Commons Sitting of 19 May 1992

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

  QUEEN'S SPEECH (ANSWER TO ADDRESS)
  The Vice-Chamberlain of the Household reported Her Majesty's Answer to the Address, as follows:
  I have received with great satisfaction the loyal and dutiful expression of your thanks for the Speech with which I opened the present Session of Parliament.

  ALLIANCE AND LEICESTER (GIROBANK) BILL (By Order)
  Orders for Second Reading read.
  To he read a Second time on Thursday.

  PITTENWEEM HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  Considered; to be read the Third time tomorrow.
Oral Answers to Questions
  EDUCATION

    Grant-maintained Schools
    Mr. Ashton: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what changes he intends to make in regard to the opting-out procedures for schools.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr. Eric Forth): The current arrangement by which schools apply to the Secretary of State for grant-maintained status following a favourable ballot of parents is proving very successful. We have no plans to change it. The latest approval of Chatham grammar school for girls brings the total of grant-maintained schools to 250. The rate of GM applications has doubled since the general election.
    Mr. Ashton: If the arrangement has been so successful, why have only 1 per cent. of schools in Britain applied? Four years ago, Mrs. Thatcher said that by now 50 per cent. of schools in Britain would have opted out. Why have only 1 per cent. done so? Have there not been serious problems at opted-out schools in Stratford, with allegations of racism? Is it not a fact that the Catholic bishops are not happy about the random selections? Is it not also a fact that governors in some of those schools have far too many powers which they have abused? The whole system has become a flop.
    Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman must contain his impatience. Although 10 per cent. of secondary schools have applied for grant-maintained status, we are in the early stages of an exciting departure in our education policy and in the history of education in this country. If there are any difficulties in GM applications, they have probably arisen because sour and negative Labour-controlled local authorities have placed every possible obstacle in the way of schools trying to get out from under them and deliver a proper quality of education to their pupils. All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is, "Watch this space."
    Sir Rhodes Boyson: Does my hon. Friend agree that the difference between Conservatives and the Opposition is that we believe in parents and families being allowed to choose schools while they believe in bureaucrats?
    Mr. Forth: My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The key difference is that we truly believe that we must correctly look to parents and governors for care and concern for children's education. The recent history of education has shown that many local education authorities have neither the will nor the capability to give our children a proper education. That is what grant-maintained status brings. That is the promise for the future.
    Mr. Enright: Why have the Catholic bishops in their Low week meeting continued their opposition to opting out? Will the Minister give special consideration to Catholic schools in that respect?
    Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman is not quite correct in a very important sense. As they are entitled to, the

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    Catholic bishops are asking searching questions about the nature of our policies and the direction in which we wish to go. However, there is no one better placed than my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to commune with the Catholic bishops to satisfy them about the direction in which we are going and to ensure that we all move forward in the way that we want and on the basis of our election manifesto. I promise the hon. Gentleman that.
    Mr. Dunn: Does my hon. Friend accept that we on the Conservative Benches fully support the procedures for achieving grant-maintained status? Indeed, we go further and support the grammar schools, the city technology colleges, the assisted places scheme, the Church schools and anything that maximises parental choice. That is in direct contrast to the socialist Opposition parties.
    Mr. Forth: My right hon. and hon. Friends and I fought the recent election campaign on the basis of very clear and explicit undertakings about the future of education. Our election victory endorses that view. It is sad but predictable that Opposition Members still cannot accept that and that they even now seem to want to resist the inevitability and the desirability of the movement towards grant-maintained schools.
    Mr. Straw: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his appointment. He referred to searching questions asked by the Catholic bishops. When will he give some straight answers to those searching questions, in particular the question about when the current level of bribes—what the Government call preferential funding—of opted-out schools will end?
    Mr. Forth: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will write to the Catholic bishops within the next few days. The bishops asked the questions of my right hon. Friend and it is to them that he will give the reply. As to the rest of the questions that no doubt are burning in the hon. Gentleman's mind, our White Paper, which will be published in July, will answer them all and will, I am sure, satisfy him completely.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many Dorset schools have now opted for direct funding by his Department.
    Mr. Forth: I am pleased to report that there are six grant-maintained schools in Dorset.
    Mr. Bruce: Does my hon. Friend realise that, although we talk about only 10 per cent. of schools having applied for grant-maintained status, the other 90 per cent.—and in fact all the schools in my constituency—that have not applied for grant-maintained status now have a tool that they can use to go to the education committee and say, "Please give me what I need for my school through the education authority, or I will opt for grant-maintained status"? Therefore, 100 per cent. of schools now have far more control over their finances than was the case before that excellent policy was in place.
    Mr. Forth: I thank my hon. Friend for the spirit of his question. He has emphasised a key point. It is now for parents and governors in each school to look at how they want their school to develop. If they are persuaded that grant-maintained status is the future, it is for them to demonstrate that through the balloting procedure and then to present their proposals to my right hon. Friend the
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    Secretary of State. He will obviously want to consider each case on its merits, but he will look positively at the applications.

    Special Educational Needs
    Sir John Hannam: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what steps he is taking to ensure that young people with special educational needs beyond the age of 19 years are provided with continuity of provision.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr. Nigel Forman): The further education funding councils and local education authorities will have the duty, under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, to ensure that appropriate special needs provision is made in further education for all age groups including adult students.
    Sir John Hannam: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment and thank him for that answer. Is he aware that, although there is a statutory duty on local authorities to ensure that handicapped students get the necessary education past the age of 19, many local authorities, including mine in Devon, are not providing that funding for those students? Will my hon. Friend examine that matter and ensure that that statutory responsibility, which was clearly enunciated in his answer, is carried into effect?
    Mr. Forman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind opening remarks. As chairman of the all-party disablement group, he will know that the issue he raises is essentially a matter for local education authorities and, in future, for funding councils. The Government believe that disabilities should not be a barrier to access to further education. The duties under the Act are quite clear, in that they carry forward earlier duties which were enshrined in the Education Act 1944. I shall certainly look carefully at my hon. Friend's important points.

    Grant-maintained Schools
    Mr. Paice: To ask the Secretary of State for Education how many applications for grant-maintained status he has received since 10 April.
    Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will set out the Government's long-term plans for the expansion of the grant-maintained schools sector.
    The Secretary of State for Education (Mr. John Patten): Thirteen schools have applied for grant-maintained status since 10 April, about twice the number of applications receive the month before. The number of grant-maintained approvals reached 250 today, as the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) announced earlier this afternoon, including 24 approvals since 10 April. I expect the number to continue to rise as more and more parents seek the clear advantages of grant-maintained status for their schools. The rate of growth will continue to be decided by parental wishes in school ballots. In time, I expect grant-maintained status to become the natural organisational model, particularly for secondary education throughout England.
    Mr. Paice: I welcome my right hon. Friend to his long-overdue appointment to the Cabinet and to his

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    responsibility for this important policy area. As grant-maintained status becomes the norm for schools throughout Britain during this Parliament, will he make it absolutely clear that while it is perfectly valid and, indeed, desirable for schools to form consortia after they have become grant maintained, he will not accept applications from great swards of schools trying to become a consortium before the fact and to become some form of self-perpetuating local education authority?
    Mr. Patten: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. Although I understand that there may be distinct advantages in some schools—for example, a secondary school with several feeder primary schools—opting out together to achieve better management, I am simply not prepared to countenance the recreation by the back door of old-style, obstructive local education authorities.
    Mr. Foster: I am sure that the Secretary of State is well aware of anxiety throughout the country about the large number of educational changes that have taken place in recent years and the lack of consultation about them. Will he give us an assurance that there will be adequate time for consultation on the new legislation that he proposes? Furthermore, will he give an assurance that consultation will not take place mainly during the school holidays?
    Mr. Patten: In due course I shall publish a White Paper. In the meantime, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give full and whole-hearted support to the two excellent grant-maintained schools in his constituency.
    Mr. Pawsey: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be particularly beneficial if secondary schools that obtained grant-maintained status were accompanied by their feeder primary schools? Does he further agree that clusters of such schools in rural areas or denominational schools would be even more appropriate?
    Mr. Patten: Both the examples that my hon. Friend gives are good ones. In the next year or so, we may well see schools adopting different ways of promoting their own movement to grant-maintained status. So much interest has there been in schools that have led the movement, such as the excellent Great Barr school in Birmingham—the biggest secondary school in the country, grant maintained or not—that they have been inundated by people ringing the self-starting helpline for advice on how to achieve grant-maintained status in the way that those schools did.
    Mr. Corbett: Will the Secretary of State assure the House that he will refuse grant-maintained status to any school that does not pledge to admit students with special needs?
    Mr. Patten: I shall examine, as I have to by law, every proposal—
    Mr. Morgan: Answer the question.
    Mr. Patten: The hon. Gentleman shows that he can do joined-up shouting. He certainly cannot do joined-up thinking. I shall consider—[Interruption.] I do not think that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) welcomes the incursions and support from the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan). I shall consider, as any Secretary of State from any party would have to do, every proposal put to me on its merits, as I am enjoined to do by law.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Will my right hon. Friend give a more positive response to the supplementary question from my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) about the importance of junior and infant schools applying for grant-maintained status? I thank the Department, my right hon. Friend and his predecessors for granting grant-maintained status to Kettleshulme Church of England junior school, as it was then—Kettleshulme St. James' as it is now—which assumed grant-maintained status on 1 April.
    Mr. Patten: I apologise to my hon. Friend if he thought that I was not warm enough in responding to my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey). What it would be like if I got my hands round his throat, I do not know. I warmly accept the thanks to my Department and my predecessor, my right hon. and learned Friend the present Home Secretary, who did so much to forward the cause of education in Britain during his 15-month tenure. I look forward to visiting my hon. Friend's constituency, if I am invited, and paying a state visit to the school which has just opted out there.
    Mr. Straw: The right hon. Gentleman well knows that the main reason that schools have applied to opt out is the level of financial inducements which give them, to quote the Prime Minister's words, an advantage of at least £150,000 in running costs in a year and twice the level of capital grants. In view of that high level of bribe offered to schools to opt out, why do the Secretary of State and his colleagues continue to dodge the question, "Will those bribes continue?"
    Mr. Patten: As the hon. Gentleman knows, at this time of year anyone concerned with a future expenditure programme will consider the whole programme. I, along with the rest of my Cabinet colleagues, will present plans for future public expenditure at the right time. In the grant-maintained schools that I have visited, the freedom that grant-maintained status has bestowed on them has been foremost in the minds of the governors and head teachers. Nothing could have been clearer when I visited Small Heath grant-maintained school in central Birmingham last week. Those parents, governors and head teachers, who had had to face the bullying of Birmingham local education authority, which tried to prevent them from opting out, presented a good picture of the real benefit, which is freedom in education.

