Commons Sitting of 4 June 1992

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN

  Mr. Speaker Weatherill (Retirement)
  The Vice-Chamberlain of the Household reported Her Majesty's Answer to the Address, as follows:
  I have to inform the House, on behalf of the Prime Minister, that the Address of Tuesday 19 May 1992
  "praying Her Majesty that she will be most graciously pleased to confer some signal mark of her Royal Favour upon the right hon. Bernard Weatherill for his eminent services during the period in which he presided with such distinguished ability and dignity in the Chair of this House"
  has been presented to Her Majesty, and Her Majesty has been pleased to receive the same very graciously and has commanded me to acquaint this House that Her Majesty is desirous, in compliance with the request of her faithful Commons, to confer on the right hon. Bernard Weatherill some signal mark of her Royal Favour.

PRIVATE BUSINESS
BRITISH RAILWAYS (No. 4) BILL (By Order)
BRITISH WATERWAYS BILL [Lords] (By Order)
CROSSRAIL BILL (By Order)
EAST COAST MAIN LINE (SAFETY) BILL (By Order)
KING'S CROSS RAILWAYS (No. 2) BILL (By Order)
LONDON UNDERGROUND (GREEN PARK) BILL (By Order)
LONDON UNDERGROUND (JUBILEE) BILL (By Order)
Orders for Second Reading read.
To be read a Second time on Thursday 11 June.

Oral Answers to Questions
  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Agricultural Wages Board
    Dr. Strang: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he has any plans to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Selwyn Gummer): I have no such plans.
    Dr. Strang: Does the Minister accept that, notwithstanding that farm workers are disgracefully underpaid, they and their unions are firmly of the view that they would be even worse off if the board were abolished? Is the Minister aware that it is the policy of the National Farmers Union to continue to support the board? Will he therefore expand on his reply and make it clear that the Government will neither renounce the relevant International Labour Organisation convention nor take advantage of the window which opens in August next year to initiate steps to abolish the board?
    Mr. Gummer: There are many things that I have to deal with. As this matter cannot be dealt with until next year, I do not regard it as necessary to consider it until that moment arises. When it does, I will; and when I do, I will take into account both the facts that the hon. Gentleman has put before me.

    Sugar Beet
    Mr. Enright: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he is taking to curb the production of sugar beet.
    The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. David Curry): The United Kingdom will be seeking a thorough going reform of the sugar regime which is due to be completed by July next year.
    Mr. Enright: I am grateful to the Minister. He will be aware that the substantial overproduction of sugar beet in the European Community has led to a dreadful situation for world prices and thus for sugar cane producers, who are among the poorest countries in the world. Will he therefore, when he takes over the presidency in July, make sure that the MacSharry proposals, which quite disgracefully ignored the African, Caribbean and Pacific protocol on sugar cane, take account of that overproduction, drastically reduce the production of sugar beet under quota A, abolish quota B, and immediately withdraw the storage premium for quota C? Will he seek those objectives during his presidency?
    Mr. Curry: Proposals for reforming the sugar regime will be coming forward shortly. That is one of the matters that we shall have to deal with in our presidency. It is quite clear that, now that there has been a dramatic reform in the cereals sector, the sugar sector must also be reformed. It is clear also that cutting the price and dealing with the overproduction in Europe must be absolutely central to that reform.
    Mr. Moss: I congratulate my hon. Friend on negotiating an extremely successful set-aside scheme which does not discriminate against arable farmers in my constituency, but does he accept that there is continuing downward pressure on farm incomes? Will he assure my farmers that, in the next round of negotiations, he will press as hard as he can for an increase in the sugar beet quota?
    Mr. Curry: The practical course in reform of the sugar regime is to have a go at C sugar. The problem at present is that the high price for A sugar is used by many continental countries to justify overproduction of C sugar, which is then placed on the world market. If we can tackle that, we shall have dealt with one of the real problems of the regime.

    Environmental Protection
    Mr. McFall: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what environmental monitoring duties are currently the responsibility of his Department.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list his Department's principal responsibilities for environmental protection.
    Mr. Gummer: My Department's policy and monitoring responsibilities are for environmental aspects of farming and for the marine environment.
    Mr. McFall: Is not the Minister's desire to take over some of the primary inspection functions of the National Rivers Authority derived from his determination to protect the interests of the multinational farming fertilisers and pesticides manufacturers? Is he not ashamed that in so doing he protects them from the full rigours of a proper environmental protection regime?
    Mr. Gummer: I have no such desire and no such intention. My only desire is to ensure that I continue to be known in Europe as—in the best possible sense—the greenest Minister of Agriculture.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: The Minister of Agriculture will be aware that he will be undertaking one of his immediate principal environmental responsibilities for the marine environment at the Glasgow meeting of the International Whaling Commission later this month. What does he propose to do to sustain the position that the Government rightly adopted at the last meeting to ensure that there remains an international and effective ban on whaling in future, as there has been in the recent past?
    Mr. Gummer: As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Government's present policy was presented at the last meeting in Bournemouth, at which I represented the Government, together with Sir Peter Scott. Together we presented that change of policy, which we have pursued ever since. I intend to uphold that position clearly in Glasgow. I also want the ban to be spread to the smaller cetaceans, which are under considerable threat and are wrongly classed in some countries as though they were not whales.
    Mr. Gale: That answer will be most welcome to many people who have taken a continuing interest in the future of whales and dolphins. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He has established a clear reputation as a green Minister. Will he reaffirm his Ministry's position with regard to the European presidency? Will he say clearly that he intends to put animal welfare at the top of his priorities during our presidency of the European Community?
    Mr. Gummer: I have made it clear that the unity of Europe depends on the best things in each country being adopted by others. One of the best things that we can do for Europe is to raise the standards of animal welfare. I hope that we shall learn a little from some other countries about standards of looking after children.
    Mr. Robert Banks: Will my right hon. Friend find time to read a report from the North Atlantic Assembly which highlights the dangers that threaten marine life from chemical weapons which were dumped in the North sea
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    and other seas after the second world war? Does he recognise that such chemicals could pose a considerable threat? Will he be kind enough to look into the matter?
    Mr. Gummer: It is obviously important that we examine any threat to the marine environment. I shall be happy to look into the matter.
    Mr. David Clark: If the Minister is as green as he claims, why does he allow 35 per cent. of our sites of special scientific interest to be destroyed by farmers? What does he intend to do about that?
    Mr. Gummer: Yet again the hon. Gentleman shows his ignorance of farming and of the environment. The electorate showed him what they thought of him at the last election. That is why the environment is safer in my hands than it would ever have been in his.
    Mr. John Greenway: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way of protecting the countryside is to ensure that British agriculture remains profitable and has a viable future? I congratulate him on his tremendous achievements in the common agricultural policy reform discussions, and especially on imposing the requirement that if land is set aside an environmental protective element must be included in the arrangements.
    Mr. Gummer: I am sure that my hon. Friend is right that the common agricultural policy should have environmental protection at its centre and not as a peripheral matter. That we have sought to do. We have moved environmental protection a long way already. In our presidency we intend to extend it further.

    Milk Marketing
    Mr. William O'Brien: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement about the future arrangements for milk marketing in the United Kingdom and the changes he intends to make.
    Mr. John Evans: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement about the future arrangments for milk marketing in the United Kingdom and the changes he intends to make.
    Mr. Gummer: The Government intend to introduce legislation this Session to facilitate the transformation of the milk marketing boards into non-statutory organisations.
    Mr. O'Brien: The Minister's reply gives rise to some concern. We are looking for an assurance about the continuation of the services provided by the milk marketing boards. Will the Minister assure me that the cherished and ever-demanded supply of milk to the doorstep by the usual milk roundsmen will continue and that there is no fear of the British housewife and family losing that delivery?
    Mr. Gummer: The change in the status of the milk marketing boards has no effect on the delivery of milk at the doorstep. That would be endangered if the milk marketing arrangement continued not to allow British milk producers and sellers to achieve the maximum market. Doorstep delivery is unaffected by our decisions.
    Mr. John Evans: Is the Minister aware of the growing fear that a threat to the doorstep delivery of milk is one of the things that will flow from a restructuring? Is he also aware that the Freedom campaign—Friends Electing for the Delivery of Milk—has been formed to protect the delivery of milk and Britain's delivery men and women, and that it aims to collect 5 million signatures? Will he give an undertaking that he and his Department will back that campaign and ensure that the delivery of milk to the doorstep is safeguarded?
    Mr. Gummer: As a user and an enthusiastic supporter of the doorstep delivery of milk, I wish the campaign well. It is not signatures that the campaign wants, however, but the willingness of consumers to order milk at the doorstep. The best way we can help doorstep deliveries to continue is by buying at the doorstep. That is for the consumer to decide and she can do so under the new system as under the present one.
    Mr. Marland: As my right hon. Friend is aware, many milk producers go to great lengths and are successful in adding value to the raw material by producing locally branded yoghurt, cheese and ice cream. Whatever changes may be made in the milk marketing arrangements, will my right hon. Friend ensure that existing milk producers can continue with that processing and can expand their current efforts?
    Mr. Gummer: One of the purposes of our policies is to ensure that those able to add value to milk will be able to get the milk that they need, so that we shall no longer be in the absurd position of not having enough milk for high value products but still putting butter into intervention. I am sure that my hon. Friend will welcome the changes that the milk marketing boards, the Dairy Trade Federation, the Commission and the Government are seeking to produce.
    Mrs. Ann Winterton: Does my right hon. Friend acknowledge that the statutory milk marketing boards have ensured the availability to the consumer of milk of the highest quality in Europe—with the possible exception of the Danes, to whom we have a lot to be thankful for? Will he bear it in mind that it is absolutely essential, under any new marketing arrangements, that that high quality of milk is preserved for the benefit of the British people?
    Mr. Gummer: The proposals, which result from the milk marketing boards deciding that changes are necessary, and which have clearly been endorsed by the fact that the majority of milk producers wish for such change, will defend Britain's position of producing the highest quality milk in Europe. I hope that we shall then be able to raise standards throughout the rest of Europe; that is one of the great advantages of our enthusiastic membership of the Community.
    Mr. Pike: Does the Minister recognise that, just as farmers who are remote from areas of consumption are worried about the prices that will result from the changed arrangement, consumers fear that the delivery of their daily pinta on the doorstep and its price structure will be threatened? Consumers fear that they will not necessarily receive their daily pinta at the same price if they live in areas remote from the points of production.
    Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman should remember that under the quota system we have less milk than we
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    need for our national requirements. Therefore, producers even in remote areas need not be concerned, as they might be if there were an overproduction of milk in this country. The hon. Gentleman must also accept that the way to defend the daily pinta is to buy it on the doorstep and not merely to talk about doing so. Too many people who are keen on the daily pinta buy their own milk somewhere else.

    Factory Farming
    Mr. Cohen: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will bring forward legislation to give RSPCA inspectors the right of entry to factory farming premises.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Nicholas Soames): No, Sir. We have no plans to bring forward such legislation.
    Mr. Cohen: I congratulate the Minister on his large presence at the Dispatch Box. Why will he not give RSPCA inspectors the power of entry to factory farming premises? Is he aware that the RSPCA recently published statistics which showed a sharp rise in the number of convictions of cruelty to livestock, particularly to sheep and to cattle? That problem of cruelty could best he stopped by giving RSPCA inspectors the power of entry. If the Minister will not do that, will he instruct his own inspectorate to increase significantly its visits to farms so as to stop such cruelty?
    Mr. Soames: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who has a fine record on welfare matters. He will know that those arrangements were rehearsed well when the Farm Animal Welfare Council considered the report of its enforcement group. The council recommended that the primary role for on-farm visits should be retained by the state veterinary service and that voluntary bodies should not be given a statutory role. If the hon. Gentleman or any organisation has any complaints to make in that respect, they will be investigated vigorously and speedily, and he should let us know at once.
    Mr. Bellingham: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment. Is he aware that many of my constituents, ranging from Thai restaurant owners to proprietors of 25,000 acre estates, rejoiced in his appointment as he is the first Minister of food to know quite a lot about food. Will he deny the rumour in the popular press that he is about to exchange his usual breakfast menu of cold grouse and claret for Alpen and apple juice?
    Mr. Soames: I have no plans to do that at present.
    Mr. Ron Davies: I offer my personal congratulations to the Minister. I am sure that his appointment will be welcomed on both sides of the House. Given that we have to have a Tory in that office, I suppose that it had better be him.
    I thank the Minister for his constructive answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen). Will he acknowledge that in intensive farming systems there is potentially a considerable area of abuse and that there can be great suffering? Does he accept that due to bovine spongiform encephalopathy and other health problems his own inspectorate, the state veterinary service, is overburdened with work and is unable to carry out the

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    level of inspection that it has hitherto? In the short term, will the Minister consider employing private sector vets to carry out the necessary welfare inspections?
    Mr. Soames: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He will be aware that any area of farming or husbandry is open to abuse. As he knows, we take such abuse seriously. I will certainly draw the hon. Gentleman's views to the attention of the state veterinary service. I will also write to him in greater detail.

    Fishing Industry
    Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he next intends to meet the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations to discuss the future of fishing.
    Mr. Curry: I met the chairman of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations earlier this week and I am meeting its national executive on 4 July.
    Mr. Mitchell: I have just come from a meeting with members of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his achievement in uniting the fishing industry—for the first time in its history—in total opposition to the measure that he will be proposing on Monday. Does he accept that the measure is necessary only because of his long delay in introducing a proper decommissioning scheme, that it will be disruptive, dangerous and financially crippling for the fishing industry, and that the industry is begging him to think again and propose alternative measures which will be really effective in dealing with conservation?
    Mr. Curry: Quite unusually, I agreed with nothing that the hon. Gentleman said. The measures are necessary. It is easy to talk about conservation, but when we have come up with alternative ideas, the industry has tended to oppose every one of them. At the end of the day, we must be serious about conservation. The stocks are in very serious danger, not just in British waters but in waters throughout the world. We can tackle that only by adopting a series of measures, of which decommissioning is one. Effort control, licence extension and industry-led rationalisation are all part of conservation and represent a sensible, balanced package. It is important that all elements of the package should be introduced.
    Mr. Harris: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his promotion. Will he agree that one of the biggest threats to the future of the fishing industry is the recent growth in the number of foreign boats being transferred to our register? I refer not just to Spanish boats, but to the large number of Dutch boats coming on to our register. Will the Government use their six months presidency of the European Council to try to achieve some political agreement with other fisheries Ministers to deal with the scourge once and for all and to put an end to that diabolical practice?
    Mr. Curry: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It is a problem. We took measures to deal with some of the problems of beamers on the east coast, which is, of course, a Dutch problem. With regard to the pretentions of the Spanish and Portuguese to fish in some Community waters, my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the Advocate General delivered an opinion which was helpful,
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    though the full court ruling has yet to come. Our presidency will be devoted to matters of enforcement and making sure that European fishing grounds are predominantly for Europeans and for the benefit of coastal communities who depend on them.
    Mr. John D. Taylor: Is the Minister aware that fishermen greatly resent the measure to be introduced on Monday and allege that there has not been proper consultation between them and the Minister? What has been the level of consultation? Has the hon. Gentleman met the fishermen's organisations before presentation of the Bill?
    Mr. Curry: The Government's measures on fisheries were announced at the end of February. It was stated clearly then that effort control was part of our policy. We then introduced a consultation document, immediately after the general election—it would have been constitutionally improper to do so earlier, even though it was ready just before the election—dealing with all the details of decommissioning and effort control. I very much want detailed consultation and discussion about how this will work in practice. The Bill will give me power to attach to the licence a condition to introduce effort control. All the details of that are still subject to consultation, and that consultation is entirely valid.

    Council of Ministers
    Mr. David Nicholson: To ask the Minister of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food what are his objectives during his presidency of the Council of Agriculture Ministers.
    Mr. Gummer: I shall seek to carry forward the process of common agricultural policy reform, complete the single market, improve animal welfare and make environmental considerations much more central to the CAP.
    Mr. Nicholson: May I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend on his success in the recent negotiations? It represents one of the more hopeful precursors of the United Kingdom presidency. During that presidency, will he give great emphasis to achieving higher standards where appropriate, effective enforcement and, above all, a level playing field on such matters as national subsidies for environmental purposes, food hygiene and that most important area to which he referred—animal welfare?
    Mr. Gummer: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. It is clearly important that controls over the cruel production of veal and pigs should be extended to the whole of the Community. We should not take a nationalistic view of animal welfare: it should apply throughout the EC, as our membership of the Community demands.
    Mr. Tyler: Is the Minister satisfied that the proposals for the reform of the CAP will reduce the major, and in some sectors increasing, discrepancy between farm and retail prices? Is he further satisfied that there will be opportunities for producers in all sectors to benefit from the proposals without the risk of increased prices to the consumer?
    Mr. Gummer: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his appointment on this occasion, his first appearance in his new role. We have to face the fact that under present

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    policies, which I understand the hon. Gentleman's party supports, prices paid by consumers are higher than they would otherwise be. CAP reform has led to a reduction in consumer support and an increase in taxpayer support. At the same time, the farmer is being asked to take a price which is much closer to the market value. In those circumstances, we have the fairest situation between farmers and countries.
    Mr. Ralph Howell: I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend on the success of the recent price round. Will he assure us that the cereal market will continue to be supported by intervention and that the prices will apply to feed-quality cereals?
    Mr. Gummer: I can assure my hon. Friend that we shall continue to support the cereal producer, not simply by intervention, which will he properly diminished, but by compulsory set-aside, compensation and area payments. That is what the United Kingdom has demanded arid that is another example of the way in which the EC has increasingly taken on Britain's views.
    Dr. David Clark: The House will be disappointed that the Minister has not decided to highlight food hygiene as one of the key issues of his presidency. Does not he understand that the majority of British people want high-quality food? Has not he seen the recent study of the trading standards officers in Birmingham which shows that 90 per cent. of eggs sampled were substandard and that most of those were imported? When will he stand up and speak for the British consumer?
    Mr. Gummer: I do not need to stand up and speak for the British consumer. I have put through the House the most extensive food safety legislation of any country. The hon. Gentleman is constantly selling short British food. He is the man who told us not to eat British sausages or British apples. The hon. Gentleman has no right to speak for British food producers and the electorate told him that in no uncertain terms.
    Mr. Lord: My right hon. Friend is a very fair man. During his presidency of the Council, will he make his main aim the fairest possible application of rules and regulations governing agriculture throughout the EC, which is a matter of great concern to us all? In particular, I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the devastating effect that the unfair application of rules and regulations is having on the poultry-processing industry in my constituency in Suffolk where veterinary inspection charges are crippling, putting the industry at a severe disadvantage compared with its competitors in Europe.
    Mr. Gummer: I will and I am.

    Animal Welfare
    Mrs. Fyfe: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to improve the welfare of animals at slaughter.
    Mr. Soames: We shall improve the training of slaughtermen, implement outstanding Farm Animal Welfare Council recommendations as soon as possible and make sure that Britain's high standards are adopted throughout the rest of the Community.
    Mr. Fyfe: I thank the new Minister for his helpful answer and I hope that he will continue to give such answers. What advice has the Ministry sought on the slaughter of animals according to religious custom so that those customs are respected while cruelty to the animals is avoided? Will he seek advice from any religious bodies that consider it helpful to offer such advice?
    Mr. Soames: The hon. Lady raises an important point. The law on the welfare of animals at slaughter applies equally to religiously slaughtered animals, apart from the requirement for pre-stunning. In 1990, the Government introduced new legal safeguards on religious slaughter. In particular, the use of casting pens for cattle is being phased out and, from July this year, cattle will be required to be slaughtered in an upright, specially approved restraining pen. In expressing their concern, the hon. Lady and her constituents speak for many, and I hope that my reply reassures them.
    Mr. Burns: Does my hon. Friend accept that improving welfare standards at slaughter should embrace the transportation of animals to the place of slaughter? Will he and my right hon. Friend the Minister do all that they can during my right hon. Friend's presidency to ensure that European practices and behaviour are raised to the levels that obtain in Britain? Quite frankly, far too often standards in Europe are totally unacceptable.
    Mr. Soames: Yes, we shall do just that. My hon. Friend is perfectly right to raise that point. We shall seek to raise the standards observed by our partners in the European Community to the same high levels that apply in this country.
    Mr. Beggs: On behalf of my hon. Friends, I congratulate the Minister on his appointment. We all welcome the Government's efforts to ensure the welfare of animals at slaughter. Does the Minister agree that of equal, if not greater, importance is the welfare of the consumers of the end products? What assurance can he give that adequate safeguards are in place to ensure that even the minimum use of illegal substances for growth promotion can be detected at abattoirs?
    Mr. Soames: I assure the hon. Gentleman that we run the most extensive and vigorous checks in this country. We are always alert to any possible dangers. Despite regular testing, illegal substances have never been found in this country—but we will continue vigorously to police that aspect.
    Mr. Harry Greenway: Does my hon. Friend accept that great cruelty occurs not only at slaughter on the continent but in the transportation of animals to slaughter on the continent? Does he agree that animals in this country and in continental countries should be slaughtered as closely as possible to their place of origin?
    Mr. Soames: Yes, my hon. Friend is perfectly correct. As I said earlier, we seek to raise standards in the rest of the European Community to the high levels that prevail in this country.
    Mr. Morley: Is the Minister aware that because of the high standards in slaughterhouses in this country, the poultry sector in particular is disadvantaged? Because the standards observed by European competitors do not reach the same level, they enjoy a cost advantage on imports. If

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    the Government accept that some slaughterhouses on the continent do not meet our high standards, what will the Minister do about British producers that drag animals many hundreds of miles over long periods of time, to be slaughtered in poor-quality slaughterhouses abroad?
    Mr. Soames: My right hon. Friend the Minister dealt earlier with the question of cost. We intend to raise the question of standards and costs with the Community, to ensure that our producers are in no way disadvantaged. Transport is a matter to which we attach the highest importance. During our presidency, we shall seek to raise it to the top of the agenda.

    Plant Passports
    Mrs. Roe: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the current state of negotiations within the European Community on the subject of plant passports; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Curry: Under pressure from this Government, the Commission has undertaken to bring forward proposals in the near future.
    Mrs. Roe: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his promotion and thank him for that reply. Is he aware of the concern of United Kingdom growers about the greater bureaucracy and cost implicit in the proposals? Can he give an assurance that they will not be disadvantaged by comparison with our European Community partners, in respect of the financing of the inspections required under the proposed plant health arrangements?
    Mr. Curry: We intend this to be a measure of deregulation. The word "passport" can be misleading. There is no passport officer and no physical passport; the term refers to a mark that can be applied by the propagator himself. We intend the regime to be as light as possible, but we also want it to be applied as sensibly as possible and—this is most important—as universally as possible, so that we can ensure that we are on a level playing field.

    Product Marketing
    Mr. Riddick: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on his plans for improving the marketing of British agricultural products.
    Mr. Curry: We are encouraging better marketing through collaboration between producers. The group marketing grant will help them to develop large, professionally managed groups.
    Mr. Riddick: Is it not a pretty crass piece of marketing to move the manufacture of Wensleydale cheese from Yorkshire to Lancashire? Can my hon. Friend do anything to persuade Dairy Crest to sell the Wensleydale factory in Hawes, either to an outside buyer or through a management buy-out?
    Mr. Curry: My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) has been actively engaged in this regard. As a fellow North Yorkshire Member, I can only endorse the view that Wensleydale cheese is far better coming from Yorkshire than from Lancashire—but that is true of all the other cheeses as well.
    Mr. Skinner: What steps will the Minister take to help three farmers in Bolsover to market their products? Does he recall that, nearly 12 months ago, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food promised the House that they would not lose out? According to Farmers Weekly, the Minister is not going to pay those farmers any more money. They have lost their livelihoods and the Bolsover people are fed up with contamination by dioxins. It is time that those farmers were paid and it is time that a public inquiry was carried out.
    Mr. Curry: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has dealt fully with points about the matter on many occasions.

    Bananas
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the accessibility of the British market to Latin American bananas.
    Mr. Curry: The Commission has published a working paper on banana imports aiming to fulfil all the Community's international obligations.
    Mr. Arnold: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that the Latin American republics from which bananas come are third world countries just as deserving of our consideration as the Caribbean islands? Are not British consumers entitled to those bananas, which are larger, cheaper and, by and large, of higher quality than the ones that are currently being imported?
    Mr. Curry: I am sure that my hon. Friend knows that British consumers do indeed benefit from those bananas. Last year, about 28 per cent. of bananas consumed in Britain came from Latin America and we believe that this year the quantity could comfortably be 100,000 tonnes. However, we have an obligation to protect the position of our traditional suppliers in Jamaica and the Windward islands. It is entirely possible for us to do that while ensuring adequate access for Latin American bananas.
    Dr. Godman: May I remind the Minister that many of those engaged in the production of Latin American bananas are employed in lousy conditions by big American firms? Will he ensure that the producers—the small farmers in the Windward islands and elsewhere—are protected from the obduracy of the Germans in regard to exports to the Community of their very fine product?
    Mr. Curry: We have made it absolutely clear that we stand by our obligations to the Windward islands and Jamaica, enabling them to continue to have full access to our market. The European Community seems likely to introduce proposals to impose a quota on dollar bananas. To be fair, the dollar bananas are likely to take any increase in the market, because they are better placed; but our stance is that producers from the ACP—African Caribbean Pacific—countries must be fully protected, because of the importance of that crop to their industries and economies.

