduce it. If one means what one says about giving priority to other areas such as the health service, Ministers should be prepared to reduce their budgets. However, I must say in the gentlest way that that is not the position today. Unemployment is not falling, it is increasing, and better training is one way of tackling it. I address those words not to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Employment but rather to the shadowy unseen guest at all our debates, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
    We have a substantial training budget in Britain of £2·6 billion. By any standards, that is a substantial amount. It is certainly much more substantial than the amount spent by the previous Labour Government, but I hope that we can take a new look at the matter.
    My third point is also about money and resources. There are two possible sources of money for training. One is the Government and the other is industry. When I say "the Government", I really mean the taxpayer. Training for industry is the responsibility of industry. But we then come up against the old problem that the best companies train and the others tend to poach the people who have been trained. That argument has bedevilled the training debate year after year in the House.
    I say to the hon. Member for Sedgefield that I am cautious about a national levy collected by a national body and policed—inevitably, such schemes must be policed —by a national bureaucracy, which was how it worked on the last occasion that such a scheme was tried. However, I say openly that I am not opposed in principle to those who avoid providing training making some financial contribution.
    The obvious solution—here I take up a point made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—is to ask the training and enterprise councils and the National Training Task Force for their advice and proposals. It is they who represent industry. They know the training position. They know the impact of training on industry and the financial impact on industry itself. They include some outstanding people. It would be in accordance with our views on the training and enterprise councils to ask them to examine the position and make proposals on a basis of all options being open.
    The training and enterprise councils are much more likely than we are to know what is best for industry. We should recognise that training has changed in Britain and that we have passed the stage where the centre seeks to know best on all subjects, whether that centre is the Department of Employment, Sheffield, the Manpower Services Commission or the Training Agency. We now have a potentially much more flexible and practically experienced organisation. My only plea is that we should use it to its maximum effect and impact. I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to do so.
    Few subjects in government are more important than training. If we can get it right, we can have a skilled work force and a prosperous country. If we fail, our future is
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    unquestionably much more limited. There is a long way to go, but the Government are getting it right, and they certainly deserve our support tonight.
    5.39 pm
    Mr. Matthew Taylor: In some ways the speech by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) was the most thoughtful in the debate so far. That was partly due to his privilege as one who has moved beyond the job rather than being in it or aspiring to it. A number of his comments were well worth discussing and I hope that the Minister will deal with one of them in particular—the right hon. Gentleman's emphasis on the fact that there is still a mountain to climb.
    The Secretary of State often says that the Labour Opposition would do better if they gave credit where it was due. I am happy to give such credit. The Government's achievement is that of having introduced the principle of entitlement where previously there was virtually none. It is a definite step forward and now we need to discuss quality, methods of delivery and the necessary investment to back up that entitlement.
    Much of what the Secretary of State discussed, however, concerned travelling through the foothills—ascending a peak, dropping down the other side and ascending another one, whereupon the Government raise a flag and congratulate themselves on having climbed another foothill. But the mountain remains to be climbed. In some cases we need to build on what is already in place; in others, we must make new departures.
    My speech will differ from the Labour party's contribution to this debate in three essential respects. First, I intend to concentrate on an outline of our policy proposals instead of discussing what is happening or what has happened, which does not get us very far. Secondly, my party has clearly identified education and training as priorities and we have also clearly stated that increased investment, for which we call, may imply an increase in taxation. If people do not believe that to be a correct priority they will reject it, but they face a clear choice on our stance.
    Thirdly, I make no apology for concentrating much of what I have to say on subjects that are the responsibility not of Employment Ministers but of Ministers at the Department of Education and Science. Our policy would be to bring training and education together in one Ministry—a necessary change.
    Much of what needs to be done to lay the skills base for this country should be directed at the 16 to 19-year-olds and their involvement in continuing education and training. Much of the context of this debate was outlined at rather too great length by the Opposition spokesman, who did not leave himself time to spell out Labour's alternative—it would have been useful to know its alternative.
    In June last year the estimates day debate on training fell in the same week as the publication of the Employment Select Committee report on the subject. The report highlighted the poor record of this country in training people in the skills needed for the new high technology age which we are entering. Eight months later there has been no adequate response to the points made in the report. The Government are not sufficiently heeding the warnings about what will happen—if they do not act more quickly —to our competitive position and to the future of young

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    people who will continue to be turned out without the skills that they need. We may talk about adult training, but if 16 to 19-year-olds miss out at that age it is difficult for them to retrieve later what they missed. That is why we must move as rapidly as possible to improve what they are being given so that we can stop turning out so many youngsters without skills and start to turn them out with skills.
    The Government have implemented cuts in training. I understand the argument that unemployment has fallen, but my party believes that that opportunity should have been taken to begin a massive improvement, not to economise. Ministers talk of the importance of training; they deliver a cut of 30 per cent. for training programmes for the adult unemployed. They talk of the importance of skills; they deliver reduced expenditure on employment training. They talk of the importance of training for the young, but they cut expenditure on youth training in real terms.
    So what hope, what prospect and what promise of opportunity does this give the unemployed and the young? The problem is becoming increasingly urgent. As unemployment rises, demand for education and training will become more apparent. I crave the indulgence of the House for an example from my constituency. In September last year, the largest single employer in St. Austell, English China Clays, announced 750 redundancies—a devastating blow for what is in some ways a one-industry town. Most males there are employed in that industry, which is relatively unskilled but which provides stable employment opportunities for young people growing up in the area.
    Not so long ago English China Clays' executives were rather unhappy about programmes of investment in alternative employment in the area because they believed that they could use all the male labour that was likely to come on the market and they did not fancy the idea of having to compete for employees.
    We now recognise that such employment is in long-term decline. The headquarters staff of the company are moving out of St. Austell in response to the company's international concerns. Some of the workers face compulsory redundancy, but the greatest impact is on the employment prospects for 16 to 19-year-olds, who used to expect and receive training and employment from the town's major employer.
    That highlights the inadequacy of investment in the skills that would enable these young people to build alternative careers or would attract employers who might want to make St. Austell a centre for alternative skills. Far as we are from the mainstream, apart from the extractive industries—tin, clay, fish or food, the traditional industries of Cornwall—there are not many other reasons for employers to set up in the area if the work force lacks the necessary skills.
    In Cornwall, wages are 20 per cent. lower than the national average and unemployment is double the national average. Whatever happens to wages or unemployment elsewhere in the country, statistics for Cornwall are always roughly the same: wages 20 per cent. below and unemployment roughly double. The only way to overcome the problem is to build a skills base that can begin to transform the economy of my part of the world. Rather in the same way as Cornwall is on the edge of the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom is on the edge of Europe, and in the long term the United Kingdom itself may
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    become an economy with low wages, high unemployment and few skills—just as the economy of Cornwall has traditionally been.
    Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that employers all over the country are taking much more interest in schools and are running some of the courses in those schools to help groom youngsters for the industries in which they are interested? Training and enterprise councils, made up of the top management of top local companies, are an enormous success. Gone are the old moans from industry that schools do not produce the type of people that it wants. Now, local industries train the people whom they need for the skills to match their industries. At the same time, I realise that the hon. Gentleman's constituency is a peculiar case.
    Mr. Taylor: I do not deny the importance of the involvement of business in schools. I encourage it; I should like more of it. Neither do I dismiss the work in which TECs are engaged or some of the experiments, such as credit systems, that are being conducted, or the work of companies such as Sight and Sound Education Ltd that are delivering skills, not just training. That is interesting and points to new initiatives that would bring a high return on investment. That has not always been the case; nor is it the case now.
    As I say, the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens) is talking about the foothills, not the mountain. We are not overcoming the problem as a whole. TECs are essentially a system of management and delivery and do not deal with how much is delivered or with the quality levels that are needed. The Government have to initiate that, because they set the financial limits and decide on the quality levels. The Government must tackle that much more strongly.
    I shall now deal with training for 16 to 19-year-olds. The debate about the crisis in training should not get bogged down in the immediate technical problems of how it is delivered, although such problems urgently need to be tackled. We will solve this once and for all only by looking into the slightly longer term to see what needs to be achieved. The long-term skills shortage is a tragedy. If we do not deliver the goods now, we will face difficulties in future and will not be able to retrieve the position.
    I am angry at the way in which we have failed the majority of our 16 to 19-year-olds. We should be ashamed of the way in which their potential is marginalised by a system that focuses on the academic minority. In Britain only 35 per cent. of 16 to 19-year-olds are in full-time education or training. In Germany the figure is 47 per cent., in France it is 66 per cent., in Japan 77 per cent. and in the USA it is 79 per cent. One third of our 16 to 19-year-olds are not receiving even part-time education or training, and no solution to the skills shortage will be found unless the needs of that age group are met. We need to create a climate in which it is natural for young people automatically to continue education and training of some sort until the age of 19. In the world that we are entering we cannot safely say that we have completed anybody's education and training at the age of 16. To say that is to sell people and the country short, because it will not be long before we find skills shortages emerging. Young people must be given a sound skills base.

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    Too many young people are cut off from future education opportunities, and that means that the needs of our economy are not met. At 16, many young people are disillusioned with education and seek independence and the attraction of earning money. We need to find a way to reconcile that with the need to continue their education and training. It is scandalous that so many employers are keen to capitalise on the desire to earn and have independence and buy young people out of training into low-status jobs for life. Such jobs have limited career potential and no opportunity for training. We know that employers offer youth trainees a few pounds extra to leave courses which would give them the qualifications that they will later need to improve themselves and which the country will also need. We must tackle that problem.
    The Liberal Democrats have proposed a radical measure to address the natural aspirations of young people while providing them with education and training. We do not flinch from arguing that all employees under the age of 19 should spend two days a week in education and training, part of it at the direction of the employer and part depending on the choice of the individual. The benefits of those two days are undisputed. Whether the principle of compulsion is disputed is another matter, but the benefits will be better skills, improved education and career prospects, and the better trained work force that the economy needs.
    Two days is the base from which young people could be sufficiently qualified to go back into higher education at a later stage. That is crucial. Those two days would be spent following recognised and validated courses with a range of standards. The best of the young people would be able to meet standards that would enable them to return to publicly funded higher and further education. All policies currently aimed at those who leave school at 16 fail to do that. We would offer to those young people the choice of either staying full time at school or taking up employment offering two days a week qualified education and training, from which the best of them on either route could see a way into further or higher education. That would begin to bring about a dramatic change in the way that we treat our young people, especially those who could not otherwise afford to take such opportunities.
    Mr. Ian McCartney: There is a more feasible, cost-effective and better organised way to deal with this issue. The Government and the Opposition are committed to the Business and Technician Education Council, which is wedded to the system of preparing people for work and for education opportunities in school and on entering employment. Some schools are involved in projects with the Department of Education and Science, specifically to provide that type of curriculum for 16 to 19-year-olds who are in education and working for local authorities. They work to a curriculum agreed with the Department of Education and Science and BTEC and have recognised standards to reach. That is a far more logical way to deal with the matter than the way proposed by the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Taylor: BTEC has many advantages and much can be built on it, but I do not think that it addresses the
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    problem that I seek to address. I do not propose to give way again because I wish to outline a package and I am concerned about the time.
    Through the element of compulsion we can break the present cycle, which leads to many people rejecting education and training at 16, often because their parents did that or because their expectations are low. Some parents are not prepared to allow their children to continue with their education and training because they cannot afford to see it through. We would provide a valuable freedom by saying to young people that they can have the independence of a salary and the responsibilities of employment, but that the option of further education and training is still available, as it will be if young people obtain an accredited qualification as a result of their two days out-of-work training.
    That is not a proposal for sending 16-year-olds back to school. It is to give them an opportunity to receive training or education in any subject they like, academic or practical, relevant to their job, for their own development, or for its own value. We need such an initiative to reverse attitudes in Britain, and there is no point in pretending that anything less will deliver the kind of change that we need within the time that is available.
    Mr. Simon Burns: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Taylor: If time allows I shall give way later, but I should like to make some progress.
    In order to achieve what is needed we must question the Government's insistence on maintaining the academic and technical divide and the A-level system. We must have a fully modular single system of academic and tertiary qualifications, overseen by a national body. Employers and other groups must be able to set up courses that are validated and approved by that body, and are tailored to the needs of a company, group or sector. That would provide a system of education for 16 to 19-year-olds that would meet the needs of every individual and ensure that no horizons are unnecessarily limited by the nature of the system itself.
    The problem as a whole cannot simply be tackled by considering only 16 to 19-year-olds, because we have already allowed too many people in that age group to slip through and reach adulthood without the skills which they now need on the shop floor and which they will need even more in future. That means giving equal importance to adult education. First, we must develop and give to people the right to return to training or education. The period of training would be equivalent to one year but would probably be taken in modules. There must be investment in such a system, and we must ensure that business is prepared to recognise its value.
    Secondly, if we are to do that at an achievable cost, we must use new techniques and new methods. I mentioned some of the developments earlier. We must look at the open learning and distance learning techniques, developed by the Open university at graduate level, but applicable at all levels. Although the Government have started to move on this, they have not yet done anything effective, particularly at the Open college. The matter must be re-addressed.
    If we have both a new start for 16 to 19-year-olds—the group which misses out under the British education and training system—and help for adults who cannot make up

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    for what was not delivered to them at an earlier stage, we shall begin to develop a system that will put us at the forefront of what is happening in Europe and the world rather than at the back. Rather than criticising, the Labour party should have been offering that as an agenda. We are prepared to face up to the costs of such a system, but it is not. The Government may argue that they have already made many achievements, but that is to concentrate only on the foothills and to forget the mountain that there is still to climb.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. The minimum time taken by Back-Bench Members has been 20 minutes each. This is a short debate and the winding-up speeches are to start at a little before 6.30. I appeal for brevity.
    6 pm
    Mr. Lewis Stevens: I agree with the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler). Apart from covering almost everything to do with training, he expressed a moderate and non-partisan view of the aims for training with which many of us agree. The hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) also put forward aims with which we can agree.
    The Opposition motion is a little audacious. If ever there was a party which did not recognise the importance of training to the country, it was the Labour party. I agree that in the past even the Tory party gave less importance to training than it does now, and that industry was reluctant to see the importance of training. The hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton), said that the needs of the country and those of employers often did not coincide, but they must come somewhere near to coinciding if they are to succeed. If they do not, the danger will be that the centre will have to set out what everyone should do. That has been tried in the past and it did not work. The system provided opportunities for education and training. If that suited the individual, that was fine; but if it did not, nothing else was available. What was on offer was restricted.
    There was a similar problem with the training boards. Instead of the employer and the trainee getting what they wanted and the system being fitted around that, the boards and the Department laid down rules. Through the training and enterprise councils, the Government are trying to provide a system which takes account of what the individual and the company need. In particular, the youth training scheme will be geared to the needs of the individual. That is what training is all about.
    The hon. Member for Truro spoke about providing for the 16 to 19-year-olds. I accept that this is an important group. Of particular importance are those in it who do not go on to further education and who, in general, need some training. I wonder how many of those who leave school at 16 from choice would look forward to the opportunity that the hon. Member for Truro would like to provide for them. YTS has brought about a recognition by 16 to 19-year-olds that training is desirable. Before YTS, many who left school at 16 did not accept that training should be a part of their future. They did not realise that it was necessary and they resented doing it. Even today, many young people would prefer to leave school at 16 without having to go into training. That may be a fault of the
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    education system. Unless the development and acceptance of training which have been a part of YTS are carried on, things will never improve.
    Mr. McCartney: In the 1960s, when I left school, everyone in my class who left at 15 started an apprenticeship the following Monday. That was traditional, but since then the apprenticeship system has been destroyed, along with the opportunity to learn skills. When I left school, anyone who wanted an apprenticeship was guaranteed one. Nowadays, those leaving school are offered short-term YTS places.
    Mr. Stevens: I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. In the 1960s, people could go into fully paid jobs rather than apprenticeships. Whether they believed in that or not, the trade unions encouraged the development of such jobs. Often, because of the way the wages were set, one would not necessarily get better wages for having completed an apprenticeship than for having a national certificate. The lack of differentials between skilled and semi-skilled work was a great deterrent to training. It also did not encourage companies.
    I welcome the approach that the Government have taken and their success in the way the TECs have developed. For the first time, industry, local education authorities and the community have come together to generate the training to serve an area and the people in it. So often, facilities were available for training but did not provide the skills necessary for the area. As a result, industry did not have the skills that it wanted at the right time. Time is essential in training. One cannot guess what might happen in five years' time, particularly if the projection is a national one. For example, population forecasts of what might happen in five years are often not fulfilled for 10 years. If that happened with training, we would have an awful lot of trouble on our hands. TECs are important because they understand their areas and offer a facility that we have not previously had.
    The hon. Member for Newham, North-East was critical of the TECs in comparison with the other schemes of the past 10 years. However, the acceptance by 16 to 19-year-olds of training because of YTS and the changes that we have made in the training available to them has brought us to the position where, instead of having a general national concept, we can focus on local areas, relying on businesses and local education authorities to provide training. If we had said 10 years ago that we could get industry and commerce enthusiastic about combining with schools, LEAs, technical colleges, polytechnics and universities to work on a training scheme in their local area, we would have been told that it could not happen. The evolution of the Government's training scheme has brought us to that position. There is a mountain to climb, but we are over the foothills to which the hon. Member for Truro referred, and we can start the ascent, confident that the guides that we have put in place in the TECs are among the best possible.
    It is generally accepted that in the months ahead more people will, unfortunately, be made redundant, and one group may be less well provided for in the new TEC structure—those for whom the community programme was devised. I appreciate that the community programme did not, in general, provide good training, but it served some purpose for some people. As well as assisting with some of the jobs that needed to be done in the local

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    community, it provided a base for people who were not ready for a more sophisticated training set-up and who, under the TEC system, may not be regarded as suitable for training to a particular level of skill by commercial and industrial bodies. Will my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State consider whether some community programme type work should be retained?
    Organisations such as Apex trust have set up some good schemes for the rehabilitation of offenders, particularly those between 16 and 19 years of age who often find it difficult to return to the employment or training in which they were engaged before their conviction. I appreciate that such organisations are not eliminated, but they do not automatically fit easily into the TEC structure. There may be one or two other similar groups which I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will be able to consider when he meets the chairmen and chief executives of the TECs.
    We are going in the right direction, however, and there is more confidence in the provision of training in Coventry and Warwickshire than I have seen for a long time.
    6.12 pm
    Ms. Diane Abbott: Training has become like sunshine—everybody is in favour of it—but the Government do not want to pay for it.
    Last Thursday, I went to the launch of the City and Inner London North Training and Enterprise Council—CILNTEC—my local TEC covering the City, Hackney and Islington, which took place in the Mansion house. I was struck by the grandeur of the surroundings, which were very impressive to a girl from Hackney. I was impressed by the energy, enthusiam and ability of the people who have been found to serve on the TEC—notably the chairman, David Peake from Kleinwort Benson, and our two Hackney representatives, Christopher Latham and Julian Royle. Above all, in the glittering surroundings of the Mansion house, I was struck by the fact that the future life chances of the thousands of young people in Hackney whom I represent depend on the initiative succeeding. That is why I want to talk positively about what I want to see from the TEC initiative.
    Nevertheless, it would be unrealistic not to put the TEC initiative in the context of the failure of publicly funded training in the past decade. Conservative Members from outside London who talk in glowing terms of YTS can never have talked to inner-city youngsters about their experiences of it. They saw themselves being used as cheap labour, they came off the schemes to no jobs, and they felt that they were being exploited. Past attempts at publicly funded training have a deservedly bad reputation among some of the young people whom such training was designed to help.
    Looking at the Government's training record in the past 10 years, it is difficult to escape the impression that their training schemes were far more concerned with massaging down unemployment figures than with genuinely providing some sort of hope, future and marketable skills for the kind of young people whom I represent. There can be no doubt that the TECS are an attempt by the Government to try to nudge and push
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    training into the private sector, and to make the private sector tackle endemic unemployment and training issues which are not really the business of the private sector.
    CILNTEC has been launched in adverse circumstances. First, there is the recession which, until a few months ago, Ministers refused to talk about. It was the recession that dared not speak its name. But we in Hackney know that there is a recession. The head of the local school careers service says that jobs for her school leavers have dried up. Small companies, estate agents, small manufacturers and builders' merchants in Hackney know that there is a recession. Inevitably, recession means that businesses have less money to spend on training and many firms will go out of business altogether. The TECs could not have more adverse circumstances in which to try to get off the ground, and to add insult to injury their expected budgets have been cut by up to a third.
    Mr. George Howarth: Is it not scandalous that a 50 per cent. cut in training places on Merseyside was announced last week? Inadequate though the scheme is, that cut will make a huge difference to the training prospects of young people on Merseyside—exactly the kind of people my hon. Friend is talking about.
    Ms. Abbott: I agree entirely. Such cuts are an act of bad faith with the many genuine and committed business people and members of the community who are giving up their time to serve on TECs. Many life-long Conservatives serving on TECs are shocked and affronted that the Government could welch on them in that way.
    It is unreasonable and cynical of the Government to expect the private sector—which, certainly in the south, is experiencing a worse recession and slump than in the early 1980s—to take up the slack in training provision which will result from the Government's cuts. It is no use talking about lowering the number of unemployed when the Government have massaged unemployment figures year in and year out. Ministers will have seen a survey carried out by the London School of Economics in December 1990 which shows that even now TECs are struggling to cope with their responsibilities due to the lack of support and funding problems.
    I represent one of the poorest constituencies in the country, with precisely the kind of people who need training, who want training and who have a positive contribution to make to the economy if they can only have that training, and I want to see certain things from the TECs as they develop.
    All TEC chairmen want to see a commitment from the Government to fund the TECs properly. They all want proper support from the Government. In the move to employer-based training—employer-led, semi-privatised training—the weakest and most vulnerable of our young people should not go to the wall.
    It would not be proper to leave the subject without touching on black trainees in the inner cities. As Ministers will be aware, one in five of trainees on schemes in London are black, but they are twice as likely to be unemployed. The unemployment level overall for trainees leaving schemes is 16·3 per cent., but the level for Afro-Caribbean trainees leaving schemes is 28·6 per cent. Black trainees with the same qualifications, and as much energy, commitment and will to succeed, have found great difficulty with the current schemes. There has been a