    Further and Higher Education
    Mr. Barry Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement on participation rates in further and higher education.
    Mr. Forman: Participation in further and higher education is at record levels and rising. This year, provisional information indicates that 87 per cent. of 16-year-olds and 74 per cent. of 17-year-olds are participating in some form of education and training, including both schools and colleges. That compares with 67 per cent. and 52 per cent. respectively in 1979. The participation rate for young people in full-time higher education has doubled since 1979, from one in eight to one in four. We expect it to be one in three by the end of the decade.
    Mr. Field: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the Government's great success stories has been the tremendous increase in the number of students going on to further and higher education? Will he arrange to give more publicity to the access funds that the Government have made available to assist students with their studies? Will he also consider discussions with the Secretary of State for National Heritage, to find out whether some of the national lottery funds could be made available to students pursuing a career in the arts, for example opera, so that they can sing the praises of the Government's educational policies to Opposition parties?
    Mr. Forman: I agree with my hon. Friend. He is right to draw attention to the Government's success record in expanding further and higher education. He will know that access funds cover about 90,000 students in further and higher education and that three out of four applications for help are successful. As for his ingenious proposal for support from the national lottery, it is far too early to say anything about that. As he showed by his question, he knows that that is essentially a matter for my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage.
    Mr. Turner: Does the Minister agree that participation rates in higher and especially in further education would be greatly helped, first, if the Government had not cut funds to colleges this financial year and, secondly, if there were not such heavy constraints on unemployed people, who are exempt from taking higher and further education courses under the 21-hour rule?
    Mr. Forman: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman takes that line, given that nine out of 10 of our 16-year-olds, and about three out of four 17-year-olds are in further education and training. Our record compares favourably with that of other countries.
    Mr. Brooke: Although the participation rates that my right hon. Friend described are gratifying, is he satisfied with the number of people securing qualifications for higher education in mathematics and scientific subjects?
    Mr. Forman: One can never be satisfied with the rate of qualification and one would always wish to see even greater progress made. However, I believe that the reforms of the national curriculum and the changes that we made in the Further and Higher Education Act all create a valid framework that will assist greater progress.

    Trinity School, Leamington
    Mr. Mullin: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what representations he has received about Trinity comprehensive school in Leamington budgeting to raise £30,000 a year from parental contributions; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Forth: My right hon. Friend has received no such representations. Legislation specifically forbids parents from being required to pay for such things as books, equipment and school activities during the school day. But parents can and always have been able to make voluntary contributions. The manner in which such contributions are sought is a management issue for governors and head teachers.
    Mr. Mullin: I put it to the Minister that this is the thin end of a very large wedge and that, all over the country, parents are now being asked to contribute to their children's education. I put it to him that the principle of free state education has been abandoned. Before the Minister expresses hurt at that suggestion, may I ask him to tell us what he is doing to put a stop to that?
    Mr. Forth: That question displays a typically mean-minded attitude—not so much of the hon. Gentleman, but of other Labour Members. I remind the House—it seems necessary to repeat this until it sinks in with Labour Members—that spending per pupil in schools increased by more than 40 per cent. in real terms between 1979 and this year. Against that background, I believe that it is quite acceptable—indeed, laudable—that parents are prepared to come forward and to give voluntarily of their time and of their efforts for fund raising to help their child's school. I see nothing wrong with that. I believe that it helps the team spirit, which is developing in our schools, thanks partly to grant-maintained status and the local management of schools, which encourages parents to work together with governors and teachers to improve the quality of education. The hon. Gentleman has got it wrong, but I am not surprised about that.
    Ms. Armstrong: Is the Minister totally unaware of the anger and dismay with which parents face this issue? Rather than being complacent, will the Minister address the concerns of parents who want a good education for every child, whether or not they can afford that? It is the Government's responsibility to ensure that that is available.
    Mr. Forth: The hon. Lady is about five or six weeks too late. The truth is that parents have perceived correctly that the standards of education are increasing, that their young people are getting better opportunities and that the quality of education is improving. That is at least in part due to the fact that parents are coming forward to give of their time and efforts to help schools improve. That is the opposite of the attitude of Labour Members who cannot see past the local education authorities. Parents want to see past those authorities, which is why schools are opting out.

    Myalgic Encephalomyelitis
    Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will indicate the amount of university research funding which relates to treatment of myalgic encephalomyelitis.
    Mr. Forman: Universities Funding Council support for research is distributed by reference to a range of broad cost centres. There is no specific funding for research into ME or chronic fatigue syndrome. The UFC allocated £673 million for research in 1992–93, of which £78 million related to clinical medicine.
    Mr. Dalyell: Will the interim results be circulated to general practitioners?
    Mr. Forman: I recognise the hon. Gentleman's concern for and great knowledge of this subject. He will know that the Institute of Psychiatry's study of chronic fatigue syndrome is a project funded by the Medical Research Council, a body which is no longer the responsibility of my Department. However, I understand that no interim

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    results have been submitted either to the MRC or to Ministers. Whether an interim result is circulated to GPs, when it is available, will be a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health.
    Mr. Riddick: Will my hon. Friend confirm that any student taking advantage of that research funding would have to belong to the National Union of Students? Will he confirm that he intends to abolish that iniquitous closed shop?
    Mr. Forman: I can confirm to my hon. Friend, whose long-standing interest in the subject is well known, that my Department is looking closely at the subject. We are urgently reviewing the matter.

    Teachers' Pay
    Mr. Madden: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what representations he has received concerning the funding of the teachers' pay award; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. John Patten: I have received a number of representations.
    Mr. Madden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in Bradford, for example, the failure of the Government fully to fund the teachers' pay award last year and this year has plunged the education service into a financial crisis with the prospect of 150 lost teaching posts and consequential damage to the quality of education received by our schoolchildren? Will he consider meeting a delegation of the local education authorities affected, through the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, and urgently consider making additional funding available to avoid teaching posts being lost?
    Mr. Patten: Rather than taking up time with such a meeting, I urge the hon. Gentleman to pass on the information that in the current year the Government have given an extra £60 million to bridge the gap between the money allocated to local education authorities and the level they need fully to fund the pay award, and that many education authorities, such as Bradford, could greatly improve their performance by cutting out central administrative waste, by removing surplus school places and by extending the range of services put out to compulsory competitive tendering. Such measures result in more teachers in the classroom. The hon. Gentleman might also pass on to the AMA the news that it will be seen from figures to be announced shortly that last year's threats of cuts have turned out to be totally false.
    Mr. Harry Greenway: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that under pay review body arrangements he expects the teaching profession to be much better paid— it is already a great deal better paid than it has ever been —that he welcomes that and believes that it will help to raise standards in the profession, which in turn will raise teaching standards for the children?
    Mr. Patten: We are lucky to have our 400,000 teachers. Their professional status and standing has been enhanced by the pay review body and I know that that professionalism will increase in future years.
    Mr. Cryer: The Secretary of State shows remarkable ignorance of the difficulties that LEAs in general, and
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    Bradford in particular, face. Is he aware that Bradford's education authority is facing increasing school rolls, unlike many similar authorities, and that it has a massive problem of crumbling schools, all of which put pressure on educational funding? Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that he will examine sympathetically, rather than in the arrogant fashion that he has displayed so far, the request by Bradford fully to fund the education award, which would be a decent and fair attitude for a sympathetic Secretary of State to take?
    Mr. Patten: The hon. Gentleman should realise that Bradford must put its own house in order. It is not exactly in the forefront of LEAs in Britain. It could do much more by cutting back on administration and by putting out more services to competitive tender, so getting children better taught by more teachers. We shall see, from announcements to be made by my noble friend Lady Blatch in another place shortly, just how last year's pandemonium and tumult about the onset of teacher redundancies turned out this year. Each year we get claims about there being great cuts in the teaching force and each year they turn out to be wrong.
    Mr. Anthony Coombs: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the average salary of a classroom teacher is now 18,800 a year, which is 36 per cent. higher than it was under the last Labour Government, and that that is good reason why the number of applications for teacher training, at 28,800 is the highest it has been for the last 20 years? Does he agree that in view of the huge investment made in teachers' salaries by the Government, a rigorous system of assessment for teacher performance is absolutely vital?
    Mr. Patten: My hon. Friend is perfectly right. We have a better paid teaching profession than ever before, with more people wanting to enter the profession than at any time since the 1960s. I confirm that assessment will remain a firm part of the future way in which teachers are remunerated.