    Meat Hygiene
    Mrs. Ann Winterton: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on his proposals for meat hygiene.
    Mr. Soames: My right hon. Friend the Minister has announced that a national meat hygiene service is to be established as an agency of his Department.
    Mrs. Winterton: I welcome today's announcement that an agency is to be set up to replace the former piecemeal arrangements. When will that agency be fully operational, and what charging policy will be introduced? The Department should bear in mind the necessity to keep costs low and provide good value for money, to ensure that excellent British meat and meat products are available to the consumer at competitive prices.
    Mr. Soames: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Subject to the will of Parliament, the new agency will take over in late 1994 or early 1995. It will enable us to achieve consistent enforcement standards and a uniform basis for charging in Great Britain. By putting our own house in order, we shall be better placed to put pressure on the Commission and other member states to achieve the same standards across the Community. We are wholly committed to securing improvements in what is currently an unsatisfactory situation.
    Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: Does the Minister accept that very small abattoirs, which have to take into consideration the cost of visits by meat inspectors and vets, are very worried about the high costs of those visits when the new regulations come into force? Does he also accept that small abattoirs are very important to rural economies? Will he take on board representations made to him that those costs should be kept as low as possible?
    Mr. Soames: The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. We agree entirely that small slaughterhouses are vital to rural communities. We have secured a special derogation for 12-to-20-animal units. Welfare and hygiene standards will apply to large or small slaughterhouses, but the point on charges is well taken.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Moss: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 June.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): May I first congratulate you, Madam Speaker, on joining Her Majesty's Privy Council this morning. As you did so, I was presiding over a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Moss: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the smaller countries have a vital part to play in the life of the European Community? Does he further agree that Denmark should not be sidelined or pressurised, merely because its people expressed their views in a democratic way about the Maastricht treaty?
    The Prime Minister: I emphatically agree with my hon. Friend about that. The work of the Community will go on, and Denmark and all the other small member states will play their full part in it. We have no wish whatsoever to slam the doors in the face of Denmark or to rule out any procedures whatsoever that will help Denmark in her present difficulties and enable her to join the Maastricht
    942
    treaty. But it is unrealistic to think that everything has been changed by the Danish vote, just as it is unrealistic to think that nothing has been changed by it.
    Mr. Cryer: But does not the Prime Minister accept, in the wake of the mess that the Common Market is happily in now, as a result of the Danish referendum, that if he brings back a renegotiated treaty and some sort of deal with the Danish Government, there will be a great deal of pressure in this country to require the Government to hold a referendum here over any constitutional alterations which might be involved in that new treaty?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman knows that I made the Government's position about a referendum entirely clear yesterday, and I have nothing whatsoever to add to that today. On the subject of the treaty itself, there is a great deal in it that represents concessions by our partners to what we have long sought in this country. That would also be open to renegotiation, if any renegotiations were to take place. I hope that today in Oslo, where my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is attending a meeting, they will begin to examine in detail the way to deal with the particular difficulties, following the referendum in Denmark.
    Mr. Hicks: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Hicks: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the growing unease of both listeners and viewers about the coverage of live sport? Irrespective of the long-term implications of the deal over the premier league football coverage, is my right hon. Friend aware that there was genuine resentment, among my constituents at least, during the recent world cup coverage from Australia? There is uncertainty over the future of the ball-by-ball cricket commentaries. Is it not a fact that the arrangements that were designed to give greater opportunities to listen or to watch seem, in practice, to be having the reverse effect?
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend knows—I am pleased about this, as he is—ball-by-ball cricket commentaries are now continuing, albeit on a different wavelength. I know that some people have been and are concerned whenever areas of activity are opened up by market forces—that has often been the case in the past—but in time many of those anxieties have disappeared and the beneficial effects have found their way through. The net effect of new television channels is that there is more and better coverage of sport on a wider number of channels.
    Mr. Hattersley: Does the Prime Minister recall the statement on 26 March that an asylum Bill would be the first action of a new Conservative Government? Why did he change his mind?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman will see the asylum Bill before too long.
    Mr. Hattersley: The Prime Minister characteristically tried to evade the question. On 26 March the asylum Bill was to be the first priority, to be introduced before anything else. Why was that Bill needed so urgently before the election, but not afterwards?
    The Prime Minister: I am intrigued at the right hon. Gentleman's sudden enthusiasm for the Bill. I can put his mind at rest. The Government are committed to reintroducing the asylum Bill at an early opportunity and we propose to do so.
    Mr. Hattersley: Nobody should be surprised that the Prime Minister is ashamed to give the real answer. The Asylum Bill was introduced in an attempt to legitimise many of the scare stories about immigration put about by the Tory party. It is to the Prime Minister's shame that he is not prepared to denounce that policy and attitude now.
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman should know better than to make remarks such as that. As we have said in the past, it was the first Bill that we decided to reintroduce and put into the Queen's Speech. It remains essential now, as it was then, to streamline the decision-making process. We intend to resist the misuse of asylum procedures and to ensure that genuine refugees are properly protected. That is the position of the Bill, and it will be introduced shortly.
    Mr. Simon Coombs: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Coombs: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the overwhelming case for the enlargement of the European Community has been in no way diminished by the result of the Danish referendum? Can he assure my constituents in Swindon and the entire country that he will use the opportunity presented by the United Kingdom's presidency of the Community in the next six months to press the case as vigorously as he can for the enlargement of the Community to include the countries of the European Free Trade Association and the countries of central and eastern Europe when they are ready to join?
    The Prime Minister: No one in this country or within the Community can be in any doubt about my total commitment to opening up the Community to the EFTAns and, in due course, to those from eastern Europe. Nothing that has happened in recent days changes my belief that that is necessary and urgent, and we will continue with it. I do not accept that anything has put enlargement at risk. I can assure my hon. Friend that this will have a high priority during our presidency.
    Mr. Mackinlay: Is the Prime Minister aware of the dismay felt by a number of hon. Members and many historians at the fact that the papers relating to Rudolf Hess are still not being fully disclosed? Is he aware that it is the view of many people that there is a continuing Establishment cover-up which should now be revealed and that the undisclosed papers reveal matters relating to the non-royal status of the Duchess of Windsor?
    The Prime Minister: I am afraid that I cannot share the hon. Gentleman's conspiracy theory. If there has been a cover-up, it has been covered up from me as well.
    Mr. Gill: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Gill: My right hon. Friend will have noted early-day motion 174, which has been signed by a substantial number of Conservative Members. Is he aware of their deep desire that the British presidency should promote the Conservative principles of free trade and intergovernmental co-operation and not the socialist diktats of Jacques Delors?
    The Prime Minister: I assure my hon. Friend that we shall certainly use the presidency to pursue issues that are in our interests and those of the whole Community: the introduction of the single market, reform of the CAP, developing relations with the EFTA and eastern countries, future financing and deregulation—matters for which this party and this country have stood for so long. We shall pursue all of them during our presidency.
    Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Mitchell: Does the Prime Minister accept that, in the face of the Danish announcement today that they will not attempt to renegotiate, to reintroduce the European Communities (Amendment) Bill, which we would have discussed yesterday and today, would be like reintroducing a Bill for the resurrection of Shergar?
    The Prime Minister: I do not accept that premise and the hon. Gentleman would be rather surprised if I did. The Maastricht treaty was the result of a lot of difficult negotiations that were conducted over some time. If we went back to square one, I do not think that we could assume that our partners would agree all the matters that are of interest to this country. We must wait and see how events fall out.
    Mr. Amess: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Amess: Following the collapse of socialism in Basildon, does my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister agree that last month's local election results in Basildon, which ensured the success of every Conservative candidate, showed that residents were fed up with an inefficient, high-spending socialist council and believed that only Conservatives could provide good services at a low cost? Does the Prime Minister have any advice for the new council on where it might stick the nuclear-free-zone signs? That was another daft socialist idea.
    The Prime Minister: I feel sure that my hon. Friend will already have passed any advice that is necessary to the new Basildon council. I very much doubt whether I would dissent from what he said. The electors in Basildon made an extremely wise choice in the local elections and in the general election, and I am sure that it is a choice which they will repeat many times in the future.
    Mr. David Marshall: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Marshall: As part of his "taking stock" of the situation in Scotland, has the Prime Minister made any representations to the EC to have the European central bank set up in Scotland? If not, will he agree to do so now?
    The Prime Minister: I have made no representations, as the hon. Gentleman puts it, on this matter, but we shall certainly do what we can to ensure that, whenever possible, Community institutions, including the bank, are situated in the right place in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Patrick Thompson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Thompson: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the recent launch of the campaign for physics and of a survey of sixth-formers which showed that 90 per cent. of them believe that physics is essential to solve the world's environmental problems? Does he agree that good science is preferable to slick pressure group campaigning, to ensure that the Earth summit at Rio leads to a good future for our planet?
    The Prime Minister: I certainly agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of understanding physics, although I must confess that I cannot claim to be among those who understand it very well at all. However, environmental education is an important theme of education these days and I hope that it will be a growing theme. It will certainly enable people to understand the deeply important issues to be discussed at Rio.
    Mr. Alan W. Williams: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 4 June.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Williams: When the Prime Minister took his present post, he described the notion of a society at ease with itself. Does he feel that when he goes to the Earth summit next week, against a background of a dismal record on the environment in Britain and development aid having been cut from 0·51 per cent. of gross domestic product to 0·27 per cent. during his years in the House, he will be representing a society at ease with itself?
    The Prime Minister: I think that the hon. Gentleman, perhaps uncharacteristically, runs down what this nation has done and is doing to assist with aid. He conveniently ignores the fact that we have the sixth largest aid budget in the world, that it is one of the most effective programmes that the OECD recognises—[HON. MEMBERS: "It has been cut in half."] It most certainly has not been cut in half as was inaccurately stated earlier this week. He ignores the fact that there are other forms of aid that we can and do give, that the Toronto terms originated with my former right hon. Friend, Nigel Lawson, that the Trinidad terms originated under this Government and that they are two of the biggest debt write-offs that there have ever been, and that there is no other country with a comparable record and no previous Government with a comparable record to that of this Government.

Business of the House
3.31 pm
Dr. John Cunningham: Will the Leader of the House tell us the business for next week?
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 8 JUNE—Second Reading of the Sea Fish (Conservation) Bill.
TUESDAY 9 JUNE—Opposition day (1st allotted day). Until about seven o'clock there will be a debate entitled "Ethnic Minorities in British Society", followed by a debate entitled "Protecting the Maxwell Pensioners". Both debates arise on Opposition motions.
Motion relating to the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill.
Motion on the Industrial Training Levy (Engineering Construction Board) Order.
WEDNESDAY 10 JUNE—Until about seven o'clock, consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill.
Motion on the Northern Ireland (Emergency and Prevention of Terrorism Provisions) (Continuance) Order.
THURSDAY 11 JUNE—Debate on Government policy on science and technology on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
FRIDAY 12 JUNE—Debate entitled "Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and the 1992–93 Price Proposals" on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
MONDAY 15 JUNE—Second Reading of the Boundary Commissions Bill.
[Monday 8 March
Floor of the House
Relevant European Community Documents

(a) 10229/91

Common Fisheries Policy

(b) 5088/92

Quality Policy for Fishery products

(c) 5210/92

Monitoring Implementation of the CFP

(d) 5337/92

Discard Practice in Community Fisheries

(e) 5351/92 ADD 1

Common Organisation of the Market in Fishery Products

Relevant Reports of European Legislation Committee

(a)

HC 24-ix (1991–92)

(b)

No Report

(c)

(d)

(e)

Friday 12 June
Floor of the House
Relevant European Community Documents

(a) 7570/91

Common Agricultural Policy

(b) 5534/92 ADD 1–3

Prices for Agricultural Products and related measures for 1992–93

Relevant Reports of European Legislation Committee

(a) HC 29-xxix (1990–91), HC 24-iii (1991–92)

(b) No Report.]

Dr. Cunningham: May we have a statement on Monday by the Foreign Secretary following his discussions today in Oslo at the meeting of the Council of Ministers? Given the
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importance of what has happened in the Danish referendum and its significance for the Maastricht treaty, it is surely important that the House should have the earliest possible statement from the Foreign Secretary, and that should be on Monday. I hope that the Leader of the House can assure us that that statement will be made.
Will the Leader of the House think again about the business for Friday next week? It is surely beyond doubt that the proposed changes to the common agricultural policy which are to be debated are of huge importance and significance for producers and farmers, and also for consumers. Given that it will, by common consent, be a discussion on some of the most fundamental changes for perhaps a quarter of a century, should not we have the debate on a day other than a Friday when many hon. Members, for important and legitimate reasons, will be in their constituencies and therefore unable to participate in it? Seriously and earnestly, I ask the Leader of the House to reconsider that decision and change the day of the debate.
Given the fact that the Government have failed to provide time for a statement, let alone a debate, on the plight of Maxwell pensioners, and that the Labour party has, rightly, provided Supply day time for such a debate, may we have an assurance that the Minister will not only participate in the debate, as obviously he will, but will set out in detail what urgent action the Government intend to take to help to alleviate the problems faced by Maxwell pensioners?
Will the Leader of the House reflect on today's business—specifically, the Bill on community care—and agree that we should discuss only the Second Reading today? There is plenty of time for the Bill to be considered in Standing Committee. I believe that it would be for the convenience of the Government and Ministers as well as for the convenience of the House as a whole if that proposal were adopted.
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman asked four questions. The first was whether my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary would make a statement on Monday following the Oslo meeting. I had originally hoped that it might be possible for a statement to be made tomorrow, but that seems in doubt. I think that I can give the hon. Gentleman the undertaking that he wants, that there will be a statement on Monday. I hope that, in turn, he will recognise that it may be difficult for my right hon. Friend to maintain an entirely trappist position throughout the weekend, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not take offence if he does not.
Secondly, the hon. Gentleman made a complaint—as I suppose it must be called—about the fact that we shall debate the common agricultural policy on a Friday. I resist the suggestion that merely because the day is a Friday it is not possible to debate a subject of importance. That would imply a grave diminution of many subjects that have been debated on Fridays—and indeed of the House's sittings on Friday. In view of what has happened, it is right that we have tried to make time for a debate on the common agricultural policy, as well as the debate on science and technology on Thursday—that is also an important subject. I believe that the desirability of debating the matter soon outweighs the considerations mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. I hope that he accepts that I feel that that is the right way to proceed, so as to give the House the earliest opportunity to debate two important subjects.

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Thirdly, the hon. Gentleman mentioned Maxwell. I have made it clear several times that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security will—soon, I hope—make a statement on the establishment of the review of the framework of pensions law which the Government have undertaken to set up. I cannot give an absolute commitment about the timing of that, but it is clear that there will be two opportunities for such matters to be raised in the first two days of next week—one on Department of Social Security questions, and one on the Supply day. I shall not attempt to write my right hon. Friend's speech for the debate, or his answers to questions, at this stage, but I am sure that he is aware of the concern that comment should be made about the matters raised by the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham)—and I shall again draw it to his attention.
Lastly, in answer to the hon. Gentleman's question about today's business, I am glad to say that I understand that there have been further discussions through the usual channels about the handling of the Community Care (Residential Accommodation) Bill. In the light of those discussions, I propose that we proceed only with the Second Reading of the Bill today, and allow it to be further considered in a Standing Committee. I hope that that will also meet the wishes of the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), who raised the matter with me yesterday.
Mr. David Howell: Will my right hon. Friend tell us what progress he hopes to make next week in setting up the departmental Select Committees? With so much happening, especially in foreign affairs, it seems a pity that the Committees are not in place to monitor the Executive in the proper way. I ask you, Madam Speaker, whether, from your high position, you can give encouragement and support to the setting up of the Select Committees so that Parliament can do its job properly.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: He wants to get on a trip.
Mr. Newton: I—
Mr. Skinner: The Government have lost three months already.
Mr. Newton: I see that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is in his usual inimitable form. I would not wish to be taken as endorsing his comments on the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell). which is important.
I have said on a number of occasions that I am anxious to see progress made as quickly as possible in setting up the Select Committees. We have already made some progress with the setting up of the Committee of Selection and the Public Accounts Committee. We have been able to set up the European Standing Committees—a slightly separate point. I hope that we shall soon get the Joint Cornmittee on Statutory Instruments and the Select Committee on European Legislation. I look to make progress as soon as we can on the departmental Select Committees, including the one in which my right hon. Friend is interested.
Mr. Stanley Orme: Will the Lord President issue next week the Top Salaries Review Body report on office cost allowance? He must be aware that hon. Members of all parties are anxious about the report because they want to make suitable appointments of staff.
950
That is important for the staff. Will the right hon. Gentleman also give an assurance that the full report will be adopted by the Government?
Mr. Newton: I cannot give the right hon. Gentleman a precise prediction now of the exact time of the publication of the report or the exact proposals that I expect to explain to the House at that time. I can say—the right hon. Gentleman will realise that I have had one or two other things on my mind in recent days—that I hope that we shall be able to do so soon.
Mr. David Shaw: Can my right hon. Friend tell us whether the opportunity for a debate next week on Maxwell will give the Secretary of State for Social Security an opportunity to make a statement about the implementation of section 58B of the Social Security Act 1990 which would make the Maxwell pensioners creditors of Maxwell Communication Corporation and of Mirror Group Newspapers? The consequence would be that many hundreds of millions of pounds could flow back into those pension funds.
Mr. Newton: Clearly the debate next week will give my right hon. Friend opportunities to make comments as he thinks right on a wide variety of matters. As I have already said, I will not attempt to make his speech across the Dispatch Box this afternoon, but I will ensure that his attention is drawn to my hon. Friend's request.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: Reverting to the question of the creation of the departmental Select Committees, surely it is within the Government's gift to decide which Departments will be covered in the new regime which the right hon. Gentleman has set up. Presumably there is no difficulty about making an early statement on that.
Is there any prospect, having regard to the special circumstances surrounding the Sea Fish (Conservation) Bill which we shall discuss on Monday, of the right hon. Gentleman being prepared to recommend the referral of Second Reading to a Special Standing Committee, given that the industry believes that it has not had proper time for consultation?
Mr. Newton: I will give some thought to the hon. Gentleman's point. My principal concern is that we should make progress on that important measure which is needed, in association with other proposals involving finance, in the interests of a sensible fisheries policy and a sensible basis of operation for the fishing industry.
On the first question, the hon. Gentleman, in his new capacity in what are called the "usual channels", will realise the need for considerable discussions about these matters. Those discussions are proceeding. I cannot go any further than I already have in relation to what I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell).
Mr. Richard Page: Although I welcome the opportunity during an Opposition Supply day to debate the Maxwell pensioners' problems, does my right hon. Friend agree that it will be a sterile debate unless the results of the Government's investigations are to hand and can be considered? Will my right hon. Friend do what he can to ensure that the Securities and Investments Board report is made available as a paper for the whole House? The debate next week can then have some meaning.
Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend knows that a considerable number of inquiries of various kinds are going on in respect of those affairs. The one to which he has referred would normally be under the general aegis of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade rather than that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security. Again, I shall make sure that my right hon. Friends are made aware of my hon. Friend's point.
Mr. John Hutton: Will the Leader of the House look again at the business for next week and see whether time could be found to debate the provision of dental services within the national health service? Many dentists in my constituency have expressed deep concern about actions taken recently by the Secretary of State for Health which cast doubt on the viability of many dental practices in my constituency and the availability of dental services within the NHS. It is an important matter which the House needs time to debate.
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the dental rate study group met yesterday and considered the proposals which were announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health the previous day. I understand that the dental rate study group will meet again to continue its discussions in a week or two. I am not sure whether it would be appropriate to have such a debate at the moment, but clearly it would have been open to Opposition Members to take part in next week's Supply day debate had they thought it right to do so.
Mr. David Sumberg: May I support what many of my colleagues have said about Tuesday's debate on Maxwell? There is to be a mass lobby in the House on Monday by Maxwell pensioners, many of whom are my constituents. They want to know what the Government will do about the matter. They have been swindled out of their pensions and they are very worried, and understandably so. Can my right hon. Friend give us some assurance before the debate?
Mr. Newton: I can give my hon. Friend the clear assurance that my right hon. Friends and I are very much aware of the concern on both sides of the House and among others about this matter. I shall certainly ensure that my hon. Friend's remarks are drawn to the attention of my right hon. Friend, but I do not think that I can go beyond what I have already said on a couple of occasions about the position in respect of the debate next week.
Mr. Tom Pendry: Is the Leader of the House aware that his right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage has made the very important announcement today by way of a written answer to one of his hon. Friends that the Government will review their policy on all-seater stadiums for football clubs, especially in the third and fourth divisions? Will he take it from me that hon. Members will consider that to be a very important and sensible announcement? In view of the fact that improvements have taken place in football grounds in the past few years, that is extremely sensible.
Will the Leader of the House consider initiating a debate so that those who lost their loved ones in the Hillsborough disaster may have their fears allayed by the fact that the Secretary of State has taken very much into account the improved situation for football grounds and that in no way will safety requirements be jettisoned as a result of the review?
Mr. Newton: I do not think that I can respond immediately, or indeed even less than immediately, to the hon. Gentleman's request for a debate. I can certainly welcome, on behalf of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage, the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the statement. I too think that it is a very sensible move.
Mr. John Carlisle: My right hon. Friend will be aware of Conservative Members' concern about the problem of gipsies and so-called new-age travellers. He will be aware also of the recent terrible scenes in the west country and the apparent inadequacy of the police to cope. May we therefore have an early debate on that important subject—it is certainly a nuisance to many of our constituents who have such people living close to them—and look again at the Caravan Sites Act 1968 and the Public Order Act 1986? The problem seems to be getting worse and we do not seem to be addressing it.
Mr. Newton: Again, I do not think that I can promise my hon. Friend an early debate on that matter. I can certainly assure him that the Government take the issue seriously, although it is not an easy one to tackle. It is right that any proposed action should be carefully thought through.
Mr. Gordon McMaster: Will the Leader of the House find time next week for a statement on the adverse effect of the privatisation of hospital cleaning services on quality, hygiene and public safety? Is he aware that it was revealed today that in Royal Alexandra hospital in my constituency a firm of private cleaning contractors threw waste infected with tuberculosis into the public waste disposal system? Does he agree that it is a disgrace that the policy of putting profits before patient care is leading to such instances, caused by poor working practices, in the very institutions that are supposed to protect public health?
Mr. Newton: While I should naturally be worried about the incident that the hon. Gentleman describes—I have not had any opportunity to check it, so I cannot endorse his description—I resist the suggestion that such incidents occur only where private contracting firms are involved. For example, I think back to the time when I was a Minister in the former Department of Health and Social Security and the difficulties at the Stanley Royd hospital in Wakefield. The hon. Gentleman should think more carefully before making implied allegations about private sector operators.
Mr. Barry Porter: May I return to the question of the setting up of the departmental Select Committees, having listened to the brief but fairly vigorous exchange from a sedentary position between the two Front Benches. As I understand it, we are all waiting for the largest Opposition party to sort out its leadership and spokesmanship difficulties. But I understand from the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) that the delay has something to do with the Government Front Bench. I do not understand. Some of us would rather like to get on with doing some useful work.
Mr. Newton: I was unaware of the informal exchanges to which my hon. Friend refers because I was addressing the House rather than listening to whatever exchanges

953
took place. My clear understanding is that all of us who are involved in these matters—it is certainly true in my case—wish to make progress as soon as possible but on the basis of the necessary consideration and discussion.
Mr. David Winnick: When the Maxwell debate takes place next Tuesday, will the Minister who replies to the debate explain the legal position whereby the Maxwell family apparently continues to have substantial income and assets abroad while pensioners have been swindled out of their pensions? Some pensioners now live in destitution. Could the Attorney-General come to the House and explain why, despite what has happened, there has been no prosecution? Is there now a special law in Britain under which the Maxwell family and those associated with it commercially are immune from prosecution?
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well not only that an inquiry is being conducted by the Securities and Investments Board—my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) referred to it—but a substantial investigation is being held by the Serious Fraud Office. Clearly, questions of prosecution arise following investigations, not during or before them. The suggestion that the Maxwells have some sort of immunity is simply ludicrous.
Mr. David Tredinnick: Is my right hon. Friend aware of early-day motion 9?
[That this House welcomes the Report of the Select Committee on the Sittings of the House, HC20, Session 1991–92, which considered 'whether the public and private business of the House might be conducted more effectively by making changes to the order and timing of business, the hours of sitting and the arrangement of the parliamentary year'; notes the recommendations of the report and the debate on 2nd March 1992; and urges the Government to provide time to discuss further and consider on substantive motions and vote on the recommendations of the report at the earliest opportunity.]
It calls for the opportunity further to discuss the report of the Select Committee on the Sittings of the House and a chance to vote on its recommendations. The motion has been signed by more than 80 Members. Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that we shall have an opportunity to debate the report before the summer recess?
Mr. Newton: Yes.
Mr. Frank Field: When the Leader of the House reports back to his colleagues at the Department of Social Security, will he please add my views? Will he tell his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security that, while hon. Members on both sides of the House welcome the Government's acceptance of the Social Security Select Committee recommendation that there should be a long-term review of pensions law, it does not help one Maxwell pensioner? Will he also tell him that when we have the debate on Tuesday we shall be anxious that he should make a statement on what the Government intend to do to help what will be by the end of the month 6,000 pensioners who have either lost their pension entirely or had it reduced substantially?
Mr. Newton: The whole House is well aware of the hon. Gentleman's expertise in these matters and, indeed, of his position as Chairman of the Committee which wrote the
954
report in the previous Parliament. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will also be aware of that and will, of course, take note—I cannot say more than that—of the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
Mr. Phillip Oppenheim: Bearing in mind that Opposition Members constantly preach that the Government do not give enough aid to third-world and poorer countries, may we have another debate on the Rio summit, this time with a little more notice? Conservative Members could then point out that Opposition Members are always in the forefront of requesting the creation of trade barriers, such as the multi-fibre arrangement, against poorer countries, and that the World bank recently calculated that such trade barriers cost the third world more than we give them in aid. Does that not illustrate beautifully that the real nature of socialism is to throw money at problems rather than to let people help themselves?
Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend makes a good point by emphasising the importance of trade to developing countries, which is often overlooked and which is at least as important as aid, and often more important. That illustrates the occasional contradictory position of Opposition Members who demand more aid and then demand protective trade restrictions, which would undo much of the good. Leaving that aside, as I said in my mini business statement yesterday, I cannot promise a further debate at this stage although there will certainly be a statement after the summit and we can then consider the position in the light of that.
Rev. Martin Smyth: I welcome the announcement that there will be a debate next Thursday on science and technology, as it is a subject on which the House has been strangely silent.
May I press the Leader of the House on the subject of departmental Select Committees because many people outside the House wonder why something that is so vital for the scrutiny of Government is being impeded? One would not have thought that the Opposition were causing the delay and therefore, if the Leader of the House is having difficulty with the usual channels, could he not try the unusual channels and let us get on with our business?
Mr. Newton: I have not sought to suggest that there is any cause of difficulty in any place. Difficult issues in relation to the structure of Select Committees and to the way in which they should be set up have to be dealt with, and I hope that it will not be too long before they can be resolved. I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no foot-dragging on the Conservative side, and I have no reason to accuse anyone else of it either.
Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: Before we have the Maastricht debate—[Interruption.] I am sorry; we have had the Maastricht debate. Before the Maxwell debate next week, could the Leader of the House bring to the attention of the Secretary of State for Social Security the fact that no Government is blameless for not having legislation that protects people's pensions? If the legislation that is likely to be introduced is tight enough to protect people's pensions, can he ask his right hon. Friend to come to the Dispatch Box on Tuesday and give some hope to pensioners? If, with the introduction of good legislation, it is unlikely to happen again, we could set a precedent in that way, and we could