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    marked reluctance by private sector employers to take them on. Investigations and surveys have found that there is discrimination.
    It is all very well for Ministers to consider short-term accountancy and cuts, but if they are pursuing a training policy which allows the weakest to go to the wall and allows a pool of disaffected inner-city youth to fester and grow, they are storing up problems for themselves which will cost far more to solve. I do not want to see young people in the inner city squeezed out under the TEC regime because of its employer-based nature and the stringency of funds.
    Conservative Members are smiling. They do not live in the inner city and they do not know what a hard and cruel life the young people have. They do not understand what it is like in Hackney, where the unemployment rate for young black males is one in two. I do not want the House to discover what that might mean in instability and social tension.
    I want the TECs to work and to meet the needs of all young people. I do not want the needs of inner-city young people, particularly young black people, to be marginalised because they may be more difficult, more complex and more expensive to deal with, with the result that employers will not be interested in that social dimension.
    For better or worse, millions of young people want the new employer-based training to work. It will be a terrible fraud on them and their parents if the TECs are set up almost to fail because they are so much under-resourced by the Government. In their vision of the future for training, how do Ministers seek to meet the needs of inner-city young people, and young people from ethnic minorities and other groups whose needs were largely met by the community programme?
    The new TEC in Hackney combines the tremendous resources and jobs base of the City with the energy, enterprise and passion to achieve of some of my constituents. We can achieve great things in Hackney. It is easy for the Government to make short-term cuts in training to ensure that their books balance. However, regardless of political affiliation, people will believe that a Government unwilling to invest in training and in the future of young people disregards its responsibility to the country.
    Even with all their limitations and problems, I should like the TECs to succeed. I can only reflect on what concerned business men have said to me about their fears because the Government have left the TECs so short of money. In inner cities, we want not just training which is cheap and convenient for the Government to provide and which brings down unemployment artificially; 'but real, high-quality training which offers hope to all young people, whatever their colour or creed.
    6.23 pm
    Mr. Simon Coombs: I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott). She suggested that Conservative Members were smiling at what she was saying. If she was referring to me, it could only have been because 1 was agreeing with her about the problems that she was describing. I was a member of the Select Committee on Employment which looked into the problems of
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    employment in the London Docklands development corporation area. We were very conscious of some of the points to which the hon. Lady has just referred.
    To cheer the hon. Lady up a little, I would point out to her that it was remarkable that one of the first educational compacts was set up in that area by private enterprise, which felt that it needed to do something to help disadvantaged youngsters there. I hope that the hon. Lady agrees that the position is not as gloomy as some people have suggested.
    This has been a good debate, although it has not been long enough to address all the problems. In general, the debate has been carried on in a good spirit of co-operative and constructive thought. I am sorry, therefore, that the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) opened with a slashing attack on the Government, as if they had managed to achieve nothing in the last 11 years. I am sure that in private he would not dream of suggesting that, but when he gets to the Dispatch Box he feels the need to go wild.
    The hon. Gentleman dismissed the idea that the Secretary of State should refer to the need for perspective. I can see no reason why we should not have a sense of perspective. Perhaps it was the absence of a sense of perspective which led the hon. Gentleman into one or two excesses to which his speech was prone. It is right to set the debate in context and in perspective.
    As has been said several times, the Government have spent two and a half times more, in real terms, on training than the Labour Government spent in the last year that they were in office. So for the Labour party to cast a stone in our direction is not justifiable on the facts. If we are doing so badly, how much worse did the Labour party do in failing to recognise that Government had a role in training?
    There was a complete absence from the speech of the hon. Gentleman of any reference to the remarkable efforts of the private sector. That is important. The estimate of what the private sector is putting into training this year is £20 billion. That is not an insignificant amount.
    The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington, who is not now in the Chamber, said that we could not rely on the private sector during a slump. The answer is that we can, because obviously the private sector is carrying through its responsibility. The CBI survey last week showed that, by comparison with previous difficult times, the private sector is carrying on with the job that it has set itself of providing good quality training, in-house.
    When the debate was announced for today, all the private sector companies and organisations which wrote to Conservative Members—perhaps they did not write to Opposition Members—including Ford, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the CBI, wanted to tell us what they were doing in training, how important they thought it was, and how committed they were to it.
    In my constituency there is an organisation called the Swindon Partnership, which was set up by private companies to get to know the schools in the area, to provide them with computers and to give them a chance to send their pupils into companies to learn how industry works. There is tremendous enthusiasm for this in my part of the world, and I know that we are not unique. Much more is happening than the Labour party is ever prepared to admit. I do not know why, unless it is for the narrow partisan political advantage that it is always seeking.

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    The hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) said—how well we understand Labour party thinking on this—that the nub of the matter is intervention. I do not think that I have quoted him inaccurately. He is not here to defend himself, but I am sure he will when we next meet in the Select Committee. What is youth training and employment training if not a very positive form of intervention in training? The Government may and will no doubt be accused of many things, but surely they cannot be accused of not having been prepared to intervene in the training market.
    The Labour party is always against everything we try to do. The Leader of the Opposition was here at the beginning of the debate and I am sure that he enjoyed the rip-roaring stuff from the hon. Member for Sedgefield. He was nodding throughout the speech—until the point when some of my hon. Friends asked about how he had referred to TVEI when he was the Opposition spokesman on education in 1983. I saw the Leader of the Opposition mouth the words, "Not true," when it was said that he had described TVEI as beneath contempt and only suitable for
    "hewers of wood and drawers of water".
    The right hon. Gentleman said that on "Panorama", and we know that anything that the BBC broadcasts must be true. I dare say that there are even some right hon. and hon. Members who watched "Panorama" on that occasion.
    It is no use Opposition Members wagging their fingers at me, because that statement is on record. Labour was against that innovation, in the same way that they always oppose anything that we try to do to help. It is time—I will be very patronising—that Labour Members adopted the approach taken by the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor), who will, perhaps, stop writing and pay attention to the debate. At least that hon. Gentleman gave some thought to the matter, and is not in the business of being aggressive and horrid to anyone who tries to help. That is a splendid sign from that Bench.
    Mr. Dickens: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Opposition often fall into the trap of thinking that just by throwing resources at the problem everything will be that much better? Is it not much more important to involve the right people, companies and trainers? That approach has worked well in Oldham and Rochdale, because we have the right calibre of people. It did not cost any more money. Additional resources are not always the answer.
    Mr. Coombs: I could not have put it better myself, and of course I agree with my hon. Friend.
    The Labour party, having opposed employment training and youth training, now opposes any reduction in the size of the training effort—even though that might result from a reduction also in the number who can benefit.
    Labour Members always take the approach that the more money they promise to spend, the more virile they are. Members of the Opposition Front Bench look virile only when they are promising to spend money. If I run the risk of resuming my seat in a few minutes' time, the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) will get to his feet with a promise of more hope for the future, if only more money can be spent.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Stevens) referred to climbing mountains. We always look
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    for the best way up, and if that sometimes requires a change of direction, we should not hesitate to take it. If that means spending a little less on employment training and a little more on providing the good advice that is available from job clubs, and on preparing personalised statements that recognise people's individual needs, that should be the way forward. The answer is not simply to go on throwing money at the problem.
    Labour, as always, is bereft of ideas. It is panicking because it knows that we are winning the battle to create a better training environment. Labour will remain in opposition for as long as it only opposes ideas and fails to make constructive suggestions—as other hon. Members have done in tonight's debate.
    6.32 pm
    Mr. Henry McLeish: It appeared that the Secretary of State wanted to talk more about the speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) did not make, in respect of training investment, than the speech that he did make.
    The right hon. and learned Gentleman also referred to remarks attributed to me on a visit to Sheffield. That contrived assault on a perceived policy difference highlights the fact that the Government are losing the argument. I put it on record that I very much support TECs. I warmed to the remarks of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), who said that TECs could have a role in a statutory framework, in respect of companies that do not train. That was a constructive proposal and one with which we identify. I hope that the Secretary of State will take it on board.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton), who always makes informed contributions as Chairman of the Select Committee on Employment, emphasised that the key training issue is economic performance in the decade ahead.
    I endorse also the suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield that Britain's skills crisis existed long before the last war, and he made a specific reference to the mid-1880s. I quote from an article by someone who I am sure is a friend of the Conservatives, Dr. Correlli Barnett:
    "Where Britain does have successful industries, such as aerospace—£2·5 billion in the black in 1989—these are hampered by shortages of scientists and technicians. Britain still displays patterns of weakness that can be traced back to about 1840."
    No one disputes that the training skills crisis has long endured. No one would argue either against the proposition that it is a complex problem, for which there is no quick fix or instant panacea. Nor would anyone disagree that the problems are deep seated, cultural and involve attitudes. Politicians can attempt to effect changes, but it often takes decades for them to have any bearing on the problems that such changes are meant to overcome.
    Over the past 12 years, the Government have failed to display the urgency, sensitivity and immediacy required to resolve a deep-seated skills problem that is also structural. Given 1992, European monetary union beyond that, the threat from the Pacific rim countries, and intensification of supply-side policies in France, Germany, Italy and Japan, we must act quickly. There is no room for complacency, yet the Government often exude complacency in respect of skills training.

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    Skills should be used to unlock the potential that individuals have to make a contribution to our economic well-being. We talk a great deal about productivity, profitability and performance, but the key difference between Britain and its major competitor countries is that they have invested in skills training for much longer, so their cultures have adjusted and they can now enjoy the fruits of that investment in the form of measured economic success.
    The Government had an opportunity in the 1980s to take the supply-side initiative. There was a massive shake-out of labour in the early 1980s and productivity improved, but there was no skills initiative. In the mid-1980s, to coincide with the electoral cycle, there was an economy boom, but still no initiative was taken on skills investment. There is now a possibility that Britain's entry into the exchange rate mechanism could create difficulties, unless we invest in the tools that will bring success.
    There is a crisis of confidence in the industrial community in respect of the Government's ability to resolve the skills crisis. The Government will not speak of the devastating cuts that there have been, but in 1991–92 there will be cuts of about £367 million in employment training alone. Why do the Government show such contempt for training providers? The newspapers are littered with stories about providers going under and being treated in a cavalier fashion—receiving just a phone call or a letter from the Training Agency saying that their figures and budgets have been cut. There is no negotiation or discussion—just contempt.
    One of the problems with TECs is that, although the Secretary of State is unwilling to fight in Cabinet for resources, the TECs are squeezing him for more. The net effect of all that is that TECs are now writing to the press, and confiding in us, saying, "Yes, we have a job to do, but we need the tools to do it." I believe that they are under funded and the Government must tackle that.
    There is another aspect to special needs provision. Understandably, there is an emphasis on skills and the economy, but what about the excellent schemes that have been set up throughout the country to tackle the problems facing adults and young people with handicaps and disabilities? Surely it is the measure of a civilised society that, no matter how the Government view the recession, they do not walk away from people who find it enormously difficult to climb the first rung on the ladder of employment or further education. The Government should ring-fence the budget for that training.
    The cash crisis is another aspect of this issue. Today we have heard much about the money that the Government have spent during the past 12 years. The Government are right. They have thrown money at the problem. The Department of Employment will have spent £46 billion between 1979 and outturn in 1992–93. But what do we see for that expenditure? Where is the training infrastructure? Where are the employment trainees' qualifications? Where are the youth trainees with qualifications? The key point about that investment is that the Government have squandered billions of pounds of taxpayers' money and have not achieved the desired effect, which is improving the economy, extending opportunities for individuals and providing the social and regional cohesion that the nation desperately needs.
    When we talk about money, let us use the Government adage that it is all about "value for money". What value
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    for money? The Government say that their policy is all about output-led investment. What are the outputs? I should like someone to tell me why we spend so much money. Indeed, considering the Gulf, the phrase comes to mind, "Why is so much money being spent on so many people, with so few results?"
    The third problem that worries us is the policy chaos that the Government exude. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield made a thoughtful contribution to the debate, emphasising qualifications. He had an excellent idea and set radical and ambitious targets in November 1989. The new Minister of State, the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar), said in a press release that the Fowler targets were to be abandoned. More recently there has been another slight about-turn—[Interruption.] If Conservative Members wish to see the press cuttings, which I cannot quote because of lack of time, I am willing to oblige them.
    The Secretary of State for Employment has returned to the National Council for Vocational Qualifications. He has said that by 1992,80 per cent. of the work force should be exposed to vocational qualifications. He did not say that 80 per cent. should be achieving vocational qualifications. He could have said that 150 per cent. of the work force should be exposed to them; his statement is utterly meaningless.
    The Government would be better served by returning to the radical propositions suggested by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield when he was in that high office. The right hon. Member also said that the way for the unemployed to get work was through gaining skills. However, the present Secretary of State for Employment said that training might not be the best way to get the unemployed back to work. He suggested that they should have job interviews or more counselling—anything that did not cost the Government more money.
    At a time of recession, and when we are investing in TECs and on those aged between 16 and 19, we cannot allow the unemployed to be treated as second-class citizens and, as a consequence, be asked by the Government to eat cake as regards proper provision for them.
    Investment is linked to training policy. When will the Government come clean with TEC chairmen, G10 and the thousands of business men throughout the country who are making a contribution, and who came into this exercise in good faith? Employers wanted to make a commitment. It was employer investment, employer-led—those are sound concepts. There is only one problem—TECs did not get the levels of cash that they expected. Now the Secretary of State and the rest of the Government are running around trading flexibilities. They are saying, "Let's give them work-related further education. Let's get them involved in TVEI." They are doing every conceivable thing except to give TECs extra cash so that they can make a contribution to our economic success.
    Another problem that the Government have not tackled is the key substantive issues that the Labour party is now tackling. Why is it that after 12 years we have the most incoherent programme for 16 to 19-year-olds in Europe? We have had scheme after scheme, but there has been no coherence, no stability of policy and no stability of investment. Fewer young people now stay on at school, and fewer young people enter a proper traineeship. That trend has to be reversed. It is a substantive issue which the Government have been guilty of ignoring in the past 12 years.

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    The Government believe in voluntarism. However, in the past 140 years voluntarism has not worked in the provision of training for employees in employment. If it had worked, we, as the first industrialised nation, should be the best trading nation on earth, but we are not. We are not facing up to key issues which other countries are tackling.
    Mrs. Teresa Gorman rose—
    Mr. McLeish: The hon. Lady has only just come into the Chamber, so I shall not give way.
    Voluntarism has failed and all our modern successor countries are now considering a statutory framework for training.
    Another substantive issue concerns the unemployed. We believe that they should be regarded no differently from people in work or from those aged between 16 and 19. The unemployed should have a personal skills development plan aimed at acquisition, ownership and enhancement of skills. That has to be backed up by resources and not rhetoric. That is another reason why we distance ourselves from the Government Benches.
    If the Government are serious about training, we require leadership from their Front Bench and resources to replace rhetoric. We need a statutory framework that provides an opportunity for companies that train employees not to have them poached by companies that are doing nothing whatsoever. We must set standards for success, which means that we must invest more money in the National Council for Vocational Qualifications, and that we must establish a partnership in industry among employee representatives, trade unions and employers. That is the way forward.
    Conservative Members mumble and laugh, but if they consider what has happened in Germany, France, Italy, Japan, parts of the United States, Denmark, the Scandinavian countries and the Pacific rim they will not laugh. Those countries have shown that taking skills seriously is the passport to economic success and to individual opportunity.
    My hon. Friends may not win the vote tonight, but we shall win the election, and tackle the skills crisis.
    6.48 pm
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Robert Jackson): Parliament is a place where the Government are held to account and that is quite right, but that should not lead us into the fallacy of believing that whenever we identify a problem it is all the current Government's fault—whatever party it may be—and that only the Government can do anything about it.
    In the course of this debate we have had many examples of that fallacy. It was the basic premise running right through the speech by the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), it was explicitly affirmed by the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Employment, and I am afraid that it was also a feature of an otherwise admirable speech by the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor), who I fear also fell victim to that fallacy.
    I do not want to dwell on the negative features of this debate, because I agree with the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) that it has been very constructive.
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    As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) and my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Stevens) said, there has been a lot of common ground and I welcome that. The common ground is that we all want an improvement in both the quantity and the quality of training in Britain. I especially noted the eloquent remarks that the hon. Member for Truro made about his experience in St. Austell, in his constituency.
    In pursuing our common objective—more and better training—we must ensure that the right strategy is adopted. A good point at which to start defining that strategy is the survey into the way in which training is funded in Britain which the Government carried out in 1986. That survey showed—the facts are not disputed—that, in 1986, the state was investing about £7 billion a year in training while individuals were spending about £8 billion and employers some £18 billion. The last figure has since risen to about £20 billion. I have no doubt that a similar pattern can be seen in other countries. Incidentally, the study produced no evidence that we as a nation are investing less than other countries in training; in so far as it is possible to make international comparisons, they tend to show that the Government's investment is relatively high.
    What is clear from the figures is that, although the Government's role is undoubtedly important, if we are to achieve the improved total national effort that we all seek, the central contribution must come from employers. I was surprised at how little appreciation the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott) seemed to show when she spoke of the privatisation of training.
    I intend to develop the point about the role of employers later, because it is fundamental to any solid, properly conceived training strategy. First, however, I wish to say a few words about the proper role of Government. Governments have an important role to play. As has been said, they must provide leadership and set the framework. We need to encourage the development of incentives to achieve more and better training, and we must remove or reduce the disincentives. We also need good delivery mechanisms for Government programmes—for example, the setting up of the new training and enterprise councils.
    Mr. McCartney: My constituency contains an active TEC. The problem is the continuation of programmes that the TEC has taken over, and access to those programmes for the disabled. Some of the groups involved in drawing up provisions for the disabled might like an opportunity to discuss such matters with the Minister.
    A second problem relates to the pilot schemes involving vouchers that TECs are to operate. How will young people be protected if the participating companies experience closures and redundancies halfway through the scheme? Will the money be chopped up so that such people can shift without any financial loss and another company can continue their training?
    Mr. Jackson: The hon. Gentleman has sat through the debate very patiently, and I am sorry that he was not given the opportunity to speak. I have mentioned delivery mechanisms. While it is clearly important that the TECs are given the freedom to manage the budgets allocated to them—that, I think, is common ground in the House—they will have to address the problems themselves. None

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    the less, I am willing to discuss the problems of people with disabilities with the hon. Gentleman, and anyone whom he may care to bring with him. The Government must, of course, take on board the hon. Gentleman's point about vouchers in regard to pilot schemes. We certainly do not want any young person to waste the opportunity provided by vouchers; nor do we want taxpayers' money to be wasted.
    As I have said, we need good delivery mechanisms. Those are being provided in the form of the TECs, and it is good to see that they are being given so much support. Another point which came across to an extent in today's debate but which needs to be emphasised more strongly is the need for a strong and relevant framework of vocational qualifications. The achievements of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications are important in that connection.
    The Government also have a key role to play in ensuring that young people are properly educated and trained. We have introduced such programmes as youth training, and we are launching a training credit scheme. I was interested to hear the suggestions made by the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield. We must also ensure that training is available for unemployed people who will benefit from it. I can tell the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington that we share her concern about the inner cities and ethnic minorities, and are pleased to learn that she supports her local TEC. My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton spoke of special need groups: we and the TECs take their problems very seriously, and will consider them carefully.
    Let me remind the House of the scale of the Government's operations. As my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) pointed out, they are now spending two and a half times as much, in real terms, as was spent on training 12 years ago; 900,000 people have benefited from the employment training programme since it started two and a half years ago; 88 per cent. of people who completed youth training in 1988–90 went into jobs, further training and further education, while 67 per cent. of those gained a vocational qualification. Given the large numbers who participated, that is a significant figure: some 2·7 million young people have benefited from youth training since the scheme began in 1983. I feel that that considerable achievement should be recognised.
    I said that I wanted to focus on the central strategic question of how to persuade employers to increase their commitment to more and better training. I appreciated what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield, and, indeed, the hon. Member for Sedgefield, about consulting TECs and about the way forward. I assure them both that we are engaged in constant dialogue with the TECs, and are actively seeking their suggestions for ways in which to increase employers' investment in training.
    Mr. Wolfson: A number of us find it worrying that, although good companies spend a good deal of money on training, many companies do not. I think that that message should be delivered.
    Mr. Jackson: That is indeed important; I am about to say something about it. The same theme was touched on a number of times in today's debate, although was disappointed that the hon. Member for Sedgefield had so
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    little to say about what he recognises as a central question. It is a pity that he did not choose to present to the House the idea of a central training levy which he presented to the press only last week. Nevertheless, I propose to take his idea seriously, even if he has not done so.
    We feel that the best way in which to achieve our common objectives—here I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson)—is to co-operate with employers to enhance their commitment, rather than coercing them. We must not forget that we have been here before. My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton reminded us that a system of legislative compulsion operated from the early 1960s until the end of the 1970s, under Governments of both parties, and I have met no one who considers that that was a success. If we have a training problem today, its roots go back to those 15 years.
    We must also take into account the experience of other countries. The hon. Member for Newham, North-East said that voluntarism in training would not work, but the fact is that our major competitors—the United States, Japan and Germany—all operate voluntary systems. None has a general system of compulsory training taxes of the kind sometimes advocated by the Opposition. Only France is doing what the Opposition seem to advocate, and the general verdict of those who have viewed the French experience dispassionately is that its arrangements for legislative compulsion have not been a significant factor in its admittedly considerable training achievements.
    What, then, is the Government's strategy for training? In a sentence, it is—while continuing our spending programmes—to encourage, to "incentivise" and to enable employers and individuals to undertake more and better training. That is the strategy behind the TECs. I welcome the Opposition's support for the concept, whose key features are employer leadership and local control.
    It is a pity that the hon. Member for Fife, Central has been showing some equivocation, which was very wittily exposed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State. However, I am delighted—indeed, the whole House is delighted—that the hon. Gentleman is willing to eat his words about the training and enterprise councils. The strategy that lies behind training credits—individual young people—is the most hopeful new development. I welcome the support that we have received for this idea from the hon. Member for Newham, North-East, who is the Chairman of the Select Committee, and I hope that we shall be able to get stronger support for it from the official Opposition spokesman. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks that it is the strategy behind the very important new "investors in people" initiative. Despite the strictures of the hon. Member for Truro about the supposedly limited managerial role of TECs, they will play a key role in managing the "investors in people" initiative to ensure an improvement in training investment by companies up and down the land.
    It is perhaps inevitable that in debates of this kind deficiencies and failures should be emphasised. At least so far as the Opposition are concerned, there is a premium on gloom. However, it is important to get a balanced picture. That balanced picture shows that we are making very real progress. Employers' investment in skills is rising, and is now of the order of £20 billion per year; the number of employees being trained in a given month has risen over the last five years by about 70 per cent.; the CBI's monthly surveys show a consistently rising trend of investment in

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    training by employers; the skill levels of our work force are rising; we have statistics to show that the proportion of economically active people with qualifications is going up; the number of people with A-levels is rising; the number of people in professional and technical jobs is rising; the number of young people staying on at school is rising; the numbers of people in further and higher education are rising quite dramatically; and more and more qualified young people are entering the labour force.
    The fact is that we are making very considerable progress in training. The Opposition have tried to pretend that we are not, but it is clear to all who have attended this debate that they have failed to make their case.
    Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question: —
    The House divided: Ayes 227, Noes 283.