    Selection
    Mr. Win Griffiths: To ask the Secretary of State for Education whether he has proposals to introduce selection by examination for secondary school entry.
    Ms. Estelle Morris: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what proposals he has to introduce selection by examination for secondary school entry.
    Mr. John Patten: We have consistently made it clear that the Government do not intend to impose any particular organisational pattern for schools. It is, in the first instance, for local education authorities and school governors to establish the organisation most appropriate for their area, in the light of local needs and the wishes of parents and the community.
    We firmly believe in a diversity of provision of schools and in maximising choice for parents. We are ready to consider any application for a change in a school's character put forward by a local education authority or by the governors of voluntary schools or grant-maintained schools.
    Mr. Griffiths: Why cannot the Secretary of State see that the selective opt-out structure will not mean that

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    parents choose schools for their children, but that the schools choose the parents and children that they want? That will mean chaos, as many disappointed parents will appeal against the consignment of their children as an educational underclass forced to go to schools that have not opted out, which the Government deliberately fund less well than opted-out schools.
    Mr. Patten: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's serious interest in the subject. Unfortunately, toward the end of his question he slipped into the lingua franca of the early 1960s when so much damage was done to the education system. The grant-maintained school system is beginning to show parents the positive opportunities that can be given to them by having a range of schools from which to choose. The more grant-maintained schools there are, the more pressure there will be on schools that underperform to perform better.
    Ms. Morris: How will the Minister avoid the problems of entries to specialist or magnet schools by competitive examination, should the supply of places not meet the demand for them in any one specialism?
    Mr. Patten: The hon. Lady comes to this place with a reputation for knowing a lot about education. I believe that to be so. Therefore, she knows as well as I do that today about a quarter of local education authorities have selection for a number of schools in their area. In addition, the excellent city technology colleges have spread across the country. I should like a number of schools to take the route of specialisation, developing a leading edge in technology, music, the arts or some other subject.
    Mr. Butterfill: Will my right hon. Friend confirm, however, that selection has been retained in several areas? One of the problems in those areas is that pupils in junior and primary schools are often funded on a per capita basis at a lower level than pupils of the same age in middle schools. Does he agree that, if selection were to become more widely available, it would be wrong to maintain that differential? Will he take steps to eliminate the current differential?
    Mr. Patten: It is certainly open to local education authorities to change their funding formula within their counties. I shall look specifically at the point that my hon. Friend raises and write to him in greater detail.
    Mr. Butcher: Will my right hon. Friend take a close look at the German secondary education system, where tripartite selection puts children into high schools, technical schools and grammar schools at the expense of the state? Does my right hon. Friend not think it regrettable that selective schools are now predominantly fee-paying, because many parents would like free access to selective state schools?
    Mr. Patten: The German education system has been praised by many educationists from right, left and centre of the political spectrum in this country, who have told us that we should take a look at those schools. Parents should have the widest possible choice of schools in their area, but parents and the local community should lay down the shape and pattern of that education, rather than its being done by diktat from my desk, attractive though that possibility is.
    Mr. Fatchett: Does the Secretary of State acknowledge that, if standards have risen and the stay-on rate of post-16 education has increased, it is the result of a system that is predominantly comprehensive, and the comprehensive revolution in this country has been a success? Why do Conservative Members and the Secretary of State want to turn the clock back to a system in which one child out of five was deemed to be a success and four out of five deemed to be failures? Why do the Government trade in failure and not try to build on success?
    Mr. Patten: That is the authentic voice of the early 1960s. The hon. Gentleman is refighting battles that the Labour party has long lost. It is no wonder that the Labour party lost the recent general election.

    Secondary Schools (Admissions)
    Mr. Merchant: To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement on the impact of the Greenwich judgment on this year's secondary schools admissions systems.
    Mr. Forth: The great majority of local education authorities do not appear to have had any significant practical problems with school admissions following the Greenwich judgment, this year or last year. We are aware of some difficulties in the London borough of Bromley. The Department is due to meet that local authority shortly and we hope that the problems there will soon be resolved.
    Mr. Merchant: Is my hon. Friend aware that 300 out-of-borough children have been accepted so far into the London borough of Bromley and that that presents a problem? Is he aware that the director of education has written to parents in Bromley warning them that, as a consequence, he is as yet unable to place children from Bromley in schools? How far is that a problem in the rest of the country?
    Mr. Forth: I am conscious of the problem in Bromley and my hon. Friend is right to raise it. However, his figures are a little pessimistic. The latest information that I have is that a decreasing number of parents are encountering that problem, which is due to a number of complex factors, not least that parents who receive multiple offers from a number of schools often hold on to them for a long time, thus denying the opportunity to other parents. Such problems must be addressed, certainly at local education authority level. We hope that the boroughs, London education authorities and schools will find ways of resolving those problems satisfactorily. I am optimistic that they will.
    Mr. Raynsford: Does the Secretary of State recognise that there is genuine concern among parents in Greenwich at their inability to obtain places for their children in popular local schools such as Thomas Tallis as a result of the judgment? Does he recognise that the issue of multiple choice, to which he referred, cannot be resolved by the local education authorities as they will generally be unaware of applications to other authorities, city technology colleges and opt-out schools? What will he do to deal with the problem?
    Mr. Forth: I accept that challenges emerge as the education system develops. We are considering the position extremely closely in order to establish what role

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    should be played by schools, perhaps acting cooperatively, and by local education authorities. Perhaps there is a role for my Department and the Government as a whole. So far, the scale of the problems that have emerged as a result of the Greenwich judgment is not as great in the country as a whole as it may appear to be when considering some specific London boroughs. We shall keep a close eye on the position to assess whether there will be long-term or damaging effects on children's education —the criteria against which the system must be judged.
    Mr. Cormack: Will my hon. Friend reconsider the issue? His answer indicated that there is not a problem in many parts of the country, but there is. Is he aware that there is a real problem in Staffordshire, and will he agree to see me to discuss it?
    Mr. Forth: We are always willing to hear of the details of any problems that may arise on the ground and in specific local education authorities. The Department does not have a substantial amount of evidence of a real, practical and enduring problem, last year or this year, throughout the country, but I should welcome any further information that my hon. Friend can give me.

    Secondary Schools
    Mr. Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what is his assessment of the optimum size of secondary school and ratio of staff to pupils.
    Mr. Forth: My right hon. Friend has no general view on the optimum size for a secondary school. That will always depend on local circumstances. Schools must, however, be able to deliver the national curriculum effectively. Similarly, the need to take account of individual school and pupil factors makes it impossible to set down centrally an optimum pupil:teacher ratio which has any real meaning.
    Mr. Bruce: Does the Minister accept that Scottish Members feel that there is some irony in the fact that he is here answering questions on English education but that no Minister with a Scottish portfolio parallel to his is answering questions on Scottish education? What he has said may be reasonable, but in places such as the north of Scotland which are experiencing a rapid population growth we need some criterion whereby Government money will be provided for new schools to be built, since without that others will become so overcrowded that they cannot maintain the standards about which the Government boast.
    Mr. Forth: Of course I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but I assure him that we always look carefully and systematically at the local circumstances surrounding an application for capital and at the local education authorities in question. Those labours are designed to ensure that resources are directed to where they are most needed. As money increasingly follows the pupil, schools able to attract more pupils will inevitably attract more funding. I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that that makes sense and will be highly productive. [Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. I ask the House to settle down before Prime Minister's questions.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Ron Davies: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 May.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Davies: The Prime Minister will recall the support given by all sides of the House and by the public at large to the British armed forces during the Gulf war. In recognition of that and following the verdict of a jury yesterday that nine of our soldiers were unlawfully killed, will the Government take all necessary steps to ensure that criminal proceedings are brought against those responsible? If his commitment to open government is serious, will he ensure that the full details of this incident are made available to the public, because this is not an occasion when there should be a cover up either by the American or the British authorities?
    The Prime Minister: My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence will answer a private notice question about this matter in a few moments. I sympathise with the anguish of the families and with their wish to find out exactly what went wrong. That has been our aim as well.
    The sad fact is that in war terrible accidents of this sort do sometimes occur. Clearly we must learn the lessons of this for the future; but I hope that we will not lose sight of the fact that these were American pilots risking their lives alongside our troops in the battle against a common enemy and to liberate Kuwait. I hope that that thought is not lost sight of: without American resolve and support the liberation of Kuwait would not have been possible.
    Mr. Robert B. Jones: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that any minimum and legally binding rate of VAT imposed by the European Commission will be unacceptable to him as well as to the people of this country?
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend knows, we are not in favour of minimum rates of VAT, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has made that clear in his discussions with our European partners.
    Mr. Kinnock: Following the Prime Minister's response just now, may I put it to him that the House is united in its admiration of the risks taken by United States and other service men in the course of the Gulf war; and that the families whose sons are judged to have been unlawfully killed by allied fire are not seeking the identity of any United States personnel? They are seeking the truth about what happened to cause the death of their sons. In common with many others, I believe that they have the right to gain that truth. In addition to what he has already done, will the Prime Minister therefore use all the authority that he has to ensure that every available procedure is employed to see that the full truth is obtained?
    The Prime Minister: I entirely understand the right hon. Gentleman's point. In many ways he expresses a view widely held across this country and elsewhere. The United States Government have acted in this case in the same way as they have acted in the case of friendly fire involving their