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give those people hope. Some of my constituents are losing between £10,000 and £29,000 each year of their lives and the Government are their only hope.
Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend gave me a moment of greater unease than usual with his slip at the beginning of his question. On the rest of his question, I undertake, as I have done on a number of occasions today, to bring his remarks to my right hon. Friend's attention.
Mr. Dennis Canavan: May we have a statement next week about recent reports that the Government are secretly planning to privatise Scotland's water industry? Does the Leader of the House agree that such public asset-stripping would be a national scandal, especially in view of the recent revelation that the chairmen of the privatised water boards in England and Wales are lining their pockets with £20 million worth of perks, and the fact that the Government have no mandate, even by British standards, to privatise Scotland's water, because there was no mention of it in the recent or any previous Tory party election manifesto? Surely such contempt for democracy reinforces the case for a Scottish Parliament.
Mr. Newton: In the interests of keeping the temperature down, I shall simply undertake to draw the hon. Gentleman's question to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.
Mr. Richard Alexander: May I commend my right hon. Friend's defence of our Friday debates? Does he agree that they are often effective, in-depth debates and that it is equally difficult to catch Madam Speaker's eye on a Friday as it is on any other day? I thank my right hon. Friend for his announcement of a debate on the common agricultural policy, because it was my request that we should have an early debate on agricultural policy. Presumably, if it were not to be held on Friday, it would have been some time before we could have had that debate.
Mr. Newton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. When he rose, I wondered whether to advert to a conversation held in informal circumstances that we had earlier in the week. I am grateful for his remarks and glad that I was able to respond to his suggestion and to the widespread demand from other parts of the House.
Mrs. Alice Mahon: Given that it seems that the Select Committee on Health will not sit for some time, may we have a debate on what is happening to health service employees? The Leader of the House, with other hon. Members, will have received the report from the Royal College of Nursing about whistle-blowing. He will also be aware that Dr. Chris Chapman has joined other victims of the authoritarian managers now running the health service when he was sacked this week. Is it not time that the House debated exactly what is happening to health service employees who care about standards and patients and who are increasingly victimised if they express those cares?
Mr. Newton: I shall depart, perhaps unwisely, from the emollient frame of mind in which I answered the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) and move into a slightly more aggressive mode. The hon. Lady could conceivably make representations to her hon. Friends on the Front Bench on why we had six days' debate on the
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Loyal Address without health being raised in any shape or form and why we saw nothing of the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook).
Mr. Harry Greenway: Will my right hon. Friend arrange for a statement to be made next week to clarify the rumours that the Government have plans to lower the age of consent for homosexuals? It has been rumoured that it will be brought down to as low as 12 years of age, as in Denmark. Will my right hon. Friend take account of the fact that the public's fears need to be allayed on that important issue?
Mr. Newton: I hope that I need not tell my hon. Friend that, in respect of one suggestion to which he referred, he should not believe everything that he reads in the newspapers—if that is what he read.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: For the second time in this Parliament, may I raise the question of the three reports from the Select Committee on Members' Interests, which deal with lobbying, the chairmanship of Committees and the new register? When will we debate those reports on substantive resolutions because 11 hon. Members spent 200 hours working in Committee on them?
Mr. Newton: Clearly, I am not in a position, having announced the business, to promise a debate next week, but, as the hon. Gentleman said, this is the second or third time that the matter has been raised. The hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) has also raised it, and I am aware of the interest in the matter. I am certainly not ignoring it.
Mr. John Greenway: My right hon. Friend has been most generous and helpful to the House in his response to the many interventions about the Maxwell pensions affair. May I stress that it is crucial that the House quickly receives the report from the Securities and Investments Board? It is six months since its inquiries were instigated and we cannot wait much longer because, for each day that passes, more pensioners are losing their entitlement to pension. The new chairman of the SIB, appointed this week, should address his mind to this problem with the greatest urgency.
Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend will realise that the SIB is an independent body and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State cannot dictate to it when it produces its report. However, I will ensure that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade has his attention drawn to the point made by my hon. Friend.
Mr. Bryan Davies: Does the Leader of the House accept the urgent need for a debate on the water industry in view of the fact that it is not only paying increased dividends to its shareholders and increased salaries to its top executives, but is hugely increasing prices to consumers? There is also clear evidence that it is continually inclined to cut off supplies of water to those who find themselves unable to pay their bills.
Mr. Newton: I note the hon. Gentleman's request. My only comment at this stage is that I sometimes wish that, when points such as that are made, reference was also made to the growing amount of investment in the water industry to meet the increasingly difficult problem of demand.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Was the right hon. Gentleman in his place yesterday when his hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) suggested that Labour Members, including occupants of the Opposition Front Bench, had not spoken of the need for a debate on the Maxwell affair and pensions before the general election? Will the Leader of the House accept that on 5 December I raised the matter and that on 9 December several of my hon. Friends, including the shadow Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), raised it? I hope that in the debate next week the right hon. Gentleman will make it clear that his hon. Friend was not telling the truth.
Will the right hon. Gentleman also bear in mind that previous Governments of different complexions have found money, when necessary, to pay pensioners who have found themselves in a similar predicament? For example, a Labour Government bailed out Court Line and recently the Tory Government bailed out Barlow Clowes. If the present Government have enough money to bail out Canary wharf, they should be able to find some for the Maxwell pensioners. I trust that we shall be told on Tuesday that they intend to do that.
Mr. Newton: As I observed earlier, the hon. Gentleman is in his usual inimitable form this afternoon, although in perhaps slightly less good humour than he was yesterday.
Mr. Skinner: That is not surprising.
Mr. Newton: We should certainly miss him if he were not there.
Mr. Kirkwood: So would we!
Mr. Newton: I cannot speak for the Liberal Bench.
Leaving aside the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, I was in the House yesterday and noted the exchanges that took place between my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) and the shadow Leader of the House. I cannot say that I have done further detailed investigation of Hansard since, though I note the point the hon. Gentleman makes.
Mrs. Helen Jackson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the anxiety felt by 200 constituents of mine who are likely to lose their pensions
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because of unsatisfactory answers given by the Prime Minister on the Thursday before the recess, when he sought refuge by attempting to give them consolation over the way in which they would receive the guaranteed minimum pension? Is he further aware that for the pensioners in my constituency that will come to the "generous" sum of £6·76 a week, hardly enough to buy a pot of marmalade? Will the Leader of the House ensure that when the pensioners come to see us on Monday, and in the debate on Tuesday, assurances will be given not only about the review, which is important, but to the effect that they will not lose the money that is essential to keep their households together? That is the crunch in the matter.
Mr. Newton: I acknowledge the obvious intended thrust of the hon. Lady's question and shall draw that, too, to the attention of my right hon. Friend. I would observe, as a former social security Minister, that it is not possible to quote a figure for the guaranteed minimum pension —or, indeed, for the pension entitlement under Maxwell pension schemes—for any individual pensioner because it depends on the contribution record and period over which contributions were made.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Madam Speaker: Order. We must now move on.

Statutory Instruments, &c.
Madam Speaker: With the leave of the House, I shall put together the two Questions on the motions relating to statutory instruments.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(3) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.),
That the Company and Business Names (Amendment) Regulations 1992 (S.I., 1992, No. 1196) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the Food Protection (Emergency Prohibitions) (Dioxins) (England) (No. 2) Order 1992 (S.I., 1992, No. 1274) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Andrew MacKay.]
Question agreed to.

Orders of the Day

  Community Care (Residential Accommodation) Bill [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  4.9 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Tim Yeo): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  Hon. Members may recognise the Bill as being essentially the same as a private Member's Bill introduced in another place in the previous Session by my noble Friend the Baroness Brigstocke. That Bill gained all-party support but failed to complete all its stages here before dissolution. I acknowledge the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Central (Mr. Lord) to get the Bill through on that occasion. It is unfortunate that the Bill did not quite make it before dissolution, because the need for it remains.
  Today's Bill, which successfully completed all its stages in another place after a wide-ranging and interesting debate, provides for a minor but vital technical amendment to section 42(2) of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990.
  Hon. Members will be aware that Government policy on care in the community has recently been set out in the White Paper "Caring for People" and in part II of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. The policy is based on two principles—first, that the majority of people want to remain in their own homes or in a homely environment for as long as possible and, secondly, that the needs of any two people can differ, so individual problems require individual solutions.
  Our policy puts the emphasis of care where it should rightly be—on the proper assessment of the individual needs of the users of services and on the design of a package of care that meets those needs.
  The White Paper's approach is based on giving local authorities the freedom and flexibility to develop effective individual solutions for the provision of services and support that frail, elderly, vulnerable or disabled people need. The aim is to enable those people to live as full and independent a life as possible.
  That approach reflects the transformation of attitudes towards how that group of people should be looked after which has occurred during the last quarter of a century. Individuals, families, volunteers, professionals, campaigners and politicians from all sides have come to recognise the shortcomings of institutional environments and the greater potential and fulfilment which people enjoy when living in, contributing to and being supported by the community.
  The White Paper is important, but it is merely one more step along a well-trodden road. It needs to be seen in that context, and its significance must be neither over nor under-estimated. Its objectives include, first, promoting the development of domiciliary, day and respite services to enable people to live in their own homes where that is practicable and desirable; secondly, ensuring that practical support for carers is made a high priority; thirdly, ensuring proper assessment of need and care management; and,
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  fourthly, promoting the development of a flourishing independent sector alongside good quality public provision.
  Implementation of that policy is well under way. From April 1991 social services departments were required to introduce inspection units and complaints procedures and we introduced new specific grants to help particular groups. From April 1992, authorities were required to produce and publish community care plans. From April 1993, local authorities take on full responsibility for arranging all social care services.
  That responsibility will include the provision of services such as home helps, home care assistants and day care to support people in their own homes, and making arrangements for residential and nursing home care for those who are no longer able nor wish to remain in their own homes. Individual needs will be assessed and a package of care designed and managed by the local authority.
  The full implementation of all community care objectives involves a continuing process that goes on for many years. Not for nothing was the White Paper called "Caring for People—Community Care in the Next Decade and Beyond".
  The Bill is concerned with the ability of local authorities to make arrangements for residential accommodation across a range of organisations and does not touch on domiciliary or nursing home care.
  Hon. Members will be aware that there is a range of types of residential accommodation currently available, for example, residential care homes, group homes, and hostels of all types. They may be managed by local authorities, voluntary or commercial organisations, and they cater for varying types of need and degrees of dependency. Some provide only bed and board, others help with supportive or personal care. Those that offer personal care as well as board are required to register with the local authority under the Registered Homes Act 1984, unless they are specifically exempted from so doing.
  At present, local authorities provide hostel accomodation and other forms of residential care either directly or through the independent sector—voluntary or commercial —under the National Assistance Act 1948 and paragraph 2(1)(a) of schedule 8 to the National Health Service Act 1977.
  The Government attached great importance to retaining and extending the flexibility that local authorities have to provide a range of residential accommodation to suit the varying needs of the individuals who go to them for care. In all the guidance that we put out, we stressed to local authorities the need to be flexible. Local circumstances will dictate the best balance between different types of arrangement, but we have emphasised that individuals should have genuine choice over the services that they receive.
  That means choice not only of the type of service, but of its provider. The independent sector—both voluntary and private—plays an important part in residential care at the moment. We are determined that that will continue, and to encourage greater involvement of the independent sector in non-residential care.
  A mixed economy of care is the way to ensure choice, stimulate quality, and secure the best value for money. Authorities should begin to move away from the role of sole provider to the role of enabler and facilitator. The independent sector is a resource that must not be allowed

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  to lie unused. Most authorities know that, and are beginning to respond to their new challenges. The purchaser provider model, which is delivering great benefits within the national health service, may usefully be emulated in that respect by local authorities.
  Mr. Peter Griffiths: Is my hon. Friend the Minister satisfied that the range and quality of care that will be offered by the voluntary and private sector will be such that a satisfactory environment will be provided for those who, at a time of poor health or increasing age, turn to local authorities to provide accommodation?
  Mr. Yeo: Yes, I am more than satisfied. There is overwhelming evidence that the involvement of the voluntary sector and, more recently, of the private sector in residential and, to some extent, non-residential care—we want to encourage more of that—is a key influence in raising standards. The independent sector is only able to survive and prosper by offering local authorities and, through them, the individuals who need support a standard of provision that is not only as good as that provided by local authorities but better, in many cases.
  It is a time-honoured tradition in this country for the voluntary sector in particular to pioneer standards of service with which the statutory agencies eventually catch up, so that they become available to all. I see the voluntary sector as a very benign influence in that whole process.
  However, a problem has arisen that necessitates this Bill. From April 1993, when the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 is fully in force, paragraph 2(1)(a) of schedule 8 to the National Health Service Act 1977 will be repealed, and section 26 of the National Assistance Act 1948 will be amended by section 42(2) of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. It was the Government's intention that the flexibility that local authorities currently have under the 1977 and 1948 Acts be retained.
  Unfortunately, section 42(2) of the 1990 Act inadvertently curtailed that flexibility, particularly with respect to local authorities making arrangements with independent sector residential accommodation, which does not require to be registered under the Registered Homes Act 1984. It puts at risk the use by local authorities of a range of independent sector providers including hostels, and notably the Abbeyfield Society. That society has about 1,000 homes providing accommodation for elderly people who do not require personal care, as defined in the Registered Homes Act 1984, but domestic help and the provision of meals in a small and homely residential setting.
  Most Abbeyfield homes are family-sized houses where seven to nine elderly people have their own bed-sitting rooms. Residents have normally moved from their own homes nearby. They furnish their own rooms with their treasured possessions; they lead their own lives and come together for the main meals of the day, which are prepared by the resident housekeeper. That way of life provides a balance of privacy and companionship that can be ideal for many elderly people.
  People are individuals and have individual needs, and as I have said, the new community care arrangements are intended to allow local authorities to respond more effectively to those needs. I am sure that the House will agree that it would be most regrettable if their flexibility to
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  do so were curtailed by the loss of powers to make arrangements with organisations like the Abbeyfield Society.
  The Bill remedies the problem by replacing section 42(2) of the NHSCC Act 1990, thus restoring to local authorities the powers that they now have to make full use of the independent sector but would otherwise lose in April 1993 when the Act comes into force. The Bill makes a minor but vitally important technical change to the legislation, without making any policy changes; it simply maintains the status quo.
  The substance of clause 1 restores to local authorities the ability to make arrangements for residential accommodation with the independent sector in premises neither registrable under the Registered Homes Act 1984 nor exempt from registration. It restores the flexibility to make arrangements with various independent-sector organisations for residential accommodation, as well as maintaining the rest of the arrangements found in section 42(2) of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. Clause 2 provides for the short title, commencement and extent.
  I hope that the House will agree that the Bill deals with a technical problem that arises from section 42(2) of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, and remedies it so that hostels and societies like Abbeyfield are not put at risk.
  4.21 pm
  Mr. Jeff Rooker: I welcome the Minister to his new post, and thank him for giving a fairly wide introduction to a fairly narrow Bill. In doing so, he has enabled the House to examine some of the wider community care issues. We are extremely grateful both for the example given by the Minister and for your acceptance of it, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Given the wide-ranging remarks that the Minister made at the beginning of his speech, I hoped that he would take the opportunity to say a little more about what is in prospect for April 1993. It would have been useful to hear a clear, unambiguous reaffirmation that the community care reforms would indeed go ahead at that time. That is, in fact, a requirement, and I shall be happy to give way if the Secretary of State or any of the other Ministers wishes to intervene on the subject.
  I feel that a Minister should clarify recent reports that Health Department officials have considered aborting the reforms. Those reports have not been contradicted so far, and they have sent shock waves through local authorities and the voluntary and private sectors, which need to know where they will stand next year. There can be no excuse for further delay or lack of readiness on the Department's part —unless, that is, the Government continue to refuse to talk about the financial arrangements. That in itself leads to doubt, which is only multiplied by the reports that I have mentioned. It would be helpful if this unexpected debate could be used to clear up that doubt; there is still plenty of time to do so.
  The Government could at least say something about financial commitments to local authorities: for instance, a commitment that the financial arrangements will at least take account of the shortfall in income support between charges to residents and the benefits available. That shortfall is, after all, required to be made good by charity —by which I mean registered charities—and also by

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  relatives of people in care, some of whom are themselves receiving social security benefits. Such doubts and difficulties really must be cleared up. The implementation of the legislation has been delayed; following the general election, there can be no further excuse for Ministers not to make their position clear.
  The difficulty of the shortfall led to what I consider an immoral two-tier charging system in some care-awayfrom-home establishments. Residents with assets—usually the proceeds of the former family home—who can therefore fund themselves for a few years until their assets run out are charged between £40 and £90 a week more than other residents so that the proprietors can balance the books. That is immoral, but Ministers never refer to that cross-subsidy.
  Ministers cannot stay silent about the problem much longer. The Government must give a commitment—if not now then in Committee—that the community care funding arrangements for each local authority will be specific so that the authority can operate as an enabler and an organiser, and certainly only as a partial provider of services. Then we shall all know what the arrangements are. There will then be some accountability and a lessening of the risk that the money will be diverted to other, I have no doubt, useful purposes. There must be accountability at both central Government level and local authority level.
  This Second Reading debate provides a welcome opportunity for the House to address these issues. This is a small Bill, though it is somewhat longer than the Maastricht Bill. We know, therefore, that there can be wide debates on small Bills. The House is trying to promote a policy of comprehensive community care which allows people to make informed choices regarding options about which they have been consulted. It is therefore necessary to have a flexible system which takes into account a variety of human networks and circumstances. A problem in one area has major ramifications elsewhere for services and choice. If we do not pass the Bill, people who cannot go into residential accommodation of this kind will be forced into unsuitable residential or nursing care. Some may even be forced to stay, unsuitably, in their own homes. Such a comprehensive system, based on variety and meeting people's needs at a personal level, means that the rest of the system must be examined, even when one is considering what appears to be a fairly narrow point.
  However brief this debate on community care may be, the subject will be debated more today than it was ever debated during the general election campaign. Up to 6 million adults who are disabled or frail are affected, and anything up to 5 million or 6 million carers who have to undertake varying degrees of care are also affected, but their needs were completely passed by during the general election campaign. It may be argued that 80 or 90 per cent. of community care policy is common to all the parties, but that is no excuse for silence on a fundamental issue which affects people at a personal level. When it came to public debate during the general election campaign, community care was almost a no-go area. I have already said that there is a good deal of common ground between the parties, but that is no excuse for silence.
  The Secretary of State for Health (Mrs. Virginia Bottomley)rose—
  Mr. Rooker: I was about to mention the Secretary of State and I was probably about to mention the very point that she wishes to make. I am very pleased that the Secretary of State, whom I congratulate on her appointment, is in the Chamber.
  I well remember Friday 28 February of this year when my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) and I launched the Labour party's policy paper, "Better Community Care". Traffic in London was disrupted by bombs. I took part in a recorded interview with the Secretary of State in which we discussed community care policy. That recording for the BBC was made in the middle of that Friday morning. It was intended for "The World at One", but the recording was not broadcast because we did not argue with one another. That says more about how the BBC tries to manipulate political debate and the political process in this country than it does about my views, the Secretary of State's views, or the views of the Labour party and the Conservative party. If we do not argue, the BBC does not want to be involved, even though community care policy affects millions of our fellow citizens. I have waited quite a while to get that off my chest, and today's debate has provided me with a good opportunity to do so.
  The Bill, to which I must refer from time to time, affects residential accommodation as opposed to residential care. It highlights the fact that the success of a comprehensive community care policy rests as much on housing and transport policies as on policies for health and social services. One cannot construct a comprehensive community care policy which meets the individual needs of our fellow citizens unless housing policy is an integral part of it.
  The Bill touches on housing policy and the availability of housing of a specialist type. Whether we are talking about availability or choice in housing or aids and adaptations within the home, the aim must be for those who have to leave their home for a care-away-from-home establishment to succeed in restoring a degree of independence and be able to return to their own home. One should not have to end up in residential accommodation, even of the sort provided for in the Bill. There must be an aim to restore independent living. The thousands of stroke patients in this country will testify to that. They know the importance of the rehabilitation process to help them become as independent as possible. It should not be a one-way process; there must be the possibility of returning home. That is why housing policy is so crucial to the success of a comprehensive community care system.
  The Bill is concerned essentially with residential accommodation provided by the voluntary and private sectors. The Labour party document to which I referred earlier makes it clear, without qualification, that we see a comprehensive community care policy as an ideology-free zone. Those who rely on community care services are not concerned about who provides that service so long as it is reliable and of good quality. The users are not over-preoccupied with the debate which has rightly gone on in the House about the split between purchasers and providers. One person may be the recipient of a service delivered by the local authority, the voluntary sector and elements of the private sector. Users do not need to know what sector it is that turns up at different times of the day. They want a seamless service. However, the argument about the split between purchaser and provider is a major

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  policy issue. It is a policy argument that we have had, and no doubt will continue to have, in the House. The users want to be treated as human beings.
  Service provision may sometimes be very simple. It may sometimes be the provision of gadgets, aids and adaptations rather than a service. It is better to provide the kitchen aids and adaptations to enable people to cook their own food than for them to have to rely on meals on wheels. The former provides independence while the latter leads to dependence. If it is possible for people to cook their own food, that should be the priority because, by and large, that is what the user will want. Most people do not want care; they want a bit of help to enable them to exist and flower as independently as possible and to live as full a life as possible.
  If we can aim to provide a seamless service, it will overcome many of the difficulties experienced by those who need the service, by hon. Members and by social workers. It is not easy to achieve that aim. There are good grounds for believing that if we do not get the planning and finances right, we shall not be able to achieve ii; from April next year, even with all the planning that has taken place.
  Mr. Mark Wolfson: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the important issues in achieving independence for people living at home is that the bureaucracy involved in bringing about improvements and aid in the home must be kept to a minimum? Visits by white collar staff to ascertain what is needed and how it is to be done often occur on too many occasions and take too long when all that is needed is a workman who can do the job quickly.
  Mr. Rooker: 1 could not agree more, and 1 shall offer a solution which appears in policy documents published by the Labour party in February. I cannot understand why a qualified social worker or district nurse, who is at the sharp end of the problem, cannot order a second stair rail instead of the patient having to wait six months for a scarce occupational therapist to place an order. Why should not the social worker or district nurse order the minimum aids and adaptations which are required urgently to prevent further accidents, which in turn put further pressure on the NHS? I cannot understand that bureaucracy. We want trained occupational therapists for specialist work, but following, say, a stroke or the early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, the simple aids—the handyman's aids—should be provided on the say-so of a qualified social worker or district nurse; they are at the sharp end because they are the first people to be involved.
  The philosophy of providing a seamless service, not differentiating between the sectors, underpins the Labour party's desire to implement the original intentions of the Griffiths report. There is a good deal of policy agreement across the House, but there are some policy differences. I am not criticising any Minister as all are new to their tasks, but the Government still have not adopted the Griffiths recommendation that a Minister in the Department of Health should have key responsibility across other Departments because at least four Departments—Health, Environment, Transport and Social Security—are involved. We should enhance the role of the Department of Health in this aspect of policy. As Ministers settle to their
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  tasks, they may consider Labour policy and pick out some good ideas. We shall not criticise them for doing so—we shall just remind them of what they are doing.
  I referred earlier to the ring-fencing of funds. It is crucial that local authorities are aware of funds in advance. A Minister should be responsible for a specific sum of money which can be traced. Those tax pounds should be traced from the House through the system to the user so that we can ensure value for money and that none of the money is diverted for repairing roads, roofs or our leaking and crumbling schools. Those are all worthy causes, but the House will have voted that money for community care.
  The Griffiths report made it clear that it is necessary to ring-fence such money, and we believe that it should be ring-fenced for at least the lifetime of the Parliament. The quid pro quo is that local government must ring-fence its share as well. Too often the funds of social service committees have been raided by other local government committees.
  We shall continue to press—we shall be able to do so better when the Government make their policy clearer—for a financial regime which is as fair as possible between the sectors so that the availability of finance in one sector and not in another does not force people into a choice of care which may not necessarily meet their needs. That is exactly what has happened in the past few years, when income support has been available for one sector but not for others. There must be fairness—level playing field is a term that we understand, but viewers may not—in multi-sector provision. A seamless service is distorted if the financial arrangements are not fair between the sectors.
  The Bill covers the part of community care policy which the Labour party document referred to as care away from home. There are many aspects of care away from home, and I set out briefly some of the general principles which might be helpful for the providers as it is a matter for a bipartisan approach. Shadow Ministers shuffle off or shuffle around after elections, as do Government Ministers, but by and large our principles do not change. The Under-Secretary of State may smile at that, but it is an important point because the different sectors need to make investment plans beyond the lifetime of a Parliament. Finance is important for the voluntary sector, for local government and especially for the private sector; they need a fair degree of stability and to know the parties' positions. I shall make it clear what our principles were and are, and they will not change merely because faces may change. That fact has been recognised by the different sectors and they have found it helpful.
  The Bill affects part of care away from home—residential accommodation as opposed even to residential care. Such forms of care should not be seen as a problem or failure of community care because, as the Minister said, they are an integral part of a comprehensive system of community care. They will include a variety of circumstances: housing with various degrees of independence, such as those covered in the Bill; group homes, also partly covered by the Bill; residential and nursing homes; and, in some parts of the country, village communities and elderly persons' foster schemes in individual homes such as those for young people.
  The circumstances of people needing care away from home will vary from full-time nursing care to the minimalist provision involved in the care covered in the Bill. Making sure that the variety of human needs and

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  networks is covered requires a great deal of flexibility in housing and social policy—far more than has hitherto been shown by the Government.
  The Labour party sees merit in a variety of organisational arrangements for care away from home. That variety not only assists in creating real choice and in meeting people's needs, which change in time, but avoids the trap of the monopoly provision of care. This is where I strike a note of discord with the Government, who sometimes appear to be actively working towards monopoly provision by the private sector while the Labour party is opposed to monopoly provision by any one sector. The public sector, the voluntary sector and the private sector all have a role to play and a contribution to make, either independently or in partnership on projects and packages. However, the choice should not be a maze for the consumer.
  More attention must be given to information and guides to services in an easily accessible and understandable form. Information must be better than that offered by one London borough, which must remain nameless, which earlier this year advised a friend of mine desperately seeking information about respite care to "look in the Yellow Pages." Hearing that in 1992 from a social services authority shows clearly that a great deal of the modern thinking in the House has completely passed that authority by. However, there are also good model local authorities of all political persuasions which have gone out of their way to provide easily accessible guides and information on all services in their area and which are taking on board their enabling role.
  Labour insists that all sectors providing care away from home are treated equally for quality assessment purposes because that is the ballpoint for the user. We are not prepared to allow any distinctions to be made with regard to quality measures and the rights to be enjoyed by residents, staff or carers based on the ownership, size or location of an establishment. It naturally follows that we shall not seek to play off one sector against another or to single out a whole sector for praise or blame on the basis of a few good or bad examples. That would send a wrong signal to the providers and, what is more, to the families of the people in care away from home. That is the problem which causes difficulty. It would also send the wrong signal to the staff employed in the establishments.
  The consumers or users of the service must come first, whether or not they are the budget holders, and, by and large, the local authority will be the budget holder for most people. That is not a cliché or a new found policy. I was once taken to task for quoting Labour party policy which I was told was very old, but I said that it was still current. We said that we were
  "committed to tip the scales back in favour of the individual and away from public and private concentrations of power."
  That suits community care policy and, indeed, any other aspect of policy. It has been our policy since 1976. I carry that cutting around constantly in my wallet and I am accused of abusing it in relation to different aspects of policy, but we meant what we said. It is time, in every aspect of policy, to tip the scales back in favour of the individual and away from concentrations of power, whether public or private, but it is especially important that that point is taken on board in community care policy.
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  I do not want to introduce a note of discord, but I did not have the opportunity to raise certain points during the general election campaign. One point of particular importance, bearing in mind the contents of the Bill, is that the requirement for care-away-from-home establishments will mushroom in the next decade. We have been through the very elderly persons explosion. We must enable people to remain in their own homes if that is their choice. We must not force them to stay in their homes, but if they choose to do so we must move heaven and earth and do all that is humanly possible to facilitate that. However, even with that as a policy objective and with the best will in the world, with imagination, initiative and enterprise, there will be increased demand for care-away-from-home establishments because, for example, of that great scourge of the late 20th century—loneliness.
  Sometimes people want to leave their own homes after the loss of a partner or loved one. There may be no obvious medical or physical reason for them to leave, but they will have lost the companionship and perhaps cannot exist on their own. That has happened many thousands of times, and the problem will not go away, so there will be increased need for care-away-from-home establishments provided on a multi-sector basis.
  We believe that the ownership of such establishments should be made absolutely clear in all brochures, explanatory details and contracts offered to local authorities or individuals. We also believe that if any employees, including general practitioners and consultants in the NHS or the local authority, have any financial interest in any care-away-from-home establishment in their employing authority or in any adjacent area, it should be transparent in a public register of interests. Attention should also be drawn to the register in material issued by the homes involved.
  We do not say that such interests should not exist. If we are to have a comprehensive community care system with scope for choice and with a variety of multi-sector provision, we must encourage people to make the best use of their talent, expertise and training. We are not opposed to care professionals having such interests, provided that the interests are registered and transparent. Quality care demands nothing less from professional people, and such a move would be of help right through the system. The Government must deal with that issue, but it will not be made possible except by way of amendments which I have not yet fully considered.
  We must return to the issue because it requires primary legislation. I hope that the Minister will take the point on board in the spirit in which it is made—not in any attacking, denigrating way, but as a means of avoiding problems in the future. If the policy is to be a success and meet the needs of our fellow citizens as users, we can do no less than examine that aspect of policy.
  4.49 pm
  Mr. Peter Griffiths: I thank my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health for his helpful response to my intervention. He satisfied my prime concern, which was that we were not looking simply at the range of accommodation that will be available for placements by local authorities but were attempting to ensure that accommodation of sufficient quality will be available so that placements can be the correct ones.