    Division No. 59]

    [7.1 pm

    AYES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Darling, Alistair

    Adams, Mrs. Irene (Paisley, N.)

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Allen, Graham

    Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

    Alton, David

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

    Anderson, Donald

    Dewar, Donald

    Archer, Rt Hon Peter

    Dixon, Don

    Armstrong, Hilary

    Dobson, Frank

    Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

    Doran, Frank

    Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

    Douglas, Dick

    Ashton, Joe

    Duffy, A. E. P.

    Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

    Dunnachie, Jimmy

    Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

    Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

    Barron, Kevin

    Eadie, Alexander

    Battle, John

    Eastham, Ken

    Beckett, Margaret

    Evans, John (St Helens N)

    Beith, A. J.

    Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

    Bell, Stuart

    Fatchett, Derek

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony

    Faulds, Andrew

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

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

    Benton, Joseph

    Fisher, Mark

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Flynn, Paul

    Bldwell, Sydney

    Foot, Rt Hon Michael

    Blair, Tony

    Foster, Derek

    Blunkett, David

    Foulkes, George

    Boateng, Paul

    Fraser, John

    Boyes, Roland

    Fyfe, Maria

    Bradley, Keith

    Galbraith, Sam

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

    Garrett, John (Norwich South)

    Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

    George, Bruce

    Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

    Gordon, Mildred

    Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

    Gould, Bryan

    Buckley, George J.

    Graham, Thomas

    Caborn, Richard

    Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

    Callaghan, Jim

    Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

    Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

    Grocott, Bruce

    Campbell-Savours, D. N.

    Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

    Canavan, Dennis

    Haynes, Frank

    Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

    Heal, Mrs Sylvia

    Cartwright, John

    Healey, Rt Hon Denis

    Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

    Henderson, Doug

    Clelland, David

    Hinchliffe, David

    Clwyd, Mrs Ann

    Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

    Cohen, Harry

    Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

    Cook, Robin (Livingston)

    Home Robertson, John

    Corbett, Robin

    Hood, Jimmy

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

    Cousins, Jim

    Howells, Geraint

    Cox, Tom

    Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

    Crowther, Stan

    Hoyle, Doug

    Cryer, Bob

    Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

    Cummings, John

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

    Dalyell, Tarn

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

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    Illsley, Eric

    Patchett, Terry

    Ingram, Adam

    Pike, Peter L.

    Johnston, Sir Russell

    Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    Prescott, John

    Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)

    Primarolo, Dawn

    Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

    Quin, Ms Joyce

    Kennedy, Charles

    Radice, Giles

    Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

    Randall, Stuart

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

    Lambie, David

    Reid, Dr John

    Lamond, James

    Richardson, Jo

    Leadbitter, Ted

    Robertson, George

    Leighton, Ron

    Robinson, Geoffrey

    Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

    Rogers, Allan

    Lewis, Terry

    Rooker, Jeff

    Litherland, Robert

    Rooney, Terence

    Livingstone, Ken

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Livsey, Richard

    Rowlands, Ted

    Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

    Ruddock, Joan

    Lofthouse, Geoffrey

    Salmond, Alex

    Loyden, Eddie

    Sedgemore, Brian

    McAllion, John

    Sheerman, Barry

    McCartney, Ian

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    Macdonald, Calum A.

    Shore, Rt Hon Peter

    McFall, John

    Short, Clare

    McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

    Skinner, Dennis

    McKelvey, William

    Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

    McLeish, Henry

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

    Maclennan, Robert

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

    McMaster, Gordon

    Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

    McNamara, Kevin

    Snape, Peter

    McWilliam, John

    Soley, Clive

    Madden, Max

    Spearing, Nigel

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

    Marek, Dr John

    Steinberg, Gerry

    Marshall, David (Shettleston)

    Stott, Roger

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Straw, Jack

    Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

    Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Martlew, Eric

    Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

    Maxton, John

    Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis

    Meacher, Michael

    Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

    Meale, Alan

    Turner, Dennis

    Michael, Alun

    Vaz, Keith

    Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

    Wallace, James

    Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

    Walley, Joan

    Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

    Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Wareing, Robert N.

    Morgan, Rhodri

    Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

    Morley, Elliot

    Wigley, Dafydd

    Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan

    Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

    Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

    Mullin, Chris

    Wilson, Brian

    Murphy, Paul

    Winnick, David

    Nellist, Dave

    Wise, Mrs Audrey

    Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

    Worthington, Tony

    O'Brien, William

    Wray, Jimmy

    O'Hara, Edward

    O'Neill, Martin

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

    Mr. Martyn Jones and

    Parry, Robert

    Mr. Thomas McAvoy.

    NOES

    Adley, Robert

    Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    Aitken, Jonathan

    Benyon, W.

    Alexander, Richard

    Bevan, David Gilroy

    Alison, Rt Hon Michael

    Biffen, Rt Hon John

    Allason, Rupert

    Blackburn, Dr John G.

    Amos, Alan

    Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Arbuthnot, James

    Body, Sir Richard

    Arnold, Sir Thomas

    Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

    Ashby, David

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Aspinwall, Jack

    Boswell, Tim

    Atkinson, David

    Bottomley, Peter

    Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    Baldry, Tony

    Bowis, John

    Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

    Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

    Batiste, Spencer

    Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

    Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

    Brazier, Julian

    Bellingham, Henry

    Bright, Graham

    Bendall, Vivian

    Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

    339

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

    Grylls, Michael

    Browne, John (Winchester)

    Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

    Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

    Hague, William

    Buck, Sir Antony

    Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

    Burns, Simon

    Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

    Butler, Chris

    Hampson, Dr Keith

    Butterfill, John

    Hannam, John

    Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

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

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

    Carrington, Matthew

    Harris, David

    Carttiss, Michael

    Hayward, Robert

    Cash, William

    Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

    Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

    Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

    Chapman, Sydney

    Hind, Kenneth

    Chope, Christopher

    Howard, Rt Hon Michael

    Churchill, Mr

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

    Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

    Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

    Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

    Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

    Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

    Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

    Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

    Hunt, David (Wirral W)

    Conway, Derek

    Irvine, Michael

    Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

    Irving, Sir Charles

    Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

    Jackson, Robert

    Cope, Rt Hon John

    Janman, Tim

    Cormack, Patrick

    Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

    Couchman, James

    Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

    Cran, James

    Jones, Robert B (Herfs W)

    Critchley, Julian

    Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

    Currie, Mrs Edwina

    Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

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

    Kilfedder, James

    Davis, David (Boothferry)

    King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

    Day, Stephen

    King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

    Devlin, Tim

    Kirkhope, Timothy

    Dickens, Geoffrey

    Knapman, Roger

    Dorrell, Stephen

    Knight, Greg (Derby North)

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

    Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

    Dover, Den

    Knox, David

    Durant, Sir Anthony

    Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

    Dykes, Hugh

    Lang, Rt Hon Ian

    Eggar, Tim

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Emery, Sir Peter

    Lee, John (Pendle)

    Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

    Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

    Evennett, David

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Fallon, Michael

    Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

    Favell, Tony

    Lilley, Peter

    Fenner, Dame Peggy

    Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

    Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

    Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

    Fishburn, John Dudley

    Lord, Michael

    Fookes, Dame Janet

    Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

    Forman, Nigel

    McCrindle, Sir Robert

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Macfarlane, Sir Neil

    Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

    MacGregor, Rt Hon John

    Franks, Cecil

    MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

    French, Douglas

    Maclean, David

    Fry, Peter

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Gale, Roger

    McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

    Gardiner, Sir George

    Malins, Humfrey

    Garel-Jones, Tristan

    Mans, Keith

    Gill, Christopher

    Maples, John

    Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

    Marland, Paul

    Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

    Marshall, John (Hendon S)

    Goodhart, Sir Philip

    Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

    Goodlad, Alastair

    Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Mates, Michael

    Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

    Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

    Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

    Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

    Greenway, John (Ryedale)

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Gregory, Conal

    Miller, Sir Hal

    Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

    Miscampbell, Norman

    Grist, Ian

    Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

    Ground, Patrick

    Moate, Roger

    340

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

    Morris, M (N'hampton S)

    Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

    Morrison, Sir Charles

    Squire, Robin

    Moss, Malcolm

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Mudd, David

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Neale, Sir Gerrard

    Steen, Anthony

    Nelson, Anthony

    Stern, Michael

    Neubert, Sir Michael

    Stevens, Lewis

    Newton, Rt Hon Tony

    Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

    Nicholls, Patrick

    Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

    Nicholson, David (Taunton)

    Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

    Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

    Sumberg, David

    Norris, Steve

    Summerson, Hugo

    Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

    Taylor, Ian (Esher)

    Oppenheim, Phillip

    Taylor, John M (Solihull)

    Page, Richard

    Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

    Paice, James

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Patnick, Irvine

    Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

    Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

    Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

    Patten, Rt Hon John

    Thorne, Neil

    Pawsey, James

    Thurnham, Peter

    Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

    Townend, John (Bridlington)

    Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

    Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

    Porter, David (Waveney)

    Tracey, Richard

    Powell, William (Corby)

    Tredinnick, David

    Price, Sir David

    Trippier, David

    Raffan, Keith

    Trotter, Neville

    Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    Redwood, John

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Renton, Rt Hon Tim

    Wakeham, Rt Hon John

    Rhodes James, Robert

    Walden, George

    Riddick, Graham

    Walker, Bill (T'side North)

    Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

    Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

    Ridsdale, Sir Julian

    Waller, Gary

    Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

    Ward, John

    Rossi, Sir Hugh

    Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

    Rost, Peter

    Warren, Kenneth

    Rowe, Andrew

    Watts, John

    Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

    Wells, Bowen

    Sackville, Hon Tom

    Wheeler, Sir John

    Sainsbury, Hon Tim

    Whitney, Ray

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Widdecombe, Ann

    Shaw, David (Dover)

    Wilkinson, John

    Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

    Wilshire, David

    Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

    Winterton, Mrs Ann

    Shelton, Sir William

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

    Wolfson, Mark

    Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

    Woodcock, Dr. Mike

    Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

    Yeo, Tim

    Shersby, Michael

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Soames, Hon Nicholas

    Mr. Nicholas Baker and

    Speed, Keith

    Mr. Timothy Wood.

    Speller, Tony

    Question accordingly negatived.
    Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
    MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That this House welcomes the Government's creation of a climate and strategic framework which is encouraging employers to improve their already substantial role in the national training effort, in which participation in training and the attainment of skills is rising, and which is set fair to meet the United Kingdom's skill needs in the 1990s and beyond.

Science Policy
7.16 pm
Mr. Jack Straw: I beg to move,
That this House condemns the decision by Her Majesty's Government to make real cuts in the Science Budget which will terminate vital areas of research and postpone urgent new programmes; is outraged at the decision of the Secretary of State for Education and Science to suppress the advice of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils made public in previous years; is deeply concerned at the continued crisis in the supply of science teachers and equipment in schools; and calls for a new strategy for science to restore industrial competitiveness, to raise investment in research and development to the level of the United Kingdom's foreign competitors, to raise standards in science education, and to ensure Britain's scientists are able to co-operate fully with their European partners.
It is the success of science that has made the world what it is today. It is scientific invention and inquiry above all else that has made the quality of life for many so immeasurably better than it was even 40 years ago and which, at the same time, has given politicians the power of mass destruction in war and, potentially, the means to end starvation and ill health across the globe. There is the closest correlation between the science base of nations and the resilience of their economies. Science policy has never been of greater importance.
All that should seem obvious—except, it would appear, to the Government. We have a great Department of State—the Department of Education and Science—which has the word "science" in its title. But the Government's recognition of the importance of science is a token one. In six years, there has not been a single debate in Government time on the Government conduct of science policy. The last such debate was in 1985, four Secretaries of State ago, halfway through the previous Parliament. The only debates—there have been three—in this Parliament have been called by the Labour party in its limited Supply time.
Ministers' unwillingness to debate their stewardship of science policy and the science budget arises partly from their defensiveness, and defensive they may be, given their record, as I shall show. Also, their reluctance to debate reflects something deeper—a lack of science culture in Government and a lack of proper understanding of science among the wider public. With the absence of a science culture and understanding comes a lack of confidence to engage in the many critical issues of science policy in public debate.
The charges that we make in our motion are serious, and each can be sustained by the evidence. We charge that the Government are failing properly or sufficiently to fund the science base and, as the decisions of the Science and Engineering Research Council earlier today show, that failure is a fundamental one. We charge that things are so bad that the Secretary of State has, for the first time, suppressed the advice that he has received from the independent Advisory Board for the Research Councils so as to reduce public understanding even further.
We charge that the Government have seriously neglected the supply of properly qualified science teachers in our schools and the proper equipment of our science laboratories. We charge that the Government are failing to provide an effective European dimension to British science policy, as the Select Committee made clear, and that, overall, they have no clear or coherent strategy for British science.
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I am sure that the Secretary of State will produce a scattering of figures designed to prove how generous has been the Government's funding of the science base, as the Under-Secretary sought to do on the radio this morning. Neither the Government's record nor their promises stand up to serious examination. By virtually any measure, the 12 years of this Government have been 12 years in which Britain has slipped down the league of first division science nations, while others have moved up. According to the "Annual Review of Government Funded Research and Development", published by the Cabinet Office:
"British investment in research and development is failing to match that of other nations and research output, measured by the number of patents granted in the United States, is suffering accordingly."
An international survey of funding carried out by Nature showed Britain as the black spot for research. Britain is at the bottom of the league table for spending on research and development and the science base. As The Daily Telegraph pointed out on Monday, it is planned that there should be a £300 million real terms cut in the funding of research and development between now and 1993. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Britain spends less per capita than any other major competitor. The director general of the Design Council, Mr. Ivor Owen, has said that Britain is facing a national emergency in its failure to capitalise on scientific and technical expertise in the United Kingdom.
The Government's failure to invest in the science base is matched by industry's relative failure. There is a strong correlation between investment in research and development by various industries and their success in the world market. Is it any wonder, therefore, that British manufacturing industry is running its worst ever deficit in overseas trade? With the signal exception of chemical and pharmaceutical industries, which showed a 13 per cent. annual increase in investment and research and development, all other manufacturing sectors showed a decline between 1985 and 1988.
Britain's industry-funded research and development is less than 1 per cent. of GDP, compared with 1·6 per cent. in Germany and 2 per cent. in Japan. The Government do not even have a policy for insisting that companies disclose and report on their research and development in their annual reports.
The Government are responsible for the poor record of industry. That record is a product of the Government's approach to economic policy, which gives higher priority to short-term profit than long-term investment—an economic policy in which the City is the master and not the servant of wealth-producing manufacturing industries.
The science budget for 1991–92 is being increased by £32 million to £920 million. After account is taken of inflation, that means a real terms cut of £30 million from £897 million this year to £868 million next year. In paragraph 65 of its most recent report, the Conservative-dominated Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts condemned and described that as "wholly unsatisfactory".
Mr. James Arbuthnot: Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the fact that, since 1979, the science budget has increased by almost a quarter in real terms, whereas under the Government of which he was a member it was stagnant in real terms?
Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman does well to read the brief that he has been provided with by Conservative central office, but as is often the case with those briefs, it is wrong. [HON. MEMBERS: "In what way is it wrong?"] In what way is it wrong? What is wrong is that the Government have continually underestimated the impact of inflation on the science base, and they have done so this year. This year, British science is being told that inflation is 3 per cent., whereas it is more than 10 per cent. That is why the Under-Secretary was put up by the Secretary of State this morning to patter the words that the budget is increasing, when everybody knows that it is going clown, most of all those in the research councils, who are faced with the most vicious and serious cuts in the science base for more than two decades.
Mr. Anthony Coombs: If the hon. Gentleman is arguing that the science budget has not increased by 23 per cent. in the past five years, will he reflect on the fact that one of the reasons why it did not increase in real terms under the previous Labour Government was that under them, on average, inflation was 15 per cent.—twice as high as under this Government?
Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman has not read the Conservative central office brief. He said that the budget had increased by a quarter in five years, whereas the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Arbuthnot) said that it had increased by a quarter in 12 years. They should at least agree the mistruths before stating them.
Ms. Mildred Gordon: Is my hon. Friend aware that such is the penny-pinching the British Library has been forced to suspend its subscriptions to many scientific journals, thus depriving our science researchers of access to information that is available to researchers in other countries?
Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend is entirely right. Only half of the British Library will be built, thanks to the penny-pinching of the Government. [Laughter.] Conservative Members may laugh, but I wonder whether they will laugh when they learn of the decisions that were made this afternoon by the Science and Engineering Research Council. I wonder whether they will laugh about the consequences of those decisions and of the cuts that this Secretary of State has made in the science base.
The consequences of those cuts are dire. Sir Mark Richmond, the new chairman of the Science and Engineering Research Council, described the science budget for next year, which Conservative Members have applauded, as "lousy". Sir David Phillips, the distinguished chairman of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils, went even further. He said:
"The consequences of the budgets imposed on us are extremely damaging … Our entire range of scientific activities will have to be reduced considerably … In the short term, it means we are going to have to stop all short-term research grants for university scientists."
Is that a matter for laughter, I ask Conservative Members?
"In the longer term, we will have to pull out of major projects".
Sadly for the whole of the science establishment and for all those involved in science, the long term that Sir David Phillips was worried about has come all too quickly. According to its chairman, the Medical Research Council has said that
"research vital to human health"
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will now have to be postponed. The Economic and Social Research Council has issued a list of cuts that it will have to make.
Mr. John P. Smith: Does my hon. Friend think that that explains the disgraceful decision taken by the Government to close the Natural Environment Research Council unit at Barry dock, which has been involved in world-beating research into the environment and the depletion of the ozone layer? It will be swallowed up by bureaucrats in Southampton.
Mr. Straw: It does explain that, but the closure of research services at Barry in my hon. Friend's constituency is not the only cut being suffered by the NERC.
The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): It is not being cut; it is moving to Southampton, as the hon. Gentleman well knows.
Mr. Straw: The right hon. and learned Gentleman was not Secretary of State when the decision was made. Had he been, he would know that it involves the cut that my hon. Friend has mentioned.
Cuts are being made in the budgets and programmes of the Economic and Social Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Agricultural and Food Research Council.
Mr. Spencer Batiste: The hon. Gentleman said that he does not like the figures being quoted by the Government. Does he agree with the figures that 1 was given this afternoon by the Library, which show that the Government's total research and development budget is a higher proportion of gross domestic product than any other developed country in the world except France?
Mr. Straw: I do not agree with the figures—[Laughter]—and I shall tell the hon. Gentleman why. The House of Lords report on research and development shows that the Government should not take account of a good half of the amount allegedly spent on research and development, because research and development for defence should not be included. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the figures, he will see that Britain's GDP figure of 2·3 per cent. is lower than that of many of our major competitors.
Moreover, investment in this country as a proportion of GDP, even according to the very generous measures of this Government, has stagnated in the past five years, while in other countries it has increased. If there is any doubt about that, it will be dispelled by the situation in the Science and Engineering Research Council.
Mr. Allen McKay: Would my hon. Friend be interested to know that today I asked the directors of a pharmaceutical company, British owned and proud to be so, why they had moved their research and development abroad to six countries and the answer was that our education system had failed and that we no longer produce the quantity and quality of scientists that we used to? All they want is for the Government to provide research and development money for the base, and they will see to the markets after that.
Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend is right. Had Government investment in research and development been as wonderful as Tory Members who parrot central office briefs say, British science would not now face a serious crisis and we would not have to import millions of pounds more goods