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    own forces and their own citizens. A great deal of information has been provided, including by the pilots themselves. They were assured by their authorities that their anonymity would be safeguarded, and they provided information to the inquest on that basis.
    This was a tragic accident and the whole House sympathises with the anguish and frustration of the families. The United States Government have shown their sympathy for the bereaved at the highest level. President Bush saw the families; he has responded to their requests to him for more information. But the United States Government also have to weigh up the anguish of the families of their pilots and their obligations to their own citizens. All the relevant considerations have been drawn to their attention, but the decision whether to send pilots to the inquest must be for the United States authorities to make.
    Mr. Kinnock: I am sorry to press the Prime Minister, but I must do so. The anguish of which he speaks—the anguish being experienced by the pilots and their families—is obvious; but that anguish will not be increased or diminished if the British families are told the exact truth of the circumstances in which their boys were killed. Will the Prime Minister concentrate on that aspect of the matter, and set any possible legal proceedings aside for the concern of the appropriate authorities, while using his authority to gain the truth? That will not add to or—tragically—diminish the great sadness that we know must be felt by any service men who have been involved in any way in this horrific incident.
    The Prime Minister: As I told the right hon. Gentleman a moment ago, the inquest was provided with a great deal of information, including that provided by the pilots themselves. That information has been sought, and it has been provided. I am not in a position to provide any more information: that which is available has been provided.
    Sir George Gardiner: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 May.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Sir George Gardiner: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his publication today of the structure and membership of Cabinet committees. Does he intend to continue to blow the cobwebs of secrecy from Whitehall, and can he apply the same zeal to the antiquated procedures of the House by enabling hon. Members to reach decisions on the Select Committee on Sittings of the House before the summer recess, so that more sensible working hours can be adopted when we return in the autumn?
    The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing my attention to both those points.
    As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House told the House last Wednesday, we plan to provide an early opportunity for the House to debate the Select Committee's report on the reform of our procedures. Obviously, hon. Members will want to have their own say on the far-reaching changes that are proposed; I am sure, however, that my right hon. Friend knows my personal belief that the House needs to reform its procedures, and I hope that we shall be able to proceed to such reform as speedily as possible.
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    As for my hon. Friend's first point, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is looking across Whitehall and beyond, with the aim of incrementally removing unnecessary secrecy. I think that this is a way in which the Government can make their own information more accessible and more responsive to the citizens whom they serve.
    Mr. Ashdown: May we leave aside for the moment the clear mishandling of the Oxford friendly-fire inquest by both the United States authorities and the Ministry of Defence, and the clear duty that now lies with the Government—which I hope that the Prime Minister accepts—to pursue those unanswered questions directly with the United States authorities? Will the Prime Minister confirm that he would not permit British soldiers who had committed tragic but human errors in conditions of war to be required to face either inquest or trial on the basis that such mistakes would be made in time of peace? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we should not require of the United States Government something that we would not permit ourselves?
    The Prime Minister: I understand the underlying point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but so much depends on the individual circumstances of the case. I think that the whole House will understand precisely why that must be so. Certainly, there might be circumstances in which the right hon. Gentleman's conclusion would be absolutely right.
    Mr. Gill: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 May.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Gill: Given that the Prime Minister will seldom find himself in a better bargaining position in this regard, what assurance can he give the House that issues such as immigration, border controls, Britain's contribution to the European Community budget and its rebate and—this should not be forgotten—the European working time directive will be settled before he ratifies the Maastricht agreement?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend raises a number of extremely important and, in many ways, tendentious issues. They are matters that relate to existing provisions of the treaty of Rome and they are not directly related to the Maastricht treaty. All the matters to which my hon. Friend has referred are extremely important and I give him the assurance that we shall fight to preserve British interests up to, during and after the ratification of the Maastricht treaty.
    Mr. Pendry: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 May.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Pendry: In this season of maiden speeches does the Prime Minister recall his own in June 1979 in the Budget debate, when he expressed grave concern about the level of unemployment in his constituency? Since that time he has held high office—Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer and now, of course, Prime

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    Minister. The level of unemployment in Huntingdon by the same count today is 5,483, a staggering increase of 393 per cent. What went wrong exactly?
    The Prime Minister: The strict answer to the hon. Gentleman is that I recall clearly my maiden speech, and I doubt whether any hon. Member is ever likely to forget it. It is often an extremely difficult occasion. As for employment prospects, the hon. Gentleman might care to consider how many of my constituents were in work. In my constituency and throughout the whole of the country we have a higher percentage of our population in secure jobs than in any other part of the European Community, with the exception of Denmark.
    Mr. Bowis: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 May.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Bowis: Now that my right hon. Friend has persuaded trade union leaders to accept democracy in the workplace, will he see what he can do about their attitude to democracy in this place? Perhaps they could start by abandoning their current practice of appointing the Leader of the Opposition.
    Madam Speaker: Order. That is not a question for the Prime Minister to answer.
    Ms. Quin: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 May.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Lady to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Ms. Quin: Is the Prime Minister aware that despite the welcome increase in dental treatment last year, Government policies are threatening the future of dentistry within the national health service? What action will the right hon. Gentleman take to resolve the dispute with the dentists, to reverse the ever-increasing cost of dental treatment and to ensure that dentistry will be available to the entire population within the NHS for the long-term future?
    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) referred a moment ago to the position over the whole period that the Conservative Government have been in power, perhaps I also could do so. There are now 27 per cent. more dentists in the general dental service than there were in 1979. Expenditure on the dental service in England alone exceeded £1 billion last year, an increase of 43 per cent. since 1979. On the vexed question of dental fees, which might have underlain the hon. Lady's supplementary question, a joint inquiry has
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    now concluded its meetings and will report to the dental rates study group. It would not be right for me to comment until conclusions have been produced.
    Mr. Rathbone: Might I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Sir G. Gardiner), welcome my right hon. Friend's publishing of the Cabinet committees and sub-committees? I ask my right hon. Friend to confirm that the translation of the inter-ministerial group on drug misuse into a Cabinet sub-committee is additional Government accent for this important area of activity?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance.
    Mr. Trimble: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 May.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Trimble: May I refer the Prime Minister to the speech that he made on the Loyal Address, in the course of which he committed himself to strengthening the union between Scotland and England throughout this Parliament? In this Parliament will he show an equal concern about strengthening the union with Northern Ireland?
    The Prime Minister: I am happy to reaffirm the Government's commitment to respect the democratically expressed wishes of the people of Northern Ireland. That has been our position for a long time and there is no change in that. At the same time, the people of Northern Ireland and I believe that the whole of the United Kingdom wants the present political talks to succeed. I understand the difficulties of the talks, but I hope that all Northern Ireland political leaders will bear in mind their responsibility to help to make the talks successful in the interests of all the people who live in Northern Ireland. It is those political leaders and those talks that offer the best prospect of a secure and prosperous future for Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom for all the people of Northern Ireland.
    Mrs. Angela Knight: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is fundamental that the basics of English are taught to children in schools? Is not that a vital part of the education policy of our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State? Does my right hon. Friend further agree that teaching the dialogue of soap operas will not raise the standards of education?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend speaks for many hon. Members and for many millions of people outside the House. The basics of education are clearly of fundamental importance. I suspect that the teaching of the classics is rather more valuable to children than the teaching of soap operas.

Soldiers' Deaths (Gulf War)
3.30 pm
Mr. Martin O'Neill(by private notice): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence to make a statement on the verdict of the coroner's inquest into the deaths by friendly fire in the Gulf war.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): I am sure that the whole House would wish to join me in extending its deepest sympathy to the families of the soldiers who died in this tragic incident.
The inquest sitting in Oxford into the deaths of nine soldiers killed when their two Warriors were hit by two Maverick missiles fired by United States A10 aircraft has returned a verdict that each of them was killed unlawfully.
The Government and relevant legal authorities are considering as a matter of urgency the implication of the jury's findings and verdict. The Director of Public Prosecutions has asked to see all the relevant paper held by the coroner and the Ministry of Defence and will consider all the circumstances of the case. The MOD is providing all its papers to the DPP. I understand that the DPP has pointed out in a press release that there is no power to prosecute a foreign national in England or Wales for any offence of murder or manslaughter allegedly committed abroad.
I should also like to take this opportunity to respond to a number of points made during the inquest. I am aware that there has been some criticism with regard to the provision of information by the MOD to the families. I can assure the House and the families that our intention has always been to provide as full an account as possible. It was not until 10 July of last year that General Johnston of the United States Marine Corps wrote to our joint headquarters at High Wycombe with statements from the pilots answering points raised during our own inquiry. The MOD wrote to the families on 23 July as soon as it was possible to provide an authoritative account based on the findings of our board of inquiry.
On the question of procedures in future military operations, our board of inquiry recommended that standard operating procedures for close air support operations must in future include instructions that a grid reference or a latitude and longitude is included in mission briefs and that this is always acknowledged by the pilots. Work on that recommendation is in hand.
The board of inquiry also recommended that a study be initiated to identify a suitable air recognition system for future use. The Defence Research Agency is undertaking a research programme aimed at assessing short-term solutions as well as options for the longer term. We are exchanging information on possible solutions and maintaining close contact with the United States and other allies.
We are also working closely with our allies to develop new procedures and training to ensure that, in any future operations, the risks of troops firing on their comrades is minimised.
These events were a tragic incident in the Gulf war. We must try to learn what lessons we can from them. We must at the same time continue to pay tribute to the remarkable achievements of British, American and other coalition
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forces in the successful liberation of Kuwait, and salute the memory of all those who gave their lives, whatever the circumstances.
Mr. O'Neill: In thanking the Secretary of State, can I pay tribute to the persistence of purpose of the families of the service men who were so tragically killed on 26 February? Had it not been for their endeavours, yesterday's decision might not have been handed down. The verdict would seem to contradict the official report of the board of inquiry which stated:
"The Board did not establish whether the US Air Force personnel involved were at fault."
Does the Secretary of State recall that, in reply to an Adjournment debate on Fusilier Lee Thompson on 6 December 1991, his Minister of State said:
"It is of overriding importance, particularly in the case of injury or death, to establish the facts as quickly as possible. It is essential, therefore, that witnesses appearing before boards of inquiry should give their evidence in a full and frank manner."—[Official Report, 6 December 1991; Vol. 200, c. 590.]
What does the Secretary of State propose to do to guarantee that our American allies provide that evidence in the full and frank manner that his Minister of State demanded on 6 December?
Finally, what steps will the Secretary of State take to ensure that the families of British service personnel are never again subjected to the unnecessary exacerbation of their grief in the way that they have been subjected to it during the last few months?
Mr. Rifkind: On the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's question, our desire is to ensure that any sensitive response to the families of service personnel who are killed or injured in any conflict should be provided as fully and as quickly as possible. Of course there are occasions during a conflict when it takes time, particularly if other allies are involved in the conflict, for the full information to be known, but that is our intention and we intend to see that we achieve it.
On the earlier part of the hon. Gentleman's question, the Ministry of Defence and the United Kingdom authorities have co-operated fully with the inquest with regard to the provision of any information or witnesses required by either the coroner or the inquest. It must be for the United States Government to come to a conclusion on what their response should be with regard to their own personnel.
Dr. Charles Goodson-Wickes: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the description of fire as "friendly" rests very uneasily with the verdict of unlawful killing? Will he confirm that one of the remarkable achievements of the coalition efforts in the Gulf war was the achievement of the military ends with the minimum of casualties? Was not a major factor the flying of up to 2,500 sorties a day? Although the whole House has the utmost sympathy for those British soldiers who died in the course of duty and, of course, for their bereaved families, and although I would not expect my right hon. and learned Friend to comment adversely on the coroner's verdict, in all the circumstances, would not a better verdict have been one of accidental death?
Mr. Rifkind: I first pay tribute to the personal contribution that my hon. Friend made when he volunteered for active service in the Gulf. That is something which I know has been widely acknowledged.