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  I found myself in almost full agreement with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), who drew attention to the second point that I would like to make. Because we are discussing not long-term placements in nursing homes or registered care homes but people who may have relatively short-term problems, or problems—such as mental disabilities—which may eventually allow them to return to the community, it is essential that we note that the title of the Bill places community care before residential accommodation. The need for the accommodation arises out of a requirement for care. It is not somewhere to put people out of the way so that they can be conveniently forgotten. Rather they are placed there because that is the most suitable place in which the community can show its commitment to care for them. If in future they have the opportunity to return to some other form of accommodation—their own home, perhaps, or some other form of residential accommodation such as warden-assisted flats—that would be encouraged.
  I was pleased that the Minister gave us an assurance that there would be accommodation of the quality required. That is a measure of the success of such accommodation. I have recently dealt with the case of a lady who, after undergoing heroic surgery for cancer, was placed first in a nursing home and then—after a remarkable recovery, considering the fact that she was elderly—she was able to move gradually back into other accommodation, so that she is now virtually independent, in a flat of her own. Surely that is the measure of the community care which everyone in the House would like to see.
  I question what the hon. Member for Perry Barr said about differential charges. I was not sure whether, in suggesting that people who can pay are being made to pay more, he was criticising the proprietors of residential accommodation for having a range of charges within their establishments. If so, it was not a very fair criticism. After all, most homes offer a range of quality of accommodation—single rooms, or larger rooms, for example, for those who would prefer them.
  Mr. Rooker: I made the point exactly as I intended to. In many areas, especially in nursing homes, a different charge is made for exactly the same level of service, depending on whether people are self-funded—that is, not in receipt of income support. That is immoral because it is a cross-subsidy from one resident to another, to make up a shortfall. The homes could not cope without it. If they did not have a mix including self-funded people, whom they charge more than they charge people on income support, they would close. That is the fault of the Government's refusal to organise their social security policy properly.
  Mr. Griffiths: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that explanation. He may recall that in the previous Parliament I joined him and many of his hon. Friends in the Division Lobbies on that issue, so there is no great disagreement between us there—except that I still wish to defend owners and organisers who allow people whom they took on when they had private funds to stay in their highly expensive accommodation long after those funds have run out and they can obtain only the amount payable in income support. Credit should be given to such owners, who do not seek to remove people when their private funds have run out—but now I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy
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  Speaker, will draw my attention to the fact that we are not discussing registered accommodation or nursing homes this afternoon.
  I believe that I shall have the support of Members on both sides of the House when I say that it is important that community care should contain the widest possible range and variety so as to be able to meet the needs of individuals. Social services departments should continue to be involved, as should other local authority bodies and agencies, after accommodation has been found. There should be a continuing commitment to the personal care and development of individuals. However slow that may be—in the case, for example, of people with serious handicaps—there should still be a continuing commitment to the development of the individual, not just to his or her placement.
  The Bill, modest though it is, gives local authorities a wider choice, and I believe that they will seize the opportunity to ensure that they provide carefully selected and progressive accommodation to suit the requirements of each individual who turns to them for assistance.
  4.56 pm
  Mr. David Hinchliffe: I make it clear at the outset that I have no wish to obstruct the progress of the Bill. I certainly support its aims, and I am aware of the excellent work undertaken by some of the establishments whose functioning it will affect. There is an Abbeyfield Society establishment in my constituency, and the model that Abbeyfield offers should be actively encouraged. My comments will make it apparent that I wish us to have a detailed debate on the measure, as opposed to allowing it to go through on the nod, as yesterday's business statement led me to assume was the original intention. I was worried to see that the Bill was expected to go through all its stages today, and I welcome the fact that the Government have conceded the Standing Committee stage. That Committee stage may well be brief—there is no need to obstruct the Bill's progress—but I feel that there are issues which we should debate.
  The Bill gives us the opportunity to discuss the current community care situation in the run-up to April next year, and the chance to pick up a range of issues which were missed when the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 was passed. I hope that the Government will listen to some of the suggestions made today, and perhaps add provisions to the Bill before the Committee stage.
  I listened carefully to the Under-Secretary of State's opening speech—and, personally, I wish him well in his new role. I know that his background is relevant to the work that he is now undertaking. But I was worried because what he said made it appear that he and the Government were oblivious to what many people believe is a crisis in community care in the run-up to 1 April next year—a crisis that will not be resolved by the changes which it is proposed will take place on that date.
  The Government's strategy on community care has been clear for many years: leave it to the market. Now we are picking up the pieces. The market has organised what is in the interests of the market rather than those of the care consumer. There is now a huge explosion in one form of care—private institutional care—way above and beyond any reasonable estimate of the demand caused by the increasing number of elderly and very elderly people.

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  What concerns me is that, when the Government refer to "community care", they actually mean private institutional care. That is the central theme of their belief in community care. I do not believe that institutional care is community care. Community care is care in the community and not care away from the community. The Opposition have restated that point because it is a fundamental difference between the Government and the Opposition.
  Let us consider what has happened in relation to funding the private institutional care sector since 1981. I find it interesting that the Government boast about the amount they have put into private institutional care through the income support system. In 1981, the amount invested in private care through supplementary benefit was about £10 million a year. In the past financial year, the amount invested was about £2 billion—a huge amount —which was paid through income support to people in private institutional care. The total figure invested by the Government through income support to people in private institutional care since 1981 comes to about £9 billion. Rather than boasting about that figure or being proud of it, the Government should be ashamed that so much money is being invested in institutionalising people in this day and age.
  To make matters worse, alongside the investment of £9 billion through income support, one must consider the pattern of funding through the revenue support grant system to local authority social services. Figures available from the Library show that about £6 billion of RSG funding to local authority social services has been removed by reductions in RSG during the same period. The Government are clearly determined to move money away from preventive domiciliary services into institutional care. That is a nonsensical strategy which should be reversed as a matter of urgency. The Government have pulled the rug out from under the local authorities' ability to fund domiciliary care such as home helps, meals-on-wheels, respite care, day care and a range of other services which are geared to enabling people and their carers to remain in the community. That strategy should be exposed, and I urge the Minister to look afresh at the way in which the Government are acting.
  We are debating an issue which is not only political but which involves basic human rights issues of how we treat elderly and disabled people. It is a basic human right to allow people to remain in independent or semi-independent living in the community if they and their carers so wish. The Government are determined to remove that right from people and they should be ashamed of their record in that respect. Compared with similar countries in Europe and elsewhere, in Britain far more elderly and disabled people are institutionalised than should be the case. We should consider that position very seriously and none of us should be proud of it.
  As other hon. Members have said, we should consider afresh the issue of the financial difficulties facing vast numbers of elderly disabled people who cannot afford to pay for the private institutional care they receive at present —an issue that affects every hon. Member who has constituents in private care homes. It is scandalous that there are people in every constituency who have to use their personal allowances to pay for their care. Some
  972
  elderly people do not have a spare penny to spend on a hair-do, on new underwear or even on a bag of sweets. That is profoundly unacceptable in this day and age and the Government should be ashamed of it.
  We are told that April 1993 will change everything—if April 1993 ever happens. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) said, there are strong rumours that April 1993 may not arrive and that there may be a second deferral of the implementation of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. I should be grateful for further clarification from the Minister. I served in Committee on the National Health Service and Community Care Bill and I believe that April 1993 will be a false dawn. It is being held up as something that will suddenly cure all the ills in community care, but I do not believe that that will happen.
  Assessment, care management and community care plans are all excellent and desirable provisions which were supported by the Opposition. However, assessment is nonsense when social workers cannot assess for alternatives to institutional care. With the huge explosion in private market care, the Government have established a bias towards institutional care. To ensure that we have an even playing field and a choice of services, we desperately need a massive redirection of funding away from the private institutional sector into alternatives to institutional care, whether public, private, voluntary or other, to enable people when they are assessed to have a genuine choice to remain independent and to stay out of care. Assessment may not have the impact that many people, including people in my own party, assume that it will have after April 1993.
  There are huge gaps in the Bill and in the 1990 Act in relation to the rights of people in a care setting, whether private nursing homes, residential care homes, local authority homes or whatever. It is important for the Government, following important reports such as the Wagner report, the "Home Life" recommendations and reports from organisations such as Counsel and Care, which suggest that things are not well in relation to the rights of residents in many care homes, both in the private and public sectors, to address the issues, whether in the Bill or in separate legislation. The Government should bring into statute clear requirements protecting the rights of people in care.
  We shall now have the opportunity to consider some of those requirements in Committee, but there are issues which we should consider as a matter of urgency and which could be addressed in the Bill. One issue is the right to rehabilitation. When we debated the 1990 Act in Committee—several of my hon. Friends served on that Committee—we discussed the assessment process which will come into operation after April 1993. However, once a person is placed in institutional care, there are no review procedures. Anyone who has worked with elderly people or who knows of cases of elderly people knows that a person's circumstances can change in a week, in a month or in six months, and that they may be completely different from when that person was initially assessed. It is essential that we introduce some form of reassessment and review for people who are in care homes to give them the opportunity of rehabilitation and actively to encourage rehabilitation.
  People in the private sector are now worried that some of the homes may not be full and that they may not be able to run at a profit. What incentive is there for private care

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  home owners to rehabilitate a resident and to work to get that resident back in the community if by doing so they put themselves into financial difficulties which may affect the viability of the homes? The Government's system works completely against rehabilitation and returning people to the community. People must address that point regardless of their politics. It is a human rights issue which we have overlooked and which needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
  Another issue which ties in is the way in which the existing system actively encourages dependence in care—indeed, it actively rewards dependence. The Department's system of monitoring people who move from receiving income support payments for care to income support payments for nursing home care—a significantly increased amount which the Government have introduced—involves no monitoring of whether people need that additional form of care or whether they are receiving it. There is no system of checking whether that care is needed or is being given. That is a scandalous misuse of public resources.
  I can give the Minister examples of individual cases. People have been shunted into nursing care when they do not need it. The system encourages dependence, and we must urgently address that problem.
  Other matters that we need to consider include the right to privacy. The Counsel and Care report last year pointed out that people cannot go to the toilet in private, cannot bathe in private, and cannot have their own bedrooms. I have been to a home in which elderly ladies were bathed alongside each other. The system was two baths side by side, with a lady sitting in each bath, and two members of staff between them. The argument was that that was a quicker way of dealing with all those who had to be bathed. Anyway, they said, it did not matter because those old people were confused, so they were not embarrassed by being bathed in front of each other. That is unacceptable. In case anyone thinks that I am anti-private sector, that happened in a local authority home. I accept that it was a few years ago, but it happened, certainly within the past five years.
  Before I was elected to this place, I went to a private care home in my constituency. Seven people were crammed into one bedroom. In this day and age that is completely unacceptable. The issues of privacy and rights within care must be addressed by the Government. We must consider security of tenure and also people's rights. There are few rights for people who are asked to pay because they cannot afford their fees. There is no system to ensure that they are properly looked after. Vulnerable elderly people worry about being out on the streets. I accept that there are care home owners—I know of some in west Yorkshire—who are subsidising people through their own charity and good will. However, we know of people in west Yorkshire who have been evicted and of people who have moved downmarket. That is unacceptable when people in their 80s and 90s are vulnerable, unhappy and unaware of what is happening.
  The Government must put into statute some of the requirements in their "Home Life" document. It is nonsense to have recommendations in "Home Life" and not back them by statutory provision. It weakens the position of the inspectorate which is to monitor and register homes when there is no backbone to the desirable points in "Home Life".
  I hope that those issues will be addressed by amendments to the Bill. Opposition Members have no
  974
  desire to block the Bill, but it is important to debate some of the human rights issues that are affected by such legislation. The Government should be ashamed of their record on community care. What we have seen over the past decade or more in the care of elderly people is wrong. It is about time we had a change of course. The Minister starts his job with a clean sheet. I hope that he will look at the matter afresh. The Bill provides the opportunity significantly to solve some of the problems to which I have referred and to which, no doubt, my hon. Friends will refer.
  5.12 pm
  Mr. Roger Sims: I always enjoy listening to the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), who speaks with vigour, enthusiasm and, of course, a knowledge born of his experience. His speech seemed to be a rather strong advocacy of the Government's legislation. He urged them to do exactly what the legislation is intended to do. He complained that too many people are in institutions and could be better looked after in their own homes. That is precisely the object of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. He said that, in the past, we have not given sufficient help to carers. Again, that is very much the philosophy of the Act, the White Paper, and the way in which local authorities are endeavouring to implement the legislation. The hon. Gentleman pleaded for a redirection of resources. That is precisely what the legislation is all about, and it is exactly what we hope will happen.
  I enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), who complained that community care did not feature much in the election campaign. However, in his anecdote he demonstrated the reason for that. As has been and will be evident in the debate, this is not a matter of party political controversy. Even differences in the ways in which we reach the ends are a good deal fewer than they were a couple of years ago when we discussed such matters in Committee.
  Like the hon. Gentleman, I have an Abbeyfield home in my constituency. If Abbeyfield had been left out of the legislation, we would have been astonished and would have endeavoured to put the matter right straight away. One accepts that, expert though parliamentary draftsmen are, errors and omissions sometimes occur, and steps must be taken to put matters right. That is exactly what the Bill is intended to do. I hope that it will have a rapid passage through the House.
  Hon. Members tend to spend many hours in the mornings, afternoons and sometimes nights considering Bills in Committee until, finally, on Third Reading we consider that our job is done, as indeed may be the case. But that is when the work starts. Hon. Members who have followed the implementation of the Children Act 1989, for example, and now the community care part of the 1990 Act realise how much work has been going on within Government Departments and locally in implementing that Act.
  There has been a steady stream of guidance from the Department to local authorities on a range of matters within the Act and on how it should be implemented. Local authorities have been doing much work in compiling their care plans, all of which were submitted to the Department by 1 April and are now being examined.

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  Authorities have been spurred on to increase their range of services. Of course, the philosophy behind the Act is that a range of services should be available and that it should be the responsibility of local authorities to ensure that they are provided, to make assessments and to make care packages. Whether care packages are available within local authority services, within the voluntary sector or within a mixture of sectors will depend on each case and on the local facilities available.
  As the hon. Member for Perry Barr said, there has been a lack of guidance on finance. There has been virtually no guidance on the financing of community care. Hon. Members will recall that assurances on resources were requested time and again when the 1990 Act was being considered. The then Minister assured us time and again that resources would be available to ensure that the Act was fully implemented. That Minister is now the Secretary of State, and we can be sure that those promises will be fulfilled.
  In attending local conferences on the implementation of community care, I have been struck by the enthusiasm to get on with the job and with the widespread concern about whether resources will be available, and in particular about what they will be. That depends not only on the Department of Health but on the Treasury and the DSS. It is important that, as soon as possible, we have clarification of the mechanics of shifting what, until now, has been the income support element under the DSS and how it will be made available to local authorities. In future, if, after assessment, an elderly or handicapped person—it may even be a child—is to go into a residential home, the cost is to be met by the local authority from funds that previously would have come from the Department of Social Security as part of income support. What is that figure to be? On what basis is it to be formulated? Surely discussions have been going on for a couple of years on that. It must be possible to give local authorities an idea what the figure will be.
  Of course, one accepts that the normal local authority grant is still under discussion. Under the curious system that we have in Britain, it will be autumn before local authorities know the figure for the year starting next April. One wonders how businesses could operate on the same basis, but that is the way in which Governments operate. However, it should be possible to say now what will be the tranche which up to now was income support. It should further be clarified how the tranche will be applied.
  For example, if a person is assessed as most suitably accommodated in an Abbeyfield home, will that cost be met in full by the local authority or will the local authority have only sufficient funds to pay what was up to now the income support level? As we know, that was often not sufficient to meet the full cost. Who will fill the gap?
  If local authorities are obliged to make assessments, it is rather important that they have the resources to provide the services that they have decided are required. While I realise that my hon. Friend the Minister is unlikely to be able to give us a detailed reply in this Second Reading debate, there will be a useful opportunity in Committee to discuss how the important National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 is being implemented.
  Can my hon. Friend give us more information on resources and funding? What will be available and how
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  will it be applied? That information would be of enormous value to local authority officers who, with the assistance of many people in the private and voluntary sectors, are hard at work preparing for next April. They need assurances that they will have the means to carry out what Parliament has instructed them to do.
  5.22 pm
  Ms. Liz Lynne: I welcome this non-controversial Bill. It gives me an opportunity to ask some questions and raise several issues. The House is probably aware, as I am sure you are aware, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that at present income support levels often do not meet the cost of either residential or nursing homes. Elderly people often have to make up the shortfall or, if they are fortunate enough to have a relative around, a relative has to make up the shortfall. As has already been said, if there are no relatives, problems can arise.
  What exactly does the Minister have in mind on funding? When local authorities take over the responsibility for paying for homes and residential accommodation, will the Minister give the same money as the income support level? Or is he thinking of paying the actual cost of the home? It is essential for us to know that. If local authorities do not receive the actual cost, many will say that they cannot provide as many places as perhaps they should.
  People with learning difficulties are a good example. At present, such people are assessed and a statement is made. That statement is often made taking into account what facilities are available to the local authority. I am desperately afraid that the same thing could happen with this Bill and that local authorities will assess only on the strength of what they have available in residential accommodation. This is an important point to remember.
  Another matter of concern is inspection. What does the Minister have in mind? Does he intend perhaps to set up an independent inspection unit? I should like far more inspections to take place in residential and, indeed, nursing homes. More inspections should be carried out unannounced. I know that that already happens to a certain extent, but I should like to see many more such inspections to ensure that standards are maintained in homes.
  I am aware that the matter is not covered specifically by the Bill, but what are the Minister's views on the use of the Buxton chair, which I understand is still used in certain residential and nursing homes? It is sometimes referred to as the "naughty chair".
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. The Bill is fairly tightly drawn. I have been pretty generous in allowing a wide debate, but we cannot go way beyond the scope of the Bill.
  Ms. Lynne: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I move on to my last point about the funds that will be made available. I should like far more funds to be made available for community care generally. Come April 1993, when the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 must be implemented, local authorities throughout the country will have horrendous problems unless they have more funds and those funds are ring-fenced.
  I make a plea to the Government again today seriously to consider ring-fencing the funds for community care, and specifically for residential homes. If the Government do

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  not ring-fence the funds or find some way of insisting that local authorities spend on those homes, the money allocated for residential homes they will hive off the money for pet projects. I should like some assurances on that.
  5.26 pm
  Mr. Tom Clarke: I join my hon. Friends in congratulating the Minister on his appointment. With his former association with the Spastics Society, a great deal is expected of him. I am sure that he knows that. I also congratulate your good self, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment. It is a clear indication that being a rebel is no bar to respectability afterwards.
  I find the Bill a little confusing in several respects. I am delighted that we are having this debate and that time will be found for reasonable discussion in Committee so that we can clarify some of the difficulties which emerge. My first difficulty with the Bill is why it does not apply to Scotland or, as the hon. Member for Antrim, East (Mr. Beggs) reminded me, Northern Ireland. Perhaps we can be told what the problem is.
  In the explanatory memorandum there is a reference to a lacuna, which is presumably the reason for the Bill. I do not know whether there is a Scots word for "lacuna". Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) can help me with that. I think that it means that there is a gap. I do not know whether there is a similar gap or lacuna in Scotland, but if there is, can we do something about it? If there is not, may we hear about it?
  My hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), rightly addressed the Bill in the context of our worries about community care in the 1990s. It is reasonable that we should have such a discussion at an early stage in this Parliament. We have heard some interesting speeches and I am sure that there will be other equally interesting speeches later. The Chamber is not so packed as it might be if this were a debate on Maastricht, but I humbly suggest that Members of Parliament will receive far more representations at their surgeries in the next four or five years about what is happening to community care for the elderly in our society than even about the important issue of Maastricht. The matter should therefore be viewed in that context.
  Some of us received a document from the Royal College of Nursing this week entitled, "A Scandal Waiting to Happen". It tackles the problems of elderly people in nursing care in residential and nursing homes which are dealt with in the Bill. It makes a number of important points which are central to our approach to such matters —for example, the provision of proper funding after assessments take place. The booklet reflects a view which has been expressed in the debate when it says:
  "Like many other organisations, the Royal College of Nursing has expressed concern that the money being allocated to local authorities to carry out their duties under the NHS and Community Care Act should be ringfenced."
  I am glad to see the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) in his place because the Select Committee which he chaired with some distinction, and the former Select Committee which dealt with such matters when there was a single joint Department, understood that there was a strong case for ring-fencing, as did so many other reports. The Griffiths report dealt with the matter and
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  complained that legislation in a difficult area, involving the elderly and their carers, is being passed in dribs and drabs —I fear that the Bill tends to suggest that the Griffiths report was right about that, if it was not necessarily right about everything else. The Bill represents dribs and drabs.
  We spent a great deal of time in Committee dealing with the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. We have been told that the community care provisions will be introduced in 1993. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) said, there have been strong rumours from the Department of Health that that is not now the Government's intention and that they are under strong pressure to postpone their commitment. I hope that it may be within the rules of the debate for the Minister to deal with that—if he will listen to what I am saying. I am not sure what the Foreign Office has to do with these matters, but he might be better advised listening to hon. Members than to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, who is sitting beside him. Will the Minister tell us whether the commitment to the community care sections of the 1990 Act is still as firm as the Government have suggested?
  In common with my hon. Friends, I am greatly worried about our approach to this issue if the Royal College of Nursing takes the view that there is a scandal waiting to happen. When dealing with the enormous problems faced by elderly people, if we leave so much to market forces, without even providing for adequate inspection of public and private sector homes—although I accept that there should be no distinction between them—we do not seem to be making much progress.
  Although we welcome the main thrust of the Bill's proposals, I am worried that yet again local authorities are being viewed as enablers rather than providers. In the absence of ring-fencing, enormous financial requirements are being made of local authorities, but it is not clear whether funding will be made available.
  The Bill, and questions about it, are especially relevant at a time when we are considering the transfer of funding. Local authorities face great problems. The hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) mentioned their obligations under the Children Act 1989, and it is right that we should deal with the problems of children in need, but local authority budgets will have to cope with such important matters. I served on the Standing Committee on the Children Act, as did many hon. Members. We understood that such progress was being made. When we eventually hand all that legislation over to the local authority social services departments and the Scottish social work departments, they will have to decide their priorities. I do not think that they will welcome the job, given present financial constraints.
  An additional problem in the 1990 Act, which the Government seek to amend by the Bill, is the transfer of funding from the Department of Social Security. The problem facing local authorities is clear. They will have to deal with the social security expenditure shortfall—with the fees deficit—and that will be made more difficult when the Bill is enacted. We are told that the present shortfall means £30 per week for a person in a care home and £50 per person for those in nursing homes.
  If the Bill is enacted, a further responsibility will be passed to the local authorities, at the same time as the Government transfer an inbuilt deficit of £132 million to them. It is therefore reasonable for the Government to

  979
  explain their view of the priorities. What guidelines have they offered to local authorities? How do they view the central issue of assessment, for example, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) referred?
  It is not enough merely to produce a Bill of this sort, or even to say that the Government are going ahead with the 1990 Act, without considering the global problems of community care and without telling us whether they agree with the main thrust of the Griffiths report, which said that there should be genuine care within the community.
  If we simply pile elderly people into institutions—to use a somewhat crude expression—that does not mean that we are providing care in the community. Happily, there is a growing number of elderly people. Surely we should demand that those men and women, who have brought up families and worked in their communities, are assessed properly to make certain that they are able to remain in the community. We should ask ourselves whether many of those people would be happier remaining in their communities, with the provision of more home helps and occupational therapists, and improvements in the meals on wheels and chiropody services.
  With the emphasis being placed on providing residential care, mainly in the private sector, and on reducing resources for local authorities—including education, which ought not to be beyond the reach of the elderly, who are a part of our community and should be seen as such—I worry that we are not producing a real strategy for care in the community. We are pursuing the accountancy of the problems faced by the Treasury. A real strategy would mean that more elderly people would find independence but would be genuinely supported, when there is a need for such support, within the community.
  I hope that we shall also be able to tackle the problem of advocacy in Committee. If we are dealing with proper assessments, with the role of carers, and trying to enrich the lives of the elderly, and especially the institutionalised, advocacy becomes profoundly important.
  I was delighted that a group was established in Scotland this week to deal with dementia. Clearly, those people have rights. In the absence of advocacy, nobody in private or even public homes will be able to say they do not like a particular room, that they are unhappy because of social security problems, the food and clothing available, or that they have problems with incontinence. The elderly may feel that such important matters are not being dealt with.
  Sadly, we all know from our constituency visits that, in some cases, the problem of incontinence is not being addressed. In the absence of advocacy, which I hope will be included in the Bill, I hope that elderly people will be assured that, at least, we are concerned about their lifestyle, health and welfare and that that is not inconsistent with the strategy for community care.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: On the sad and sensitive matter of incontinence, is the hon. Gentleman, who has served as a distinguished member of the Select Committee on Health, concerned about the anomalies in the free provision of incontinence pads? I say without reservation that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), who opened the debate for the Opposition, has done some wonderful work on that issue. It is crazy that elderly people in hospitals and in county
  980
  council part III statutory accommodation are in receipt of incontinence pads, but those in private nursing and residential homes have to pay for them separately. Is that not an issue to which the Government should give urgent attention?
  Mr. Clarke: The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent and valid point.
  Mr. Bob Cryer: The Minister thinks that it is all wonderful.
  Mr. Clarke: Apart from the importance of the issue which, as the hon. Member for Macclesfield rightly pointed out, my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr has promoted—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) wishes to speak, he can seek to intervene, but I prefer not to hear too many sedentary comments because they detract from the speech of the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke).
  Mr. Clarke: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  The hon. Member for Macclesfield has made a valid point which helps to underscore my concluding remarks —I know that other hon. Members wish to speak. Advocacy—in the private sector especially, but I do not exclude it from the public sector—is important for elderly people.
  At the beginning of my speech, I stressed that the vital issue of community care, including the problems of the elderly, are ones that we shall debate often in the course of the Parliament. It is right that we should do that. I regret to say that one reason for that is that, in the previous Parliament, we did not give the matter the priority that it deserved. We are all reminded by our elderly constituents that they are part of society and that their needs—and, above all, their rights—are matters that we should consider.
  This small Bill follows on from the Government's major National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. We have not seen much evidence to support the belief that the Government have broken away from the ideology of 1990. I do not see that those on the Government Front Bench are as committed to a mixed economy system in care as is my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr, with whom I agree. I hope that as our discussions develop the Government will accept that in the provision of community care we should have a commitment to a genuine provision of services to the elderly. There should be representations and consultations about their needs in the public and private sectors. We should ensure that there will be proper inspections at every level so that elderly people enjoy the fulfilled and enriched lives that the people of this country would expect the House to deliver.
  5.44 pm
  Mr. Peter Thurnham: I congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment, but I apologise for unavoidably missing the early part of this debate. However, I very much appreciate the opportunity to join in the discussion. I also apologise for missing my hon. Friend the Minister's opening speech. I shall look forward to reading it and I congratulate him on his appointment. He brings to it his long experience of