345
than we export. Nor would the Conservative-dominated Select Committee on Education and Science have said at paragraph 65 of its most recent report:
"We recommend that Government funding of civil R & D be increased to match that of our major partners in the EC, France and Germany, who currently spend around 0·9 per cent. of GDP compared with less than 0·6 per cent. spent by the UK."
I can well understand why the hon. Member for Elmet (Mr. Batiste) is furrowing his brow. I prefer to take my evidence from that provided by the Select Committee than from his source.
Mr. Batiste: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Straw: No. I have been generous in giving way.
Mr. Dennis Turner: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way so that I can confirm entirely what he has said. I am a member of the Select Committee on Education and Science and went on the visit to Heidelberg, Geneva and Grenoble. [Laughter.] Our report confirms what my hon. Friend has said. All members of the Select Committee would concede that all the British scientists whom we met in every one of those scientific establishments told us that they felt depressed and undervalued. Yet Tory Members say that the Government are supporting those scientists. I must advise my hon. Friend that when I listened to those comments about the lack of Government support I was ashamed to be British.
Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend is right. If British scientists were depressed when he met them, they will be even more depressed by the SERC's decisions this afternoon.
The SERC faces greater difficulties than any other research council, partly because it accounts for more than half of the total of the science budget and partly because of the impact of the subscription to CERN, the European centre for nuclear research, on its domestic budget. This afternoon, the SERC held a meeting to discuss the present problems. It has announced measures
"to combat the shortfall in its funding for 1991–92 and the effects of this on subsequent financial years."
I assume that the Secretary of State also has a copy of this. The consequences of the shortfall are serious.
In engineering, the allocation will require
"sharp cutbacks in a number of areas, notably in: information technology, the application of computing in manufacturing engineering, engineering design, support provided by Rutherford Appleton Laboratory for engineering applications of computing in universities and polytechnics."
One could scarcely imagine more serious damage being done to major parts of engineering and information technology, in which we should lead the world, than by those decisions forced on the SERC.
Mr. Robert G. Hughes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Straw: No, I will not. I have been generous in giving way and I need to get on and make my speech in this short debate. If the Government want to provide a full day to debate their record, naturally I should be more than delighted in that debate to give way.
The SERC says that the level of funding allocated to the science board cannot sustain its existing programme. There is no question of expansion. In particular, it cannot
346
"afford to support two major neutron facilities … in Grenoble and ISIS at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at the present level."
Nuclear physics has already been the subject of considerable comment in the press. There are concerns about the nuclear structure facility at Daresbury, near Warrington. The SERC says:
"The Council is committed to pay the UK share of the CERN subscription and the associated UK research on particle physics. For the Nuclear Physics Board to remain within its budget, it will have to reduce very significantly its support for nuclear structure physics. To achieve this Council will have to make plans for the possible closure of the Nuclear Structure Facility at the Daresbury Laboratory."
In case Tory Members are not aware of this, the nuclear structure facility at Daresbury is one of the most renowned of such research facilities in the world. It is widely acclaimed not only by British scientists, but by all engaged in nuclear physics research in the world. If that laboratory is to close, Britain will lose its significant facility for nuclear physics research. Yet the Government willingly contemplate ending an area of research, in which we were formerly world leaders and which will shut us out of research developments in future at a stroke.
In commenting on this, the chairman of the SERC, Sir Mark Richmond, said:
"This is a leading facility for this type of research in the world which we had hoped would keep the UK in the forefront of nuclear structure science for some years ahead. I greatly regret the shadow cast over this facility, its staff and the community it supports. Council will look urgently for ways to run the facility through 1991 and 1992, so we can honour the first stage of the UK-French Agreement to develop and run the EUROGAM detector array."
The SERC stated:
"To help the Council in its further consideration of these issues, a study will be set up to assess the importance of the science in the context of the Council work as a whole."
Mr. Robert G. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman is telling the House that, under a Labour Government, these research councils would have no need to choose priorities. If that is so, how much would be invested and where would it come from?
Mr. Straw: I was not saying that. Obviously the hon. Gentleman has not been listening. [Interruption.] Of course there are difficult choices to be made in science at all times, but the last way to make them is as this Government are making them—in a wholly irrational and ham-fisted way. We would increase the science budget.
The answer to the hon. Gentleman's question was kindly provided yesterday by the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Patten), the chairman of the Conservative party, who—even under Conservative economic policy, which has produced a lower rate of growth over the years than ever occurred under a Labour Government—said:
"there will certainly be a growth dividend which can help ensure a substantial and sustained improvement in the quality of our schools and hospitals."
I add to that the science base.
The right hon. Gentleman was saying that the resources were available and that it was a matter of choice whether the resources from growth are used to cut taxation for the very rich or to provide essential services for our hospitals, schools and science base.
Mr. Richard Tracey rose—
Mr. Straw: Let me deal directly with the potential closure of the Daresbury research facility.
Mr. Quentin Davies: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Straw: No, I shall continue.
Perhaps the Secretary of State can confirm this, but I do not believe that when Ministers made their decisions about the science base they had any idea that a potential consequence of setting the science budget at the level they did was the potential closure of the Daresbury nuclear research facility. If it was, and the Secretary of State knew that the SERC would make these decisions, he had better say so. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) asked me a question, and I am giving him the answer.
Obviously there will always be more bids than resources. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."] Of course that is the case. For a Government who claim to have funded science well, the least they can do, and the least that we would do, is to ensure sufficient funds year by year to match inflation. That is what this Secretary of State is not doing next year. That answers the hon. Gentleman's question.
Furthermore, we must ensure that, when difficult decisions are to be made, they are made in a rational way. It is preposterous that the Daresbury research facility is being offered up as a sacrificial lamb because the Government did not do their sums on the total cost of the CERN project. They have included the cost of CERN in the domestic science budget, and they have decided to protect the CERN subscription, but not to offer similar protection to the rest of the science budget. As a consequence, the Government appear to be saying that we must lose a world-beating research facility.
There will always be major issues to be decided at any time about big science versus little science. Those decisions should be the subject of public debate and effective review. It should not he the case that, as a result of his own carelessness and negligence, the Secretary of State did not notice that a consequence of the way in which he treated the CERN subscription would be that major areas of science research in this country would be wiped out. That is unacceptable.
If anything is needed to prove the culpability of the Secretary of State, it is the fact that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, unique among his predecessors, has decided to keep secret the advice he has received from the Advisory Board for the Research Councils. I hope that he will explain why that advice has been kept secret.
Mr. Quentin Davies rose—
Mr. Straw: I have already explained that time is short, and I have been very generous in giving way to interventions.
In 1985, in response to a request from my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray), the then Secretary of State for Education and Science, now Lord Joseph, agreed that the advice that he received from the ABRC should be made public for the better information of Parliament, which votes the moneys for science, and of the public. That practice was commendably followed by each of Lord Joseph's successors.
To their credit, the right hon. Members for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) and for Norfolk, South (Mr. MacGregor) followed that practice even though they were not always able to agree with everything proposed by the ABRC. They had confidence in the decisions made, and the right hon. Member for Mole Valley was not scared to say, "This
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is what has been said to me by Sir David Phillips and his colleagues. This is what I have decided to do, and here are the reasons". In common with his predecessor and successor, the right hon. Gentleman was canny enough to recognise that the publication of the ABRC's advice strengthened his hand as Secretary of State in discussions with the Treasury.
In a characteristically high-handed and authoritarian approach, the present Secretary of State has decided that Parliament should not receive information that was previously publicly available. He has suddenly decided that that information, which is critical to the judgments that we should make about the science budget, should be suppressed. No explanation was offered for that decision, but the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science was put up to answer on 19 November, when he said that his right hon. and learned Friend
"considers that the advice that the board offers as part of the public expenditure survey should be confidential, as is normal for similar advice from other bodies such as the Universities Funding Council and the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council."—[Official Report, 19 November 1990; Vol. 181, c. 30.]
That is a putrid excuse. There is no parallel between the advice offered by the ABRC and that offered by the PCFC and the UFC.
It is a principle now that, whenever a Government-appointed committee offers advice that bears on the public expenditure survey, that advice should be kept secret. Does that mean that the views of the Interim Advisory Committee on School Teachers' Pay and Conditions, which has massive public expenditure implications, should have been made confidential? Does that mean that all sorts of other advice should be suppressed? That speaks volumes for the Secretary of State's approach to government and decision-making—
Mr. Kenneth Clarke: It was my predecessor.
Mr. Straw: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is trying to wriggle out of it. There is a simple way in which to deal with his predecessor's decision—he should now publish the ABRC's advice.
What is outrageous about the Government's attitude is that they treat decisions about the spending of public money on public institutions as though that money were private money. That is intolerable. In a democracy, such decisions should not be treated in that way.
Mr. Roger Knapman rose—
Mr. Straw: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, but I am not giving way.
On radio this morning, the Under-Secretary of State sought to say that the Secretary of State had accepted the advice of the ABRC when he made his decisions. Although the report from the ABRC has been suppressed, we are now being treated to selected quotations from it.
If the right hon. and learned Gentleman has accepted the ABRC's advice, why can we not see what advice he accepted? I do not believe for a second that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has accepted its advice as to the global size of the budget, because I do not believe that Sir David Phillips would be remotely confident about the budget that the Secretary of State has agreed. It may be

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that the specific advice from the ABRC about which the Minister spoke this morning concerns the distribution of the total cake.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke: That is right.
Mr. Straw: Well, if we are given a peep at the advice that the right hon. and learned Gentleman prays in aid, why can we not see the rest of the advice, so that we can see what the ABRC has recommended and measure that against the decisions that the Secretary of State has made? Why is the House continually denied that right?
The foundation of the science base must be laid in schools. There has been similar negligence and underfunding of the science base in schools as there has been of the science base of universities and research establishments. There is a severe shortage of technicians in schools. Oxford university conducted a survey of 16 to 19-year-olds on their attitude to science and technology. The researchers asked those questioned to rank 13 professions and, in terms of pay and status, I am sad to say that solicitors, doctors and accountants were top, with chemists, engineers and science teachers at the bottom. The researchers reported,
"the lack of government investment in research, and the low status, pay and morale of science teachers has deterred pupils from such work".
The recruiting problems associated with science teachers are well documented in the latest report of the Interim Advisory Committee on School Teachers' Pay and Conditions, Cm. 1415. In paragraph 3.10, it states:
"recruitment is notably low in mathematics, physics and chemistry."
It also expressed anxiety at the quality of entrants to teacher training in those subjects and said that it was
"concerned that institutions may be finding it increasingly difficult to maintain even current entry standards."
Those standards are already far too low, and far too many are going into postgraduate teacher education in the key areas of science without the adequate degree qualifications. What is even worse is that half of those who teach maths or physics in school do not even have a post-A-level qualification in those subjects.
On top of the problem of a shortage of science teachers there is also the problem caused by the total incoherence of the Government's approach to science qualifications and science education post-16.
Ms. Hilary Armstrong: It is in chaos.
Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend is right. The Government talk about A-levels as the gold standard. When the Secretary of State examines the better science education record of other countries, he should recognise that all those other countries ensure that students do more than three subjects between the ages of 16 and 19. They study between five and six subjects so that, not least, a majority of those highly trained young people carry on studying at least one science to the age of 18. In this country, a minority of students study science post-16.
As the Gulf war has shown with terrifying illumination, the world's nations and people live and die by science. Britain was the first scientific nation. It was responsible for more discovery, invention and inquiry than any other
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nation of similar size. Today, however, the House must acknowledge that there is the deepest anxiety about the continuation of our science base.
That anxiety is coupled with a growing understanding that our appalling economic performance in the 1980s and now is linked to the lack of vision and funding for research and development and the science base by the Government. We need a Government who know that British science and Britain's future are inextricably linked, a Government ready to invest in Britain's future. From Labour, we shall have that Government.
7.49 pm
The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
'applauds the steps being taken by the Government to sustain and improve still further the strengths and quality of science and science education in the United Kingdom; and notes in particular the successful implementation of the science, mathematics and technology components of the National Curriculum, efforts being made to increase the number of qualified science teachers, the increase in the age participation rate in higher education over the last decade from one in eight to one in five, the significant increase in the science budget since 1979, and the allocation of funds to improve our understanding of the global environment, which provide a sound base for British scientists to play a full role with their European partners, to improve the quality of life, and to underpin the technological competitiveness of British industry.'.
I begin by agreeing that, for all the reasons given by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) and for many more reasons, it is extremely important that Britain gives proper importance to science and to scholarship and research in every part of our society. A strong science base is essential to not only Britain's economic well-being and competitiveness and its industrial base, but our status as a civilised nation. We want to remain in the forefront of discovery and the extension of the bounds of human knowledge, as we always have been.
The acquisition of modern technology and the application of science to human problems are important for the creation of wealth, as we are all aware, but they are also important for the solution of many other social and human problems. The pure spirit of intellectual curiosity is an important quality in its own right. In acknowledging that that is what we all desire, we should also acknowledge that the quality of British science today is outstanding and is internationally acclaimed. There is no evidence that the quality of scientific work done in this country is inferior to that done in any of our rival and competitor nations.
One of the several mistakes that the hon. Member for Blackburn made was to make his case so highly coloured that he wound up painting a picture of a nation in scientific and technological decline, which is the precise opposite of the truth and a grotesque overselling of his case, which was based on a narrow interpretation of some statistics and public spending figures. We could argue at length about how exactly the output of the scientific community should be measured. The measure that the hon. Gentleman used throughout his speech—if I heard him correctly—was the number of patents taken out in the United States of America, or something—
Mr. Straw: It was not "or something". It was the central conclusion of the Cabinet Office's own survey. It

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decided that surveying United States patents was one of the fairest ways of comparing the scientific endeavour of various countries. It concluded that Britain was losing out.
Mr. Clarke: That was one of the conclusions of a document from which the hon. Gentleman quoted highly selectively. I quote the number of papers on basic and applied research published in the main scientific journals, which the hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) will concede is a perfectly good measure of scientific achievement. I do not believe that the hon. Member for Motherwell, South will denounce the level of science practised in Britain or the level of our achievements.
Between 1981 and 1986—the years on which the figures are based—the United Kingdom percentage of the total world output production remained constant at 8·3 per cent. Germany's percentage has fallen from less than ours when it started—6·3 per cent.—to 5·9 per cent. France's percentage has fallen from 5·1 to 4·8 per cent. We have a strong science base in Britain and we should pay tribute to it and discuss, in a somewhat more dispassionate and sensible way than the hon. Gentleman is prepared to do, how we can support it and develop it in future.
Mr. Tony Lloyd: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Clarke: I should like to make a little progress before I start giving way.
In response to the last part of the hon. Member for Blackburn's speech, I agree with him that any serious long-term policy for science must start by securing an adequate supply of new, highly qualified scientists and engineers. The hon. Gentleman went in for a light and quick attack on the position of science in our schools and the way in which we are producing the next generation of scientists, engineers and technologists.
The background against which we are debating the subject is that science has been given an important new emphasis in our schools. For the first time, we have introduced science, technology and mathematics into the national curriculum. The national curriculum will ensure that every pupil from primary school to the age of 16 does maths, science and technology as part of a developing curriculum. That is a matter for debate in more detail on another occasion, but we are putting more science into our schools.
Let us consider what is already being achieved. The output from our schools feeds on to our higher education institutions. We all acknowledge that our universities, polytechnics and colleges must also turn out increased numbers of scientists and technologists.
Sir Timothy Raison: I do not quarrel with what my right hon. and learned Friend says, but there is a special problem in girls' schools such as Aylesbury high school in my constituency. Such schools have a great deal of catching up to do to provide the same level of scientific provision as corresponding boys' schools. Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider carefully the case for providing more in the way of scientific facilities to enable girls' schools to catch up with their boy counterparts?
Mr. Clarke: The introduction of primary school science for the first time and identical science teaching for girls and boys, covering the same fields, will make a difference. It has always been a curious pattern of the British education that very few girls study physics. It was an overwhelmingly
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male study. When girls continued with science, overwhelmingly they studied biology. In future, both boys and girls will cover either the same general science curriculum to the age of 16 or separate sciences, if they opt for that. That is an important change. I accept that some girls' schools where girls have not been accustomed to scientific education will have to adjust over a period of time and invest in kit and facilities.
Higher education needs to turn out more scientists and engineers of the same high quality that we have always achieved in Britain. They are doing that on a spectacular scale which the public do not seem to follow and certainly do not always acknowledge. I am glad to say that a dramatic change is taking place in the proportion of young people going on to higher education. Ten years ago, only one in eight young people in Britain entered higher education. This year the rate is one in five. We are well on course to make it one in four by the year 2000.
Numbers of students on science-related courses have made a more or less constant proportion of the rising total. We expect the higher proportion of pupils studying science in schools, to which I have just referred, to increase the proportion of young people who opt in future for science and engineering.
Let us consider the overall figures for science and engineering graduates. The total number of graduates leaving university in Britain has risen from 778,000 in 1979 to 1,061,000 in 1989. That is a 36 per cent. increase in the number of graduates coming out of British higher education during the Government's period of office, and the number is still rising. As the science and engineering proportion has risen slightly, a greatly increased number of scientists of both sexes and of high quality are coming into our community.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Clarke: With apologies to the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) who tried to intervene earlier, I give way.
Mr. Dalyell: Will the Secretary of State comment on a point that bothers the Royal Society of Chemistry? Relatively expensive substances such as silver nitrate, without which one cannot do analytical chemistry, are beyond the pockets of some universities. Does the Secretary of State have any thoughts on the provision of equipment, particularly for chemists?
Mr. Clarke: We have increased funding for universities by 10 per cent. for next year, which is ahead of inflation. Within that, science tends to take an ever-rising proportion. Not only silver nitrate but other equipment continually becomes more expensive. I shall consider the point at leisure after the debate.
Our projections of student numbers show that we shall have a further spectacular increase. The number of engineering graduates is projected to rise by some 15 per cent. from the 1988–89 figure to 15,000 by 1993–94. Science and mathematics graduates are projected to increase by one third to 28,000 over the same period. The background is a spectacular increase in the proportion of our young people going through our universities and the proportion who come out as scientists and engineers.
Before we denigrate the education system too much—I agree with everyone else that it should be improved

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—we must not get carried away by the foolish notion that our system is being left behind by our rivals and that we are not producing the right work force. Our education system is not all that bad—certainly not at the higher education level. We compare very well with all our most important competitors when it comes to young people with higher education qualifications in science. The figures for 1986—I believe that they are OECD figures, and they are the most up to date that I have—show that 15 per cent. of the relevant age group of young people had higher education qualifications in science. In France and in West Germany, only 12 per cent. had them. The figure for Italy is 5 per cent. We are up with the United States, at 11 to 15 per cent., depending on how the comparison is made, and with Japan at 10 to 15 per cent. So we are producing the numbers—[Interruption.] The percentage of the age group is a fair and constant comparison. I can think of no better way of comparing the output of our higher education institutions. Of course, the United States and Japan have larger populations, but we are producing as good a proportion of quality scientists.
Dr. Jeremy Bray: The fallacy in the well-known figures that the Secretary of State has quoted is that they omit engineers. If they were included, we would fall far behind.
Mr. Clarke: I have just given the projections for an increase in the number of engineers. I look forward to the hon. Member for Motherwell, South producing a better form of comparison. We have already heard some foolish comparisons on scientific funding, with which I now want to deal.
The hon. Member for Blackburn said that he was not going to bandy figures, but he threw out the percentage of GDP that we spend on science. I know from my experience in health and in other Departments that comparisons based on percentages of GDP are pretty damned silly. People throw the figures at us at the moment because we had a record rate of growth in our gross domestic product throughout the 1980s. Other countries may increase the percentage of GDP spent on science by going into recession and a period of decline. The hon. Member for Blackburn said that we spend less as a proportion of GDP on civil research than Germany and France. However, using OECD figures again, it is clear that we spend more on civil R and D than do Japan, the United States, Belgium, Canada, Australia, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Greece—half the countries of the OECD. So it is foolish to suggest that we do not bear comparison with our competitors. What matters is what we are doing now and where we go next.
The hon. Member for Blackburn made a great deal of today's press release by the Science and Engineering Research Council. I assume that it was because he spotted that the council was to hold a meeting today that this debate is being held. On the strength of that, he built up a ludicrous case in which he maintained that the excellent British scientific base is somehow crumbling. Let us examine what the current year holds.
Mr. Alan W. Williams: May I remind the Secretary of State of the Select Committee report published in December 1990, paragraph 63 of which points out that
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"the UK is the only OECD country where growth in spending on research was less than growth in GDP"?
That is why we are at the bottom of the international league.
Mr. Clarke: When a country's GDP rises quickly, funding may sometimes fall behind. When a country goes into steep economic decline, spending on science as a proportion of GDP may rise spectacularly. I have listed some formidable countries, most notably Japan and the United States, which still spend less than we do as a percentage of GDP on civil R and D. It is a daft comparison, but if we are to make it, the example of the United States and Japan is relevant.
Sir Peter Emery: May I recruit my right hon. and learned Friend to the following idea? Will he bear in mind that the Procedure Committee has said that science and technology is too important a matter to be absent from the agenda of the House of Commons? It recommends that a Select Committee should deal with the matter jointly with the House of Lords, or that it should be dealt with as part of the work of the Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts. In that way some of these matters might be better understood in the House and I hope that I can count on my right hon. and learned Friend's support, with the Leader of the House, in moving in that direction.
Mr. Clarke: The composition of Select Committees is a matter for the House, not the Government. I know that there has been pressure for a Select Committee on Science for some time, and no doubt my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will deal with the matter.
Dr. Bray: The Secretary of State is a little confused about GDP. Science is not measured in tonnes, like steel. If scientists' pay goes up by no more than the national average, the so-called real measure of R and D expenditure increases proportionately to GDP, by definition. So-called level funding means a decline in research done and a decline in the number of scientists at the same rate at which GDP is growing. I shall back up that assertion with detailed figures later.
Mr. Clarke: The hon. Gentleman will find on reflection that in most countries, and certainly in ours, the increase in incomes exceeds the growth of GDP. I cannot recall when the pay of any group of workers in this country, except possibly in the midst of the fiercest pay policies of the late 1970s, did not rise faster than GDP. It is no good trying to invent a special measure of inflation for a particular public service. If the hon. Member for Motherwell, South ever finds himself in the public service arguing a case against the Treasury, he will learn that every Department can produce special rates of inflation which it says apply only to itself. But the fact is that all pay and other pressures apply to the whole economy. The percentage of GDP is not very useful because GDP varies rather more than spending usually does. Trying to qualify the argument with talk of pay increases for scientists will not do.
This year, the Government's overall expenditure on research and development is more than £5.1 billion, of which £2·8 billion goes on civil research. That puts in proportion the tremendous fuss made by the hon. Member for Blackburn about £1 million or £2 million for the laboratory at Daresbury. Among the aspects for which I