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He was right to remind the House and the wider public of the enormous pressure under which all the allied pilots were operating at that time. Some 110,000 sorties were flown by allied pilots during the Gulf conflict. As my hon. Friend mentioned, that worked out at approximately 2,500 sorties a day. That is a factor which ought to be borne in mind.
Not only American pilots but pilots of all the coalition countries were acting under enormous pressure, and were exposed to the enormous risks of injury or death. Those who expose themselves to enormous danger in such circumstances ought to have that taken into account when tragic incidents—accidents, acknowledged by all as having been accidents—occasionally, regretfully, occur.
Sir Russell Johnston: Two of the soldiers came from my constituency and one from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Miss Lynne). Is the Minister aware that we both know that the parents did feel that they were given misinformation and that they were struggling against secrecy? Will the Secretary of State also note that the jury's verdict was returned after the coroner had most clearly and specifically told it that a verdict of unlawful killing should be returned only if it thought that the action was not simply careless but reckless? While I accept all that has been said about the heat of battle and the pressures to which pilots are subjected, surely it would be right for our Government to ask the Americans now to have a full and open inquiry into the affair.
Mr. Rifkind: In the first instance, the implications of the jury's verdict are something for the legal authorities to consider. In answer to the earlier part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I certainly acknowledge that, in the first period after the Gulf war, there was some confusion and uncertainty as to precisely what had occurred on that day. The fullest information was available to the Ministry of Defence only at a later stage—in July, as I said earlier. As soon as we had acquired that information, we took steps to ensure that the families were informed. I accept, however, that it is desirable to try to find a more effective procedure for making information available at an earlier date and, if initial information turns out to be incorrect, special efforts must be made to correct it as soon as possible.
Mr. Andrew Robathan: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, despite the tragic and ghastly accident that led to the deaths of these fine young men, all British forces who served in the Gulf have reason to be grateful in particular to the pilots of A 10s, whose outstanding work in destroying Iraqi tanks contributed to our casualties from enemy action being minimal?
Mr. Rifkind: I agree with my hon. Friend. It was one of the remarkable features of the Gulf war that so few coalition forces sustained injury or death, and it is a tribute to the professionalism and expertise of British, American and other coalition pilots and other forces that that proved possible.
Mr. Tony Banks: Is it not possible to drop this absurb military euphemism, "friendly fire"? All fire that kills or injures is hostile, even if it comes from an allied weapon. What discussions have taken place between Ministry of Defence officials—representatives of the British Government—and the pilots concerned?
Mr. Rilkind: As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, our contacts have been with the United States Government, and it was as a result of those contacts that the United States Government sent the United Kingdom authorities full statements and affidavits from the pilots concerned, which were made available to the inquest.
Mr. Ivan Lawrence: In view of the coverage in some of today's media, will my right hon. and learned Friend make it absolutely clear that there can be no question of bringing the American airmen to trial in Britain, not only because there is a world of difference between the accidental and mistaken killing of someone in the heat of battle and the deliberate or even reckless killing of the innocent in peacetime but because the only countries with jurisdiction to bring them to trial are the United States, which has granted them anonymity, and Iraq, where they would receive no justice?
Mr. Rifkind: I have heard what my hon. and learned Friend has said. He will be the first to appreciate that, in the first instance, these must be matters for the Director of Public Prosecutions. The DPP has already pointed out the lack of jurisdiction that exists and has emphasised the point to which my hon. and learned Friend has drawn attention.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: Does the Secretary of State agree with me, as a Member representing one of the families that were bereaved as a result of this tragic incident, that we all accept that no litigation and no monetary compensation can bring back the young men or compensate in any way for the loss of their future? Does he also accept, however, that the families have gone through 15 months of tears, turmoil and trauma to reach even this stage?
If I recall rightly, at Question Time the Prime Minister said that he was not in a position to release any more information. Does that mean that there is further information to be made available? When the Secretary of State refers to the information that became available on 10 July, is he referring to this documentation sent to all the families, substantial sections of which were blanked out and which was not very helpful to the families concerned? The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that prosecutions could be forthcoming only in England and Wales. Was that deliberately to avoid the possibility of litigation in a Scottish context? Will the Secretary of State now agree to meet all the families concerned—preferably with the Prime Minister—as those families know how and when their youngsters were killed, but not yet why?
Mr. Rifkind: The reference to jurisdiction in England and Wales is a consequence of the fact that the inquest took place in England. However, I am not aware of any difference with regard to matters of jurisdiction even if similar events took place north of the border. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces has of course already met a number of the families. I fully appreciate the difficult and tense period that this has been for the families in question. We are all anxious to ensure that, if any new information that might become available was relevant to explaining the circumstances in which their relatives lost their lives, that information should be made available to them. However, that will have to be judged in the light of any information that might arise. We are considering the evidence that was submitted to the inquest

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to see whether it gives rise to the need for any further examination, and we will respond if it turns out that that is justified.
Mr. Bill Walker: Bearing in mind that some of the service men killed were Scots, my right hon. and learned Friend will recognise the feeling that exists in Scotland about the matter. However, we also hope that he will take a balanced view and recognise that there are no easy areas in the desert to identify one's position; that it is difficult in the desert in a fast-moving war when movement is rapid, and that the pilots operated under enormous stress. The operation of so many sorties a day in battle conditions are the circumstances in which mistakes can and will occur. It is nonsense for anyone to pretend afterwards that humans do not make errors, because they do. That is particularly true in the stress of battle conditions. Will my right hon. and learned Friend also bear it in mind that the A 10s were responsible for the massive destruction of Iraqi armour which would have caused irreparable damage to our troops if it had made contact with them?
Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is correct. Obviously the success of the coalition in achieving not just air superiority but air supremacy had a very material impact on our ability to win the Gulf war and on the minimising of casualties when that war entered its final phase.
Mr. David Winnick: Does the Secretary of State accept that, from the very time that the bereaved families learned that their beloved sons had died, they were concerned about the lack of sensitivity and information and the belief that there was a cover-up and that the truth was not being told? Should such tragedies ever occur in future, I hope that we will have learnt that lesson.
Would it not be useful if the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State told the American authorities that, although the House fully supported the war and the overwhelming majority of British people fully supported a justified war against criminal aggression, it would be unfortunate if the alliance built up at that time was marred as a result of a lack of American co-operation in telling the truth about what actually occurred? I hope that our American allies will be told that.
Mr. Rifkind: I do not believe that the alliance is being marred, or that there has been a failure to tell the truth. It is important to stress those points. Of course, it may prove impossible to understand exactly the detailed circumstances that led to the tragic deaths of those soldiers. What
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happens in the midst of such conflicts can sometimes be very difficult to establish with precise detail at a later stage. However, we have no reason to believe that there has been any intent to withhold legitimate information or to do anything unreasonable. It is important that that point should be emphasised.
Mr. Julian Brazier: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, while our hearts go out to the families of the young soldiers, the hounding of the two American airmen and, by extension, the American air force, ought to stop? They risked their lives to save the lives of tens of thousands of ground troops, including many thousands of British lives that were potentially at risk.
In welcoming the various remarks of my right hon. and learned Friend about reconsidering standard operating procedures, may I ask whether he accepts that there is no way of avoiding accidents completely? Indeed, 15 Royal Marines were killed at Suez—a much smaller operation —as a result of an accident involving a British aircraft; and 110 British soldiers were killed by a Czech pilot on Salisbury plain during the second world war in a single accident. No one suggested that those people should be tried for manslaughter.
Mr. Rifkind: Yes, my hon. Friend is entirely correct in reminding the House that in almost every example of war or conflict there have been tragic incidents of that kind. He is right also to emphasise the invaluable contribution that was made by American pilots and by pilots of all the countries of the coalition to ensuring an extraordinarily successful outcome to the Gulf war.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Does it not show hypocrisy and double standards that, not so long ago, the Bush Administration were demanding that the two Libyans go to America and stand trial, and yet when the British people—[Interruption.] I thought that that would provoke some comments from the Tories. Whereas on the other hand, when the British people and the parents are demanding the same treatment for those Americans, this tawdry Government act like Bush's poodle.
Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman is descending to a new level of repugnance in seeking to draw any comparison between an act of terrorism which led to the loss of lives of hundreds of people on a civil airliner and a tragic incident by courageous pilots in the middle of the Gulf war.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Speaker: Order. We will now move on. That matter has had a very good airing.