  981
  working with disabled people, and he has always shown great sensitivity to their needs. I am confident that he will fulfil his duties well.
  I am pleased that the Government have introduced the Bill, because maximum flexibility is essential and local authorities should use the services of the private sector. I listened with care to the speech of the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke), but I was confused by one of his points. I noted that he said that the resources available to local authorities had been reduced. I am sure that, in the provision of community care, we have increased resources to local authorities. If we consider the future for local authorities, an increasing proportion of local authority resources will go into community care. Perhaps fewer resources will go into education if more schools opt out, but more will go into community care.
  Mr. Hinchliffe: At the end of his speech, will the hon. Gentleman accompany me to the House of Commons Library? There I shall introduce him to a researcher who will show him detailed figures—the hon. Gentleman was not present when I spoke—that show that the Government's reduction in rate support grant since 1979 has taken £6 billion out of local authority social service expenditure. They are not my figures or those of the Labour party: they are the figures of the House of Commons Library, and I look forward to taking the hon. Gentleman along the Corridor.
  Mr. Thurnham: I am sorry that I was not present to hear the hon. Gentleman's speech, but I shall read Hansard with care. The figures that I have seen show an increase in resources, and there is no doubt that, in future, the proportion of local authority resources going into community care will increase, even if the proportion of resources going into education is reduced.
  Mr. Tom Clarke: The hon. Gentleman will find that I was arguing that local authorities are being asked to undertake more and more responsibilities, and the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) made the same point about the Children Act 1989. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, whatever the argument about figures, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) produced some important ones? If the case for ring-fencing is established, we will at least know how much funding is being made available.
  Mr. Thurnham: I do not follow that argument, to which the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms. Lynne) also referred. I do not believe that local authorities will divert resources from community care. The pressures and demands are for more resources in community care, so I do not believe that local authorities will divert such resources elsewhere.
  I do not think that resources need to be ring-fenced because we cannot trust local authorities to spend their money where the needs are greatest. Local authorities are in the best position to make such judgments and, if anything, they will spend more than they possibly would if the expenditure was ring fenced. I do not follow the hon. Gentleman's argument: we need maximum flexibility.
  I have seen an enormous community care plan produced by my authority in Bolton, and other Members will have seen similar plans produced by their authorities. Of course, it is the responsibility of local authorities to
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  produce such plans and to have them approved in order to start implementing the new services for which they will be responsible in 12 months' time.
  Tomorrow I shall visit a centre which has been created for the provision of respite care and residential care, in a former children's home in my constituency at Moss Nook. I am delighted that it has been set up and is being arranged by a new charitable organisation that has been set up by the Bolton handicap action group. The work has been done in partnership with the health authority—in future I hope that the local authority will also be involved. Such partnership is the best way to provide services with the maximum flexibility.
  The hon. Member for Monklands, West said that councils should act as enablers rather than as providers. I am glad that that message has got through, as it is the best way to provide community care services in the future. Some counties, such as Kent, have set a good example in providing services in the most efficient way by remembering that they are first and foremost enablers and not providers.
  I look forward to the passage of the Bill. There should be the maximum flexibility. Local authorities should be trusted to use their discretion and there seems no need to ring-fence their funds, because they are in the best position to assess needs and decide how best to use their resources. I hope that local authorities will not try to make a political football out of all this, because the needs are real, the resources can be found and they must he used wisely. Those resources should not be distorted or manipulated to make political capital out of the needs of the people for whom they are intended.
  5.50 pm
  Mr. Kevin Hughes: It is desirable for everybody that local authorities are able to offer the widest possible choice to people seeking residential care. I welcome the Bill because, when enacted, it will provide a wider spread of provision available to local authority social service directorates.
  It is unfortunate that there should have been such a long delay in implementing the community care legislation. It seemed to have fallen victim to the Government's poll tax folly. In other words, caring for people was sacrificed in an effort to prop up the doomed poll tax that continued the previous Government's policy of making the rich better off at the expense of the poor. Thatcherism will go down in history as a Robin Hood in reverse—robbing the poor to give to the rich.
  Many elderly people, including the confused, the physically and mentally handicapped, those with autism and people with drug and alcohol problems, are eagerly awaiting the implementation of the community care legislation in April. I hope that the rumours about possible further delay in implementation are not true. The people concerned, and the carers, must not be let down. Certainly they should not be made to wait any longer for this legislation.
  To ensure that their expectations, which are many and varied, are met, we must provide good-quality services. Most local authorities have been working hard to that end. They already have in place their registration and inspection units and are endeavouring to develop policies

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  encompassing all the elements of good-quality care, offering a wide range of choice. That will be made better by the Bill.
  Many local authorities, working with area health authorities and the voluntary and commercial sectors, are operating genuine partnerships with the aim of providing professional and good quality care; but if community care is to be of the highest quality, giving real choice to users and carers, it must be provided by a highly trained and motivated work force in the local authority voluntary and commercial sectors.
  That can be done only with proper funding by the Government. Real choice and quality cannot be offered on the cheap or set against a backdrop of a budget that cannot be altered. If we are to offer real choice and quality, people must be given it genuinely and be told that there is no budget backdrop to that choice.
  We are now less than 12 months from implementation, yet local authorities still do not know how they will be funded and how much they will get. People must be trained and many new procedures developed and in place well before that date. If local authorities and others are to be ready, they must know as soon as possible the detailed information about the social security transfer of funds.
  Why is it that we and local authorities still do not know the conclusions of the deliberations of the so-called algebra group that was set up to try to sort out the transfer of funds? Like my hon. Friends, I urge the Secretary of State to ring-fence the extra funding to ensure that the money is used on community care and not lost in wider local authority budgets. I have no doubt that it would be put to good use if they were allowed to use it for other causes, but we must make sure that the money is targeted directly into social service budgets so that it is used to implement this legislation.
  Local authorities want to know how the Government expect them to fund the work force who will be needed to implement the final stages of the community care legislation. They need up-to-date information on the number of people currently in, and those projected to enter, independent care. Most local authorities are keen to undertake their new responsibilities for community care and have made considerable effort to meet required objectives. This measure will help them in that respect.
  Recent reports from the social services inspectorate, regional health authorities and the Audit Commission suggest that local authorities are well on target. The final word on all the issues to which I have referred, and therefore responsibility for the effective implementation of the proposals, lies with the Government. I hope that the Secretary of State will promise the British people that the Government will make adequate funds available to ensure that, when they need care, they will get it when they need it, rather than being put on a waiting list for assessment.
  Will the Secretary of State also promise them real choice and give an assurance that local authorities will not have to rob Peter to pay Paul in order to fund that choice? Will she also promise that people will not have to wait any longer for a high-quality community care programme, whatever their needs and wherever they live in Britain.
  5.56 pm
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I am glad of this opportunity to contribute to the debate and, like my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham), I apologise for being absent for the early part of it. The studio in which I was located for a time was linked to the Chamber, so I was able to hear a major part of the speeches of those who spoke earlier.
  I am pleased to support the views expressed by the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke). He highlighted many problems that those of us who have taken a great interest in community care anticipate and believe will occur on 1 April of next year. I view that date with deep concern. It is not only my concern: it has been expressed to me by senior officials and others concerned with and appointed to help authorities and those who work in local authority social service departments.
  The hon. Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes) thought—I share his view—that social service departments were unaware of the resources that they would have to spend on community care as from 1 April of next year. That state of affairs does not enable social service departments, which will be the lead authorities in community care, to make adequate plans.
  I need not remind the House that we are talking of groups of people, particularly the elderly, who are among the most vulnerable in society. I view with concern the decisions being taken by county council social service departments to shed their part III residential homes and dispose of them, in the main, to non-profit-making charitable organisations which take over the management and running of the homes.
  I am delighted to see in his place my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, because nobody knows more than he about social security income support and all matters relating to assistance and benefit available to the needy and elderly. He knows that grave problems face elderly people in the funding of their residential care. The more people there are who depend on the private sector, the more difficult it will become. That is a matter to which the Government, and particularly the Department of Health, will have to give careful consideration.
  We look to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to do a great deal between now and 1 April next year. He has a fine reputation for dealing with vulnerable groups in our society. He was a distinguished officer of the Spastics Society and he served on the Select Committee for Health and its predecessor Committees, and we look to him to achieve a great deal in the introduction of community care in Britain.
  The one thing that causes me some concern is the last paragraph of the explanatory memorandum. My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) will criticise me if I do not point it out, and perhaps will criticise me if I do, because it says:
  "The Bill should not result in any increase in public expenditure, or have any effect on public service manpower."
  It should. We must oil the wheels of community care to ensure that it works and that those who deserve the support of hon. Members, on whatever side they sit—the elderly and other vulnerable groups—should be totally confident that, in the implementation of what is a dramatic change in policy, community care, brought into effect and

  985
  implemented by the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, has the resources to make it work.
  Hon. Members would not expect me to sit down without saying that I too, like many who have spoken, wish expenditure in the specialist areas to be ring-fenced. Roy Griffiths said in his report that the money should be ring-fenced. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is nodding and smiling at me, and I am delighted that he is. I know, because of his own concern, just how much he is anxious about this and how much he wishes to see the community care policy working.
  The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton)rose—
  Mr. Winterton: I am delighted to give way to such a senior Minister.
  Mr. Newton: I apologise to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for intervening in a matter relating to my old pastures rather than my current one. I was nodding and smiling only because, as I think my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) knows perfectly well, the purpose of the Bill is modest—to correct an error in the original Bill affecting the Abbeyfield Society. I have to admire his ingenuity in ranging over the whole area of community care in the course of the debate.
  Mr. Winterton: I can only pay tribute to the discretion and good sense of the Chair in enabling me to highlight a number of deep concerns felt on both sides of the House, which is helpful—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not rely too much on my discretion.
  Mr. Winterton: I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for that sound piece of advice, which, naturally, as a member of the Chairmen's Panel, I shall heed immediately.
  Mr. Cryer: The hon. Gentleman probably missed some of the debate while he was in the television studio, so I should tell him that the Minister initiated a debate on the whole of community care, not just the narrow terms of the Bill. That was entirely endorsed by the then Deputy Speaker. Unfortunately, the Leader of the House did not hear the opening speech, so his remarks are slightly out of order.
  Mr. Winterton: It would be completely inappropriate for me to comment on what the hon. Gentleman says. I always take the advice of the Chair, and as long as I serve in this place I shall continue to do so.
  I am linking my remarks to the explanatory memorandum which, I repeat, says:
  "The Bill should not result in any increase in public expenditure, or have any effect on public service manpower."
  Mr. Andrew Rowe rose—
  Mr. Winterton: I shall give way in a moment to my hon. Friend, who was another distinguished member of the Select Committee on Health in the previous Parliament.
  It may well be necessary in the course of the further stages of this legislation to tell the House that additional resources, both by way of public expenditure and in respect of public service manpower, may well be required
  986
  to plug what is described in the explanatory memorandum as a lacuna created by the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990.
  Mr. Rowe: My hon. Friend's ingenious use of the explanatory memorandum seems to link with an earlier remark when he said that it is particularly sad that local authorities should be getting rid of their part III accommodation. The implication was that, in the private or non-profit-making sector, one might look for rather less effectiveness than in the public sector. I hope that is not what he means. He would be greatly mistaken if that was what he meant. I hope that he will correct any misapprehension on my part.
  Mr. Winterton: I am delighted to respond to my hon. Friend. I look to community care to provide a wide range of facilities. I see developing a situation in which in many areas there will be few what I describe as statutory part III residential homes. Almost exclusively, the social service departments, acting as facilitators, as purchasers of services, not necessarily as providers, will not have the scope of choice that I believe is necessary. That is a point that has already been made in speeches today.
  I am entirely in favour of partnership. I am entirely in favour of the private sector being an important part of that partnership. I am also in favour of the non-profit-making charitable organisations being part of the overall provision that is available to social service departments to choose from in respect of accommodation and care for the elderly and other vulnerable groups within the community. But I am deeply concerned that choice, which the Government have said should be an important part of the new system, will be limited. When elderly people are assessed about the accommodation and care they require, the assessment might well be affected by the availability of facilities.
  Whether or not my hon. Friends are prepared to say it. clearly we are loading a heavy additional responsibility on to local authorities. I remain to be convinced that sufficient resources will be transferred to local authorities, in the main from health authorities, to enable local authorities as the lead authority in community care to provide the level of service and the range of accommodation that is required if community care in Britain really is to work.
  Again, I make a plea for ring fencing, which has been suggested by Labour Members and Liberal Democrats and is also supported by Conservative Members. I am aware of many authorities, such as my own in Macclesfield, where the health authority and social service departments have now put forward a blueprint of what they hope to achieve. But the fruition, the true implementation, of what is contained in the excellent and well-researched proposal booklet that has been issued in my area will entirely depend on the level of resources that is made available.
  The Bill is relatively tight, but the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) said that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State had introduced the Bill widely, embracing the whole scope of community care. I suspect that he did, although I heard only tiny snippets of his contribution. However, I know from the experience that he has had that he will have put a good case.
  Mr. Gareth Wardell: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is fundamentally important that, when the Bill is implemented on 1 April 1993, money is made available so that disabled housing grants can be in

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  place? It would be nonsense to have insufficient resources to provide the disabled with the aids they require in their homes—such as rails around the toilet and bath. In the Welsh context, a long waiting period for essential aids could make the Bill a nonsense.
  Mr. Winterton: The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. His intervention, together with the excellent speech of the hon. Member for Monklands, West shows how effective this is as a Parliament of the United Kingdom. We do not need separate legislatures to highlight the particular problems of Wales, Scotland or—I say this to the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe)—of the northern, north-western, or west midlands regions.
  The hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell) was right to highlight the need to provide resources to enable local authority social services departments to provide adaptations and modifications to homes so that the elderly and infirm can continue to live in the community.
  The hon. Gentleman's question perhaps implied that, if that cannot be done, community care cannot effectively be implemented in the United Kingdom. I share his concern to some extent. Those of my right hon. and hon. Friends who are deeply committed to an effective community care system and programme are aware that there are resource problems. There are rumours that the Government may seek further to postpone the programme. I hope that they do not. Although we are not utterly ready for it, a postponement would affect the morale of those who are desperately seeking to be ready by 1 April 1993 to an extent that would be counter-productive.
  You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have been generous in allowing my speech to range wider than it ought to have done, but I followed my hon. Friend on the Government Front Bench in that— and I know that others of its members wish that I would do that rather more often. I promise them that I shall seek to do so, bearing in mind my own reputation and independence of mind. I say to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that my comments come not just from the heart but from the head. He knows that the Select Committee on Social Services made a long, deep and detailed study of community care. We produced some excellent reports, with fine conclusions and recommendations—many of which received a positive response from the Department of Health.
  I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to give an assurance that the Bill will remove a lacuna created by the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, and that —despite the final sentence of the explanatory memorandum—the Government will give serious consideration to the provision of additonal resources, if they are needed before the legislation's implementation on 1 April 1993.
  I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister is aware that we are dealing with very vulnerable groups that cannot themselves promote a good case on their own behalf. They look to the House or to Parliament as a whole to ensure that their interests are safeguarded in the dramatic change of policy that is encapsulated in the 1990 Act.
  6.15 pm
  Ms. Tessa Jowell: I join other hon. Members in congratulating you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment. and in welcoming this legislation, which is little more than a technical tidying up to give local
  988
  authorities the power to place people in and pay for facilities that are not registered under the Registered Homes Act 1984.
  Community care is at a watershed, and stability is of the essence. Certainty in the nature and range of provision is the only way in which the confidence of those who rely on that provision and their carers will be sustained. Concerns are emerging about the way in which the broader community care policy is being implemented.
  There is a danger that the legislation's excellent intentions and all the fine rhetoric from hon. and right hon. Members in all parts of the House will not be borne out by the daily experience of elderly and disabled people throughout the country. It is the job of the House to do everything in its power to ensure that the legislation's promises are honoured in the provision of better opportunities in the daily lives of the elderly and disabled.
  Ministers have repeatedly given assurances that the new legislation will be adequately funded. The definition of adequacy will promote extensive debate among right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House. The importance of adequate funding cannot be overstated in terms of ensuring certainty and stability. Local authorities in particular must have the money to do properly the job that Parliament has willed them to do.
  Negotiations are under way about the money to be made available. I suspect that it may create difficulties for local authorities that the sums will be announced not in July as originally intended but in October.
  Reference has been made to the difficulties anticipated by local authorities because the money to be transferred to them to purchase care for people in their own homes or in residential accommodation will not be ring-fenced and specifically identified—and will therefore be susceptible. There are grave doubts also about the adequacy of the distribution formula, with evidence that the money may not be distributed by central Government to local government in accordance with local need.
  Local authorities have been charged with the technically and managerially demanding job of implementing the legislation. Its complexity is extensively acknowledged—most recently, by the Audit Commission. In recent years, local authority infrastructure and the capacity to plan for these changes has been eroded as Government cuts have been forced on local authorities.
  Other hon. Members have referred to the problem created by the "fee gap"—the difference between the amount that residential and nursing home care costs, and the amount that is available from social security to pay for that care. It is terribly important for that problem to be rectified as part of the negotiations about the amount to be made available to local authorities. Current estimates suggest that there is an average discrepancy of some £30 a week between the cost of a residential care place and the amount made available through the social security system. In the case of nursing home places, the discrepancy is about £50 a week.
  My constituency is fortunate to benefit from a small project—run under the auspices of Age Concern—that arranges placements for people who have been discharged from long-stay hospital care into private nursing care, searching the country for places where care can be provided at income support levels. Although, as a result, people are often placed a long way from home, the project also provides follow-up through visiting. I understand that

  989
  it is a unique initiative, and that elderly people in other parts of the country cannot be guaranteed access to such valuable support.
  Mr. Rowe: I share the hon. Lady's anxiety for the amount available for community care to be sufficient. Is it not the case, however, that, when the purchaser of such care is the local authority and not, as at present, the Department of Social Security operating at one remove, it will be much easier to match what is available with what can be afforded?
  Ms. Jowell: I shall come to that point. The Social Security Select Committee called for an urgent review of the fee gap, and I echo that call. If we do not sort out the problem now, local authorities will inherit an inherent deficit in the budget passed to them by Government via the revenue support grant, and that structural underfunding will limit the number of people in residential care whom authorities can support.
  In setting up contracts with independent providers, local authorities will be required to underwrite the cost in full. At present, the shortfall is being met by means of a range of cobbled-together solutions. Organisations such as Counsel and Care for the Elderly and Age Concern can provide substantial anecdotal evidence of the pressure that is put on relatives to find what may be large amounts of money to make good that shortfall. My hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) mentioned a figure of £142 million: that is a considerable sum, which must be taken into account in the calculation of local authority funding.
  Another problem affects people who are currently in residential and nursing home care, who have what are described as "preserved rights" under the new arrangements. That often means that families or charities must make good the continued shortfall. If this important matter is not sorted out now—if money is not made available on the basis of the available evidence—the long-term success of the policy may be jeopardised.
  A second problem that may sabotage the best efforts of local authorities relates to the current dispute between the Department of Health and local authority associations" about the number of people currently admitted to residential and nursing home care each year. I understand that the discrepancy now stands at between 15,000 and 20,000, and the costs associated with an underestimate of this scale in the number of people entering residential care is sufficient to jeopardise the policy's success further.
  To a large extent, such problems arise through the inadequacy and unreliability of available information. We do not really know how many people are in residential care, from which local authorities they have come and who will be responsible once the legislation is fully implemented. Those factors do not merely jeopardise the capacity of local authorities to do the job that they want to do; they have a direct and immediate impact on the well-being and confidence of disabled elderly people and their carers.
  Adequate funding must be made available. It must be recognised that the new policy focuses particularly on support for elderly and disabled people to remain in their own homes, and that because of lack of alternatives, they may have to go into residential care. Estimates suggest that, at any time, about 10 per cent. of elderly people in
  990
  almost any residential home in the country might have lived independently in their own homes if the necessary support had been available.
  We need the capacity to maintain the stability of the residential sector, but local authorities also need the capacity to begin to build up and develop the new forms of domiciliary care that will be essential if the objectives of the policy are to be achieved in the years to come. We want more elderly and disabled people to live longer in the safety and security of their own homes.
  None of us can have failed to be moved by the report published last week by the Carers National Association, which drew particular attention to the amount of illness suffered by carers. One of the great promises contained in the Bill is that the level, quality and sensitivity of support for carers will be much higher than it has been in the past, but local authorities will require money if they are to achieve that. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If Conservative Front Benchers were quieter, I might be able to hear what the hon. Lady is saying.
  Ms. Jowell: It is essential that the promises that have been made—in the boldest terms—to improve the quality and level of support for friends and relatives who care for the elderly and disabled in their own homes are delivered in practice.
  Let me end my speech by asking four questions, which I hope the Minister will answer. First, do the Government recognise the risks of failing to enter into early discussions with local authority associations about the shortfall that authorities are in danger of inheriting—a shortfall that may endanger their capacity to implement the policy properly?
  Secondly, does the Minister recognise that additional difficulties have been caused because the money made available to support community care is not ring-fenced?
  Thirdly, what provision is to be made for the inevitable contingencies that will arise as unforeseen problems are encountered? At the end of the last Parliament, the Government were prepared to bale out hospital trusts that had run into financial difficulties. I hope that the same effort will be put into ensuring stability in the care and support of elderly and disabled people.
  Finally, recognising that one of the most important factors for elderly disabled people and their carers—the beneficiaries of the legislation—is certainty and clarity about what they are entitled to, will the Minister also consider introducing a community care, carers and users charter as an expression of general enthusiasm for citizens charters, about which we have heard so much from the Government? Codification of this entitlement—setting it out clearly—would be one of the greatest benefits that we could extend to carers and disabled people, whose lives are often made more difficult and burdensome by the confusion, red tape and bureaucracy that they have to try to penetrate in pursuit of the care and support they need.
  6.31 pm
  Ms. Ann Coffey: I wish to refer specifically to the exclusion of small residential homes from inspection under the Bill, which I find difficult to understand. If someone goes into a home in which there are two other people, the monitoring of standards in that home should not be significantly different from those that apply to a

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  home where there may be three other people. I cannot stress too strongly how important is the role of inspection in maintaining and monitoring standards, particularly where care and finance are closely linked.
  Reference has already been made to the problems encountered over the financing of care in private residential homes. They are caused by high interest rates and low Department of Social Security grants. Financial problems of that nature affect the care that is given to residents. They also have an effect on the quality of staff employed in those homes.
  Hon. Members have referred to the use of personal allowances and charging for extra items. Also, threatening residents with eviction because they cannot pay their fees is not the way to make them feel that they are being cared for. Sadly, though, that is a step that a residential home may have to take. It has a damaging effect on the people in that home.
  Apart from the effect on the quality of nursing care, lack of finance also has an effect on local health authority provision. During the last year, my health authority has experienced an enormous increase in the number of acute admissions. That is ironic, since two wards were closed and nursing care was transferred to the private sector to release resources. Part of the reason for the increase in acute admissions may be that the quality of nursing care provided by private nursing homes was not good enough. That leads to an additional burden being placed on the health authority. Moreover, it means that beds for people who need operations cannot be made available.
  The inspection process as a whole is inadequate, but particularly for nursing homes. The district health authority is responsible for inspection. If, however, a district health authority should deregister a home, it could lay itself open to a claim for compensation on appeal. Some district health authorities therefore might adopt an over-cautious approach.
  The guidelines for inspection are insufficiently specific. They are fairly specific in terms of physical standards of care—the number of beds per room and toilet facilities —but they are not specific when it comes to the measurement of quality of care, which is, of course, very difficult. However difficult it may be, it should be attempted. Emotional support is important for residents; the activities provided for residents are important. Their emotional support should be given the same attention as their physical needs, if the Government are serious about raising the standards of care in residential accommodation.
  If we raise standards, the costs will rise. When the residential allowance is announced, I hope that it will take into account the higher costs of better care. If it does not do so, local authorities will have to make up the shortfall. If the cost of residential care becomes too expensive for local authorities, they will have insufficient money to spend on community care. The result, therefore, of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 will be an increase in expensive private residential sector care which could have been provided much more cheaply by local authorities had the Government allowed local authorities to borrow capital in order to make the necessary adaptations to local authority homes.
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  I urge the Minister to think carefully about a number of issues, but particularly about the inspection process and tightening up the guidelines. I hope that he will think carefully, too, about the provision of an independent inspection process for nursing homes. It should not be provided by the district health authority. That can lead to conflicts of interest. May I ask the Minister also to think carefully about providing the right amount of money for residential care? If he is determined to provide it through the private sector and to disadvantage the public sector, the residential allowance must enable good care to be provided, as well as profit. If the Minister does not make provision for the profit margin, the care provided to residents will inevitably suffer.
  6.37 pm
  Mr. Malcolm Wicks: May I start by telling you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, one story? I hope that it will bring the debate about community care down to earth. This happened to me during the election campaign. Hon. Members know that one of the curious habits of parliamentary candidates is to go up to perfect strangers in the street and ask them about their health. Sadly, one is really asking them about their vote.
  On this occasion, the woman I spoke to turned on me in great anger and said that she was voting for no one, and why should she? She pointed to her husband, whom she was pushing in a wheelchair and who was seriously handicapped, and said, "I am his carer"—she used that word—"and I get virtually no help. Sometimes I have to care for him almost around the clock, such is the nature of his disability. I hear about community care. I know that that is a lie. I am not going to vote for anyone." I found that a difficult argument, because of the passion with which it was presented to me, to refute.
  A curious British habit is to use the English language in imprecise ways—sometimes in ways that are virtually a contradiction. While we all talk, as I do, about community care, the reality all too often is not care but neglect. The reality is community neglect in Britain. That is not just rhetoric. I recall data from the general household survey of carers which showed that the majority of carers receive no help at all.
  What worries me about our debates—I refer not just to our debate in this Chamber but to the debates in the country—about community care, not least because of the jargon with which the professionals like to bemuse us, is that, while we hear about "packages of care" and the "seamless service", the reality for most people in this position is, very often, nothing.
  Despite the expertise in the House, there is probably greater expertise elsewhere around Westminster, such as Victoria street late at night. It would be good for all of us, certainly Ministers, to leave the House occasionally, walk up Victoria street late at night and talk to those trying to sleep in shop doorways. Many of them are elderly or suffering from mental illness. They would be surprised to learn that they are examples of community care. It would be good for us all to experience that type of so-called community care. Therefore, we should be careful about our terminology.
  Despite the poor attendance in the Chamber, and no doubt the lack of press interest in this debate, this must be one of the most important subjects that the House will debate. That point has already been made by many hon.