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am responsible, research undertaken at universities, polytechnics and higher education institutions will be funded at about £1·8 billion, of which expenditure through the research councils—the so-called science budget—forms just over half.
I have made it as clear as I can that the Government are committed to maintaining a healthy science base. We have demonstrated that commitment by keeping the science budget at a level that has enabled research councils to carry out leading-edge research at their own establishments and to fund high-quality research initiatives. As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State correctly said on the radio this morning, the so-called science budget part of our overall spending has increased by 23 per cent. in real terms under this Government. Just two years ago it rose by 8 per cent. in real terms at one go; since then the figure has remained level. Nevertheless, funding has increased by almost a quarter in real terms since 1979. We cannot sustain that sort of increase every year and it is not possible to carry out in this or any other country every element of scientific research that people might want within such an expanding budget.
Seen against the background of a 23 per cent. increase in expenditure, the diatribes of the hon. Member for Blackburn can be seen in their true light. It is true that in 1991–92 the value of the underlying science budget will remain level in real terms. There is no fancy accounting in that. Lower figures could be produced by leaving out capital expenditure that has been completed. We have just finished an Antarctic survey ship which, I think, cost £36 million, and a new headquarters for the research councils in Swindon and have made some alteration in the timing of the payments of postgraduate fees. When those are left out and we get down to what matters, we find that the money that is available for scientific research willl be up by 6 per cent. next year in line with the forecast on inflation, and that is a level-terms year. There has been a substantial real terms uplift in the past, especially the big 8 per cent. uplift which took place two years ago.
Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that of the total research council budget spending only 2 per cent. is spent in Wales? Will he say whether the atmospheric radar station at Aberystwyth, which was opened by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales only two months ago, will continue to be funded by the research council?
Mr. Clarke: The distribution of funding is determined by scientific merit, not by geography. It should remain like that. As far as I am aware—I shall take advice and write to the hon. Gentleman—I do not think that at the moment there is any threat to the establishment at Aberystwyth.
Mr. Tony Lloyd rose—
Mr. Clarke: The hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) has been very patient. I shall now give way to him.
Mr. Lloyd: I have not really been patient. I listened with keen interest to what the Secretary of State said about the maintenance of the budget. Obviously, and whether he likes it or not, he will be influenced by what is achieved in practice. When we see facilities that have been centres of scientific excellence for many years threatened with closure we will tell the Secretary of State that something is going wrong. Not only Opposition Members will say that; it will
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be said by people outside. Jodrell Bank has been a world leader in its field for many years. It is under serious threat that could lead to its work being truncated and to its closure. How does the Secretary of State respond to that?
Mr. Clarke: The hon. Gentleman is correct when he says that there is concern in all parts of the House when a facility has a cut in its budget. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Butler) is in his place and is no doubt following with interest the debate about Daresbury. I have been following the discussions about Jodrell Bank. It is not the case that the Universities Funding Council is reducing the funding of Jodrell Bank. There seems to be some dispute in Manchester university about whether that university can sustain it. I do not believe that Jodrell Bank is threatened.
We have had a large real-terms growth and a level funding base this year. I must now deal with decisions concerning the Science and Engineering Research Council.
The hon. Member for Blackburn completely failed to respond to a relevant comment which we are bound to make and which was put to him in an intervention. We have a 23 per cent. increase in real terms. No one can argue with that, unless he goes in for fancy accounting and says that there are special factors. When Labour was last in power, in 1974–75 and for 1979–80 there was no real-terms increase in the science budget. It was an ice age for the science budget when Labour was in power.
Difficult choices have to be made. The hon. Member for Blackburn did not tell us about any that he would make. Such debates are a permanent feature of scientific study throughout the world and are not confined to this country. Not only are we not behind our competitors, but we are having the same discussion as science communities in every part of the world. In the New Scientist of 2 February, under the so-called "Talking Point", there was an article by Mr. Daniel Greenberg, who is the editor of Science and Government Reform, which is an American publication. In that article, which Mr. Greenberg describes as
"The phony crisis in American science",
he states:
"Is American science sinking because of financial neglect? Leading scientists created this impression by besieging Washington with cries for more money. By all means take note of their pleas, but understand that much of their distress is their own making in collaboration with their politician friends."
In another part of the article Mr. Greenberg states:
"The reality is that science in America has never been bigger, richer or more productive than it is today. What is suffers from is an unrestrained appetite for doing all things possible by neglecting to set priorities for research."
If we are not careful, we could wind up substituting the United Kingdom for the United States in that article, because the choice of priorities which the hon. Member for Blackburn is plainly not prepared to make has to be made to get the best out of expenditure on science.
Mr. Straw: The right hon. and learned Gentleman did not listen to what I said. It is acknowledged in all parts of the House that choices have to be made. The crucial question is about the manner and circumstances in which they are made. What is objectionable is the process by which the SERC has been forced to make decisions which otherwise would not have to be made. Was the Secretary of State aware that the budget decisions would lead to the possibility of closures without any review at all of whether this country should stay in basic nuclear physics?
Mr. Clarke: The hon. Gentleman always says that hard choices have to be made, but makes it quite plain that he would not make them, because he did not mention one. He talked a lot of nonsense which slightly implied that a Labour Government might spend more so that no choices would be made. He latched on to the defence of a victim of a choice that has been made by scientists.
Mr. Straw: That is bluster.
Mr. Clarke: It is not bluster. One of the biggest weaknesses of Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen is that on all these matters they speak without conviction about facing up to difficult priorities. When they are challenged about where the money will come from to avoid the hard choices that they talk about, they either wander off into evasiveness or do not answer.
Sir Gerard Vaughan: While accepting entirely that my right hon. and learned Friend is doing much good work, may I ask whether he agrees that there is something very odd when the procedure for funding CERN over which the research councils have no control means that we now have to consider shutting down an internationally well-known and important facility? Will he give an undertaking to have a look at that?
Mr. Clarke: It is an important point, but I shall not try to digress too long on it. We are making a major contribution to the CERN project. There are arguments about the wider impacts on investment in particle physics, at Daresbury, for example. In recent years the Government have looked at this several times. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Education and Science was at the Foreign Office and I was at the Department of Trade and Industry when we last looked at the matter in government. Tempting as it is from the point of view of scientific lobbyists—and I almost count myself among them because I am the Secretary of State for Education and Science—if we spend money on CERN at the behest of British scientists, that means public expenditure on nuclear physics. The idea that somehow it does not count if the money is spent in Switzerland and should not have any impact on what is left to spend in Cheshire is appealing but illogical.
Secondly, I can safely say that at one time the Government looked seriously at the question of withdrawing from CERN and discussed it with the scientific community. On the strength of much scientific advice to remain in CERN, we decided to do so. The discussions about CERN have been going on for years. It was at the British behest that we seriously addressed the question of the management, financial control and the scale of the investment in CERN. I was astonished to find when I came to this Department, having, as it were, passed through science when I was in the Department of Trade and Industry, that our present subscription to CERN is lower than it was some years ago because other countries, at the behest of Britain, have acted to improve the management of CERN.
Sir Gerard Vaughan: Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
Mr. Clarke: This must be the last intervention because other hon. Members wish to speak in the debate.
Sir Gerard Vaughan: The increasing subscription, which is totally outside British hands, has thrown the CERN budget into total disarray.
Mr. Clarke: As I have just explained, matters have improved. It is still true that the CERN subscription which British scientists want us to continue has an impact on the money that we have available for other matters. I shall put that in context and try to deal with the immediate issues that have arisen at Daresbury and elsewhere.
The key question is how to distribute the money and how to make the difficult choices that the hon. Member for Blackburn would not be prepared to make. The advice from the research councils is channelled to me through the Advisory Board for the Research Councils. I rely on that advice about scientific and research priorities within our resources. In terms of the scientific merits, I keep an arm's-length relationship and the Secretary of State in any Government would be well advised to do the same. I am predisposed to accept that advice, and usually do. I have just accepted the ABRC's advice about the distribution of funds to the councils.
I think that the hon. Member for Blackburn would agree that in the end the difficult choices about priorities within the science budget should essentially be scientific decisions and not primarily political ones. That means that their difficult role is to give me advice, within the resources made available to them—
Mr. Straw: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Clarke: No.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. This is a short debate and many right hon. and hon. Members wish to take part. Some of these interventions might be saved either for the winding-up speech or the speeches that hon. Members make themselves.
Mr. Clarke: I will take your advice Mr. Deputy Speaker, particularly as the same point is being made in intervention after intervention.
It is important to realise that when a project is turned down the research councils are saying that there are better ways to spend money within the allocation made to them, and those better ways are based on scientific grounds. The overriding political responsibility is mine and I get advice on the scientific priorities. I feel that I should receive that advice in confidence. My predecessor, now the Leader of the House, made the wise decision not to publish this year's advice on the public spending round. I have decided not to publish the ABRC's full advice on the distribution of funds and, as has been said, we have followed the financial division between the councils that the advisory board recommended. When one has advisers of this kind, carrying out this role, the relationship is best one of confidential close advice, not one of public debate.
Mr. Straw: Why not?
Mr. Clarke: I do not have public debates with my civil servants. I am notorious for frequently not taking their advice. If a body has the key role of giving advice in confidence, but that advice is given in a public document to which I have to respond publicly, it becomes just another part of the public debate.
Mr. Straw: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Clarke: No, I am not giving way. The hon. Gentleman has harped on all day, both on the radio and here, about this point, and he is wrong. He accuses me of making what he calls a characteristically autocratic decision, but, as with many other parts of my portfolio, I am following the wise precedent set by my predecessor. I feel that the relationships with the research councils will be greatly improved when we stop having this megaphone debate and replace it with a close confidential relationship on scientific priorities.
The Government suffer a similar problem in arts with the Arts Council and in sport with the Sports Council. We allocate money, the research councils distribute it and the public debate concentrates on those projects that the research council will not be funding. The only scientific projects about which the public ever hears are the ones that have been refused priority or have suddenly lost priority vis-à-vis the rest of the scientific budget. They suddenly become centres of excellence—some of those affected today are centres of excellence. The radio schedule fills up with descriptions of, for example, a chap with a project who was on the point of breaking through on the method of transportation of some disease. All the projects that have been given higher scientific priority and have got the money do not see the light of day in the media. That is how it has gone this year.
All this gives me no chance to talk about the projects that the research councils are funding and that are producing excellent work. For example, there is the work by the Medical Research Council on autism, the breakthrough achieved by the Agriculture and Food Research Council in the Institute of Animal Health in sorting out the seal virus, the earthquake predictions method developed in this country, the tremendous work done on monoclonal antibodies by the M RC's laboratory of molecular biology. We never hear anything about those, although they are financed. We hear only about the ones that have lost out in this afternoon's agenda of the Science and Engineering Research Council because it decided to spend the money on something else that it judged to have higher scientific priority.
There is a difficulty for the SERC that is not of the making of the chairman and the people who assembled this afternoon. Sir Mark Richardson became the chairman in October 1990 and immediately made it clear that he wished to carry out a review of the excessive commitments, particularly to large projects, into which the SERC has entered. He initiated a moratorium on all new commitments on 21 November, which I am glad to say the SERC is now lifting. It made some announcements on 19 December. What has since happened is what is wrongly described as the £40 million shortfall. It is simply that the SERC had embarked on a series of commitments to a number of big projects and they were outrunning the resources given to the SERC, which was therefore not following its remit.
I congratulate the council not on individual decisions, although I can do that, but on its scientific expertise, which is better than mine. It knows what is to be cut out in the review I am not able to compare the study of particle physics at Daresbury or at Strasbourg with the nuclear structure at Mainz, or nuclear physics as against some other part of the science and engineering budget. The SERC has cut back on commitments and it has had to be selective in doing so. Some of the other projects on which it has made cuts have not been mentioned. For example,
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it has said that it cannot comtemplate for at least two years the gravitational wave detector project. That is an Anglo-German project which the Germans also want to postpone because they cannot afford it.
One can spend a fortune on space astronomy. I once faced a similar problem in getting us out of what I regarded as an extraordinary manned space project in which the European Space Agency and the French wanted us to invest, and did so with the full support of the research councils, although I was attacked by enthusiasts in the House of Commons for trying to save us millions of pounds on a mad international project that would have impacted on our domestic science. I also had a good run with the HOTOL project, and I got us out of spending a few billions on that—money that would have come out of the science budget. The councils are looking carefully at some of the space astronomy projects. The Americans have deferred similar projects for 12 months. Once one gets into this sort of research, the noughts on the end of the bill have an impact on the science budget.
Daresbury—on which we have just had the announcement—presented a difficult choice. It is our only accelerator devoted to basic research in nuclear physics. Irrespective of today's announcement, the SERC has already made it clear that it will continue support of nuclear structure physics and continue funding of individual experiments, and that the NFC agreement on Eurogam with the University of Strasbourg will not be terminated before there is an opportunity to exploit the project. Furthermore, United Kingdom nuclear physicists will have access to the Eurogam machine and be eligible for certain research grants. There will be collaboration between Daresbury and Strasbourg for the next year or two.
I could read, but I shall not, a list of projects that are going ahead under the patronage of the SERC. One of the first things that I did when I came to the Department was to open the new 32 m telescope at Cambridge which had been financed by the SERC. The council faces difficult decisions in astronomy which is an expensive big international science. I am glad that it has been able to lift the moratorium on the smaller grants. If it does not have the courage to carry out this fundamental review, the danger will be that commitment to big projects will roll on while key small grants to people operating in universities, where the future often lies, are put under a moratorium or cut.
We recognise the need for well-judged policies. I have explained to the House what they are. We are committed to a strong scientific base. We have an excellent record of scientific achievement and this is one of the most attractive places in the world to invest for anybody looking for high-quality science. The Government will support research councils in the difficult choices that they have to make when distributing the resources available to them. We shall commit to science those resources that the country can afford and hope to build on our excellent record.
At the behest of my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Sir I. Lloyd) I recently had a meeting, chaired by the Prime Minister, with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and many distinguished scientists who came to discuss this matter. The Prime Minister emphasised his personal interest in science and his determination to continue to chair, from time to time, meetings of the Advisory Committee on Science and Technology and to

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continue the practice of his predecessor of chairing all meetings of the Cabinet committee that was set up specifically to deal with science matters across the Government. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Havant will agree that the Prime Minister listened with considerable interest to pleas from distinguished scientists for continuity of funding, and for a strategic look at where we are going on science. With the research councils, we shall try to take that look.
I urge the House to accept that this sudden explosion of rage about the consequences of one research council meeting this afternoon and the bandying of selective figures do not accurately give a picture of British science. We have some of the best scientists in the world. Some of the greatest achievements in the world of science are made in the United Kingdom and the Government have demonstrated their support in the most practical way by putting resources into science and by developing schools and higher education systems in such a way that we shall produce further generations of equally good scientists and technologists in ever-greater numbers.
8.29 pm
Mr. Adam Ingram: I do not enter the debate as a scientist, an engineer, or even a technologist, and I suspect that the same is true of the Secretary of State, having listened to him read from a close script about the various scientific—
Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Written by me.
Mr. Ingram: That may be, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman appeared to be reading closely some of the technological details.
I have worked in industry, spending a long period in the electricity supply industry as a computer systems analyst, and I have always taken a close interest in science, whether pure science or technological development.
For many years—irrespective of what the Secretary of State has said, I tend to support the arguments advanced from the Opposition Front Bench in terms of statistics—there has been a steady decline in research and development and in pure science in Britain. Much of that has clearly been the result of lack of foresight on the part of industry. It has not been investing in the way in which our international competitors have. We can see that in the way in which we lose out in international markets and the way in which our trade in those areas has been declining.
What was happening in science and research and development was brought home to me when I entered the House in 1987. I do not wish to go into all the details associated with my point, but I am referring to the Government's attempt, in effect, to disable the National Engineering Laboratory in my constituency, which was and still is a world-renowned research establishment undertaking engineering research projects, some of which are not carried out anywhere else in the United Kingdom and possibly even the world. American universities send people to that establishment to use its facilities.
On 27 May 1988, Dr. Donald Bell, then director of the laboratory, said:
"The range of services provided by NEL in the mechanical engineering field is unique. Not only do we have facilities that would be difficult to match—for example, the strong floor
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used for structural testing and the flow measurement laboratory—but the collective expertise of our staff and the number and variety of testing rigs here are unrivalled."
In 1988 Lord Young, then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, announced that the NEL was to be privatised on the incredibly short-sighted basis that it had to become profit making. A laboratory which had established itself in the forefront of research and development for 40 years all of a sudden had to become profit making. Industry was not asking for that; the Government made the decision.
The decision was made in the face of major opposition from industry, some of which was never heard about in the public forum but which we knew took place. The industry made representations to the Government that it needed the research facility. To privatise it in the way proposed would have been detrimental to some of the key industries in the Scottish economy and throughout the United Kingdom.
The noble Lord Young, in his ideological zeal and determination to get rid of the establishment, was prepared to give it away at a knock-down price to a French-owned company. Sell it off to the foreigners, we no longer want it, was the philosophy of the then Secretary of State.
The work force, the trade unions and the wider industry reacted strongly against that dogmatic proposal. As a result of that campaign the Government were forced into a U-turn. Since Lord Young left office there have been many other failed Secretaries of State in the Department of Trade and Industry, but all have continued to look for ways to dispose of that valuable asset regardless of the impact that that would have on the local economy in Scotland and on British engineering.
In the past two years, more than 200 members of staff at the laboratory have been disposed of and the question whether it can be commercially viable now arises. Some of those who are no longer with the laboratory were the brightest and best among engineering research scientists in Britain today. They were disposed of because it was decided that there had to be a cut in that area. The laboratory is now fighting for its survival against a hostile Government who want it to achieve 70 per cent. to 80 per cent. funding from commercial contracts by 1995, compared with 20 per cent. funding from that source now.
The Secretary of State says that the Government have a great commitment towards research and development, but that example alone tells me otherwise. They have put a major resource at risk on the basis of the Secretary of State's dogmatic approach, resulting in the disposal of some key scientists. What happened and is continuing to happen at that establishment is indicative of the Government-created malaise which now afflicts the majority of manufacturing research and development and broader scientific research in Britain.
I know of no British scientist, eminent or otherwise, who is not outraged by the rapid decline in state support in this area. The weight of opinion is against the Secretary of State. It is not a case of bandying around statistics; this is what the practitioners in the field are saying is happening to their area of research. It is not just our domestic scientists who are saying that; scientists from countries with whom we collaborate and against whom we compete in international markets are amazed at the way in which the first-class reputation of British science has been steadily eroded.