Points of Order
3.50 pm
Mr. Michael Meacher: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I rise to ask whether you have received any requests from Ministers for a statement on the Government's intentions in respect of the pension cuts of 20,000 Maxwell pensioners. I believe that Parliament and the country have a right to know the Government's attitude to the return by the banks of stolen fund assets, to the lifebelt idea, to ensuring that the trustees can continue to pursue those funds, and to the underwriting by the Government of pensions in payment if there has been culpability on the part of the Investment Management Regulatory Organisation or negligence on the part of the Department of Social Security in implementing the Social Security Act 1990. In view of the Government's silence on the matter for the past four weeks, has there been any such statement? If not, will you use your good offices to try to secure one?
Madam Speaker: I have had no request from a Minister to make a statement. I hope that the House understands that the Speaker does not indicate to Ministers or to any Government Department when a statement should be made. It is, rather, the other way round. The hon. Gentleman must try to find other means of pursuing his claims.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I have given notice of my point of order to you, the Leader of the House and the Foreign Office. You may recall that the House was concerned about what is known as the consolidated text of the treaty of Rome. I raised it at business questions on Thursday and received a reply from the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which is important. It reads:
"It is clear how the Treaty on European Union is intended to amend the Treaty of Rome when those two documents are read against each other. For this reason the Government have not prepared any consolidated version for their own use, nor are they yet preparing such a version for publication. An official version of the consolidated text of the Treaty of Rome incorporating the Treaty on European Union will he published by the Office for Official Publications of the European Community in due course. That will be the official text of the Treaty. The Government intend to wait for the Community's text to be finalised, and for the Treaty to enter into force, before publishing their own consolidated version."
You will agree, Madam Speaker, that some important matters arise from that. We will have a motion tomorrow —I am sorry, it is a Bill, which is little more than a motion —to approve a treaty, CM 1934, of more than 100 pages, which amends yet another existing treaty of more than 300 pages, to produce a third treaty, treaty C, through fertilisation and through progeny. We therefore have to decide on Thursday whether treaty C, from the point of view of the House, will emerge. However, on their own admission, the Government, even for the purposes of Privy Councillors protecting the realm, let alone for the House, do not have even for themselves a copy of that third treaty.
Furthermore, it is clear from the text of the letter which I have quoted and which is now in the Library that there will be two versions of the said treaty, even after it may have had Royal Assent from the House and even after it has come into effect—one from the official office of the Communities and one apparently from Her Majesty's Government. Which text will the Court of the European
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Communities depend on? Which version of either of those phantom treaties will we he invited to approve on Thursday? I put it to you, Madam Speaker, that three questions arise.
Is it not a breach of the practice and custom of the House for Her Majesty's Government not to publish prior to effective assent in principle the known text of a draft treaty which is likely to become a fundamental component of the effective constitution of the nation? Secondly, is it not a major breach of duty that Her Majesty's Ministers have not, even in their role as Privy Councillors, taken steps to protect the realm by furnishing themselves with this phantom text? Thirdly, in consequence of these matters, should not the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill be postponed until the text of the third treaty becomes a printed and published reality? Should not the Second Reading of the approving Bill be undertaken only after the public, Members of Parliament and perhaps Committees of the House have had the time to read, scrutinise and assess its implications and consequences?
Madam Speaker: I am grateful, first of all, to the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in giving me notice of his point of order. I have, of course, seen the letter from the Minister of State which refers to the relationship between the treaty on European union and the treaty of Rome. It is for the hon. Gentleman to decide whether he considers it premature for the European Communities (Amendment) Bill to be proceeded with ahead of the preparation of a consolidated version of the treaties. That may well affect how he votes on Thursday.
I am satisfied—I have had to satisfy myself—that the Bill before us tomorrow is perfectly in order. Whether it should he passed is a matter for the House, not for me. The Bill that we shall debate tomorrow is perfectly in order.
Mr. Chris Mullin: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will he aware that this morning the Director of Public Prosecutions announced that she proposed to take no action on any of the 91 complaints against officers of the West Midlands police force or on any of the 11 complaints about misappropriation of funds from police sources. The matter has obvious implications for the police as a whole. It is clearly a green light to officers planning misbehaviour. Have you had notice from the Attorney-General, in view of the obvious implications for the police and public confidence in them, that he intends to come to the House to offer a statement on the subject?
Madam Speaker: No, I have had no such indication.
Mr. Derek Fatchett: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will recall that, during the run-up to the general election, all of us who are sitting Members received a letter from the then Speaker and the Serjeant at Arms about the use of House of Commons facilities, such as notepaper and stationery. I think that they were sensible rules, because such facilities clearly give to an incumbent Member a distinct advantage over candidates from other parties. Therefore, it is important that those rules are reinforced regularly. On this occasion, I look to you to make sure that the House is fully aware of those rules and that they are abided by on future occasions.
I have in my possession a letter sent by one hon. Member. I have given her notice that I intended to raise

155
this point of order this afternoon. The letter appears to violate those rules. The hon. Member in question is the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mrs. Peacock). The letter is dated 7 April—two days before the general election. At the top it says:
"From Mrs. Elizabeth J. Peacock JP MP, Member of Parliament, Batley and Spen"
In the right-hand corner, the letter heading says:
"House of Commons. London SW1A OAA", and it lists some telephone numbers. At the bottom, the letter is signed by "Elizabeth J. Peacock".
I think that that is probably a violation of the excellent guidance given by the previous Speaker, and I look to you to safeguard the constitutional rights of this Chamber and of the facilities here.
Madam Speaker: I certainly intend to do so, and I remember the guidance so wisely given to us. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman furnishes that information to the Serjeant at Arms.

Mr. Speaker Weatherill (Retirement)
Motion made and Question proposed,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty that she will be most graciously pleased to confer some signal mark of her Royal Favour upon the Right honourable Bernard Weatherill for his eminent services during the important period in which with such distinguished ability and dignity he presided in the Chair of this House. —[Mr. Robert G. Hughes.]
3.59 pm
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Is this matter debatable?
Madam Speaker: Yes. It is usually a procedural motion, but it is debatable. Does the hon. Gentleman wish to speak?
Mr. Skinner: I shall not take long. This motion says that we are asking the Queen for a Royal favour. I have no intention of asking the Queen for any favours. I believe that the Queen should do her subjects a favour and start paying taxes.
Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is a long-standing Member of this House. He knows full well that we do not debate the Queen, her activities or our attitude towards the Queen in the House. This motion requests the Queen to confer an honour on our former Speaker. It refers to the Speaker and not to the Queen, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will carry out the procedures that have been laid down in this House for a long time.
Mr. Skinner: I realise that what you say is absolutely correct and I shall come to do that matter, I just mentioned the Royal favour bit en passant—and that is the only favour I shall give to the Maastricht mob this week.
What is this favour? Will it be a place in the House of Lords? If it is, I do not want to support it. Normally, I do not have a say in the matter for anyone who gets a place in the House of Lords, because they are nominated in some list. There will be a few more nominated in a bit—Norman Tebbit, the Countess of Finchley and all the rest of them.
On this occasion, when I am given a possible chance of voting against sending someone to the House of Lords, I shall seize it with both hands. So I am looking for a teller to join me and to vote against the motion. If the favour means a place in the House of Lords, this is one of the rare occasions that we have a chance to say no.
I am against the House of Lords. I believe in a classless society. The Prime Minister is always rabbiting on about a classless society, but I want to carry it out. I do not believe in perpetuating the other place and adding to its number.
What is more. I do not know why Bernard Weatherill wants the job. It astounds me. The man had everything going for him when he was Speaker of the House of Commons. He often used to tell us that he had a little thimble in his pocket, and that he would use it when he finished. I am not against him doing that. He could use his thimble to undo all the robes. He could also use it for all those new Conservative Members of Parliament who want penguin suits, or he could make a few grey suits for those who want to be clones of the Prime Minister. Why does he need to go to the Lords?
Of course, it might not be the Lords, it might be money —some extra cash. We are talking about a society where