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  Members. It is a subject that will grow in importance. The number of us who will reach a ripe old age is growing significantly year by year. As has already been pointed out, it is not just the aging of the population that is significant, but the aging of the elderly population itself. In the first census this century, in 1901, there were just 50,000 people over the age of 85—Wembley stadium half full. By the 1981 census the number had increased tenfold, to 500,000. Between 1981 and the year 2001, the number will double again, so that we will have over 1 million people aged 85 or over.
  It would be agist and incorrect to say that all those poeople will need care in the community or elsewhere. Many are sprightly and will go on "Jim'll Fix It" and jump out of an aeroplane for the first time at the age of 85, hopefully with a parachute. However, we cannot be romantic about aging, because many of those people will suffer from Alzheimer's disease, be senile in other ways or incontinent and may need a great deal of care in our community. So the demography is against us. If this debate is important now, it will be even more important in five or 10 years. If we are to get it right, let us get it right sooner rather than later.
  The debate is also important—this is a challenge to us all—because of the cost of so-called care in the community. Do we know enough about the cost of such care? When I say that, I am thinking about financial as well as social costs. We know from some estimates that the amount of care provided by family carers, let alone the Government, runs into billions of pounds. Because of the curious way in which we do our national arithmetic, none of those costs and contributions made by family carers will be found in our gross domestic product, which is the peculiar and narrow form of arithmetic that we sometimes take more seriously than we should.
  I am interested in the cost of community care and who pays for it. At the moment, it is almost random. If a person becomes ill and is being treated in a national health service hospital, the costs are met by the NHS, with no direct payments from the patient. If the patient is cared for by a daughter or daughter-in-law, the costs will largely be met by the family, perhaps with some support from social security. If the person goes into a residential home and is below income support levels, the costs are largely met by the Department of Social Security. There is no consensus as to who should pay for the costs of aging. Should it be the elderly person if they can afford it, even if it means selling their main asset, their home, if they have one? Should the costs be paid for by the family, the state or the private sector? Those are important questions for the future that need to be grappled with.
  The debate is also important because of the social and moral argument. Unless we can get this right and truly provide community care, we all suffer in a social and moral sense. I know that this is something of a cliché, but surely there can be no greater challenge than to enable our elders —that is how we should think of them—to live out their lives in comfort and with dignity. That is why the question of policy is so important.
  Our Government and many others have waxed lyrical about community care over two decades. However, policy has been a slow train coming. It took reports from the Audit Commission and many other groups to embarrass the Government into setting up an inquiry under Sir Roy Griffiths. It then took some while for the Government to make up their mind what to do about that excellent report.
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  Then, at last, 10 years late, we had an Act of Parliament addressing the issues, and its implementation was delayed. Therefore, it is not unreasonable for hon. Members on both sides of the House to be worried about the rumours that there could now be further delay.
  I want to ask three questions which echo some of the issues that have already been mentioned by hon. Members. I know that the Government will want to take the questions seriously. Given the rumours, I am sure that they will want to take this opportunity to put the record straight and to reassure those who are worried. I am sure that Ministers are worried by the rumours.
  First, will the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 be implemented fully, and as originally stated, on 1 April 1993? If the answer is yes, as I hope it is, it is easy for Ministers to tell us that tonight. That would reassure the elderly, their families, the professions and social service departments.
  Secondly, are the Government satisfied with the quality and nature of the community care plans now coming forward? They will now have had an opportunity to study them. I have had an opportunity of studying several dozen, and many could not be regarded as plans as such. They contain broad statements of intent, sometimes repeating the broad statements in the White Paper and many good statements of philosophy, saying broadly what they would like to happen. However, I do not regard them as plans. Are the Government satisfied with that process?
  Thirdly, those plans may not be real business plans, because of the question of resources. How can one draw up a proper plan if one does not know what money can be spent? A Conservative Member made a sound point when he said that a company would not try to draw up a plan without an idea of the resources available. I am sure that this will be taken seriously by the Government, because the Conservative party is the party of private enterprise, and no doubt wants to run the Government as efficiently as the best companies. If it is not sensible for ICI or Glaxo to draw up business plans without an idea of how much can be spent in the forthcoming financial year, why does the Department of Health expect major organisations such as social services departments to draw up such plans?
  I invite Ministers to state clearly the financial arrangements that the Department of Health wishes to make. Will Ministers also confirm the existence of the working party on financial arrangements, known as the algebra group? Will they further confirm that the working party's officials are having some difficulty with the algebra? In the new spirit enunciated by the Prime Minister, will they state whether the working party's report will be published? There can be no state secrets.
  I was grateful for the broad way in which the Minister introduced the debate, because we cannot sensibly discuss this important Bill, which we all support, without considering its context. We have perhaps a few months left to get the policy right. All too often, it has been the sad experience of our social history that it takes some tragedy or case of abuse, and sometimes death, before institutions —including, with respect, the House and Government—act.
  The sad history of child care since the last world war is that it has taken tragic, sad and well-known cases of children being murdered before Government and the rest of society took the issue seriously. We already know of cases of abuse, which can occur in publicly and privately owned residential accommodation and, perhaps most

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  sadly, in the home where carers are caring for the cared for. We would all stand condemned if we provided resources for the important subject of community care only when public opinion was galvanised and shocked by cases of abuse and tragedies, which perhaps occurred because carers could stand it no more, such were the pressures and the lack of support that they were receiving, often because resources were not available.
  It will be a real test of our judgment and collective wisdom to see whether we can rationally analyse the situation and bring passion to bear on it. We have the evidence and experience to force Government—I mean that in a most decent way—to find the resources, to help the Department of Health to get those resources from the Treasury. We all have an interest in ensuring that.
  Perhaps we are at a turning point and soon will truly be able to say that this is the first chapter in which we start to turn the story of community neglect into a decent story of true community care.
  6.52 pm
  Mr. Bob Cryer: We should all be grateful to the Danish people for giving us an opportunity to speak about this important subject. We hope that the Government will bear that in mind and will not try to resurrect the discredited Maastricht Bill. That will give us more opportunity to debate important issues such as community care.
  I join my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) in thanking the Minister for the way in which he introduced the Bill, which has a narrow base but wider applications, as it amends a number of community care issues. The House is grateful for his introducing it with that in mind, as it has enabled hon. Members to speak in general terms about this important subject.
  Labour Members agree that expenditure on community care should be ring-fenced. Why do we say that? We do not share the startling view of the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham), who said that he had faith in local authorities spending the money allocated to community care according to that definition. That view is not shared by the Government on a wide range of local government activities, and I dare say that the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East would share the Government's view of, for instance, schools opting out of local authority control to avoid local authority expenditure allocation.
  Local authorities, having experienced cuts in rate support grant and revenue support grant since 1979, are faced with invidious and difficult priorities. Will they be forced to spend money on housing homeless persons, or will they improve community care by housing homeless persons who have been thrown out of hospitals for the mentally handicapped which have been closed on the pretext of community care? Will they incur expenditure under the Education Act 1981 by statementing children with special needs who will be required to have those needs provided?
  Those are the priorities that local authorities face. The Government cannot therefore apply the usual formula against ring fencing, which is that the priorities are determined by the local authority and it is its responsibility
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  entirely, thus evading the real point—that the Government, by making cuts, have stretched the services that local authorities provide while local authorities have taken the blame for their allocation of priorities. It is an invidious position for local councillors.
  One of the great advantages of a local authority making decisions is that it is accountable through the democratic process with which we are all familiar. Hon. Members who have been active in local authorities and who have taken part in local authority elections will be aware of that accountability. There is no such accountability in the private sector, to which the Minister paid lip service in his opening remarks in a quite extraordinary way. He said that it was, as it were, the pacemaker of community care. That simply is not true.
  Where community care is operated for private profit, the tendency will be to cut expenditure and maximise income in order to maximise profit. Private sector carers will so operate unless they are subject to strict inspections, but local authorities must, of course, bear the cost of ensuring that such inspections are made. That further cost is not recognised by the Government.
  Under the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, local authorities are having to bring their own homes up to a standard higher than in the private sector so that they can examine old people's homes objectively and so that home owners cannot say, "The local authority homes are in an inferior condition, so how can they judge us?"
  The Government have not recognised that cost, which local authorities are having to bear. The Labour-controlled local authority in Bradford took over from the Conservative council, which was trying to sell homes and people lock, stock and barrel. It failed to do so, but the Labour-controlled local authority embarked on a programme of updating and improving local authority homes. It has been able to do so only by selling its properties—very reluctantly—which were declared as surplus. That revenue is being used for modernisation and improvement. The Government are not providing enough resources. They should face up to their responsibilities and allocate money for community care.
  It is important that the Bill is passed, to allow local authorities more flexibility. Schedule 8 of the National Health Service Act 1977 must not be narrowed, because in certain circumstances local authorities could be required to pick up the pieces for the private sector. We have not examined that very closely today, but we should do so, especially in view of the Minister's rabid obsession with supporting the private sector at the expense of the public sector. We should point out to him that the legislation contains the seed of rescue patterns which may be necessary because of the difficulties that the private sector might face.
  I cite a specific example for which the Bill is tailored. It involves Westwood hospital in my constituency—a hospital for the mentally handicapped, now called people with learning difficulties. I must say that parents and people who work in the hospital do not like the new nomenclature, because they think that it is an attempt to cover the problem with words and to make it seem that things are not so difficult as they are.
  Westwood hospital has been subject to a programme of putting people into the community for many years. In the first instance, the local authority was involved but the programme was more or less a disaster. It was called

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  "Operation Springboard", and it did not work. I recall that two people who were released into the community from Westwood hospital came to see me. They had been trying to get grants from the Department of Social Security for more than 12 months. They had had a difficult experience and received form after form which bemused them. They came to me to get things sorted out and I managed to do so.
  I am in contact with many of the people who work at Westwood hospital and many of the parents, so it occurred to me to ask the two people whether they could read or write. They could not. They had been going to a DSS office for 12 months, but nobody had asked them whether they could read or complete the forms being poured out to them. They were subject to care in the community, but clearly there was no care in the community for them. Incidentally, the arrangement ended in violence, and both went back to Westwood hospital.
  One problem with care in the community that the Government must face is that their cutbacks to local authorities and to district health authorities are forcing district health authorities to sell hospital sites. When the sites are gone and a difficulty arises with the care in the community programme because of a difficulty with or a wholly mistaken assessment, where are people to go if there are no havens such as Westwood hospital? The Minister should answer that question, but I do not think that he, his civil servants or anybody else in the Department of Health or the Department of Social Security have troubled about it.
  I revert to the example in greater detail because it is relevant to the legislation. Westwood hospital has been subject to a care in the community programme for many years. In 1988, it was agreed that the Westwood hospital site would become the site of a mixed community development. It is a green site of 30 acres or more in which people can walk around. It is like a college site in that it has security—I do not mean fixed gates or doors, but security from traffic. There are speed humps so that cars cannot speed around. It offers a tranquil existence which people who are mentally handicapped frequently need. Indeed, it offers the sort of tranquil existence that most of us need from time to time, especially when we have been in this place a few years.
  In 1988, in evidence to a planning inquiry about the Westwood site, the district health authority said:
  "In the event, the proposed phased movement of patients into the community in accordance with the "Springboard Project" did not prove successful. The Health Authority is nevertheless still firmly committed to the essential policy of care in the community. At Westwood, this will now be achieved by the creation of sites for housing whereby certain numbers of the houses will be reserved for use by the Health Authority by agreement with the developers."
  It was clear that it was to be a mixed site. It continued:
  "In this way, normal cross sectional communities will he created in which people with a mental handicap presently in the hospital, will be allocated domestic living units. The environment so produced will encourage the return of residents to the pattern of daily life. These proposals will have the effect of bringing the community to Westwood Hospital, in the form of a mixed housing development plan. The funds released from the sale of housing land will he allocated to capital works within the Yorkshire region although benefits will generally accrue to the Bradford area wherever possible.
  It is fully anticipated that there will be continued health care facilities and stair support. For example, certain of the more modern buildings within the hospital complex will be retained as community units such as a day care centre providing for 24 to 40 people."
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  That policy, presented to obtain planning consent, secured the consent but was then reneged on in a disgraceful and despicable way. The whole site is to be sold and only the nurses' home is to be converted to a 20-bed unit. That is absolutely disgraceful, and it is one of the reasons why my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks) finds that people are cynical and have become disillusioned and disenchanted with administrative institutions which make fine promises but then renege on them and spurn the carers, many of whom are aging people growing weary of looking after their mentally handicapped children, often with great devotion. The plans that they supported are torn up virtually in their faces.
  Mr. Hinchliffe: I think that my hon. Friend is aware that I have had correspondence with a number of people about Westwood hospital. I am personally familiar with one or two parents who have long fought for a proper resolution to the problem. The information provided by my hon. Friend shows what a kick in the teeth there has been for people who have struggled for a long time with handicapped members of their family who were involved with Westwood hospital. However, the experience that he described is not happening only at Westwood.
  I commend to my hon. Friend a press conference to be held in the House next Wednesday morning in the Jubilee Room. It is organised by Values into Action, an organisation concerned with exactly the type of experience that he outlined. Such events are happening not only in Bradford but across the country, and my hon. Friend is right to point them out to the Minister who must deal with them.
  Mr. Cryer: My hon. Friend is right. RESCARE is a national organisation devoted to retaining the high standard of residential care in the public sector at sites such as Westwood which are decent and potentially marvellous sites.
  I have a letter from Bradcap—Bradford and District Care and Protection for Mentally Handicapped People—a group battling for parents and for people living at Westwood hospital. The organisation is very worried about the lack of development of Westwood's potential and about Westwood being abandoned and discarded. The letter states:
  "At a recent meeting organised at Westwood by the Community Health Council over 100 people attended and we were overwhelmingly in favour of Bradcap's plan, i.e. Retention of some land at Westwood including the excellent Recreation Hall, Occupational Therapy Unit, Hydrotherapy Pool, etc.
  The replacement of wards with more home-like bungalows. A sheltered environment for some of the mentally handicapped who need it for reasons of behavioural problems or vulnerability.
  Parents do not want their children at risk or as a stock in trade for ambitious businesses."
  That last sentence is a fair comment about the privatisation of provision for people who, whether they are mentally handicapped or elderly, are among the most vulnerable in our community.
  Mr. Tom Clarke: Does my hon. Friend agree that it would help to solve some of the important problems that he has mentioned if the Government, even before introducing the Bill, fully implemented the representation sections of the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986, so that the people he

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  mentioned would be properly represented when decisions affecting them were taken? Does he recall that that course of action was firmly supported by the Spastics Society?
  Mr. Cryer: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the key areas about which my local organisation is concerned is the representation which should be invoked by legislation, but which has not been invoked so far.
  At the meeting at Westwood hospital mentioned in the letter, when about 100 people were present to discuss the proposed closure of the hospital and the disgraceful selling of land, because nobody else thought of doing so I asked for a vote. Out of more than 100 people present, only two voted against the proposals which I have outlined, in which some sort of mixed use of the land would be retained.
  I shall deal directly with the Bill now, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the greater flexibility for local authorities which it will retain—except for what is termed a lacuna. That means that a draftsman got it wrong and made a mess of things—but calling it a lacuna makes it sound so much better. If a plumber or an engineer had done that, he probably would have been sent down the road, sacked for having made a mess of the job, but that does not happen when the result is a lacuna rather than broken equipment.
  The Bill rectifies the lacuna by providing local authorities with more flexibility. The district health authority is now decanting patients from Westwood in pursuit of an utterly unscrupulous policy, so great dangers arise. I have been finding out where the patients will be allocated. About 120 of them will go to a company called AHP Rehabilitation Ltd.
  That firm made clear in its latest company returns that it is dependent on continued finance from the banks to stay in business. That is true for that private company. In fact, it is true for all private companies, as the case of Olympia and York—which was in a bigger way of business than AHP Rehabilitation Ltd.—demonstrates. With Olympia and York, all that happens is that the building stays empty—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying. I hope that he will confine himself as closely as possible to the Bill. I appreciate that the Minister's remarks may have extended the scope of the debate on the Bill, but talking about Olympia and York is taking things too far.
  Mr. Cryer: Perhaps I could draw your attention, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the flexibility which the Bill restores. I am trying to explain that, if AHP Rehabilitation Ltd. gets into financial difficulties because the bank pulls the rug, the question will arise: who will pick up the pieces? Without the Bill, local authorities would not be an alternative choice. That is the problem. I asked the so-called chief executive of the district health authority exactly what provision the authority would make. Would there be a guarantee? Have funds been put to one side? I am still waiting for the answers. The Bill provides important background information, so that we can say that the local authority, with the backing of the legislation, will be an alternative organisation if the district health authority—that authority is going down a funny road, as I shall illustrate with two further examples—simply has not obtained guarantees and cannot provide the facilities.
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  That opportunity is important. Without it, I am afraid that, if AHP Rehabilitation Ltd. goes into liquidation, it is not known what will happen to the 30 or 40 patients involved. We are trying to provide some certainty about that.
  Another group of patients will go to a firm called Care Solutions Ltd., which was formed as recently as October 1991. It has no background of care in the community, or of financial success to give the certainty that we should like to provide. Indeed, the company was formed so recently that there are no company returns. If the parents of mentally handicapped people who went into that company's care wanted to get hold of the directors to raise issues with them, they might have a problem. Three of the directors live in London, which may not be too convenient, but the fourth—a Mr. Pietro Fascioni—is an Italian national living in Lugano in Switzerland. It would he fairly difficult for a parent to get hold of that director and say, "There is trouble down at the home."
  The director lists his occupation on the company returns—as he is bound to do. His occupation is not that of a doctor, a consultant or anyone experienced in care in the community. That director lists his occupation—in the way which the Minister considers so wonderful—as "entrepreneur". People are being handed over to the care of an entrepreneur called Pietro Fascioni who lives in Lugano in Switzerland. The company may get into financial difficulties. We hope that it does not, but if it does, no capital background has been given and it has no records. So is it not reasonable that the local authority should be given the means, through ring fencing expenditure, to pick up the pieces so as to help protect some of the most vulnerable people in our society?
  Mr. Hinchliffe rose—
  Mr. Cryer: I shall finish my illustration first, and give way to my hon. Friend in a moment.
  The district health authority is even going back to mediaeval times; it is handing over more patients to an order of monks called St. John of God. Those people may have a perfectly decent record, but I wonder what is happening in our society when we are handing people over to a religious order to look after. If we are handing people over from the district health authority and its tender mercy, we should do so to someone with some degree of democratic accountability, such as a local authority. The Bill will help to bring that about.
  Mr. Hinchliffe: My hon. Friend should be clear that the Bill as it stands needs amending to allay his worries about people such as the gentleman who he mentioned who lives in Switzerland. I am concerned about the limitations on the requirement to check out the owners and managers of homes in the private sector. I have come across several examples where people with what I can only describe as semi-criminal backgrounds are now directly involved in the private care business. Does my hon. Friend agree that, when the Bill is in Committee, it would be useful to amend it to block the loopholes which allow such persons to be involved in caring for vulnerable people?
  Mr. Cryer: My hon. Friend is wise to point that out, and I have taken the matter up. I do not want local authorities to have to use the measures that we are considering—to ask the Government for money to pick up the pieces. The local authority should be concerned with

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  other things, but we know full well that, when things go wrong in the private sector, it is always the community at large which picks up the pieces. Whether it involves a factory closing and people going on the dole, or anything else, we all pay. For example, in the case of Olympia and York, 2,000 civil service jobs are to be moved—but I had better not go down that path, Mr. Deputy Speaker, except by way of illustration. People from the Department of the Environment may have to pick up the pieces.
  It is important, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) said, that if we are to have legislation, we might as well tag on to it additional advantages which will enable us to try to prevent the circumstances in which pieces occur and in which the whole thing breaks up.
  I have been on to the so-called "chief executive" of the district health authority to ask him what guarantees there are and how Mr. Pietro Fascioni fits into the picture—whether he is approved and whether he is more than an entrepreneur—but I am still not getting any answers. I believe that the health authority has been inefficient, careless and far too precipitate in decanting patients from Westwood hospital because it wants to sell it off.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: Is he in the Mafia?
  Mr. Cryer: One hesitates to make a judgment, but with a name like Fascioni, it sounds a bit like it.
  With all the difficulties, the Government should be prepared to allocate more resources to local authorities so that they do not face difficult competing priorities such as I have mentioned. Local authorities must have the opportunity to take over, if necessary, the care of people who are in private rest homes for the elderly or in homes in the community for the mentally handicapped.
  The Minister's predecessor was not especially helpful. He agreed with the idea of village communities for the mentally handicapped on hospital sites, but he gave no support to the objectors to the closure of Westwood hospital. The best solution would be to revert to the policy that the district health authority advocated at a planning inquiry in April 1988. The proposal was for a mixed development on the site which would keep tranquillity for people who are mentally handicapped. Some part of the site could be developed, but we should ensure that we do not put people into the community without adequate resources and without an adequate reserve if the community resources are faulty or the assessment mistaken.
  The people who work at Westwood hospital, and the parents of the patients there, feel that they have been badly betrayed by the move to so-called care in the community. They feel badly betrayed by the district health authority and by the Government because the Government have not allocated the necessary resources. It is about time that these bankrupt policies were changed.
  7.22 pm
  Mr. Rooker: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) made the point that we in the House owe a great debt to the people of Denmark for allowing us to have a short debate on community care in prime time. I say that in all seriousness. This is the first debate in the House on community care since April 1991. If nothing else, I hope that it will send signals to the Minister, to his colleagues
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  and to his advisers that there is an unmet need and a pent-up desire in hon. Members of all parties who are concerned about what will happen before April next year and who want to raise many issues. We must respond to the points raised, although I accept that we cannot respond to all of them in Committee, which will probably be the week after next.
  The Government will make a rod for their own backs if they do not introduce their own proposals from time to time rather than leaving the task to the Opposition on Supply days, because there dare not enough of those days. The Government could then give reports to the House about the preparations, the decisions being made and the planning for the implementation of the community care reforms next year.
  It is no good simply waiting until April 1993—waiting for problems to arise and then having loads of requests for emergency debates under Standing Order No. 20. I hope that the Government will meet the demand for information and the demand to share the experiences of the planning of the implementation of community care which have been expressed in the debate.
  I look forward to listening to the Minister and I hope that he will answer some of the questions. The one question that he must address is the first question that I raised, which has been raised by other hon. Members subsequently. We asked for an unequivocal and unqualified reaffirmation that the community care reforms will be implemented on 1 April next year.
  7.24 pm
  Mr. Yeo: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will briefly respond to some of the points raised in an excellent and wide-ranging debate. There were moments when I regretted having opened the debate with such a wide-ranging speech, because it appeared to bring everyone else into order almost regardless of what he or she said.
  In answer to the last point raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), may I say that I noticed that, during the six days of debate on the Queen's Speech, the Opposition did not choose to address health or community care issues.
  Mr. Rooker: Let us not waste time on this. The Queen's Speech did not refer to health or to community care. That was the Government's decision. The Queen's Speech did not refer to unemployment. We chose subjects that were mentioned in the Queen's Speech, so let us have no more time-wasting on this nonsense.
  Mr. Yeo: It is not a question of time-wasting. I am responding to a point raised by the Opposition. If the hon. Member for Perry Barr reads through the Queen's Speech, he will see that there were references to health. It appears that they were not of sufficient concern to justify the Opposition choosing that subject for any of the considerable amount of debating time.
  I welcome the chance to debate matters with the hon. Member for Perry Barr and I hope that he will not be reshuffled too soon. I start with the point about which he is so concerned. Many other hon. Members have raised it today and some have even referred to rumours that our community care policies will not be implemented. I am not aware of those rumours, which is why I did not refer to them in my speech.

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  It may occur to hon. Members that the whole purpose of introducing the Bill is to put in place the last legislative brick in the framework that is needed to bring about the third and final step in implementing our White Paper "Caring for People". What other purpose would we have in introducing the Bill if we did not wish to go ahead with the policy? It is the third step and, as I said, there were two other important steps in 1991 and 1992, and the White Paper itself is only a small step in a substantial shift of policy which has been—
  Mr. Tom Clarke: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Yeo: I will not give way in winding up the debate. My opening speech was very much shorter than the majority of speeches in the debate. I will try to deal with as many points as I can, and I will not be able to do so if I keep giving way.
  The White Paper is but one component in a continuum of policy which is designed to achieve higher standards—
  Mr. Clarke: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can you help with a misunderstanding? The Minister referred to policies. He was specifically asked about the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. How can we persuade the Minister to respond to that specific point?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order.
  Mr. Hinchliffe: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker—a different point of order. The Minister has said that he does not intend to give way in his wind-up speech, thus implying that there is a restriction on time for this debate. Will you confirm that there is no restriction on time for this debate?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is further to a point of order that never was.
  Mr. Yeo: I make it clear that I will try to deal with the points raised in the debate which relate to the Bill. Unless I am to keep the House here for another hour or so, I cannot allow every hon. Member to intervene on points, most of which have no direct relevance to the Bill. I will try to deal with the points raised which relate to the Bill.
  Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Perry Barr, my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) and the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms. Lynne), concentrated on the question of finance. Of course I appreciate how central financial considerations are to the successful implementation of the policy.
  I will make three things clear. First, the policy will be fairly resourced. Secondly, the transfer of funds from the Department of Social Security will be made in a transparent fashion and the basis of the calculation for that transfer of funds will be made clear. Thirdly, we will use the Government's powers to the full to ensure that when the money is transferred from the Department of Social Security no authority can misuse those resources.
  I very much welcome the acknowledgement by the hon. Member for Perry Barr of the role of the independent sector and of the value of the mixed economy. That was refreshing to hear, and I hope that those views are shared by his colleagues. They did not seem to be shared by the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer), whose
  1004
  hostility to the private sector came through very strongly. We are grateful to the hon. Member for Bradford, South for continuing to articulate the old-fashioned socialist attitudes which ensure that Opposition Members stay in opposition.
  The hon. Member for Perry Barr rightly mentioned the importance of other policies, including housing, social security and so on. I am glad to tell him that my hon. Friend the Minister of State already chairs an informal group of Ministers from other Departments dealing with the implementation of our policy. The hon. Gentleman also made an important point about the disclosure of interests. Under the Registered Homes Act 1984, local authorities are required to keep a register of all homes. The register includes full details of home owners and of any company or other organisation which is involved and which has a financial interest in those establishments.
  The hon. Member for Perry Barr, together with the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), made a point about the availability of domiciliary services. I would not want to give the impression that we have not been making progress in improving domiciliary services. That remains a key objective. It is just as important as anything that we are doing in residential care. It is partly in order to encourage the development and diversity of domiciliary services that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced an initiative for local authorities to work with the voluntary and private sectors to develop new and innovative forms of service in the domiciliary sector. As I have said, I am particularly keen to see private sector involvement in domiciliary care.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths) made an important point about the possibility of people moving either way in the spectrum. We certainly recognise that point. There can be a process of assessment followed by reassessment if people's needs change, and they can lessen as well as increase.
  The hon. Member for Wakefield made some vigorous points. It is certainly a novel criticism that we are spending too much money on income support to provide better care for old people. The hon. Gentleman did not mention the substantial increase in social services expenditure, which is up by a third in the past two years and up by almost two thirds in real terms since 1979. If the quality of care which is provided by independent sector homes is inadequate, local authorities need not and will not contract with them; but of course those same standards can reasonably be demanded of local authority homes as well.
  The hon. Member for Wakefield overlooked the role of assessment in the system. I do not share his view that voluntary codes are inadequate. I certainly am not convinced that a statutory framework is the right answer for specifying standards for what goes on inside homes. He also made a point about privacy. This is the first time that I have replied to a Second Reading debate with the benefit of having seen some of the amendments that will be tabled in Committee. There is an amendment on the subject that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, so I dare say that we shall pursue it in more detail in Committee.
  I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst for his support. I have tried to respond to his concerns about finance.
  The hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms. Lynne) made a point about independent inspections. We already have

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  independent inspections in place, and we shall monitor them to see that they cover the points about which the hon. Lady is concerned.
  The hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) was kind in his tribute to me. I should not wish him to think that any of my past connections should lead to high expectations of what I shall deliver in my present job, but the hon. Gentleman has a great interest in the subject. On the Bill being confined to England, the position in Scotland and Northern Ireland is that the provisions on residential accommodation in Scotland and Northern Ireland were not affected by the lacuna which has caused amusement during the debate.
  Let me assure the hon. Gentleman, however, that the process of assessment is at the heart of our policy. Our policy is designed to ensure that those who can remain at home will do so wherever possible, with the benefit of better domiciliary and day care services. I have noted his point about advocacy, and I hope that we have a chance to debate that subect in Committee also.
  The hon. Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes) fell into the popular misconception that community care is to be implemented next April. As I have said, implementation is a long process, and next April is just one more step, although it is important.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), who missed the first hour of the debate, made a lengthy and characteristically wide-ranging speech, most of which had nothing to do with the Bill, and has nothing to do with the Bill, and he has left without hearing the replies. I must refer to his speech, however. Nothing gives me more confidence in the Success of our policies than to hear him express such great concern about 1 April 1993. He used similar phrases two years ago about the national health service reforms which are now proving to be the kind of success which I know this—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is for the Chair, not the Minister, to decide whether an hon. Member is in order.
  Mr. Yeo: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield will read my remarks. I hope that, by that time, he will have had time to read and understand the Bill. If so, he will realise that it would not be appropriate for the Bill to increase public expenditure.
  I assure the hon. Member for Dulwich (Ms. Jowell) that we are already in discussion with local authority associations on a wide range of funding issues.
  Other points can be picked up in Committee. The debate has illustrated the wide support for the Bill, and I invite the House to give it a Second Reading.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