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I will not quote the figures that I had intended to give to show the decline in research and development. Instead, I will quote from a press release from the Royal Society dated 8 January 1991, to which I was not allowed to refer in an intervention. That is a prominent body, not one to come to its conclusions lightly or even to make mistakes in its calculations. The press release is headed:
"Royal Society launches major enquiry into UK science policy".
That seems to show some concern in that area. I shall not quote it all, but it says:
"Over the last 10–15 years there have been major structural changes in the conduct of and framework for scientific research in the UK. Some of these changes have been unintended results of policies implemented for other purposes and are having serious consequences for the health of UK research. Examples of structural changes include the following:
The proportion of general national expenditure on R and D financed by Government sources dropped from 50 per cent. in 1983 to 37 per cent. in 1988;
Government expenditure on the Science Base has declined steadily from 0·35 per cent. of GDP in 1981 to 0·28 per cent. now".
That is significantly different from what the Secretary of State was saying. Does he repudiate the Royal Society's figures? With regard to the health of our educational establishments, the Royal Society goes on to say:
"1,200 permanent science and engineering posts in universities have been lost since 1979".
That does not seem to me to show the healthy state of our scientific community. I would be interested to hear the Minister's reaction to that when he replies.
At a time of recession, when one needs to find a way out of the problems that the economy faces, it is scarcely credible that there should be a massive cut of £28·5 million in real terms in pure science. One of the bleakest pieces of evidence of cuts that I have seen is that by 1993–94 the United Kingdom will be spending less in real terms on the work of all five United Kingdom research councils than in 1990–91. That is happening at a time when we should be spending more to compete in a highly competitive world.
It is because of all those points, which have been highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), that the scientific community is now in a state of ferment. We should remember also that these scientists are not motivated by political point scoring. They are reluctantly coming forward to politicians to ask them to argue their case. They are not used to it. I was telephoned the other night by a professor asking me to sign an EDM. I thought that he knew what an early-day motion was, but he did not. He is a professor of pure science. I gave him the background. That shows how remote scientists are from what happens here. They think that if they talk to a Member of Parliament and ask him to sign a statement, the Government will respond. I had to tell him otherwise. Perhaps I was able to educate that professor. Scientists are not motivated by political point scoring against the Government, but they know what is happening in research and development establishments and in universities.
It is probable that the nuclear structure facility at Daresbury will be closed. I see the hon. Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Butler), whose constituency it is in. I will listen with interest to what he says in the debate, and I shall be even more interested to see which Division Lobby he goes into at the end of the debate.
Debates here may be hot-tempered, but the nuclear facility has been described by Claude Detraz, chairman of
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the Associated Committee for Nuclear Physics at the European Science Foundation, as "world class". He goes on to say of those working at Daresbury:
"In their selected field of activity UK scientists have gained recognised leadership."
The New Scientist of 2 February 1991—again, an independent publication—states:
"At a time when nuclear physics in Britain is acknowledged as an internationally successful area of research, the country will soon find itself with fewer nuclear physicists than Iraq. What is going on?"
What, indeed, is going on? When British scientists develop into world-class performers like those at Daresbury, what is their reward? The Government have told them that there will be reduced funding, and have left the scientific community to get on with implementing cuts. The scientific community is being left to make the harsh decisions. That is being done against a background of no proper consultation and no proper inquiry into what is happening in the scientific community. That is why the Royal Society has had to undertake the role.
The Secretary of State said that the debate had been generated because of excitement which had been whipped up unnecessarily. Before the debate was arranged, I was approached by Dr. Jim Kellie, whom I had never met before, a nuclear physicist who lives in my constituency. He passed to me a copy of a letter from Sir Mark Richmond, chairman of the Science and Engineering Research Council. Sir Mark said:
"I fully recognise that the nuclear science facility acts as a focus for much of the nuclear structure physics programme.
Its closure will reduce substantially SERC's support for the subject, but not remove it completely. We are under considerable pressure as a result of recent Government decisions on funding and it is, I am afraid, inevitable that some areas of science will be hard hit."
That letter was from the chairman of SERC itself, again someone who is not involved in the political to-ing and fro-ing of the House, but a cold dispassionate scientist who is concerned about what is happening in the world in which he is a professional. What he says is at variance with everything that the Secretary of State said.
The Secretary of State mentioned the Eurogam programme. In preparing for the debate, I found it interesting to note that the Eurogam programme is one year ahead of anything else, certainly in the USA. That means that British nuclear scientists are leading the field in a key area of nuclear research. The photon tagger, which is also linked with the nuclear debate, was developed arid built by Glasgow and Edinburgh universities. Again that is developmental work at the very forefront of world research.
If those facilities are closed down or put at risk, two things will follow. First, the highly talented British scientists who are currently working in the facilities will see their years of hard work destroyed at a stroke; that will inevitably lead to them going abroad to continue their research, and we shall lose talented scientists. Secondly, it will mean that the culture of pure science at British establishments, the excitement among young scientists and the energy that they put into the years of work to produce results for the good of the nation will be lost. When we lose talented people and projects in that way, no young, bright scientists will come forward in the future. We can turn them out of our universities by the thousand, but if there is no work for them, they will go abroad.
Mr. Phillip Oppenheim: Hurry up.
Mr. Ingram: The hon. Member shouts from a sedentary position, but I intend to debate in my own time. If the hon. Member has a point to make, let him make it.
The overall effects of the cuts, not just in the programmes that I have mentioned, will mean that in years ahead Britain will be without trained nuclear scientists, at a time when we need more trained personnel because of the demands of decommissioning nuclear power stations and because of environmental studies.
The savings being made now may be written off as small beer by the Secretary of State, but they will cost us dear in the future. There is nothing sensible or constructive about the Government's policy on British science and research and development. At best it is a Luddite policy of the worst sort. It has become sadly apparent what the Prime Minister meant when he talked about a classless society. The message from the decisions on science to the young scientists in the classrooms of Britain today is that there is no point in going to class because in the long run their talent will no longer be needed.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Time is getting very short, and many hon. Members wish to speak.
8.47 pm
Sir Ian Lloyd: Everyone realises that we are under great pressure. We are grateful to the Opposition for making time for the debate. I regret very much that there has not been a full-scale debate on the subject for six years, but my perspective goes back further. When the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) talked about resource allocation in the sense of a relationship between expenditure on science and science policy and the immediate consequences, he was starting at the beginning of the 1980s; he said that the consequences were felt almost immediately in that decade. With that I disagree.
It is important to note that we are looking at a much more fundamental and much longer-scale relationship, especially between the work in pure science and the subsequent benefit to society. We should consider a period of 15 to 20 years. It is for that very reason that, generally speaking, when we get into these debates we tend to get locked into statistical argument and inevitably pick up the language of those who write to us and properly protest.
Of course, as the Secretary of State said, we are not a nation in scientific decline. If any of us thought that, we probably would not be here and we would be taking a much more serious view of the whole thing. What are the questions we should be asking ourselves?
Mr. Ernie Ross: Is this a joke?
Sir Ian Lloyd: Does the hon. Gentleman wish to intervene?
Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman said that if science was in decline we would all be elsewhere. Surely we would be here, bringing it to people's attention.
Sir Ian Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman has misinterpreted me. We would certainly be taking it far more seriously than we are. We would be here much more often and we would be taking evidence from a much wider spectrum of opinion.
We are not talking about total funding or about the national division between total expenditure on research
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and total expenditure on development. We are not discussing the structural division between the public and private sectors or about the divisions even within each sector. These are immensely important topics. Where should fundamental science be done? In a world in which what is described as big science is unavoidably international, how much should be done, in which fields, and who should pay? How should the burden fall, and how should adjustments be made?
Many legitimate differences of opinion are possible. Statistics inevitably envelop most arguments, and they are neither conclusive nor dispensable—but they are often revealing. However, it would be unfortunate to adopt the view that such discussion, because it is difficult, should become increasingly confidential. I also regret that the 1990 report of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils has not been made available, because that published in 1989 was of immense value.
The statistics are not encouraging. There is profound and widespread concern in the scientific community that is greater than any I have experienced since I first entered the House. That concern has existed for many years, and has been gravely aggravated by inflation—particularly that affecting the price of new and expensive highly technical equipment. The identifiable problems will be alleviated, but not solved by higher funding alone. That is a necessary but not a sufficient condition.
When I last spoke on this subject, I ended with the word "priorities". The latest analysis of public expenditure figures for 1993–94, which was published yesterday or the day before, shows for the first time the extremely interesting figures for expenditure per head.
Total Government expenditure per head of the population in 1989–90 was the large sum of £2,431. Of that, research and development on defence accounted for £45; education and science, £33; Department of Trade and Industry, £7; energy, £3; and others, £5—making a total of £93, leaving £2,338 remaining. Of that sum, no less than £1,426 was spent on health and social security—£513 on the former, and £913 on the latter; £361 on education; and £551 on other areas.
Those figures inject a degree of perspective, as they reveal also that we spend £257 million on the running costs of leisure centres. That kind of imbalance is seldom discussed in the House. That sum is equal to £4·5 gross per head of the population, and £2·5 net. The Science and Engineering Research Council deficit this year of £8 million is equal to 0·39p per head of the population. If the figure is £14 million next year, that will be equal to 0·69p. That figure is seldom related to, and weighed in the balance against, the £2,431 of total expenditure per head of the population. Only debates of the kind that have not been held for six years, particularly in respect of science funding, can reveal such disparities.
It is no use trying to apportion blame without taking a longer perspective. We should ask ourselves what is the critical path analysis of recovery from now until the year 2005, what policies are required, and what should be the distribution of expenditure. Those questions cannot be answered without a great deal of work and analysis, although we may make guesses.
However, we can identify the critical path analysis arrived at by Japan for the years 1960 to 1965, which yielded that country's dominance today. I use that word advisedly, having read two reports from the British embassy in Tokyo, which undoubtedly confirm; that

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judgment. Could we have emulated the Japanese? I have no doubt that we could have done so—but, both then and now, the answers would be different. However, Germany, Japan and the United States are not weakening their basic science.
Whatever we do, we must identify and support the critical path network for research and development in the United Kingdom, which involves taking a forward perspective—however difficult that may be—of at least 15 or 20 years. If that were done, right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House could try to agree a common basis and set of objectives. As the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) said, we must create greater public awareness of the relationship between today's education and science and tomorrow's fundamental science, for the standard of living that will exist in 2010 will clearly depend on its application.
The Overseas Technical Information Service summary of the Japanese "White Paper on Science and Technology 1990" makes several significant comments:
"Supported by scientific and technological development, Japan has matured into an economic giant that produces 14 per cent. of the world's GNP. In recent years, the people's consciousness has been transformed in the midst of this economic prosperity, and they now wish to live their lives in comfort and fulfilment … Rather than analysing the contribution which science and technology make to economic growth, the paper considers their roles from the standpoint of ordinary people, and attempts to show how science and technology contribute to the creation of a satisfying life based upon comfort and fulfilment".
That philosophy is increasingly reflected in so much that is coming not only from Japan but from elsewhere.
Right hon. and hon. Members who visited the extraordinary exhibition staged by Hitachi in London a couple of weeks ago found that philosophy clearly stated in the documentation available at that event. Hitachi alone spends £2·7 billion on research and development, and employs 16,000 people at 33 research and development establishments worldwide. That development certainly has taken place within my lifetime, and probably within the past 20 to 25 years.
We must give priority to a policy of defining the critical path and following it, backed by all the resources and political will that we can muster.
I shall make one more contribution towards perspective in this debate because from time to time it is helpful to discover that our situation is not unique to the present time. In 1855, Newton's biographer, Sir David Brewster, said:
"It is from the trenches of science alone that war can be successfully waged and it is in its patronage and liberal endowment that nations will find their best and cheapest defence."
That was 150 years ago, and it is certainly as true today as it was then. He dedicated the volume to His Royal Highness Prince Albert with these words:
"whose views, were they seconded, by statesmen willing to extend education and advance science, would raise our country to a higher rank than it now holds."
I do not know what a similar biographer would say today, but I have an idea that, if he viewed the spectrum of argument and information that have been put before us, he would reach a similar conclusion.
8.59 pm
Mr. Doug Hoyle: I shall be as brief as possible, because I realise that many other hon. Members wish to speak. The hon. Member for
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Warrington, South (Mr. Butler) also wishes to make a contribution because, like me, he wants to bat not only for Warrington but for Britain and world science.
I must pay tribute to the contribution made by the hon. Member for Havant (Sir I. Lloyd), who is an esteemed Member of the House, and is knowledgeable about his subject. I contrast his style and knowledge with the stance of the Secretary of State in the debate. I know that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is new to his office, but we have often clashed when he has held other offices.
Naturally, I wish to mention the Daresbury laboratory, because it is important to Warrington and to world science. The Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts, in its report, called upon the Government to ensure that our scientific endeavours became international in character. The report pointed out that there was a need for Britain
"to develop and strengthen her international links in order to retain her place in world science."
The report also outlined some of the major weaknesses in British science, describing them as
"areas in which a concerted Government response is essential if Britain is to face the challenge of Europe."
Unfortunately, despite the Secretary of State's soothing words, we appear to be going in the opposite direction. That is why I welcome this debate, as did so many hon. Members before me. Although the Secretary of State pointed out that Daresbury has about two years to go, the sword of Damocles is hanging over it.
Daresbury is the only experimental nuclear physics facility in the United Kingdom, and there is no doubt that it conducts research of the highest international standard. It is a world leader in its field, and operates one of the most successful particle accelerators. In addition, the laboratory has contributed to many important collaborative ventures. By any standards, the nuclear structure facilities at Daresbury are of world class. Scientists abroad regard it as the "jewel in the crown" of the Science and Engineering Research Council, and have written to me on the subject.
The only way to give the facility a long-term future, and to save it, is to put in more funds. Yet all that I have described is to be sacrificed for the paltry sum of £8 million, which is unbelievable to people abroad and to the many people who have written to the centre. I have a large number of their letters here tonight. They do not come only from people in this country but from Japan, America, Germany and France. In all the letters that have poured in, they have said that they could not understand why the Government are doing this to a facility which is world-renowned—nor can I, and nor can the people who work at Daresbury.
There is not merely the question of the direct effect upon the 150 people who work there, many of whom live in my constituency. The indirect effects must be considered too. Even at this late stage, can we remove that sword of Damocles? Having listened to the Secretary of State tonight, I am not comforted. Indeed, leaving the present Government in charge of scientific research is like leaving Dracula in charge of a ward full of anaemics, and then wondering why they do not recover.
Mr. Oppenheim: The hon. Gentleman had better persuade his union sponsors to employ a new script writer.
Mr. Hoyle: I take no notice of the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Mr. Oppenheim), the Secretary of State's Parliamentary Private Secretary. He is trivial at all times; triviality is second nature to him.
Let me tell the Secretary of State that, instead of leaving a fertile plain on which plants can grow high, he is creating a desert on which little now grows and on which, if he continues with his present course, nothing will grow in the future.
9.5 pm
Mr. Chris Butler: Next week, the more romantic of us will be tempted to say it with flowers. If the beloved lives abroad, Interflora may oblige; the problem is that, given what the pound sterling can buy when translated, a fabulous spray can become a rather disappointing pot plant. The trouble is that the pound sterling is first translated into an international currency, the fleurin, which is based on the Swiss franc. What the pound sterling can buy here often loses in purchasing power abroad because of the relationship with the Swiss franc.
We are now confronting exactly the same problem with regard to nuclear physics. The £60 million-a-year contribution that we make to CERN is related to the Swiss franc and to Swiss inflation; that means an unexpected contribution to CERN of an extra £10 million this year. Two thirds of the £90 million SERC budget for nuclear physics already goes to CERN, while an extra £20 million goes to support individual CERN scientists, leaving only £9 million or £10 million for the nuclear structure facility at Daresbury, which, as we have already heard, is under threat.
I make a direct connection between the threat to the nuclear structure facility and the overbudget on CERN. It appears that the nuclear structure facility may be sacrificed because of that extra contribution, to which I gather that the press release mentioned by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) also referred. The Daresbury structure is being nibbled away for the sake of big science abroad, with big budgets being spent to achieve limited results—in contrast to the excellent results being achieved at Daresbury.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), the former Prime Minister, visited Daresbury only last July; I was with her. She said that she was most impressed and later wrote:
"It was clear that the Laboratory is at the frontiers of research in several fundamental areas, and I do hope that this will receive the international recognition it deserves."
Dr. Akito Arima, president of the university of Tokyo, wrote that Daresbury was
"the most important center for nuclear physics in the world".
The United Kingdom is the world leader at present, but it will not be able to maintain that status if the facility is destroyed and if we no longer produce philosophy doctorates in the subject. If the facility closes, a number of postgraduates will lose their PhDs as it is—at least nine from Birmingham university alone. Deleting nuclear physics is not the act of a Government who are committed to the future of science in this country.
The Conservative-dominated Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts has said:
"The UK is undoubtedly disadvantaged by the amount of funding devoted to scientific research. On the basis of
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Government funded civil R and D as a percentage of GDP, the UK is not as well funded as Italy, France, Sweden, or Germany".
That may seem pretty damn silly to the Secretary of State, but it strikes me as pretty damn telling.
The Advisory Board for the Research Councils wrote to my right hon. and learned Friend on 18 December. I seem to have come across the letter; perhaps it fell off the back of a lorry. The letter says:
"The proportion of the nation's wealth deployed through the science budget will have declined by 15 per cent. between 1981 and 1994.… This will make it difficult to sustain scientific excellence.… These cutbacks … widen the disparity with research budgets in other advanced countries."
I am not necessarily suggesting that my right hon. and learned Friend will be able to produce millions of pounds out of a hat in order to re-establish our credentials in the science world or to save the nuclear structure facility. However, it is unfair that SERC should have to bear the whole cost of undoing problems that are not of its own making. It is unfair that the nuclear structure facility should be given the chop on the basis of rising costs when its own costs have been declining.
CERN appears to be sacrosanct and ring-fenced, whereas the rest of the science budget needs to be ring-fenced from CERN. There is a precedent for this. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) knows well, the British Library, because of its voracious nature, was ring-fenced from the rest of the arts budget. It kept eating into the arts budget. That ring-fencing was probably done against Treasury resistance, and I am sure that the Treasury would not be keen on ring-fencing CERN. Nevertheless, I have three possible lifelines for my right hon. and learned Friend, and I hope that he will accept one of them.
First, the CERN budget could be renegotiated. The Foreign Office is understandably reluctant to do that. After all, it might offend our European partners—though I cannot imagine why such sensitivity should be shown so recently after such disunity on the European political front. I could understand a modicum of embarrassment on the part of the officials having to renegotiate. After all, it would imply an element of carelessness in failure to solve the root problem at the previous stage of renegotiation. Thus, to save the face of officials, the NSF is about to be sacrificed. There are snags in this course. First, it will undermine our reputation as a reliable scientific collaborator. Secondly, CERN's problems will only re-emerge. I understand that it is planning to spend an extra £0·5 billion on a big new facility in Switzerland. What will next be sacrificed on the altar of the massive "Z" bosom of CERN? Will it be the rest of Daresbury? Will it be the astronomy budget? In my view, procrastination is not a viable option.
Secondly, the Government could renegotiate the host contribution to CERN. I understand that the hosts make a profit six times greater than their contribution to CERN. Of course, the savings from such a renegotiation would be uncertain, and they might come only in the medium term, but the savings from closing the NSF would also only come in the medium term because of the massive redundancy costs involved. I should like to hear from the Secretary of State a pledge that he is prepared to renegotiate the host country's contribution.
Thirdly—and perhaps most important—my right hon. and learned Friend could draw down on the aptly named flexibility margin, the ABRC's back pocket. In 1992–93

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and in 1993–94 the ABRC has put 2 per cent. more than usual in its back pocket. If it were to bring that back to its normal 2 per cent. flexibility margin it would have vast amounts of money—enough money to save the NSF and probably to remove the other areas of pressure in the science budget at the moment. The back pocket amount for 1992–93 is £39 million, and the amount for 1993–94 is £60 million.
It is odd to quote the arm's-length principle in response to this argument. After all, the demise of the NSF, if it comes about, will be the result of Government policy. There will be precious little use in quoting the arm's-length policy to a drowning man.
I have mentioned three lifelines for the NSF and the science budget. I trust that my right hon. and learned Friend will pick up one of them and throw it to them rather than remain aloof.
9.14 pm
Mr. Alex Carlile: There is more to this important subject than an argument about taxpayers' money. We must recognise that the Government cannot give the scientific community a blank cheque and that the public spending implications must be realistically borne in mind. It is entirely reasonable to expect industry and commerce to fund a considerable proportion of research, and not necessarily only in the sphere of applied science, upon which industrial money tends to be concentrated in the universities at present.
There are some companies in the United Kingdom with a notable record on carrying out even blue-sky research. They have often benefited from it, as we see from the register of patents worldwide. Remarkable in that is the pharmaceutical industry. The statistics reveal that it invests about £1 billion per annum on research and development. That is a significant and productive sum. It is an example to the rest of British industry, and it is right to say in a debate such as this that the part which does not invest to any significant extent in research and development should consider sponsoring scientific study to a much greater degree. The industrial sponsoring and support of research falls far short of what is now a well-established tradition in the United States of America. There, corporate involvement, particularly in the work of advanced science and engineering laboratories, is well established.
However, there is an important, perhaps dominant place for Government funding. The support given by the Government to science and technology should be proportional to the need perceived and the potential advantage that can be obtained. The raw fact that Italy, France, Sweden and Germany—countries with a way of life and an infrastructure strikingly similar to our own—support scientific research at a level in real terms up to 50 per cent. more than the United Kingdom does not tell the story fully without considering need and achievement.
Fortunately, in terms of need, the Government have had the wisdom to perceive that there is a serious deficit in science education and training. Unfortunately, with an equal and opposite lack of perception, they have failed to take the steps required to meet that need and to fill the deficit. Many examples can be given. There is not time to list them all in the debate, but one striking example can be found in the considerable, continuing and miserable shortage of good quality science teachers. In the interests
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of brevity, I shall make but one point which shows that to be the case and demonstrates the failure of Government policy towards science education.
The Government's bursary scheme, which attempts to lure people into teaching as a second career, has failed already. Taking physics, chemistry and biology together, one would have expected the bursary scheme to be showing an increase in the number of applicants for places on courses in those subjects for the postgraduate certificate in education, but that has not happened. In 1989 there were 898 applicants for those places; in 1990 it was down to 840 and in 1991 it was down to 822. So, despite the bursary scheme, we are producing fewer science teachers. We may be producing many science graduates, but the Secretary of State should visit Lloyd's, the stock exchange, accountancy firms or the non-scientific parts of the Civil Service, the tax inspectorate or the factory inspectorate. He will find plenty of people with science degrees there because those jobs pay better than teaching science in schools.[Interruption.] I do not know why the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) thinks that this is a funny subject. Perhaps she has not looked at the statistics.
As one looks at secondary schools, it is obvious that there is still a crying need for further measures to be taken to introduce into the education system for the first time—the problems are not just the fault of this Government—a quality and quantum of teaching that would meet the need. This is not a problem that one would see in anything like the same way in the colleges or lyceés of France or the gymnasiums of Germany, where we would find a much higher level of achievement in bringing people from business and the professions into science teaching than there is currently any sign of achieving here.
Before we can ask the Government to fund British scientific research, we must ask whether it is worth funding. On the basis of the evidence, the answer must be that of course it is, and it is worth funding on the evidence of achievement and potential achievement more extensively than is so at present.
We have heard much about Daresbury. I emphasise that the hon. Members for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) and for Warrington, South (Mr. Butler) were right about the potential damage to the United Kingdom's reputation as a country of scientific excellence if the effect of changes in the funding of the Science and Engineering Research Council means that Daresbury has to close.
Professor Detraz was mentioned earlier. In his comments to Sir Mark Richmond, he said:
"All members of NuPECC were amazed and horrified to learn of a proposal by SERC to remove much of its funding for Nuclear Physics. This would close the world-class SERC facility at Daresbury, and renege on its formal agreement".
That is quite an accusation to make against the Government and the British scientific community, but it is justified and true.
The hon. Member for Warrington, South spoke of the effect that that will have on young PhD postgraduate students, not only at Birmingham university, which he mentioned, but at other United Kingdom universities. The effect is obvious. There are jobs elsewhere for them and the brightest and best will leave the United Kingdom. Brilliant young British scientists are working at universities in the United States, and some in universities of the European Community, not only because jobs are available for them but because the effect of decisions such as that taken in