157
more than 3 million people are on the scrap heap—that pile of human misery known as the dole queue. We live in a society where 80,000 people are losing their homes. Why should we dole out favours to someone who is doing all right?
I do not want any favours when I have done. I hope to Christ that no one will nominate me for anything, because I shall turn it down.
Sir Anthony Grant: The hon. Gentleman is suffering from "knight starvation".
Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman has been given a favour. He became a knight like nearly all the rest of the Tories. They go begging on hands and knees to the Prime Minister of the day. They should be given a pair of knee pads to enable them to crawl.
If my hon. Friends agree with me, they will be against the House of Lords. We once had a conference decision, when the block vote was flavour of the month, that resulted in 6 million votes, against 6,000, in favour of abolishing the House of Lords. If my hon. Friends join me, we will have a vote. I suspect that the House of Lords is what the royal favour is all about.
We have heard a lot of talk about the classless society, the honours system and elitism. Here is a chance for some Labour Members to practise those ideas. I say no to the motion.
4.5 pm
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: This House has developed its long commitment to free speech to such an extent that, when we listen to highly individual and colourful characters, such as my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), we enjoy not only their colourful speeches but their commitment to the art of personal propaganda. That does not mean that we should always appear to be, whatever our real reasons, a graceless and slightly unforgiving and ungrateful Assembly.
I have served in this House for many years, and I have had the privilege to serve under many Speakers. We would be wrong to allow the interesting gesture of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover to be recorded as though we were in some way seeking to detract from the commitment and hard work of Mr. Bernard Weatherill. During his Speakership, many of us learned to appreciate not only his honesty and kindness, but his real concern for Back-Bench Members, and not just for those powerful Members on the Front Bench, either above or below the Gangway.
I think that it is important that the House of Commons should, from time to time, thank those of its own who care for its traditions—not only those associated with the pomp and ceremony but the really important ones concerning the protection of free speech and the rights and privileges of the people of the United Kingdom.
I should like to place on record not only my appreciation of Mr. Bernard Weatherill, but my real thanks for the way in which, over many years, he sought above all to protect the interests of individual Members of Parliament. However the motion is expressed on the Order Paper, I hope that the House will record its appreciation of the many years of loyal, kind and heartfelt warmth of service that he showed to hon. Members.
4.8 pm
Mr. Bob Cryer: There is no objection on my part to recording our appreciation of the work of Bernard Weatherill as Speaker. I do not mind doing that at all. I object to the idea that a job must, for some reason, be given an added favour. I should have thought that the job of Speaker itself, which many people regard as the accolade of their political life, is sufficient reward. I am opposed to the idea that, because a person achieves a certain position, he should necessarily receive a royal favour.
Between 3,000 and 4,000 people work in the Palace of Westminster, and many of them do not receive anything like the prominence or accolades that the Speaker receives, but they are necessary to the functioning of this place. Last night, when the Adjournment debate started before 10.30 pm, those who receive the lowest wages in the Palace—not the £70,000-plus a year earned by the Speaker—were not allowed to travel home in a taxi because that is the rule. The Speaker receives a car, and rightly so. I do not object to that. However, the women who work here were sent home from this place, out on to the streets of London, to get home as best they could, late at night. They are not provided with a taxi if the Adjournment debate starts before 10.30 pm.
When we talk about the teamwork that is required to keep this place going, let us bear in mind the working men and women here who receive salaries and wages that are trivial compared with the pay received by the Speaker. Indeed, one might say that the Speaker, as the chairman or chairwoman over our proceedings, receives sufficient recognition by being elected by hon. Members. That honour should be recognised as such.
The idea that a royal favour automatically follows the Speaker's term of office should be scrapped. We can go a little way down the road of scrapping that aspect of the pomp and circumstance by voting against the motion. I have no doubt that many hon. Members thought that the motion would be passed in a routine way, but it gives us a chance to express our view now.
I do not expect many hon. Members to be in the No Lobby. If we are to change the panoply of this pompous institution, let us make a start now by calling a Division. I assure the House that, even if nobody is in the No Lobby, there will be two tellers for the Noes. As I say, it would be a start—[interruption.] I do not know what the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West (Sir A. Grant) is muttering. As a Tory, if he wants to support the Prime Minister, he has a chance to support us by voting in favour of a classless society.
4.11 pm
Mr. Patrick Cormack: This is a singularly ungracious and churlish way in which to mark the long and distinguished service of your predecessor, Madam Speaker. When tributes were paid to Speaker Weatherill at the end of the last Parliament, they met with the genuine and deserved approval of hon. Members in all parts of the House. When the traditional honour—some of us believe in tradition—is being offered to a man who has served the House with impeccable rectitude for many years, it is churlish, undignified, mean, mean-spirited and petty-minded in the extreme that it should be opposed by the sort of speeches that we have heard this afternoon.
4.12 pm
Mr. Paul Flynn: My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) made it absolutely clear why he would be voting against the motion, and explained that in no way did he intend any disrespect to the previous Speaker. As the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) said, hon. Members in all parts of the House paid tribute to Speaker Weatherill. They were sincere tributes, for we hold him in the highest respect and affection.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover made an important point. Many of us have been in talks with people from eastern Europe in which they have explained how they are establishing new democracies. When we explain the way in which democracy works in Britain, they are, generally speaking, impressed—until we describe how the House of Lords works, its powers and the way in which its members are selected. There is no question of any of the newly emerging democracies imitating our upper House.
This is the first time for many years that we have a chance to make a gesture. We have an opportunity to say that the House of Lords is an affront to the democratic system and must be reformed. In joining my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover in the No Lobby, I and others who may be in that Lobby mean absolutely no disrespect to the previous Speaker, whom we hold in the highest regard.
4.14 pm
Mr. Tony Banks: I wish at the outset to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). It is wondrous to watch him in action. I am surprised that he spotted this occasion and has brought the matter to the attention of the House. I commend new Members on both sides to study carefully the actions of my hon. Friend. They will learn a great deal at his knee.
Like other hon. Members, I have great regard and esteem for Bernard Weatherill and everything that he did when he was in the House. I am loth to deprive him of anything that he would want having left this place, if he approves of it and sees it as a reward. Although I am reluctant to support my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover, I shall do so on the following ground alone: the unfortunate way in which the motion is termed.
We should have the right to confer a commendation or favour on one of our colleagues who has done a great service to the House. It seems most unfortunate that the only way in which we can do so is to go to the Queen and ask that a royal favour be conferred on Speaker Weatherill, who then has to go to the House of Lords, which is supposed to be this country's great bastion of privilege and class traditions. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover has now shown that it is time that the House started to look at how we could confer some form of favour or commendation on any one of our colleagues whom we feel is suitable for such an honour. That could be people who sit in the House or serve in the Refreshment Department or elsewhere. I suggest something like a Commons medal.
Whatever else my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover has done, he has shown us today that we must keep our eyes open, because we never know what will be slipped through on the Order Paper.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 247, Noes 15.

Division No. 16]

[4.16 pm

AYES

Adley, Robert

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Alexander, Richard

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

Foster, Derek (B'p Auckland)

Ancram, Michael

Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

Arbuthnot, James

Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)

Armstrong, Hilary

French, Douglas

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Gale, Roger

Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

Gallie, Philip

Ashton, Joe

Gardiner, Sir George

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Gaenier, Edward

Bates, Michael

Gillan, Ms Cheryl

Batiste, Spencer

Golding, Mrs Llin

Beith, A. J.

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Bellingham, Henry

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Bendall, Vivian

Graham, Thomas

Beresford, Sir Paul

Grant, Sir Anthony (Cambs SW)

Bermingham, Gerald

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Grylls, Sir Michael

Boateng, Paul

Gunnell, John

Booth, Hartley

Hague, William

Boswell, Tim

Hampson, Dr Keith

Bottomley, Peter

Hannam, Sir John

Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

Hanson, David

Bowis, John

Hargreaves, Andrew

Boyes, Roland

Harris, David

Brandreth, Gyles

Haselhurst, Alan

Brazier, Julian

Hawkins, Nicholas

Bright, Graham

Hawksley, Warren

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Hayes, Jerry

Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

Heald, Oliver

Browning, Mrs. Angela

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

Hendry, Charles

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Hicks, Robert

Butler, Peter

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Cann, James

Hill, James (Southampton Test)

Carlisle, John (Luton North)

Horam, John

Carrington, Matthew

Hordern, Sir Peter

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Howard, Rt Hon Michael

Chaplin, Mrs Judith

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

Clappison, James

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)

Coe, Sebastian

Hunter, Andrew

Colvin, Michael

Jack, Michael

Congdon, David

Jenkin, Bernard

Conway, Derek

Jessel, Toby

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Cormack, Patrick

Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)

Jones, Robert B. (W H'f'rdshire)

Dafis, Cynog

Kilfedder, James

Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil (Islwyn)

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Kirkhope, Timothy

Day, Stephen

Kirkwood, Archy

Deva, Niranjan

Knapman, Roger

Devlin, Tim

Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

Dickens, Geoffrey

Knight, Greg (Derby N)

Dicks, Terry

Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n)

Dixon, Don

Knox, David

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

Dover, Den

Lait, Ms Jacqui

Duncan, Alan

Lang, Rt Hon Ian

Duncan-Smith, Iain

Lawrence, Ivan

Dunn, Bob

Legg, Barry

Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Durant, Sir Anthony

Lidington, David

Eggar, Tim

Lightbown, David

Elletson, Harold

Llwyd, Elfyn

Enright, Derek

Luff, Peter

Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

Lynne, Ms Liz

Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Evennett, David

MacKay, Andrew

Ewing, Mrs Margaret

Maclean, David

Faber, David

McLoughlin, Patrick

Fabricant, Michael

McNamara, Kevin

161

Madel, David

Sproat, Iain

Maitland, Lady Olga

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Major, Rt Hon John

Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

Malone, Gerald

Stephen, Michael

Mans, Keith

Stern, Michael

Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

Stewart, Allan

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Straw, Jack

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Streeter, Gary

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

Sumberg, David

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Sweeney, Walter

Merchant, Piers

Sykes, John

Miller, Andrew

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Milligan, Stephen

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Mills, Iain

Taylor, Rt Hon D. (Strangford)

Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Temple-Morris, Peter

Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wy'nshawe)

Thomason, Roy

Moss, Malcolm

Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

Mudie, George

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Neubert, Sir Michael

Thornton, Malcolm

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Thurnham, Peter

Nicholls, Patrick

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexl'yh'th)

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Tredinnick, David

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Trend, Michael

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Twinn, Dr Ian

Ottaway, Richard

Vaz, Keith

Page, Richard

Viggers, Peter

Patnick, Irvine

Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

Pawsey, James

Waller, Gary

Porter, David (Waveney)

Ward, John

Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

Waterson, Nigel

Powell, William (Corby)

Watts, John

Rathbone, Tim

Wells, Bowen

Redwood, John

Wheeler, Sir John

Riddick, Graham

Whittingdale, John

Robathan, Andrew

Wicks, Malcolm

Robertson, George (Hamilton)

Widdecombe, Ann

Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

Wigley, Dafydd

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

Wilkinson, John

Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

Willetts, David

Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Sackville, Tom

Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

Shaw, David (Dover)

Wolfson, Mark

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Yeo, Tim

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

Mr. Sydney Chapman and

Speed, Keith

Mr. Timothy Wood.

Spink, Dr Robert

NOES

Ainger, Nicholas

Meale, Alan

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Barnes, Harry

Mullin, Chris

Bennett, Andrew F.

Redmond, Martin

Boyce, Jimmy

Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

Campbell, Ronald (Blyth V)

Canavan, Dennis

Tellers for the Noes:

Cohen, Harry

Mr. Dennis Skinner and

Flynn, Paul

Mr. Bob Cryer.

Madden, Max

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty that she will be most graciously pleased to confer some signal mark of her Royal Favour upon the Right honourable Bernard Weatherill for his eminent services during the important period in which with such distinguished ability and dignity he presided in the Chair of this House.