Mauritius Republic Bill [Lords]
Order for Second Reading read.
7.35 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill is a technical measure, required following the change of status in Mauritius on 12 March 1992 from that of a realm to a republic within the Commonwealth. The Bill follows well established precedents and seeks essentially to ensure that the operation of our existing law in relation to Mauritius is not affected by the change of status. Some hon. Members have some questions which I shall be happy to answer, but I trust that hon. Members will agree that the Bill is non-controversial.
The decision to become a republic was, of course, for the Government of Mauritius to take and did not in any way require the concurrence of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom.
The new constitution of Mauritius makes provision for appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Hitherto, appeals from Mauritius have lain to Her Majesty in Council, but that is no longer appropriate now that Mauritius has ceased to be part of Her Majesty's dominions. The Bill therefore makes provision to enable Her Majesty in Council to authorise the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to exercise the jurisdiction conferred upon it by the new constitution of Mauritius to hear appeals direct from the courts of Mauritius.
I am sure that hon. Members will be happy to learn that the Government of Mauritius have told the Commonwealth Secretary-General that they wish the country to remain a member of the Commonwealth now that it is a republic. The Secretary-General has consulted members of the Commonwealth, who agree to this proposal.
I have no doubt that hon. Members will join me in wishing Mauritius and its people a peaceful and prosperous future.
7.37 pm
Mr. Donald Anderson: Opposition Members have no difficulty in following the Minister's final words and wishing Mauritius and the people of Mauritius well for their future.
The Bill may be seen at two levels: the formal and the more fundamental. At the formal level, I wholly accept what the Minister said: it is a technical measure. Even if becoming a republic had been controversial in Mauritius —as indeed it had been, with two previous attempts by the Prime Minister to steer his country along the path to independence and his rejection of the Opposition view that there should be a referendum on the issue—it cannot be controversial in this country. It is a necessary piece of legislation, as the Minister has said, consequent on the decision of the Government of Mauritius in March to become a republic within the Commonwealth. The Bill was passed by the legislative assembly in Mauritius last year. The effect is that Sir Veeraswamy Ringadoo, the Governor-General, will become the non-executive President, and the Head of Government will be the Prime Minister, Sir Anerood Jugnauth.
The change brings the number of republics in the Commonwealth to 29, and reduces the number of

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constitutional monarchies to 16. It leaves Swaziland, with its national monarchy, as the sole African Commonwealth country which is not a republic. That perhaps puts this measure in context. Hence, the change of status is not unusual in any way and, as the Minister underlined, it is wholly within the competence of the Government of Mauritius to change its status, as it will.
We are, of course, glad to hear that it is the desire of the Government of Mauritius to remain a member of the Commonwealth, the world's oldest association of sovereign states. It shows the flexibility of the Commonwealth that such changes can take place under its umbrella. Indeed, in a world where increasingly regions are developing into blocs, it shows the value of the Commonwealth to find it uniquely straddling all the normal divisions in the world and acting as a bridge between regions.
I said that there were two levels—the formal and the more fundamental. At the more fundamental level, it can be said that Commonwealth membership entails adherence to certain values, even if in fact for many countries they can remain only an aspiration. Those Commonwealth values were last enshrined at the last Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Harare in the so-called Harare declaration of 20 September 1991.
It may be of help to the House to spell out at least some of the principles to which each of the Commonwealth countries subscribed in Harare, and express certain anxieties about Mauritius. The Harare Commonwealth declaration said that the Commonwealth was a voluntary association of sovereign independent states, each responsible for its own policies. It also said:
"Its members also share a commitment to certain fundamental principles …Those principles have stood the test of time, and we reaffirm our full and continuing commitment to them today."
Those principles included
"the individual's inalienable right to participate by means of free and democratic political processes in framing the society in which he or she lives".
The declaration continued:
"we pledge the Commonwealth and our countries to work with renewed vigour, concentrating especially in the following areas:
the protection and promotion of the fundamental political values of the Commonwealth;
democracy, democratic processes and institutions which reflect national circumstances".
It also underlined the value of the Commonwealth in providing a means of monitoring elections and helping Commonwealth countries along the route to democracy,
"strengthening the capacity of the Commonwealth to respond to requests from members for assistance in entrenching the practices of democracy".
Those are the key Commonwealth principles, declared as recently as last October at Harare. The Minister here tonight and the Government of Mauritius will recognise that certain anxieties have arisen from the conduct of the elections held last year. Deep anxiety was expressed before the election by Dr. Navin Ramgoolam, leader of the Mauritius Labour party and son of See Woosagur Ramgoolam, who steered Mauritius to independence.
Dr. Ramgoolam appealed to the Prime Minister to allow Commonwealth observers to monitor the elections. He asked, for example, that the electors should be able to use their identity cards during the election, that
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transparent ballot boxes should be used and so on, because of his worries about the conduct of the election. Unfortunately, all his requests were rejected. The Prime Minister said in repect of Commonwealth observers, "Over my dead body."
In the event, the Labour party received 40 per cent. of the national vote, yet gained only three directly elected seats out of 60. It gained four seats as best losers. It emerged with 40 per cent. of the vote but only seven seats out of 64 in the legislative assembly. As the Minister is well aware, there have been several allegations of vote rigging during the election.
For example, in the edition of L'Express published only on Monday of this week, there is a quotation from Dr. Ramgoolam. May I say that L'Express is in no way allied with the Mauritius Labour party? He alleges that 4,000 votes were rigged in each constituency.
I cannot reasonably expect the Minister to respond to those allegations. In any event, there has been a reference to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. But the Minister should at least be aware of the allegations and, I hope, ready to express anxiety to the representatives of Mauritius when he meets them. I retrospect, it is sad that the Prime Minister of Mauritius was not prepared before the election to accept the reasonable requests by Dr. Navin Ramgoolam.
On perhaps a lighter note, one action of the Prime Minister subsequent to the election may commend itself to the Government. I understand that he has issued a 500 rupee bank note with his image on it. Perhaps more significantly, he has issued one for a mere 20 rupees with the image of his wife on it. I do not know whether our Prime Minister would be interested in following that precedent. Perhaps one might have a 50p Norma note. I suspect that our population would respond to that in exactly the same way as I understand that the bulk of the population of Mauritius have responded.
Having expressed anxieties about the conduct of the election, and knowing that this is a short debate and that my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) will certainly express other anxieties in relation to Diego Garcia, I finish on this note. As members of the Opposition, we accept that the Bill raises no point of principle in relation to United Kingdom law. With those few observations, I wish the people of Mauritius prosperity and a happy future within the Commonwealth family, as did the Minister. We value both our bilateral relations with Mauritius and the Commonwealth relationship between our two countries.
7.48 pm
Mr. William Powell: I begin by declaring two prejudices. My first is against republics, although not all republics. The republic of Venice was not a republic against which we should be particularly prejudiced. Also, I have to say that the United States of America, formerly one of the Crown dominions, has made a triumphant success of its period as a republic.
Human constitutional experience has taught us that a constitutional monarchy is the best form of government. It is the job of all statesmen, wherever they may be, to ensure stability, continuity and tranquillity, and those three principles have always been best met by a constitutional monarchy.

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My second prejudice is that I do not like Her Majesty's realm to be diminished. One of the effects of the Bill will be to remove the Crown from the Government of Mauritius, albeit formally and constitutionally, rather than in any real sense. Nevertheless, the Crown will be removed from the constitutional expression of sovereignty in Mauritius, which will become a republic.
Having said that, I unequivocally welcome the Bill and the stages upon which Mauritius is embarking. My wife was born there, and my father-in-law served the Crown there as a colonial servant for a long time. My wife still has many relatives on the island, and her great-grandfather was its first archdeacon, when they were considered to be more important and useful than they are now.
I have had the honour of making two private and substantial visits to the island, and I also served as an officer of the British-Mauritius parliamentary group—alas, a group which is a great deal less active than it ought to be. I have some personal and family knowledge of the island, and I take this opportunity to say how well Mauritius has used its years of independence. If we are honest with ourselves, we will concede that not all the Crown dominions have made a success of self-government when they have become independent, but Mauritius has done so. It has successfully managed the transfer from one political generation to another.
I am bearing in mind the anxieties about elections expressed by the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson). Having regard to my prejudices about republics, if there has to be a republic it is best if it is one in which the president expresses the sovereignty of the country rather than being an active participant and promoter of its Government. If Mauritius becomes a republic along the lines of the Federal Republic of West Germany, the state of Austria or of Switzerland, where the presidency symbolises sovereignty, but does not lead the Government, it will be the best sort of republic. If a country has a presidency and a parliamentary democracy —as Mauritius has—it is more likely to make a success of republican government.
I hope that Mauritius will stick by the examples of countries that retain a presidency but also have a Prime Minister and a parliamentary democracy, as they are the most likely to secure those principles of statesmanship—stability, continuity and tranquillity.
There is no doubt that Mauritius has achieved remarkable successes since its independence in 1968. It is one of the most successful third-world countries. Considerable economic transformation took place during the 1980s. All credit to the Government and people of Mauritius for what they have managed to achieve, at a time when the common agricultural policy, among other things, has been making life difficult for the primary producers of agricultural products such as sugar. There have been special arrangements to allow quotas of Mauritian sugar into the European Community, but the massive production of sugar beet in Europe has not assisted colonies and islands such as Mauritius.
The Mauritians have diversified and followed many free market principles of economic management, and they are reaping the benefit. I noticed that there had been an improvement in the material condition of the people between my visits to the island.
Mauritius is an island of considerable beauty, 'with a remarkable coral reef, which manages to protect it from the ravages of the ocean in which it sits. Its people come
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from remarkably different cultural backgrounds and, on the whole, are making a success of living together in a comparatively small area. They have achieved a degree of economic diversification that is admirable, and the standard and quality of their lives has improved to an extent that is not only admirable and praiseworthy but a good example to other third-world countries which are trying to make a similar improvement.
From personal experience, I welcome the way in which Mauritius have been developing. I wish the Mauritians well in the years ahead as a republic, although I confess that I wish that they were not taking that step.
7.55 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell: My experience of Mauritius is not so deep as that of the hon. Member for Corby (Mr. Powell), but I share his feelings about the warmth of the Mauritian people and the staggering beauty of the island.
Perhaps I should present my credentials for speaking. I was fortunate enough to be a member of an excellent Inter-Parliamentary Union visit to Japan and Indonesia in 1969, and was able to return via Australia and stop off at Mauritius. I did so partly because I had Mauritian friends from my student days in Edinburgh, and because the then Governor-General of Mauritius was that wonderful man, the late general secretary of the Labour party—Len Williams. I should like to think that he and his wife did a great deal to consolidate the good relations between Britain and Mauritius. Also, the unforgettable Ram—a tremendous figure—was a friend to so many of us in the Labour party at the time and was very kind to young Members of Parliament. I remember him with respect and affection. Therefore, like the hon. Member for Corby, I hope that I speak with warmth towards Mauritius.
I must raise three issues, of which I have given notice. I raised the first issue in the House more than a quarter of a century ago, at inordinate length. It concerned Diego Garcia and the 116s people. The brief background is this: the Ilois are a small minority of about 2,000 people, who were formerly residents of Diego Garcia in the Indian ocean. They are now resident in Mauritius. The Chagos islands were inhabited from about 1776 by a fishing company and leper colony under French rule. After the Napoleonic wars in 1815, they, along with Mauritius, came under British colonial rule and received new immigrants from Africa and India, and a successful copra industry. Those varied peoples developed a distinct culture and a Creole dialect.
Hopping a couple of centuries brings us to December 1966 and to the period preceding the independence of Mauritius. Britain demarcated the Chagos and other isolated islands from Mauritius as the British Indian Ocean Territory. Incidentally, the British Government of the day were a Labour Government. I am in no way criticising a Conservative Government, because many of the unsatisfactory events took place—I make no bones about it—under the Wilson Government, although those of us who are deeply interested did not realise some things until the congressional hearings of 1975.
In the same month in 1966, the British Indian Ocean Territory was leased to the United States for defence purposes for 50 years with the option of a further 20 years. From 1972, three further agreements were signed between the two countries allowing for military construction and

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expansion on Diego Garcia, which had become the main United States base in the Indian ocean. That happened under the Heath Government. Those agreements meant that the Ilois people had to leave and that was undertaken in a most secretive, underhand and shame-making manner.
The Ilois had the long-standing custom of visiting Mauritius for visits and shopping. From 1965 until the mid-1970s, the United Kingdom Government did not allow the Ilois people in Mauritius to return home. In fact, the Ilois were forced to squat in the slums of Port Louis or work in sugar plantations—a type of work to which they were not used. They had very little money, so some starved and all suffered great hardship. It will be no surprise to hon. Members that they were particularly vulnerable to any type of disease; such diseases are fought off easily by those of us from populated or industrial societies, but are very difficult to combat if one comes from a remote island such as Diego Garcia.
The copra plantations were run down and food imports were cut. From 1965 to 1971, about half the population of Diego Garcia were pressurised into leaving. The remainder —about 800—were assembled and removed at short notice in September 1971, at first to smaller islands not required by the military and then, in 1973, to Mauritius where they were left without help or compensation. The removal was carried out in secrecy until the facts became known at a United States congressional hearing in 1975 and after media coverage in the United States and the United Kingdom. The removal was completed surreptitiously. Although it is not relevant to the debate, I wonder which Ministers knew what was happening. I have talked to some of my former colleagues who were powerful Ministers at the time and they said that they knew nothing about it; I am sure that they are being truthful.
There has been a long fight for compensation by the Ilois and their supporters in Mauritius and the United Kingdom. Compensation was given to the last shipload of Ilois, who staged a demonstration on the removal ship. A small amount of compensation was available from 1973 to the islanders, but they did not receive it until 1978. In 1976, the United Kingdom Government paid £600,000 to the Government of Mauritius for the resettlement of the Ilois, but that was inadequate and there were also delays on the part of the Mauritius authorities.
In 1979, the United Kingdom Government offered the Ilois a further £1·25 million, but stipulated that the Ilois must sign a document renouncing their right to return to the British Indian Ocean Territory. I accept that that document was signed, but we should ask whether such a comparatively simplistic people—I do not mean that in any derogatory sense—should have been asked, under pressure, to sign such a document. What moral value resides in that type of agreement?
After consultation, most of the llois rejected the offer. There were demonstrations in 1980 and 1981, and the British Government agreed that talks between the two Governments and the Ilois should take place. That was in June 1981. The talks, in London, centred on the need for improved compensation. The Ilois asked for £8 million in order to give land, a house and some cattle to each family. The United Kingdom Government offered the original £1·25 million only and an extra amount of £300,000 for
1012
technical assistance. No agreement could be reached, but the Ilois, who were now desperate, decided to ask for compensation at an amount somewhere between the two sums. A final agreement was reached—a so-called full and final settlement—in March 1982.
The terms were that the Ilois were to be given £4 million in addition to the money already paid, and that the Mauritian Government would give land to the value of £1 million and that the money was compensation
"for all acts done by or pursuant to the Indian Ocean territory order of 1965."
However, Mauritius saw nothing in the wording of the agreement to preclude a return of the British Indian ocean territory to Mauritius. What exactly is the position of Her Majesty's Government on the status of the British Indian Ocean Territory in relation to Mauritius as covered by the Bill?
Compensation did not solve all the problems of the Ilois. There were delays in the payment, and although it was originally hoped to establish a job creation scheme, the economic situation of the Ilois was so desperate that they demanded an individual share-out. After improving their housing, many Ilois had nothing left and suffered from the high unemployment in Mauritius. They also attempted to gain compensation from the United States, but to date they have not succeeded. Yet the Ilois today are better organised and gaining in confidence. Although they are settled in Mauritius, almost all of them have expressed a wish to return home.
I have had it confirmed today by people who know Mauritius intimately that that is indeed the position—the llois want, as much as ever, if not more than ever, to go back, even only on a temporary basis at first, for such human reasons as attending to family graves.
Is there any question of their going back to an island which is now a massive military base? Coupled with that, what is the future of the Anglo-American agreement? Although the lease is for half a century with the option of another 20 years, have the circumstances altered because of developments in the so-called cold war, or will the base remain because of possible developments in the Gulf or in such countries as Iran and Iraq? Diego Garcia was, in fact, the main American staging post during the Gulf war. I repeat, it is a massive base.
What do Her Majesty's Government believe are the rights of those people who have been dispossessed? On their most modest request, will they be able to go back at least to tend their ancestral graves? I am told that that means a great deal to them.
The position is not exactly happy. I do not expect a favourable answer tonight. In a written question in the other place, the noble Lord Kennet asked the Government
"Whether in the light of the changed international situation they are considering any alteration in the arrangements that currently govern Diego Garcia, and whether its most recent population (other than the personnel of the United States Armed Forces) has expressed any wish to return there."
In reply, Baroness Chalker, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said:
"There are no present proposals to alter the arrangements currently governing Diego Garcia. The former plantation workers (Ilois) are now largely integrated into Mauritian and Seychellese society. Schemes agreed in 1973 and 1982 to facilitate their resettlement (at a cost to the United Kingdom of £4·65 million) have now been completed."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 19 May 1992; Vol. 537, c. 28.]

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To interpret that parliamentary answer, it said that, from the point of view of the British Government, that was the end of the story. Indeed, on 24 July 1990 I did not do much better when I asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
"what are his responsibilities in relation to the Ilois people from the British Indian Ocean Territories who are currently in Mauritius."
The present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, then the Minister of State, Foreign Office, replied:
"None. All are Mauritian citizens, although some may also be British dependent territories citizens."—[Official Report, 24 July 1990; Vol. 177, c. 156.]
Then, on 24 October 1990, I asked
"what discussions he has had with the Government of Mauritius on the future of Ilois persons displaced from the British Indian Ocean territory resident in Mauritius."
The answer, again from the present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was:
"None. Those concerned were given considerable financial assistance to resettle and their future now lies in Mauritius." —[Official Report, 24 October 1990; Vol. 178, c. 217.]
That was a hard answer, and tonight I am really asking the Government to reconsider it—[Interruption.] I think I hear the Minister saying that he cannot reconsider it. At least he can refer the matter to his colleagues.
I want to know about the future of the base. Is it to be American for ever? It was given to the Americans on the basis of a threat relating to the Soviet Union and the red army in circumstances which have changed considerably. I appreciate that it may be unreasonable to expect the Minister to make a statement tonight, but there may be other occasions when such a statement could be forthcoming.
For the sake of completeness, I should read into the record the observations by the Secretary of State on a petition of 12 April 1988 from residents of the United Kingdom for action to secure the return of the Ilois people to Diego Garcia. Responding to that on 9 May 1988, the Secretary of State commented:
"Before the creation of British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) in 1965, the status of the Ilois on the Chagos Archipelago was as contract employees of the copra plantation owners. Neither they, nor those permitted by the plantation owners to remain, owned land or houses. They were employees, with licences to reside there at the discretion of the owners, and moved from island to island as the work required. With the establishment of BIOT in 1965 the plantations, by now in economic decline, were purchased by the Crown. When it was decided to make the islands available for joint defence purposes to the United States and United Kingdom governments, the future of the plantations could not be guaranteed, and they were eventually closed.
The Ilois were given the choice of returning to Seychelles or Mauritius; the majority, some 1,200 people, returned to Mauritius where they had close ties, the last arrivals taking place in 1973. Payments totalling nearly £5 million were made towards their settlement. In 1972 Her Majesty's Government paid £650,000 to the Mauritius Government. After years of disagreement about how it was to be spent, the Ilois settled for cash in 1978, by which time accrued interest had raised its value to £936,000. In 1982 the Ilois Trust Fund was set up with an ex-gratia payment of £4 million from the United Kingdom government, the express purpose of which was to assist with the settlement of the Ilois in Mauritius as self-sufficient members of the community. This payment represents a generous, full and final settlement of the Ilois' claims. It was welcomed as such by the Government of Mauritius which, for its part, provided land to the value of £1 million. The Ilois community in Mauritius were fully associated with the Agreement, and its representatives took part in negotiations as members of the all-party Mauritian delegation. In these circumstances a meeting between Her
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Majesty's Government, the Mauritian Government and the Ilois, as suggested in the Petition, would be inappropriate and serve no useful purpose."
It may have seemed inappropriate in May 1988, but could there not, in June 1992, be a change of heart on the matter? At least the subject should be reopened, and I am asking tonight for that to happen.
I am not talking about some sort of Sue Lawley desert island but about a people's homeland and a culture which, I am told, has not gone away. Indigenous people have rights on this planet. I urge that those rights be respected.
The House will be relieved to hear that the two other subjects that I wish to raise, and about which I have given notice to the Minister, will not delay hon. Members, because yesterday I was fortunate to catch Madam Speaker's eye and raised—as reported in Hansard at column 878—the issue of the mangroves. In Mauritius, as elsewhere in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, there are some lush mangrove forests with pristine coral reefs, which the hon. Member for Corby has seen and spoken of.
The combination of those two interacting ecosystems produces a vast amount of fish, shellfish and seaweed and provides sustenance and employment for local fishing communities. I gather that the situation in Mauritius is not so bad as it is in some places in the Indian ocean and the Pacific, where coral reefs are dead and mangroves have disappeared.
Considering how many people are now at Rio participating in important discussions, I am entitled to ask whether Her Majesty's Government, and the Overseas Development Administration, have a view about the protection of coral reefs and particularly mangroves. It is a highly important subject.
The third issue I raise concerns the situation of the Aldabra atoll, which I understand has an intimate connection with the Seychelles. A quarter of a century ago, I tabled more than 70 parliamentary questions on the subject. The Minister may consider that I have asked an undue number of questions tonight. They are nothing compared with what happened in the late 1960s when I was questioning the then Labour Government.
I sent those questions to eight leading Americans, such as Glen Seabourg, who was then a senior person in the Atomic Energy Authority and a friend of mine, to crusty old Senator Maclennan of Arkansas, to Ed Wenk, then secretary of the Marine Scientific Council, to Congressman Reuss and to Vice-President Humphrey, who was chairman of the Marine Scientific Council, who had been nice to me in Washington, just as he was agreeable to many other visitors.
They all sent those questions to Secretary McNamara, deluging him and asking for his comments. The final piece of good fortune was that the secretary of the Smithsonian, Dillon Ripley, was passing through London and I had the opportunity to see him at his hotel at midnight. He promised to take my questions to the President of the United States, which was his right as secretary of the Smithsonian. He kept his promise.
As a result of a combination of factors, and partly because of the excellent briefing by the late professor Sir Ashley Miles—it was the first time that the Royal Society had briefed a politician; he was the biological secretary —a head of steam was built up and it was decided that a staging post on Aldabra atoll would be a bad plan. Thank

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goodness it worked out that way, because it is a unique ecosystem, and since then it has been set up as a successful outstation of the Royal Society.
The story was further continued when the Royal Society, by amicable agreement, gave up its outstation to a combination of the Seychelles Government, with an input from the Mauritian Government, and the French and American academies of science. As I understand it, it is extremely well run and there are now proposals to have ecotourism of a very disciplined kind.
I would like to ask the Government in 1992 whether they have any locus in the problem of Aldabra. With the developments in Mauritius and, to complete the picture, it has to be said, in the Seychelles, are they certain that this unique ecosystem will be preserved for humanity as it has been during the past quarter of a century?
Aldabra is an extraordinary place, being unique not only for the giant tortoise of the Indian ocean but for the flightless rail and the pink-footed booby. What has defended this and made it all possible is its inaccessibility and the description of the coral as hard and sharp as razor blades. Long may that continue.
What I want to know is whether the advice from the Foreign Office is that all of that will be preserved for mankind or whether we may have problems of possible injury to this unique and important ecosystem. I thank the House for being patient.
8.21 pm
Mr. John D. Taylor: I would not attempt to speak with the knowledge and experience of the hon. Members for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and for Corby (Mr. Powell) on the island of Mauritius, but obviously, a Bill of this nature, which involves constitutional change, is always a matter of interest to someone from Northern Ireland. I share the regret of the hon. Member for Corby that the decision has been taken in Mauritius to cease to have the Queen as head of state and instead to become a republic. None the less, that is its decision, and for us this evening it is simply a technical matter to approve the Bill or otherwise. Certainly the Ulster Unionist Members will be supporting it.
I too had the privilege of visiting Mauritius as the guest of its Government some years ago, when I was a Member of another Parliament. As has already been said, it is a most beautiful island. One of the things that really impressed me about it was the fact that it is multiracial and multireligious, and such a combination is somewhat explosive in many islands in the world—we can think of Sri Lanka, Cyprus or even Ireland. There is always a problem when one has a mixture of religions and nationalities.
There has been criticism of the recent election in Mauritius, and some doubt has been cast on whether it was contested fairly and properly, but tributes should be paid to the way in which democracy has thrived in the multiracial society in Mauritius for the past 25 years since it became an independent state.
As I said, Mauritius is a beautiful island. It is good to see its sugar cane industry prospering and to know that the fishing industry is going well, which is more than we can say for the fishing industry in the United Kingdom. It is also good that tourism is flourishing in the island. It benefited considerably when South Africa was cut off from
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much of the rest of the world. Mauritius became very much a playground for many South Africans, and that helped the tourist industry to thrive and develop. I would strongly recommend that people go there for a holiday. It is somewhat far away, but it is well worth a visit, and the food is very good. There is still a strong French influence in Mauritius. I suspect that most people who live there do not call it Mauritius—it is more likely to be called Ile Maurice—but that is by the way.
There is one final point that I want to place on record, which will always be a lifelong memory of my visit to the island—the fact that a young man from Wales, who obviously has the surname of Jones, has dedicated most of his life to preserving the pink pigeon in Mauritius. It had almost become extinct. Only eight living birds remained. He dedicated his life to maintaining that breed of bird, and I am glad to say that he is being successful. I am glad to have this opportunity to place on record a tribute to his work.
8.24 pm
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: This has been a short debate, but certainly one of interest. My hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Powell) demonstrated how, in the British Parliament, there is always someone who has contact with and experience in every area of the world, just as there is always someone who has experience and knowledge of every subject in the globe. One might include the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), with his wide range of knowledge and the inquiry and interest that he pursues, under that heading.
Mauritius is certainly a success story. As my hon. Friend the Member for Corby said, and as the right hon. Member for Strangford (Mr. Taylor) also commented, the per capita income of the Mauritian people in 1989 was just under US $2,000 per year. I expect that the figure has risen since then, but that is the latest figure that I have. That is a remarkable achievement for a third-world country with very little natural resource in a part of the world where per capita incomes are low and for a country which is isolated by poor communications, which Mauritius undoubtedly is. Mauritius is also a success story in terms of democracy since its independence.
The hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) said that the Labour party supported the Bill, and I am grateful to him for that. But he raised certain anxieties which I have no doubt will be considered by people at a high level in the Government of Mauritius. I am sure that the debate will be followed with interest in the newspapers of Mauritius and that the hon. Gentleman's remarks will be read by a wide audience.
I cannot respond to the hon. Gentleman's allegations and criticisms, but I want to make one or two general points abut the constitutional arrangements in Mauritius over the years. As I say, it is an example of a small third-world country with historic connections with Britain, about which we all know, which has had considerable success in the path of democracy since independence.
The general election on 15 September 1991 resulted in a landslide victory for Sir Anerood Jugnauth's ruling coalition. As the hon. Gentleman said, 57 of the 62 seats were won by the ruling party, four Opposition Members were added under a best loser system, and all that is to be compared with 39 seats won by the Opposition in 1987.