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relation to Daresbury is to undermine the confidence of young scientists in this country. It will undermine the confidence not only of those whose PhD theses are based on what is happening at Daresbury but of PhD students in other scientific disciplines, particularly the expensive ones, who may have a great contribution to make but feel that it can be made more securely elsewhere.
In a spirit of realism, I recognise that SERC can be criticised for over-optimism in the past. Whether that is a fair criticism is another matter. There are three major influences other than overheating based on optimism. The first is international subscriptions. As we heard the effect of those from the hon. Member for Warrington, South, I shall not repeat him. The second is a factor which should be borne in mind but has not been mentioned—the gap between agreed university salary settlements and SERC's agreed public expenditure outcome. I understand that every 1 per cent. of university salaries costs SERC £1 million for the year. This has not been taken sufficiently into account. The third influence is the poor public expenditure outcome. Bearing in mind the other factors, it is impossible to plan international science with a see-sawing public expenditure outcome: £12 million this year, on a budget of £450 million, and £35 million last year —it speaks for itself.
Annuality is causing disease for SERC. Annuality means that it is inevitable that it will be less efficient than it could be and that science has a less than happy future. For SERC, some form of indexation is needed just to enable scientific research in this country to run hard to stand still.
The advice that the Secretary of State has received must have been along the lines of the Yugoslav proverb: situation desperate, not serious. It is high time that Ministers realised that for scientific research in this country the situation is now both desperate and serious, and that proper funding should be given to it.
9.24 pm
Mr. Spencer Batiste: I am grateful to you for calling me to speak in this debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and as time is short, I shall be brief.
First, I must declare an interest in the sense that for most of my working career as a lawyer I have represented a university. Although I no longer practise as such, my law firm represents a number of higher education institutions.
The debate arises on an Opposition motion which is absolutely typical of just about every Opposition motion we have ever heard on education in recent years. It starts with an attack on the Government for not spending enough money, follows up with an implication—I use the word advisedly—that the Labour party would spend more if it were in government and had a chance to do so, and rapidly avoids taking any line on any of the hard decisions which must be made, if one accepts that there is a limited overall budget for science and education, as for most other subjects.
Most people who have attended this debate will accept, as I accept readily, that there are a number of important areas of public expenditure that could usefully use more or less whatever sums of money are made available to them. The national health service is one, to which I would add science and research. As knowledge is infinite, so the sums
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that one can spend on pursuing research are infinite. The reality is that we must judge priorities. A great deal of this debate has been about how to select priorities.
I would not want politicians to have to determine those priorities on a detailed basis. The only way to make the difficult judgments between one person's work and that of another and between one area of research and another is by peer group assessment. That may result in some hard decisions. It may well be that my right hon. and learned Friend will have to defend those decisions in the House, but he is absolutely right to say that, as a matter of principle, the advice that he receives should be kept confidential between him and those who advise him. It is for him to defend the judgments made based on the advice he receives.
We have some fundamental failings within the United Kingdom. It is not that the Government spends inadequately. We have had an interesting canter over the course on statistics. In reality, any objective look at the statistics between the developed countries over the past 10 years shows that the British Government spend tolerably well compared with most of their competitors. The real difference arises in the fact that the United Kingdom private sector pays significantly less than in Germany, the United States and Japan.
United States expenditure on research and development is heavily pump-primed by defence expenditure. It is not a realistic model for us to follow. The models of Japan and, to a lesser extent, Germany are relevant to us. In Japan, for every pound of Government spending on research and development there is about £6 from Japanese industry. The figure for Germany is nothing like as much, but it is still substantially more than pertains in the other developed countries.
In addressing that problem, we must consider what the Government could have done during the 1980s to redress the imbalance in the private sector and to what extent the Government have already succeeded. There are some outstanding exceptions in the private sector of British industry, some of which have been referred to, and I should not like in any way to diminish the contribution of many fine companies and many sectors of industry. But to take the figures overall, it seems that the private sector neither invests enough in research and development, nor gets enough from the publicly funded research and development in higher education institutes.
I disagree fundamentally with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile). It does not matter to me whether a science graduate teaches science, researches into science, becomes an investment banker or goes into the law. What matters is that decision makers across the board should have a far higher level of scientific awareness than happens in the United Kingdom at present.
The difficulty is that change takes a long time to feed through. Our problems of the 1980s came about as a consequence of the education reforms in the 1960s. The remedial action that the Government have taken will not begin to be felt for many years to come.
The successful implementation of the science and technology part of the national curriculum and the extraordinary growth in the participation rate in higher education is the seed corn from which a fundamental change of attitudes in the United Kingdom will occur in the future. Correlli Barnett, in his book, "The Audit of War", highlighted the way in which the United Kingdom,

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throughout the century, has become progressively committed to an anti-industrial culture. The education reforms of the past five years and the successful implementation of the national curriculum, with its emphasis on teaching science up to the age of 16, are important ingredients in changing that culture to one that is more consistent with a successful industrial and manufacturing country in the future.
The attack on the Government is misfounded. If one identifies lack of education in science and technology as one of the causes of our current problem, the efforts of the Government, in the teeth of opposition from the Labour party, to reform the curriculum so that more people learn science and technology are obviously the right steps to overcome it. Those efforts have achieved dramatic success in the 1980s.
It is equally important to realise that there is an enormous gold mine of technology and knowledge to be exploited in our institutes of higher education. Sadly, that knowledge is underutilised in comparison with Germany and Japan where the relationships between industries and universities are much closer than they are in the United Kingdom. In the 1980s the Government have addressed that problem—there has been an enormous growth in science parks. The British Technology Group's monopoly of publicly funded research has been abolished. Measures have been taken to encourage universities to develop their technology transfer and relationships with local industry.
I admit that the process of encouraging the utilisation of universities started from a low base in the 1980s, but, as the process continues, it will be of particular importance to the regions served by universities. In my region, Yorkshire, we are particularly well served by fine universities and polytechnics. An important part of the continuing development of local industry must be the ability of a region to regenerate its manufacturing base from the resources available to it from its higher education institutes.
I know that the debate is to conclude shortly, and so in summary I say that it is important to appreciate that the Government have maintained spending on science and technology throughout the 1980s in difficult circumstances and against competing priorities. They have done extraordinarily well in doing so even though many wish that more could be achieved—in time one hopes that it can. My right hon. and learned Friend has said that he will continue to set priorities and I hope that he ensures that they are established by the scientists themselves. I hope that he will defend vigorously the role of science in society and the importance of technology transfer because, throughout the next century, they must be the basis upon which our nation will prosper.
9.32 pm
Dr. Jeremy Bray: It would be nice if the eagerness of hon. Members on both sides of the House to speak encouraged the Government to find time, at least once every five years, for a full day's debate on science. I am afraid that that is whistling in the dark:.
Hon. Members have spoken with great knowledge, concern and in all seriousness about the plight that science is now in. I accept the points that have been made about balance between the interests of the private and public sectors and their relative roles. It is singularly perverse for Britain to be cutting its basic research and undermining
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such advantages as it once had now that everyone, except the Government, accepts that basic research is the necessary foundation for up-to-date technology.
It is our most successful companies and industries which are most insistent that the underfunding of research councils is jeopardising the country's science base on which they depend. As that base broadens, so can the range of industries that it sustains.
On the measurement of research and development, let me try again. I am not bandying phoney price indices and I understand the problem to which the Secretary of State referred of every department creating its own price indices. I ask hon. Members to read the sources and methods of the national income accounts. It is expecting too much to ask the Secretary of State to do so, but perhaps his officials might do so.
Science is measured not in tonnes like steel but in terms of scientist hours times pay. I repeat that if scientists' pay increases by no more than the average—there is no question of special rates of pay—the so-called real measure of research and development expenditure increases proportionately to GDP. So-called level funding in real terms means an actual decline in research done in scientist man years at the rate at which real GDP grows.
It seems from what the Secretary of State said that he simply has not got his mind round the problem. Perhaps his officials will try to explain it to him. Civil research and development in the United Kingdom of 1·8 per cent. of GDP compares with 1·9 per cent. in France, 2 per cent. in the United States, 2·7 per cent. in Germany and 2·9 per cent. in Japan. We are some 50 per cent. behind Japan in civil research and development, including in the private sector.
Investment, growth, profits and the balance of payments have all suffered in both the shorter and longer terms, contributing in turn, along with the neglect of research and development, to the continued decline of Britain's industrial competitiveness. If we narrow the measures down to academic and academically related research, in an absolute quagmire of statistics the only decent estimates go back as far as 1982. They are in the studies carried out for the Advisory Board for the Research Councils by Irvine and Martin.
The most comparable countries are France and Germany. The United Kingdom spends 0·38 per cent. of GDP on academic and academically related research, compared with 0·44 per cent. in France and 0·49 per cent. in Germany. Substantial measures must be taken to raise expenditure on research in our society to the same level as that in Germany and France, not in cash terms or even cash terms per head but in research intensity.
In his approach to the science budget, the Secretary of State has turned into a blip what scientists hoped was a trend established by the real increase in the science budget in 1989. We now have a sharp cut in real terms. I am not inventing any price indices; if the Secretary of State reads the record he will find that an amendment which I tabled to an industry Bill was the origin of the autumn statement. I would not cook figures. At 1990–91 prices, as given in the autumn statement, there was a welcome if overdue and inadequate increase in the science budget of £90 million in 1989–90. I fully admit that the Government made that increase. In the Government's definition of real terms, the budget was slightly improved in 1990–91. But there is a cut in real terms in 1991–92 of £29 million.

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The Secretary of State was disingenuous when he argued that, after cutting out capital and extraordinary items in the current year, the 1991–92 provision will preserve the real value of other items. The Secretary of State cannot suppose that there will be no capital and extraordinary items next year or in future years. He mentioned one such item in his announcement of the allocations to the research councils on 24 January. It is the construction of the clinical research laboratories for the Medical Research Council at Hammersmith. The Secretary of State cannot assume that with capital expenditure one takes it out last year but piles it in this year. That is cheating with the statistics. As we have heard from hon. Members on both sides of the House, the Science and Engineering Research Council faces an immediate crisis. To keep out of the Tower of London, the council at its meeting today made sweeping cuts across all boards. It is not only the nuclear physics board that will suffer; some of the cuts will be aimed at new projects that depend on increased resources—but they go far beyond that.
When the Secretary of State and his officials have had time carefully to read the statement of the SERC they will find that, contrary to his suggestion, there is no commitment by the SERC to run the nuclear structure facility through 1992–93 or even to honour the first stage of the UK-French agreement on the Eurogam detector. The SERC has decided to look urgently for ways to do so. There are three possible ways: diverting funding from other boards that have been severely cut; diverting flexibility allowance from other research councils that have been equally severely cut; or the Government doing as they did in a similar situation a few years ago and finding additional funds to avert a crisis that they had not anticipated when they decided the size of the science budget.
I urge the Government to make an additional £5 million available this year. When the Secretary of State sees the detailed case submitted by the SERC he will have to admit that there is no other way in which nuclear research can be sustained in this country without gravely damaging other equally important areas of research. I stress that all SERC boards are suffering in the same way as the nuclear physics board.
As a well managed funding body, the Medical Research Council reviews all its research units on a five-year cycle, ending some and starting others. But this year the MRC has to make a 15 per cent. net cut in the units reviewed —all of them doing research that is vital to human health. That is not just a short-term blip. The number of actual laboratory bench research workers in the MRC has fallen from 3,974 on 1 January 1980 to 3,533 on 1 January 1991 —an 11 per cent. cut in the lifetime of the Government. The number of research grants to universities fell from 524 in 1980 to 320 in 1990, and is planned to fall further, to 250 this year—less than half the 1980 number—and to 235 next year.
The neuro-regeneration interdisciplinary research centre at Cambridge, working on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, will not go ahead, or it will do so without a building. The diabetes centre in Newcastle will receive only a token grant. Are these the Government's
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priorities? Agricultural research has been cut by the Government because it too successfully increased productivity.
Faced with the justified concerns of the public and the Government about global climate change and its effects, the Natural Environment Research Council is having to use its scant resources to fill the most yawning gaps in our knowledge. British scientists—I concede the importance of recognising the continuing quality of British research—are making an outstanding contribution to the international research effort on the global environment, but on foreseen resources it will not be possible to make climate forecasts before the year 2010, in 20 years' time.
We can argue with the Government about whether we should stabilise carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2000 or 2005, as the Government want, but can they seriously argue that we should wait until 2010 to forecast the effect of these emissions on the global climate? Should we make such massive resource shifts as are required to cut carbon dioxide emissions in unnecessary ignorance of their likely effects? Britain must give a lead in telescoping the necessary international efforts. We need not pay more than our share. In international science programmes generally, we pick up in work far more than we pay out. But the observation, analytical and modelling systems needed to produce global climate forecasts can and should be operational by 2000 in half the planned time.
lso on the global environment, in the most difficult area of all, the Economic and Social Research Council had put forward a major programme on social and economic aspects of climate change. The interagency committee, gathering together all the research councils and the relevant Government Departments, is urging the importance of this field. However, the Economic and Social Research Council is able to make only a very modest start. To do that, it is having to cut drastically the quasi-executive servicing that it provides to Government Departments. That demonstrates perhaps the greatest weakness in the Government's science policy, but it is divorced from Government policy generally.
The independence and integrity of scientific research are the foundation stones on which the progress of science depends. It is a grotesque distortion to use that as an excuse for ignoring scientific advice, refusing to publish it, abusing scientists for the supposed irrelevance of their work and depriving them of the resources that they need to do their job.
The European Community research programmes and the co-ordination of our science policies with those of our European partners are of increasing importance. I wish that the House could have found time today to debate the policies that we have put forward. Those are the boost to industrial research and development; the increased incentives to the private sector to increase its effort; the diversity of sources of funding needed for basic research; the wider access by polytechnics as well as universities to research funds; the co-ordination of science policy across Departments; and the organisation of wholly independent advice to Government and to Parliament, which the Government cannot suborn, on scientific issues of major public importance.
The straits to which the Government have reduced Britain's scientific endeavour mean that the debate has had to concentrate on the immediate plight of scientific

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research. I hope that the Government will think again, and think more clearly, about just what they are doing to British science and to the future of the country.
9.46 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Alan Howarth): Like other hon. Members, I welcome the opportunity to debate such extremely important issues as the place of scientific research in our national life, the relative responsibilities that fall to Government arid the private sector, and the distribution of responsibilities in our society.
We have heard a great deal of special pleading, a certain amount of sloganising, and much discussion about. the percentage of GDP which might appropriately be devoted to expenditure on science. The percentage of GDP is the latest current slogan, because it is occasionally found convenient to select statistics which seem to be helpful in supporting the case that the scientific community and those who seek to champion it naturally wish to make in support of more support for science. We all want to see such support.
It is a remarkably arbitrary measure and there is no logic or merit in selecting a particular percentage of GDP. When one looks at what takes place in different societies, one finds that widely varying percentages of GDP are applied to scientific research. The German Government spend a rather larger proportion of public money on civil research and development as a percentage of GDP, but in recent years they have been reducing that percentage. The French have been increasing it. By way of public expenditure, those countries deploy a rather larger proportion of GDP on scientific research than the United Kingdom. The USA and Japan deploy a smaller percentage, but are the most powerful economies in the world. The United States is indisputably the world's leading centre for creative research and the capacity of the Japanese for applied research and technology transfer is, as we all know, formidable.
The Government strategy has been to reduce public expenditure as a proportion of GDP for the justified reason that that way provides the opportunity to liberate resources into creative activity in the private sector, not least in support of science. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) was right to draw attention to the importance of the private sector pulling its weight and making the contribution that it ought to our science effort.
Had the Government not had that policy of redefining the respective roles of the various parties and the Government's responsibility, we should be heading towards a much smaller overall sum for creative and worthwhile scientific endeavour than otherwise would be the case. In particular, the strategic withdrawal from near-market research was self-evidently a sensible move. It cannot make sense for the Government to devote public funding to research with a foreseeable potential for commercial application at the price of supporting the basic research projects of which the Government will be the major supporter.
The strategies that we have initiated, and the policies from the DTI to promote investment and encourage industry to invest in applied research and take up its responsibility in near-market research are all the right things to have done. We created a tax regime that gives
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industry incentives such as the scientific research allowance, which gives 100 per cent. in the first year and makes it attractive and sensible for industry to invest in research. All that is pointing us in the right direction.
Our strategies have enabled the Government to increase their support for basic research, which is inescapably our responsibility and where we have to be the major supporter and champion. As Opposition Members know, the Government have made important real terms increases in funding for basic research of some 23 per cent. over the lifetime of the Government. As the strength of the economy developed, we saw the priority to enhance support of basic research as extremely important. Two years ago, in one year we were able to increase by 8 per cent. in real terms our support for basic research. We are now holding steady at that level and the prospect is that we shall continue to do so. I look forward to a time when the continuing development and improvement of the economy will enable us to improve that position.
I take the point made by some hon. Members about discontinuity of funding. I appreciate that planning is not easy against the background of inflation and against the imperative need to contain expenditure and to match expenditure against resources. That has not proved easy for the research councils. Some have been more successful in that task than others. However, they must accept the responsibility to live within their budgets. As has been acknowledged, part of the difficulty for the SERC in particular derives from the fact that it took a somewhat optimistic view of what might be available to it.
Mr. Geoffrey Robinson: The Minister knows that many hon. Members on both sides of the House are concerned about the SERC. There must have been some breakdown or inadequacy in the financial control and planning to have allowed this crisis, which is none of the chairman's making, to develop so suddenly. The crisis involves more than Daresbury, although I stand second to none in my appreciation of that fine institution. It involves institutes closer to my heart in the west midlands, such as the ACME Directorate and the information technology programme. Funding for all of these will be cut so badly that they will not be able to recover because planning will be impossible. Is there not a case for a set of measures to see us through this unfortunate development so that it can be sorted out and will not happen again?
Mr. Howarth: Once again, the Labour party is reacting to difficulties by simply saying that we should somehow conjure up more public expenditure. The hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) invited us to find £5 million and another hon. Member asked for £8 million. We wish to make available the best resources that we can and that is what we have done, but it would not be in the interests of British science if we were simply to make concessions and start handing out additional funding across the board. If we were to do that, we would rapidly find that our control of public finances had collapsed. The prospects then for real terms funding for science would be grave. It is indispensable to live within budgets.
Dr. Bray: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Howarth: No, I do not have much time.

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Amid all the gloom and doom and the apocalyptic visions of Labour Members, let us keep the matter in perspective. Sir Mark Richmond, in his announcement this evening, says:
"it is important to remember that the great majority of our programme remains in place. It is all of excellent quality."
I missed hearing from Opposition Members any generous appreciation of the real and major achievements of British science on which my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State expounded in the earlier part of his speech.
My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Butler) and the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) have made eloquent, lucid and strongly felt representations on behalf of their constituents and on behalf of the science that takes place near Warrington at Daresbury.
I recognise the difficulties that are faced at Daresbury. I recognise the anxieties of the scientists there not only in respect of the future of their scientific work but in terms of their job prospects and their families. That underlines the fact that it is difficult and painful to make choices, and we should pay tribute to the courage of those who are making the decisions. It is not easy to reorient a programme.
Two processes are taking place in the consideration being undertaken by the chairman and members of the Science and Engineering Research Council. They are, rightly and properly, balancing their books, and if we do not live within our means the future for science is grim. They are also, and this is at least as difficult, reconsidering priorities within their overall programme, and that must be right. Science is changing rapidly and if we are to innovate and to make room for new developments, if, very importantly, we are to create headroom for more responsive-mode grants, for more funding of new science, new creative individual scientists and small teams, from time to time changes in the existing pattern and balance of priorities have to be made. That is not easy and I recognise that the SERC has special difficulties because it has long-established considerations—a commitment to major facilities, long-term programmes and international subscriptions.
To respond again to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South about the very large proportion of SERC funding taken by CERN, we have in a determined fashion renegotiated that subscription. If my hon. Friend studies the facts he will see that the real cost of our contribution to CERN has fallen by 23 per cent. in three years. He will see that the cost of CERN is—
Mr. Derek Foster rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 213, Noes 254.

Division No. 60]

[10 pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Adams, Mrs. Irene (Paisley, N.)

Armstrong, Hilary

Allen, Graham

Ashby, David

Alton, David

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Anderson, Donald

Ashton, Joe

382

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Henderson, Doug

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Hinchliffe, David

Barron, Kevin

Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

Battle, John

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Beckett, Margaret

Home Robertson, John

Beith, A. J.

Hood, Jimmy

Bell, Stuart

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Howells, Geraint

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

Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

Benton, Joseph

Hoyle, Doug

Bermingham, Gerald

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Bidwell, Sydney

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Blair, Tony

Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

Blunkett, David

Hughes, Simon (South wark)

Boateng, Paul

Illsley, Eric

Boyes, Roland

Ingram, Adam

Bradley, Keith

Johnston, Sir Russell

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Kirkwood, Archy

Buckley, George J.

Lambie, David

Caborn, Richard

Lamond, James

Callaghan, Jim

Leadbitter, Ted

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Leighton, Ron

Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Lewis, Terry

Canavan, Dennis

Litherland, Robert

Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

Livsey, Richard

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Clelland, David

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Loyden, Eddie

Cohen, Harry

McAllion, John

Cousins, Jim

McCartney, Ian

Cox, Tom

Macdonald, Calum A

Crowther, Stan

McFall, John

Cryer, Bob

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Cummings, John

McKelvey, William

Cunliffe, Lawrence

McLeish, Henry

Dalyell, Tam

McMaster, Gordon

Darling, Alistair

McNamara, Kevin

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

McWilliam, John

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Madden, Max

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

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Dewar, Donald

Marek, Dr John

Dixon, Don

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Dobson, Frank

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Doran, Frank

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

Duffy, A. E. P.

Martlew, Eric

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Maxton, John

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

Meacher, Michael

Eadie, Alexander

Meale, Alan

Eastham, Ken

Michael, Alun

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

Fatchett, Derek

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

Faulds, Andrew

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Morgan, Rhodri

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

Morley, Elliot

Fisher, Mark

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Flynn, Paul

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Mullin, Chris

Foster, Derek

Murphy, Paul

Foulkes, George

Nellist, Dave

Fraser, John

O'Brien, William

Fyfe, Maria

O'Hara, Edward

Garrett, John (Norwich South)

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

Parry, Robert

George, Bruce

Patchett, Terry

Golding, Mrs Llin

Pike, Peter L.

Gordon, Mildred

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Gould, Bryan

Prescott, John

Graham, Thomas

Primarolo, Dawn

Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

Quin, Ms Joyce

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Radice, Giles

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Randall, Stuart

Grocott, Bruce

Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Reid, Dr John

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Richardson, Jo

383

Robertson, George

Straw, Jack

Robinson, Geoffrey

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Rogers, Allan

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Rooker, Jeff

Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis

Rooney, Terence

Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Turner, Dennis

Rowlands, Ted

Vaz, Keith

Ruddock, Joan

Wallace, James

Sedgemore, Brian

Walley, Joan

Sheerman, Barry

Warden, Gareth (Gower)

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Wareing, Robert N.

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

Short, Clare

Williams, Rt Hon Alan

Skinner, Dennis

Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Wilson, Brian

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

Winnick, David

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

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

Worthington, Tony

Snape, Peter

Wray, Jimmy

Soley, Clive

Spearing, Nigel

Tellers for the Ayes:

Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

Mr. Frank Haynes and Mr. Thomas McAvoy.

Steinberg, Gerry

Stott, Roger

NOES

Adley, Robert

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Aitken, Jonathan

Cope, Rt Hon John

Alexander, Richard

Cormack, Patrick

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Couchman, James

Allason, Rupert

Cran, James

Amos, Alan

Critchley, Julian

Arbuthnot, James

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Arnold, Sir Thomas

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

Ashby, David

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Aspinwall, Jack

Day, Stephen

Atkins, Robert

Devlin, Tim

Atkinson, David

Dickens, Geoffrey

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Dorrell, Stephen

Baldry, Tony

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Dover, Den

Batiste, Spencer

Durant, Sir Anthony

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Dykes, Hugh

Bellingham, Henry

Eggar, Tim

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Emery, Sir Peter

Benyon, W.

Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

Bevan, David Gilroy

Evennett, David

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Fallon, Michael

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Favell, Tony

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Body, Sir Richard

Fishburn, John Dudley

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Fookes, Dame Janet

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Forman, Nigel

Boswell, Tim

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Bottomley, Peter

Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Franks, Cecil

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Freeman, Roger

Bowis, John

French, Douglas

Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

Fry, Peter

Brazier, Julian

Gale, Roger

Bright, Graham

Gardiner, Sir George

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Gill, Christopher

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

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Browne, John (Winchester)

Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Buck, Sir Antony

Goodlad, Alastair

Burns, Simon

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Butterfill, John

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Carrington, Matthew

Gregory, Conal

Carttiss, Michael

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Cash, William

Grist, Ian

Chapman, Sydney

Ground, Patrick

Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

Grylls, Michael

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

Hague, William

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Conway, Derek

Hampson, Dr Keith

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

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

384

Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

Redwood, John

Harris, David

Riddick, Graham

Hind, Kenneth

Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

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

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

Roe, Mrs Marion

Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Rost, Peter

Irvine, Michael

Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

Janman, Tim

Sackville, Hon Tom

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Sainsbury, Hon Tim

Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

Kilfedder, James

Shaw, David (Dover)

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Knapman, Roger

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Shelton, Sir William

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

Knox, David

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Lang, Rt Hon Ian

Shersby, Michael

Lawrence, Ivan

Skeet, Sir Trevor

Lee, John (Pendle)

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Speed, Keith

Lilley, Peter

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

Squire, Robin

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Stanbrook, Ivor

Lord, Michael

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Steen, Anthony

McCrindle, Sir Robert

Stern, Michael

Macfarlane, Sir Neil

Stevens, Lewis

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

McLoughlin, Patrick

Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

Sumberg, David

Malins, Humfrey

Summerson, Hugo

Mans, Keith

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Maples, John

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Marland, Paul

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Temple-Morris, Peter

Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Mates, Michael

Thorne, Neil

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Thurnham, Peter

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Tracey, Richard

Miller, Sir Hal

Tredinnick, David

Miscampbell, Norman

Trippier, David

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Trotter, Neville

Moate, Roger

Twinn, Dr Ian

Monro, Sir Hector

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Morrison, Sir Charles

Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

Moss, Malcolm

Walden, George

Neale, Sir Gerrard

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Nelson, Anthony

Waller, Gary

Neubert, Sir Michael

Ward, John

Nicholls, Patrick

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Warren, Kenneth

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Watts, John

Norris, Steve

Wells, Bowen

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Wheeler, Sir John

Oppenheim, Phillip

Whitney, Ray

Page, Richard

Widdecombe, Ann

Paice, James

Wilkinson, John

Patnick, Irvine

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

Winterton, Nicholas

Pawsey, James

Wolfson, Mark

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Woodcock, Dr. Mike

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Yeo, Tim

Porter, David (Waveney)

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Powell, William (Corby)

Price, Sir David

Tellers for the Noes:

Raffan, Keith

Mr. Timothy Kirkhope and

Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House applauds the steps being taken by the Government to sustain and improve still further the strengths and quality of science and science education in the United Kingdom; and notes in particular the successful implementation of the science, mathematics and technology components of the National Curriculum, efforts being made to increase the number of qualified science teachers, the increase in the age participation rate in higher education over the last decade from one in eight to one in five, the significant increase in the science budget since 1979, and the allocation of funds to improve our understanding of the global environment, which provide a sound base for British scientists to play a full role with their European partners, to improve the quality of life, and to underpin the technological competitiveness of British industry.
10.15 pm
Mr. Alex Carlile: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We have just finished a debate on a very important subject, which started at 7.16 pm and ended at 10 pm. That is a total of two and three quarter hours, less a minute.
I make no complaint about the time that I was able to take, although I should have liked to speak for longer. The Front-Bench spokesmen, however, took 73 minutes to open the debate and 28 to wind it up—a total of 101 minutes in a 164-minute debate.
We know, Mr. Speaker, that you protect Back Benchers' interests ferociously. In that role, you may feel that their interests are not being served when the Front-Bench spokesmen feel it necessary to take up such an extraordinary amount of time. Will you consider persuading Front Benchers to be a little more considerate about the time they consume, especially in short debates?
Mr. Speaker: Unhappily, I have no control over the length of any speeches, except on days when I am able to ask hon. Members to speak for only 10 minutes between either 6 pm and 8 pm or 7 pm and 9 pm. Nevertheless, I agree with what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said about today's debate. A number of Back Benchers who would have liked to speak were unable to do so. If they will write to me, I shall send them the extract from Hansard reporting the hon. and learned Gentleman's comments.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS (JOINT COMMITTEE)
Ordered,
That Ann Widdecombe and Mr. David Martin be discharged from the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments and that Mr. Humfrey Malins and Sir Gerrard Neale be added to the Committee.—[Mr. John M. Taylor.]

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS

  OBSTACLES TO TAKEOVERS AND COMPANY LAW
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 102(5) (Standing Committees on European Community documents),
  That this House takes note of European Community Document No. 6459/90, on obstacles to takeovers and other general bids and of the proposals described in the un-numbered Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Department of Trade and Industry on 8th March 1990 and the Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Department of Trade and Industry on 4th June 1990 for a Fifth Directive on public limited companies; and, while endorsing the Commission's decision to bring forward proposals to eliminate barriers to takeovers as an important step in the completion of the internal market, regrets that the overall effect of the Fifth Directive in its present form would be to create significant and undesirable burdens for business.—[Mr. John M. Taylor.]
  Question agreed to.

Hospice at Home Movement
Motion made, and Question proposed, That his House do now adjourn.—[Mr. John M. Taylor.]
10.17 pm
Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones (Ynys Môn): This is a welcome opportunity for me to do two things. First, I pay tribute to the men and women throughout Wales who, through their voluntary efforts, provide comfort and solace for the terminally ill: I applaud them all. Secondly, I urge the Government to recognise that more than they do now.
Facing death is the greatest trauma that we all experience. It takes great courage and strength of character, and the human spirit has tremendous reserves of both. The trauma affects not only the patient, but members of the family, arid none of us responds in the same way; but the psychological effects of terminal illness are often as great as the illness itself. The level of support that is required, in both the medical and the general sense, is enormous.
The commitment shown by so many people to the terminally ill is ample testimony to the way in which society embraces those who need the service that I am describing. I am sure that every hon. Member will have seen the remarkable way in which families are enveloped by a genuine outpouring of love and affection from their friends and relatives. Without such support, many people simply would not survive the trauma.
I have witnessed at first hand the way families seek to cope with terminal illness—indeed, not only the illness itself, but impending death—and it has had a profound effect upon me. But only those who have had the experience themselves are fully qualified to speak of its effect. My own mother cared for my father for four years. He had suffered a debilitating stroke that left him paralysed on one side and caused the loss of speech. My mother saw him gradually deteriorate in health until his passing away was only a matter of time. Although he was my father, I know that the effect on my mother was considerably greater. A fairly close family friend died 12 months ago. I know the effect that the illness and death in that case had on his young wife and young family.
It is for all these reasons that, tonight, I applaud all those who work in a voluntary capacity in the hospice movement in Wales. I am associated in a very small way with the Hospice at Home movement in Gwynedd. It was set up in 1989, and to date about £140,000 has been collected. The movement hopes to be able to appoint its first nurse in the coming spring. The public response in the county has been quite magnificent, and I take this opportunity to congratulate the organisers of the appeal and those who have made contributions.
In preparation for this debate, I was in touch with a number of other hospice movements in Wales. They have all called for Government funding and support. They include the Terminal Care Fund for the Provision of Hospice Care, in South Clwyd; the George Thomas Centre for Hospice Care, in Cardiff; the St. David Foundation, in Newport; and the Ty Olwen Continuing Care Unit, in Swansea.
The need for such facilities is obvious. In 1987, 815 out of the 3,082 deaths recorded in Gwynedd were due to cancer. Regrettably, the health service is not in a position to provide full care for the terminally ill in the county. The aim of the Hospice at Home movement is to provide
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adequate care and support for every progressive cancer patient in Gwynedd and, therefore, for every family that has to cope with this problem. The movement tries to ensure that patients may end their days in peace and comfort, free from pain so far as possible, and usually—and, in many cases, preferably—at home.
The service hopes, when operational, to control distressing symptoms, to attempt to meet the personal arid emotional needs of patients, and to provide support arid help to relatives, both during the illness and into bereavement. Skilled care will be provided, in full co-operation with the health service, through the work of trained nurses and other specialised staff and volunteers.
The only national health service hospice in Wales is the Ty Olwen house in Swansea, which was built as a result of a combination of community fund raising, help from the National Society for Cancer Relief, and assistance from the West Glamorgan health authority. I am pleased to say that that hospice is about to open an extension costing £750,000, every penny of which was raised through voluntary contribution. Again I say to the members of the public in West Glamorgan what a wonderful achievement that was.
When I examined the level of Government support for the hospice movement in the United Kingdom, I found that, in previous years, money had been made available in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but not in Wales. According to Department of Health press releases, sums of £8 million and £17 million were allocated in 1990–91 and 1991–92 respectively—a total of £25 million over two years. I have also had an opportunity to read the exchanges that took place in the House yesterday during Health questions, confirming that those were the figures.
It is useful to quote from the Department's press release to show the level of support that the Department feels is necessary for the hospice movement in England:
"the funds were to help health authorities move towards `pound for pound' or 50 per cent. funding of voluntary hospice services. The commitment to move towards 'pound for pound' funding in England copies what already prevails in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is a commitment repeated by Mrs. Bottomley and by Government spokesmen in the House of Lords."
The press release goes on:
"A major reason for the £8 million allocation was surely to make hospices less dependent on charity funds, and not to maintain that charity dependency. Fund raising is an increasingly tough and competitive activity which draws greater and greater energy from senior hospice staff. The future of hospices and of hospice care cannot be secured by charity.
The Minister of State has made the critical and central point that the commitment to greater NHS funding is to allow voluntary hospices to plan with confidence and on a more stable basis. Indeed, in her written reply to Mr. Baldry of 15 December 1989, Mrs. Bottomley said that the objective of pound for pound funding for hospices would 'provide a clear basis on which to plan ahead.' This can only occur if the additional funds are used to shift the balance of hospice funding from charity and towards the NHS."
In Scotland the funding for the current year is given on the basis of 50 per cent. of the running costs of the hospice provision—in other words, pound-for-pound funding. That principle is likely to be followed in future years. So, as of tonight, we have pound-for-pound funding in Scotland and Northern Ireland and they are moving towards it in England. Thus, it was a matter of concern that we had to wait so long for an announcement in Wales. All other countries were ahead of us in funding. The

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Under-Secretary will be aware that I and many other hon. Members have pressed the Government for action on a number of occasions.
Shortly after I became involved with the Hospice at Home movement in Gwynedd, I wrote to the then Secretary of State for Wales, the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker), on 19 February 1990, asking him when an announcement would be made. He replied on 9 March that consideration was being given to making financial assistance available. Shortly afterwards, I asked a question in the House and was given a fairly similar reply. I wrote to the present Secretary of State for Wales on 20 September, and in reply he quoted the then Under-Secretary's letter to the Hospice at Home movement in Wales stating that an announcement would be made as soon as possible.
It was therefore some relief that an announcement was made by the Secretary of State on 24 January this year. Many hon. Members are entitled to claim just a little credit for that announcement. The £1 million that was made available is to be distributed among the health authority areas in Wales. Let me make it clear to the Under-Secretary that that allocation is welcome. However, I hope that he will understand when we say that we expect that sum to be increased.
When the Under-Secretary replies, I hope that he will address his attention to the fact that there is no mention in the press release of a commitment to pound-for-pound funding for Wales. I repeat that that already exists in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it is on the cards in England. We are entitled to ask the Under-Secretary to tell us whether it is his intention to have a similar system in Wales. The present allocation will help, but much more is needed.
I ask the Under-Secretary to tell us that we can move towards pound-for-pound funding, which, more than anything, would encourage and recognise those who are providing such a valuable service in Wales and elsewhere.
10.29 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Nicholas Bennett): I offer my congratulations to the hon. Member for Ynys Mon (Mr. Jones) on his success in securing an Adjournment debate on this important subject. I welcome the hon. Members for Clwyd, South-West (Mr. Jones) and for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) and my hon. Friends the Members for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs), for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart) and for Solihull (Mr. Taylor), who have taken a keen interest in the subject.
The remarks of the hon. Member for Ynys Mon were given added strength and power by the fact that he was able to speak from personal family experience of the problems faced by carers in looking after the terminally ill. I share his concern and support for all that is done by people who must look after people in the last days of their lives.
I particularly appreciate the opportunity that the debate gives me to highlight the work of the hospice movement in Wales and elsewhere. I assure the hon. Member for Ynys Mon that my right hon. Friend the
390
Secretary of State and I, and indeed the whole Government, share his perception of how seriously it should be taken.
I deeply appreciate the high standards of care which are provided and which continue to be developed by the independent hospice movement. I welcome its growing partnership with the national health service in caring for people with terminal illnesses and in supporting their families. I expect health authorities to take the lead in planning and co-ordinating a full range of facilities for those with terminal illnesses, covering home, day and in-patient care.
It is generally accepted that most people with terminal illnesses prefer, if possible, to be cared for in their own homes and communities. Home is the best place to provide that care and support. I am delighted that the voluntary hospice movement in Wales is focusing on the development of domiciliary care and on providing the support and counselling that those with terminal illnesses and their families need.
I pay tribute to the role of NHS hospitals and in-patient hospices such as the Marie Curie centre at Holme Towers in Penarth.
Just as there needs to be a close partnership between the statutory and voluntary sectors in the provision of care, there must be the fullest co-operation between everybody involved in helping those in their last days of illness. That enables people to have the full range of diagnostic and treatment facilities that are available in our hospitals. It will be of comfort because patients will not be separated from their homes, families or friends for any longer than is absolutely necessary.
The hospice movement is unique. The emphasis is on the quality of care which puts those with terminal illnesses and their families at the centre of all that is done. The hospice movement is based on a team approach in which specialist and generalist staff from a range of disciplines, often supported by volunteers, seek to give a dying person and his family the best quality of life. That is done by making available the highest possible standard of pain relief and symptom control. It ensures that people have the emotional, social and spiritual support that they need. This flexibility, time to listen and to share people's deepest needs and emotions, cannot, of necessity, always be provided in a hectic hospital ward, where the emphasis is on active treatment and cure.
One of the greatest benefits that improvements in active treatment has brought is that many cancers that used to be fatal can now be cured. Even in cases where a complete cure is not possible, patients can remain active and have fulfilling lives largely free from pain and excessive symptoms.
Advances in the treatments available have in turn made possible new patterns of care. They are based squarely on avoiding in-patient admissions, except where they are absolutely necessary.
I should like to deal with the issues that affect us in Wales and to set out how we intend to secure continued improvement in these vital services. The hospice movement aims to offer care to meet a wide range of needs. The most important area—the one for which it is justly renowned—is the care of those dying from cancer. Moreover, the hospice movement has an increasing role, for instance, in the care of people with AIDS and motor neurone disease.

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Cancer alone causes about a quarter of all deaths in Wales, and the hon. Member for Ynys Môn referred to the problems that are faced in Gwynedd in that regard. In 1988 there were more than 8,500 deaths from this dreadful disease. I regret to have to tell the House that of the 30 European countries only 10 have a higher death rate from cancer for men and only three for women. I was, therefore, delighted to welcome the recent protocol for future investment which we produced on cancer services as a result of the work of the Welsh Health Planning Forum. The protocol sets out ways in which we can use the considerable resources that we devote to the treatment and support of those with cancer. The protocol emphasises the importance of hospice and domiciliary care.
We are fortunate in Wales to be able to build on the success that we have already seen in the past few years. Much of that is due to the pioneering work of Dame Cicely Saunders and her colleagues at the St. Christopher's hospice in Sydenham in London. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham can be here today because the hospice is in his constituency. Indeed, I am personally acquainted with the work of St. Christopher's, because the wife of a friend of mine was nursed there during her final days some three years ago. Dame Cicely trained at St. Josephs in Hackney where I was the Conservative candidate in 1979. I visited that hospice and saw the work done by what is the oldest of the 20th century hospices open in Britain.
By showing what can be done, this pioneering work has paved the way for important developments in Wales in the 1970s and 1980s. The Marie Curie centre in Penarth provides in-patient and out-patient care and services in the wider community. The work of the St. David's Foundation in Gwent is., rightly, well renowned. In Haverfordwest, in my constituency, the Paul Satori Foundation works ceaselessly for those approaching the end of their life through illness. The Ty Olwen unit in. west Glamorgan and the Nightingale Trust in Wrexham are fine examples of NHS facilities strongly supported by voluntary effort.
More recently, the George Thomas centre has been established in Cardiff. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, there could be no better person than your predecessor, a Speaker of this House, after whom to name a hospice. George Thomas, or Lord Tonypandy as he is now known, through his valiant struggle against cancer and his overcoming of it through his Christian convictions and strength of personality, has given encouragement to others who face this dreadful illness. He has given them hope that they can fight it.
The hon. Member for Ynys Môn rightly drew attention to the splendid initiative of the Gwynedd Hospice at Home movement. The organisation was born some 18 months ago by a group of lay persons and professional hospital staff. They started collecting funds one year ago and I am delighted that they have so far collected £150,000. I wish them every success in their fund-raising efforts to reach their target of £500,000. They intend to set up a service caring for patients in their own homes. Nurses will run the organisation. They are to be recruited, trained and paid for by the Hospice at Home movement. The organisation will shortly recruit nurses who will be trained in November 1991 and commence caring for patients on 1 January 1992. I am sure that the Gwynedd health authority, under the excellent chairmanship of Noreen Edwards, will want to
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work closely with the movement to see how best to use the £65,000 which we have allocated to Gwynedd for voluntary hospice work in this coming year.
All those successful examples show the strong partnership between the voluntary agencies and statutory authorities. Among the professional staff who play such an important role in the hospice movement are the general practitioners, the social services and community health teams. That partnership has led our health authorities to provide some £250,000 annually for the voluntary hospice movement, over and above the services that they provide directly themselves.
Other important recent developments to which I should like to draw attention include the Government's decision in 1989 to end for those with terminal illnesses the six-month qualifying period before attendance allowance could be paid. That has been of significant help. In April 1990, palliative medicine had developed to such an extent that it was formally recognised as a distinctive medical specialty by Government health departments. Already in Wales, several senior house officer and registrar posts operate on a rotational basis between the Marie Curie centre at Holme Towers and the Velindre and Rookwood hospitals.
There is to be a second consultant post based at Holme Towers and funded by the Marie Curie Foundation. The second consultant will join Dr. Ilora Finlay, the consultant in palliative medicine and medical director of the Marie Curie centre. I pay special tribute to Dr. Finlay and her colleagues at the University of Wales college of medicine for their important work. They have established a postgraduate diploma course designed to share with senior and experienced GPs the best ways in which to help people with terminal illnesses. Once again the voluntary sector has played a leading role in making that possible with funding provided by the Cancer Relief MacMillan fund.
Finally, I should like to draw attention to the advice centre that the charity Tenovus has established in Cardiff to provide carers with information about available services. I should stress that the examples I have given are just a few of the considerable achievements in Wales, but I accept that much still needs to be done.
I do not dissent from the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that, perhaps in north Wales, the level and depth of service provision is not all that we would wish it to be. The Government therefore have a wide-ranging programme to secure improvements in care. The Welsh Office and the Department of Health have asked the Standing Medical Advisory Committee and the Standing Nursing and Midwifery Advisory Committee to produce jointly comprehensive advice on the development of palliative care, including hospice care, in England and Wales. There will, of course, be a professional input to this from Wales. We have asked the committees to produce their advice by the end of the year.
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we are not waiting for the joint committee to report to ensure the continued development of services in Wales. That is why only last week my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced that we would make available, for the first time, specific money for voluntary sector activity in the Principality. I am delighted to say that the £1 million allocated has been warmly welcomed. Although I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman does not think that that is enough, it is a good start and I am sure that he, too, is delighted at that allocation. We can always spend more,

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but that allocation will mean a 40 per cent. increase in the amount of money available for voluntary hospices in Wales in the coming financial year. Health authorities will allocate those funds in the light of local circumstances to support existing organisations and to help foster the development of services where they are most needed.
The Welsh Office and the health authorities will review the development of those services so that, together, we can ensure the best possible care of people with a terminal illness.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about 50–50 funding and it is important that an effective working partnership is forged between district health authorities and the voluntary sector. The precise balance of funding may differ from project to project or even area to area. I do not believe that 50–50 funding of every project in the hospice movement would necessarily make the best use of available resources. Some projects may justify more support than 50 per cent. while others may need less because of their access to other sources of funding.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State also decided recently to allocate £460,000 as a contribution to the continuing care unit in Pontypridd, which is also receiving funding from the Cancer Relief MacMillan fund.
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Our firm intention is to provide money that can be used well throughout the health service. I am sure that the extra funding of £1 million to voluntary sector activity will be spent wisely. Therefore, in the light of progress in the coming year, future needs will be taken into account. I am delighted to offer the hon. Gentleman the assurance that that £1 million is not the only million pounds that we hope to give in future years.
We are building on success and, above all, on a practical tradition of the delivery of high-quality services. We are determined to see a humane, top-quality hospice movement that provides care and support based on a secure and dynamic partnership between health authorities and the voluntary sector.
The additional resources that we have announced represent the biggest boost ever given to the hospice movement in Wales. It will provide the basis to ensure that, at last, we can ensure that people who suffer from dreadful illnesses over a long period get the care and support they need as they approach the end of their lives. Once again, I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving the House the opportunity to talk about this important subject. I appreciate his concern and we shall ensure that his remarks are taken to heart.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes to Eleven o'clock.