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The hon. Gentleman expressed concerns that have been raised with him by his friends in Mauritius and, in particular, the distinguished parliamentarian, Dr. Navin Ramgoolam, the son of an even more distinguished father, if one may put it like that. I cannot comment on those allegations, but we understand that an appeal might come from Mauritius on the question of alleged vote rigging. We understand also that a candidate in the election has lodged an application with the Supreme Court of Mauritius for leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee, but that final leave to appeal has not yet been granted. That matter will be for judicial consideration, and I have no doubt that it will be properly attended to by whatever judicial forums it goes before.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow asked a series of questions. We are all aware that he is a campaigner of tenacity. He demonstrated that again tonight. An issue that he first raised 25 years or 26 years ago remains one that he pursues today. He never lets go. I am sure that we have not heard his last word on the subject even tonight, and that as long as there is breath in his body the hon. Member for Linlithgow will continue to serve as a distinguished parliamentarian—as he has done ever since I first entered the House, and I know before—and to raise issues about which he feels strongly.
I will make some comments, but I am afraid that they will not satisfy the hon. Member for Linlithgow as a fundamental change of Government policy. We are strongly of the view that the future of the plantation in Diego Garcia could not have been assured at any early date. Once the trade in copra with Mauritius ceased, there was no viable economy in the islands.
In 1966, the then British Government—which the hon. Member for Linlithgow honourably admitted was a Labour Government—offered the choice of resettlement in Mauritius or in the Seychelles. As most of the inhabitants of Diego Garcia maintained close ties with Mauritius, the majority of them—some 1,200 people—settled there, with the final arrivals in 1973.
The hon. Gentleman told the story as he understood it. I am sure that he was carefully briefed at the time, maintained his notes in his files, and has refreshed his memory. His briefing was certainly fuller than that which I received, so I cannot comment in detail on all the matters that he raised. Nevertheless, I can confirm certain facts.
There were two substantial ex gratia payments to the Ilois people—a sum of £650,000 first, and a further sum of £4 million in 1982. That constituted substantial compensation of nearly £5 million, which is presumably worth double today. The money was administered for the benefit of the ex-islanders' community by a trust established by the Mauritius Government, who agreed to make available land for resettlement worth £1 million.
Those funds were made available to a total of 1,200 men, women, and children, and should be viewed as generous payments. No one could reasonably argue that those were not generous sums of money for just over 1,000 people. On a per capita basis, the total produces a significant sum of money for each individual concerned.
Mr. Dalyell: I was asked by The Sunday Times to review Sir Sonny Ramphal's remarkable book, "Our Country the Planet", and I invite the Minister and his advisers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to read those passages in which Sir Sonny argues at some length, and extremely convincingly, that no price can be put on rain forests.
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Equally, I suspect that there is no price that relatively simple people can be asked to put on their atoll. One cannot consider it in monetary terms—it is their being and their life. Their ancestors died there. One cannot say that they all arrived just like that—there were indigenous people there.
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The hon. Gentleman shows himself the campaigner he is, in holding the view that one cannot put a price on a person's home in the way that I described the situation. However, the British Government have received no recent representation of which I am aware from the Ilois people. All the evidence we have—I know that the hon. Gentleman might challenge this—suggests that the bulk of the population are fully integrated into Mauritian society.
I cannot from this Dispatch Box tonight—the hon. Gentleman knows this—reconsider the answers that the hon. Gentleman was given. I am afraid that there is no possibility of the former Ilois plantation workers returning.
As to the mangrove swamps, the environment is one of our agreed priority areas for assistance to Mauritius. We note the reference in the Mauritius environmental action plan to mangrove swamps as nursery grounds for shrimp and fish. The problem has been properly identified in the eyes of the Mauritian Government, but it is not identified in the plan as a matter for donors' action. We have not been asked to assist in that area, so we have not taken a view upon it. If a request for assistancee were made, we would consider it.
We are very active in other environmental areas. Management assistance is given by the Severn Trent water authority to the Mauritius central water authority, and in the next aid talks we have to agree a project for assisting the environmental development of certain northern islets. Both projects represent contributions to the Mauritian Government's action plan, and we are also funding a scheme to assist the mapping of state lands.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow referred also to Aldabra. During business questions to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House yesterday, which were my guide, the hon. Gentleman referred to the matter of Aldabra's status, which he raised tonight. I am afraid that I took that to mean Aldabra's constitutional status, not its environmental status.
Mr. Dalyell: The Minister is quite correct: I did mean Aldebra's constitutional status.
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I will comment on its constitutional status, but I cannot say anything about its environmental status—other than that I have some personal knowledge that Aldabra is a beautiful example of a pristine environment. The campaign against a staging post launched by the hon. Member for Linlithgow was described at the time by The Daily Telegraph as a personal triumph, and the hon. Gentleman should legitimately take some credit for the fact that no staging post was built on Aldabra.
The islands of Aldabra, Desroches, and Farquhar were returned to the Seychelles on their independence in 1976. They had historically always been part of the Seychelles group since the acquisition following the Napoleonic wars. The present constitutional position of the islands is not in

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any doubt. As far as I am aware, there is no claim to sovereignty in respect of those islands by any Government against the Seychelles sovereign.
Mr. Dalyell: The Minister has been more than courteous, and I thank him genuinely for the trouble that he has taken. May I leave him with one thought, however?
It would, of course, be fatuous to suppose that the Minister could make an announcement of substance tonight, but will he ask his colleagues, particularly the Foreign Secretary, whether they see a case for at least talking seriously to the Americans about the future of the lease—be it 50 or 70 years—in such changed circumstances? All this was done when the fear of Russia was still present. Now the ball game is different, and I should have thought that there was a case for at least reopening the discussion.
Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Again, the hon. Gentleman has made his point in his own incomparable way. I have no doubt that he will pursue the subject with vigour, as he pursues so many other subjects, but I can give him no undertaking that the Government will give serious consideration to the points that he raises.
I congratulate Mauritius on its achievements since independence, on sustaining a truly successful working parliamentary democracy, and on establishing a prosperous and rapidly developing economy. It has, on occasion, been described as a model for other developing countries—rightly, in my view. I am sure that every hon. Member wishes the republic a prosperous future—a future in which the friendly relationship that it enjoys with people in Britain continues, and in which the royal family are still loved, although it will no longer be a realm.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.
—[Mr. Kirkhope.]
Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported, without amendment.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
8.44 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell: I thank the Minister again for the trouble that he has taken.
Let me repeat that indigenous societies, however small, have some moral rights in the latter part of the 20th century to return to their homelands—especially when the uses to which their homelands have been put have been changed by world circumstances. That should be borne in mind even in the case of a small and rather simple people.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, without amendment.

Island Communities (Argyll)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kirkhope.]
8.45 pm
Mrs. Ray Michie: I am sure that it is a relief to the Minister and everyone else concerned that this debate is not, after all, taking place in the wee small hours, as we had been warned that it might. I therefore welcome the opportunity of raising the question of the Government's economic and social policies for island communities in Argyll, which is a subject of paramount importance to my constituents, to me and, indeed, to all highlanders.
There are many islands, large and small, off the coast of Argyll. Argyll derives its name from the word Erraghaidheal, meaning in Gaelic "the boundary of the Gaels": as he takes stock, the Prime Minister might do well to note that it was at Dunadd, near Crinan, that—around 500 AD—the first seeds were sown from which Scotland grew as a unified nation and state.
What I want to examine tonight, however, is the Government's strategy, or lack of it, in regard to the islands and their communities. Theirs is a sad history. There is the jewelled beauty of Jura, once populated with a people living a life balanced with nature, and now almost empty. I am told that Jura used to export 1,000 head of cattle a year until the clearances and the appearances of the "white plague", as the sheep were called when they were brought in. Then there are the deserted and lonely glens of Mull, the families who are leaving Colonsay because no houses are available, and the indigenous folk of Coll, now a minority. All have suffered the ravages of time, the infamous clearances, Governments without vision, and depopulation, with the resulting loss of language, culture and traditions.
My particular concern, however, is to bring to the Minister's attention the plight of the island of Gigha. Gigha—not a Gaelic but a Norse name, meaning, I believe, "god's island"—lies three miles off the coast of Kintyre in my constituency. It has a population of about 140, with nine children in the school. Some people are—or were—employed in agriculture, fishing, fish farming, the hotel, the shop and the estate.
Today, the island is in the hands of a Swiss bank as a result of the owner—a property speculator—going bust. The previous owner bought it for an estimated £3 million, and sold it in 1989 for £5·4 million; today, it is once more up for grabs at an estimated £7 million.
In the previous debate on Mauritius the Minister observed that one cannot put a price on a person's home. According to a director of the Edinburgh agents, Savilles, who are advertising the sale of the island,
"Gigha is very much a little paradise on its own. You would buy it for its charm and privacy, to own your own little country."
That says it all. There is not a word about the people who live in the place. I visited the island recently. The hotel has been closed. Padlocks are snapped on to the doors of other properties. The mood of the people ranged from anger to despair. Some felt humiliated. All of them were anxious about their future.
The Minister is aware that I wrote to the Secretary of State in March of this year. I reminded him that this was exactly what I had sought to avoid when I tabled

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amendments aimed at controlling the sale of Scottish land during the passage of the Scottish Enterprise Bill in 1987. I wanted Highlands and Islands Enterprise to be vested with speedy and effective purchase powers to protect those living on Gigha from being exposed to the vagaries of a market that threatens their livelihoods and the whole character of the island.
I pointed out to the Secretary of State that
"the assumption that the island and its way of life could be used simply a s collateral in the affairs of a speculative property empire was offensive to anyone with even the most primary understanding of the need to maintain continuity in the rural economy, upon which much of our social stability depends."
I said also:
"We shall never achieve a stable and equitable society in Scotland if this kind of market practice is allowed to prevail in the disposition of its land, perhaps its greatest asset."
During the debate on the Highlands and islands Enterprise Bill, I was not talking about nationalisation of the land, or even compulsory purchase. In fact, I tabled a probing amendment on the powers of the former Highlands and Islands Development Board. I tried to persuade the Government that Highlands and Islands Enterprise should have powers relating to land use and its development, for the better quality of life of the people in the area. To have given Highlands and Islands Enterprise pre-emptive rights of purchase in limited cases, with suitable safeguards, to make better use of the land and to secure the social viability of a place such as Gigha was at the heart of my argument.
The Minister knows that Highlands and islands Enterprise was given the general function of economic and social development, together with training and environmental improvements, but I maintain that it is not possible to do that effectively without considering land ownership and land use. The Minister will be aware of television and press reports which highlighted the fact that huge areas of land in the Highlands and Islands are often bought and sold by unknown purchasers, or are owned by shadowy, anonymous companies incorporated in places such as Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Caribbean.
The laws and conventions governing land ownership in Scotland go back to the dim and distant past. Only a few people have a real stake in that land. The power of land ownership has had profound influence on rural land use and rural communities. Do not get me wrong: there are good and bad landlords, and those who are deemed to be good care for and feel responsible for those who live on their land. However, until a Government have the courage to tackle the problem of feudal land ownership, it will remain a running sore and a cause of deep resentment and bitterness. The English had the good sense to get rid of their feudal system hundreds of years ago, in 1290. For us to retain in Scotland the titles of superior and vassal in this modern day and age is beyond belief.
To return to my letter to the Secretary of State, I was surprised and not a little taken aback when I received a rather curt reply not from the Secretary of State but from the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton). Its peremptory tone leads me to believe that it was not written by the Minister, who usually deals with these matters in a more courteous and understanding manner. At the end of his very short letter he said:
"The compulsory approach"—
although that is not exactly what I was advocating—
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"as Ian Lang made clear, is incompatible with economic growth and development."
What kind of an answer is that? Not a word was said about the social consequences. Reference was made only to economic growth and development. I do not understand how a Minister with responsibility for matters affecting the highlands and islands can adopt so irresponsible an attitude to the social economy of the island.
Even the most elementary understanding of the need for stability and continuity in a rural economy must acknowledge that to expose an island such as Gigha to unfettered market forces simply turns it into a shuttlecock for financial speculators. Failure to secure continuity in a rural economy such as this is one of the greatest dangers to its prosperity. That danger now faces Gigha because of the lack of an adequate policy over Scottish land disposal.
I had hoped that the Natural Heritage (Scotland) Act 1991 would allow us to have a second bite at the cherry. There are powers to purchase in order to establish nature reserves. The Minister said that these are powers of last resort, to be used in emergencies. I do not advocate that Gigha should be made into a nature reserve—far from it —but the island faces an emergency.
Scottish Natural Heritage was established in order to secure the conservation and enhancement of the natural heritage of Scotland, the flora and fauna of Scotland, its geological and physiographical features, its natural beauty and its amenity. Section 3(1)(f) of the Natural Heritage (Scotland) Act 1991 also made it a duty of Scottish Natural Heritage to take account of the interests of local communities. How can SNH use the powers to protect the future of the island of Gigha? How are the contents of the Minister's recent letter compatible with the thrust of the Act which set out such admirable intentions?
The Government's stand-off attitude saddens me. Another example is the fact that the Kartli still lies wrecked off the shore of the island. Sadly, it was hit by a huge wave just before Christmas. It contains 400 tonnes of rotting fish which has not been removed and is now beginning to smell. The ship will soon break up and no Government Department seems to be able or willing to take responsibility for doing anything about it.
It is worth noting that this week the Government are going out of their way to rescue the investors at Canary Wharf in London by considering moving the Departments of the Environment and Transport out to that bankrupt development. Perhaps the Minister would consider moving a Scottish Office Department to Gigha.
I have endeavoured to acquaint the Minister with the problems facing my constituents on Gigha. I should like to suggest some solutions. First, he should purchase the island via either Highlands and Islands Enterprise, SNH or the Agriculture and Fisheries Department of the Scottish Office, which is already a landowner. Secondly, he should undertake a review of the laws governing land ownership in Scotland. Thirdly, he should agree to abolish the archaic feudal system.
By designating the islands of Argyll as environmentally sensitive areas, the Government have already acknowledged that they are of national environmental significance; that includes Gigha. How will the Government respond? What policy or strategy does the Minister have to deal with this? If the Minister's answer is negative, as regrettably I expect it to be, this Adjournment debate, if it achieves nothing else, will at least have served to show the prospective buyers of the island of Gigha the

1023
commitment and responsibility that I, and I hope the Minister, would expect them to discharge towards the islanders.
9.1 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): I congratulate the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) on securing this Adjournment debate. I know that the economic and social well-being of the many small island communities in her constituency is a subject close to her heart, and her words will have struck a sympathetic chord with all who hold the islands of Scotland dear. In view of the many changes taking place in the hon. Lady's constituency, it is entirely appropriate that we should take this opportunity to take stock and examine the progress we have made.
I am delighted to be able to use this occasion to reaffirm the Government's commitment to the island communities of Argyll. This year, we have increased the budget for Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the Government's agency for furthering economic and social development in the highlands and islands, to £77 million. In recognition of the particular problems occurring in the hon. Lady's constituency due to the withdrawal of the United States Navy from Cowal, this sum includes an additional £3 million towards the regeneration of the Cowal area.
Highlands and Islands Enterprise has responded by awarding Argyll and the Islands Enterprise, the local enterprise company concerned, the highest allocation of resources of any local enterprise company in the Highlands and Islands Enterprise network. Its budget of over £12 million has been increased by well over 20 per cent. compared with last year's budget. Thanks to Scottish Office policies, control over local matters is taking place at local level. Action to promote economic and social regeneration is being carried out by those who understand the area and have a stake in its future.
I have every confidence that Argyll and the Islands Enterprise under the chairmanship of Norman Walker will give priority to the island communities for which it is responsible, and will respond to local needs efficiently and effectively.
Our commitment to the people of Argyll and Bute is further illustrated by the substantial increase in the capital spending allocations that we have been able to give to Argyll and Bute district council for its non-housing capital programmes. Historically, the council has received an allocation of around £750,000 a year. We increased that to £825,000 for 1991–92, when it became clear that there would be problems in Cowal following closure of the naval base at Holy Loch.
Subsequently, we received the Cowal task force report. In the light of the implications of that report, we have increased the council's allocations further to £1·1 million for 1992–93, this figure being maintained provisionally for 1993–94 and 1994–95. An increase of 57 per cent. over the level of allocation the council received previously, amounting to £1·2 million over three years, gives Argyll and Bute district council greatly increased flexibility. I am delighted that we have been able to help, and I know that the council will respond in like spirit.
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The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute said that the island of Gigha means God's island. I share her concern about the circumstances surrounding the proposed sale. The Scottish Office fully recognises how worrying recent events must have been for the people who live and work on Gigha, which is a lovely island with a population of about 150. Farming and fisheries, including fish farming, provide the main source of employment. The local hotel, which is well known to many visitors, is also important. This is a clear example of a fragile community on the periphery of Europe—precisely the sort of community whose wellbeing is treated by Highlands and Islands Enterprise as among its most cherished priorities.
I sympathise with those who lost their jobs, but we should not take a too pessimistic view of their situation. I am confident that, when the island is in new hands, there will be scope for their re-employment. Meanwhile, they are underpinned by the usual welfare arrangements and by the mutual help which is such a strength of Scotland's remote rural communities.
Tenancies are protected by the various housing and agriculture Acts. Farm leases are governed by the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991, under which a long-standing tenancy can pass to the successors of a deceased tenant. Landlords can serve incontestable notices to quit only where the successor is not a near relative. I shall be only too ready to look into any immediate cases of personal hardship on the hon. Lady's behalf. I feel sure that she will get in touch with me if I can assist.
For the longer term, I feel confident that Gigha will survive the present crisis. I know that Argyll and the Islands Enterprise fully recognise Gigha's problems of fragility and remoteness. It is monitoring the situation, and once the ownership position is clarified, it will stand ready to assist in economic and social development if and where a need is established. I understand why the hon. Member is so interested in the circumstances of the sale, but it is essentially a private matter which I am sure will be resolved by those concerned.
Highland land use has long been a particularly difficult and sensitive issue. Some appear to believe that all land in the Scottish highlands should be subject to a more or less compulsory purchase regime, under which a corporate body such as Highlands and Islands Enterprise had powers of purchase or direction. That power would be available if a corporate body believed that the land was being misused or neglected.
The Scottish Office is opposed to that approach. We believe that it is interventionist in character and that it assumes that corporate bodies are in a better position to determine how land should be used than those directly involved. We believe that land matters should be dealt with on the basis of consultation and mutual co-operation. We are confident that the future prosperity of the highlands and islands is best served by the removal of anti-competitive rules. We have no plans to introduce nationality or residence requirements for purchasers of land or property. The nationality of a landowner does not determine the quality of his management or the welfare of his employees.
This does not mean that we believe that the legal framework should be set in tablets of stone. At the Government's request, as the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) is well aware, the Scottish Law Commission is carrying out a detailed review of property law in Scotland, including an investigation into

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the so-called feudal system. We intend to await the commission's detailed conclusions and recommendations before considering whether and what changes in the law are needed. That is still some time away; meanwhile, ownership matters should be resolved within the framework of existing law. Land ownership is not a matter on which I have a locus to intervene. However persuasive the hon. Lady is, I do not wish to adopt the mantle of paternalism in this matter.
The hon. Lady also asked about Scottish Natural Heritage. I shall make inquiries about whether it could conceivably have a role in Gigha, and if so, in what circumstances. If I may, I shall write to her about that.
The hon. Lady also asked about Kartli, the Russian vessel. We have taken an interest in the matter because of the implications for our environmental responsibilities. It has taken time for arrangements for disposal to be put in place because the owners responsible for such arrangements are from the new republic of the Ukraine, but United Kingdom lawyers acting on their behalf have appointed a salvage contractor to dispose of the cargo and vessel when the necessary funds arrive in this country, which we hope will be in the next few days. I am glad to confirm that there have been no adverse effects on the marine environment as a result of the incident, but we shall continue to keep a close eye on it.
I shall give some examples of assistance to island communities in Argyll. Practical assistance to island communities is a high priority of the Highlands and Islands Enterprise network. Projects which have been assisted in Argyll include the development of a shellfish farm, an adventure school, a chocolate factory, and workshop premises. Argyll and the Islands Enterprise in its first year of operation has in fact provided assistance towards 59 islands-based projects worth nearly £1 million, creating more than 60 new jobs. That is well above the job creation target which had been set, and it is a creditable performance.
There are also several large cases in the pipeline, ranging from tourist developments to environmental improvements. These are not isolated projects the Highlands and Islands Development Board, forerunner of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, long recognised the importance to island communities of economic and social development.
Assistance to cases in the Argyll islands has ranged from just a few hundred pounds in Tiree to tens of thousands of pounds in Islay. I am sure, for example, that the hon. Lady, like me, is delighted at the success of the Mactaggart Pool on Islay, an excellent example of a successful partnership of the voluntary sector, the private sector, public agencies and local authorities. HIDB also provided economic assistance to the refurbishment of the winter gardens in Rothesay, helping to retain a building of architectural value in a prominent part of the town. Argyll and the Islands Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise are following it with a new initiative—the Bute partnership—which has worked out proposals to regenerate Rothesay town centre.
These proposals have still to be endorsed by the partnership's main funding partners. Meanwhile, Rothesay has already benefited from projects such as the refurbishment of a hotel, creating 11 jobs, arid the relocation and development of a food manufacturing business.
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Perhaps it would assist the hon. Lady if I said a little about Cowal. The effectiveness of Scottish Office policies is illustrated by what is happening there. In little over a year from the United States Navy's announcement of its withdrawal from the base, the local enterprise company set up the Cowal initiative to prepare and implement an action plan for the area. The Cowal task force is now taking these proposals forward. Advance factory units are being built at Sandbank, the eyesore of Robertson's yard is being removed and the local swimming pool is being refurbished.
I greatly look forward to seeing these developments for myself, and I am in touch with Argyll and the Islands Enterprise about suitable dates. I will, of course, let the hon. Lady know well in advance when a visit to her constituency is arranged, and will be delighted if she will join me on that occasion, as she did when I visited Caledonian MacBrayne.
In the hon. Lady's constituency as a whole, Argyll and the Islands Enterprise is of course making a tremendous impact for the better. Its land renewal work at Oban is the largest single project of its kind in the whole of the HIE network area. Perhaps I could single out one general project which is of enormous significance for the whole of Argyll: the British Telecom Highlands and Island initiative.
This joint initiative between Highlands and Islands Enterprise and British Telecom is bringing enormous benefits to the Highlands and Islands. Throughout the whole of this remote area on the edge of Europe, access to the dial plus is now the rule. In terms of quality, the people of the Highlands and Islands enjoy a better service than, for example, anything available in comparable areas of rural England, such as Northumberland or Cornwall.
For business users, the system provides faster, cheaper and safer transmission of data. This facility enables distance or tele working, and reduces the obstacles once encountered by those working in remote rural areas, enabling them to compete on equal terms with those working in more accessible parts of the country.
The Government take every opportunity to stress the special needs of areas such as the islands of Argyll to the European Commission in Brussels. All possible steps are and will be taken to ensure that such areas derive the maximum possible benefit from European funding.
Argyll comes under the Highlands and Islands objective 5(b) programme, which aims to promote the development of rural areas. It is eligible for support from all three European structural funds—the European regional development fund, the European social fund and the European agricultural guidance and guarantee fund, commonly known as FEOGA. Under the Highlands and Islands programme of community interest 1988–91, the island communities in Argyll have benefited by almost £4 million from European regional development funding.
Within the communications sub-programme, almost £3 million was approved in support of projects such as cattle grid improvements, safety fencing, and pier fender upgrading on Mull; road and bridge upgrading and strengthening on Mull, Islay and Bute; and ferry service improvements to Coll and Tiree. To provide water services, to improve inadequate, inconsistent or poor-quality water supply to remedy the lack of adequate sewerage facilities, almost £1 million of European regional development funding has been made available to Arran, Tiree and Islay.

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Tourism development is important to the economies of the Argyll island communities. In support of that, the European Commission has provided over £100,000 to develop a heritage trail at Tiree and the creation of a residential centre in the sparsely populated south-west of Mull. The Argyll area also benefits from the LEADER community initiative, which aims to encourage diversification in rural areas. Out of the £4·5 million allocated to LEADER in Scotland, £900,000 was earmarked to be spent in Argyll between 1992 and 1994. The island communities will benefit from part of that allocation.
All this means that, in European terms, the islands of Argyll are given substantial priority and recognition. I assure the hon. Lady that we will not lose sight of the European dimension when working for the well-being of her constituency.
I shall touch briefly on the ferry services about which the hon. Lady spoke so passionately when we considered bus privatisation. We recognise that many small island communities are almost wholly dependent on the ferry service for contacts and trade with the outside world. Ferry services provide a vital transport service for both people and goods, and are therefore vital to maintain the social and economic development of the islands and to facilitate the growth of industries such as tourism.
We stand by the commitment to continue to provide financial support to Caledonian MacBrayne for ferry services which are necessary to maintain and improve social and economic conditions in the islands. Examples of that commitment to the continuing development of ferry services to islands off the Argyll mainland are the new linkspans on Coll and Tiree, which will become operational in June and provide a much improved roll-on/roll-off service to Oban.
Later this year, a larger vessel will be introduced on the service to Gigha, with increased capacity for vehicles and passengers and offering a full roll-on/roll-off service. Next year, it is planned that the Kennacraig-Islay service will be provided, with additional capacity and an improved standard of service. Those examples illustrate the Government's concern, and continuing commitment, to make available the resources required to maintain and improve essential ferry services.
It is worth my touching briefly on the reform of the common agricultural policy, which is also important to the hon. Lady's constituency. Agriculture and fishing, of course, remain vital elements in the economy of the islands. I am sure that the island communities will be well aware of the significance of the recent agreement on reform of the CAP. In the short time available, I will mention only a few key points.
The most important thing to note is that, on balance, the CAP reform package holds out real, tangible benefits for the agricultural community in the Scottish islands. In particular, it offers our farmers some relief from the prolonged blight of uncertainty.
The agreement reached two weeks ago in Brussels marks a turning point for agricultural policy in western Europe. In future, support prices for cereals will more closely reflect market prices, and agricultural support will be channelled more directly towards the farmer. That
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support will increasingly take account of the contribution that farmers and crofters make to the conservation of our countryside. Consumers will benefit through lower prices.
The final terms of the agreement represent a tremendous achievement for the United Kingdom negotiating team in Brussels and especially for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The EC Commission's attempts to discriminate against larger farms were comprehensively dismissed. That will come as a great relief to farmers in Scotland, where our flocks and herds and farms are larger not just than the European average but than the British average.
The Brussels agreement includes a new premium for beef farmers aimed at supporting extensive production. It retains support for livestock farmers in the less favoured areas, recognising just how important farming is in our remote and disadvantaged rural areas. For sheep and beef, the new arrangements should help to protect the livelihoods of farmers in the highlands and islands who have, in recent years, suffered from the growth of livestock businesses in the lowlands.
Of course, that is not the whole story. Agriculture in the islands will continue to face financial pressures. If we are to retain viable farming communities, we must help farmers and crofters to adjust. For that reason, specific programmes have been set up for farmers and crofters in the highlands and islands. The agricultural development programme, for example, has been in place since 1988. Since then, around 300 farm development plans and a similar number of livestock development plans have been approved for farms and crofts in the Argyll area and small islands alone.
Those plans will attract grants of more than £5·5 million for farm improvements and new businesses. That injection of resources will have wider economic benefits. The rural enterprise programme, which we extended last year to parts of Argyll, aims in particular to encourage new businesses in those areas linked to the agricultural holdings.
In the view of the hon. Lady's keen interest in environmental matters, I stress that we have given a substantial boost to environmentally friendly farming in Scotland with the recent announcement to designate five new environmentally sensitive areas and to extend and improve the first two ESAs. I am pleased to say that one of those new areas to be designated will be the Argyll islands, which will include the islands of Islay, Jura, Coll, Tiree, Colonsay, Iona, Mull, Gigha and other small islands. That announcement and the inclusion of those islands have already been given enthusiastic support by environmental bodies.
In common with the existing ESAs, those new schemes will be tailored to the local circumstances to help conserve areas of landscape, wildlife or historic values. The designation will allow many farmers and crofters in these islands to take advantage of enhanced payments for positive environmental management.
There are many other matters that I could mention, but the hon. Lady has not touched on them tonight. I end by thanking her for raising these matters. I will write to her on the subject of Scottish Natural Heritage.
I am sure that, even from this brief debate, the hon. Lady will appreciate that the island communities of Argyll are far from neglected. Every opportunity is and will be taken to ensure that those communities are no less advantaged than the more central areas of Scotland. In

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some ways, the islands of Argyll offer a quality of life unobtainable in mainland areas, which is why, if the hon. Lady invites civil servants to Gigha with great enthusiasm, she may find that more go than she expects. I have every confidence that Argyll island communities will continue to
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benefit from the Government's economic and social policies. I thank the hon. Lady for raising these matters tonight.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-jour minutes past Nine o'clock.