Adjournment (Spring)
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House, at its rising on Friday 22nd May, do adjourn until Tuesday 2nd June.—[Mr. Robert G. Hughes.]
4.26 pm
Mr. Alfred Morris: I want to raise an issue of serious, widespread and growing concern about which this House plainly deserves an oral ministerial statement before the recess. The issue is the Government's refusal to set any date by which Operation Container—the scheme for keeping prisoners in police cells—will be discontinued. We still await even the announcement of a timetable for reducing the huge number of prisoners now held in police stations.
Operation Container came into being specifically to deal with the shortage of prison accommodation in the Greater Manchester area caused by the destruction of Strangeways prison more than two years ago. The House will recall that Strangeways, built in the Victorian era and destroyed in the riot of April 1990, was seriously overcrowded, even in 19th-century terms, when the riot took place.
I saw the conditions in Strangeways, before the disturbances, on a visit to discuss with senior staff the problems caused by the detention there of prisoners who were mentally ill but for whom no accommodation was available in more appropriate places of detention. There were then about 1,700 prisoners in Strangeways; today there are still 1,638 prisoners held in police stations under Operation Container. Of that total, 233 are held in cells in 23 police stations in Greater Manchester. That number has hardly changed since last November and, despite the daunting stress imposed on our police service by crime figures for which any previous Government would have been heavily censured, it shows no sign of decreasing.
Greater Manchester police are not alone in having to bear the extra burden of acting as gaolers. Other police forces, from Devon and Cornwall to Northumbria and from East Sussex to Cumbria, have also become part of the prison system. In all, 39 police forces are participating in the operation. The full list was given in a priority written reply that I received from the Minister with responsibility for prisons on 11 May, and the cost of Operation Container is both enormous and still growing. Perhaps the Leader of the House could let the House know the total cost to date when he winds up the debate.
I shall be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman can also let the House know whether the new Home Secretary will be accepting the Greater Manchester police authority's urgent request for a meeting with him to discuss its concerns about Operation Container. A letter that I received this morning from Mr. R. C. Rees, clerk to the Greater Manchester police authority, states that no effective action has been taken to provide temporary accommodation in, for example, military camps for the prisoners now held in police cells, and that, in his police authority's view, the Home Office is clearly in breach of its duty under the Prison Act 1952 to provide prisons.
The letter goes on:
"The Police Authority is also of the view that this failure on the part of the Home Office, and the consequent necessity for the Police Authority to provide accommodation in police cells, is having a deleterious effect on the policing of Greater

163
Manchester, in that many Police Officers are being compelled to act as Prison Warders instead of protecting the community from crime".
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: There is also increasing anecdotal evidence in Greater Manchester that, on occasion, there are no empty police cells and that, for that reason, arrests that would be made in other circumstances are not being made.
Mr. Morris: I accept that important point and pay warm tribute to the long, sustained and extremely well-informed contribution my hon. Friend has made to discussion of this important issue.
The letter from the clerk to the Greater Manchester police authority continues:
"It is not yet too late to remedy the situation, even though the Police Authority is actively considering instituting formal legal proceedings against the Home Secretary, unless adequate assurances are given."
Surely that merits an oral statement by the Home Secretary before the recess?
The detention of remand or sentenced prisoners in police stations—including many in areas of acute deprivation and social stress—is manifestly unacceptable. The position is now deeply serious and the ending of Operation Container is a compelling priority. That is not only my view. In his reply to me on 11 May, the Minister said that the problem of using police stations for prisoners was
"regarded as extremely serious and the task of bringing it to an end … a top priority".
The reply went on:
"Neither I, nor my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, regard the detention of remand or sentenced prisoners in police cells as acceptable either for the prisoners or the police."—[Official Report, 11 May 1992; Vol. 207, c. 20.]
Those statements make the Minister's inability to set a date by which Operation Container will end—or even to announce a timetable for reducing the number of prisoners held in police stations—all the more worrying for people in Greater Manchester and elsewhere who know that their police forces, with crime figures as they are now, have more than enough to do without adding to their already heavy burdens.
Notwithstanding the best endeavours of police officers, can security be as good in police stations as it is in prisons? Are the Government satisfied that public safety is nowhere at risk from the long-term detention of prisoners in police stations? Those are the questions put to me, day by day, by my constituents.
An operation that was described as "temporary" after the Strangeways riot has now come to look more and more permanent. Indeed, the overall position today is worse than when the Strangeways riot occurred, as police authorities are placed in the de facto position of running a prison service by reason of the Home Office default. Police officers are losing their rest days, police stations are changing their character and, in fact, the fundamental purpose of the police service is undergoing extra-statutory change as it takes on duties it was never meant to discharge.
I went recently to Brownley road police station in my constituency, where four prisoners were being held. They cannot have a shower there, so they have to be transported under escort from the police station for a shower. Exercise and catering provision are other difficult problems, quite
164
apart from the general effect on the work of dedicated officers in a very busy police station of turning it into a gaol for prisoners, some of whom have completed their entire sentences in police cells.
Councillor Stephen Murphy, chairman of the Greater Manchester police authority, has spoken with admirable restraint of a "real deterioration in policing" in consequence of Operation Container and of his disquiet that costs of well over £3 million incurred in the investigation, for prosecution purposes, of incidents both during and after the disturbances at Strangeways have not been met by the Home Office. The chairman points out that many police officers have been involved in this work. Yet the Home Office refuses to provide additional finances to cover the authority's costs. This also is unacceptable, not least to Greater Manchester's poll tax payers. Why should they have to suffer this imposition?
I am sure that the Leader of the House will accept that the problems created by Operation Container constitute a very important matter for Greater Manchester, the north-west and for the country as a whole. There is no party animus locally about the extreme urgency of the need now to have the problems resolved. That can only be assisted by an early meeting between the Home Secretary and those who have to deal with these problems at the sharp end of Operation Container. I ask the Leader of the House for a helpful reply when he responds to the debate.
4.37 pm
Sir Anthony Grant: I listened with great interest to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), because I have a prison in my constituency. I am happy to say that it is an extremely good and modern establishment. I know that the House always listens with the keenest interest to the right hon. Gentleman, because he renders a great service to this place. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will pay attention to the right hon. Gentleman's contribution.
Before the House rises for the spring Adjournment, I want to talk about the problems of woodlands in Britain generally and in Cambridgeshire in particular. It is a matter of great importance to all who value our heritage and want to preserve the best in our environment.
I cite first Brampton wood in Cambridgeshire, which comprises 330 acres of woodland on the edge of my constituency. It is primarily in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Many people in both of our constituencies are worried about the wood's future, and we have been inundated, not surprisingly, with correspondence.
I can best describe the wood by using the words of one of my constituents, Mrs. Pamela Timbrell. She wrote that there
"are a wide range of wild flowers—some endangered—a diverse collection of beautiful native trees, squirrels and species of deer in a truly wild and natural setting. It is indeed a place of fragile and magical beauty."
Another of my constituents, Mr. Barry Dickerson, the county recorder of lepidoptera, which for the benefit of old Etonians means that he is the recorder of butterflies and moths, has recorded 515 different species of butterflies and moths in Brampton wood.
The wood is owned by the Ministry of Defence. It has been found to be surplus to its requirements, and in line

165
with its normal policy it is selling it by competitive tender to the highest bidder, in order, not unnaturally, to obtain the best return for the taxpayer.
The people of Cambridgeshire have always supported the Ministry of Defence presence in their county. Quite sensibly, we have tolerated aircraft noise and so on, because we know the importance of the MOD activities to the defence of the realm. Cambridgeshire has a great history of defence of this country.
The future of the wood after its sale is uncertain. Such woodlands cannot just be left, they have to be managed if they are to retain their beauty and provide enjoyment for nature lovers throughout the county and the country. The wood is designated as a site of special scientific interest, but that does not ensure that it will be properly managed. After all, I understand that 2,000 acres of SSSIs have been damaged during the past 12 months. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Forestry Commission cannot compel the appropriate management of woodlands.
The Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire Wildlife Trust is keen to buy the wood. It would preserve it, look after it, and ensure that it is developed in the best possible way, preserving the flora and fauna inside it. However, the trust needs time. The MOD should, if possible, sell the wood to the trust. Will the MOD at least give the trust time to submit a suitably competitive bid, which it wants and intends to do? Alternatively, will the MOD give time to allow suitable safeguards to be put in place to preserve that beautiful wood?
We now have a new heritage Ministry. I am not quite sure what it does, but I should not be surprised if it were extremely interested in this problem. The Secretary of State for National Heritage should become involved in such issues. Of course, other Ministries are involved. The Department of the Environment must be interested, if the environment means anything. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food should be interested because it has forestry responsibilities. I ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to get those Ministries to work together rather than in separate penny packets, so that we can save something that is really worth while in our society. I know that both my right hon. Friend and our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister take the problem seriously.
I want to discuss the slightly broader issue, because British woodlands as a whole are at risk. I am sure that many hon. Members will have read the Observer supplement last Sunday. It certainly made stark reading. It is only a short while before the great Rio summit on the environment is held. It is ironic that, during the past 50 years, Amazonia—the place we are always told has devastated its forests—lost 10 per cent. of its forests, yet over the same period Britain lost 45 per cent. If those figures are true, they are very stark. It is worrying for the British environment and for a country that has been so notable for its woodlands and its forests.
It is also ironic that the Government subsidise new afforestation where people plant dreary conifers, which do not attract wildlife. They certainly do not create the woods that we want in our beloved country. While providing subsidies for those boring conifers, the Government run the risk of destroying existing much better, much more beautiful and much more lush woodland through the highest-bidder policy that the MOD is pursuing.
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The matter is urgent, both nationally and locally. It is no good making lots of money, having wonderful machinery and new technology and creating wealth if, in the process, there is not a countryside in which it is worth living. I am sure that the Government would not wish to he known as an Administration who appreciate the price of everything, but the value of nothing.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. Many right hon. and hon. Members wish to take part in the debate. I hope that any hon. Members who are fortunate to catch my eye in the early part of the debate will take that into consideration. It is only a three-hour debate, and I wish to call as many hon. Members as possible.
4.45 pm
Ms. Liz Lynne: I know that, as this is my maiden speech, I shall be treated with courtesy and gracious listening, but it is none the less a fairly daunting experience. I feel very privileged to be a Member of the House. Indeed, I believe that all of us, being Members, are so privileged. I suspect that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would agree that in the light of that privilege and that honour, our behaviour, countenance and manner should reflect that.
I represent Rochdale and I realise that I have a very hard act to follow. My predecessor, Sir Cyril Smith, was a character in his own right. Loved by most—not all, but most—he was a tireless worker for his constituents. He is outspoken and he never hesitates to say what he thinks or believes. Before he came to the House in the famous 1972 by-election, he had been councillor, alderman and mayor of Rochdale. His service to his beloved Rochdale spans some 40 years. I know that the House will wish him a long and happy retirement. I, for one, owe him a huge debt of gratitude.
The Rochdale constituency comprises the old county borough of Rochdale. Within 15 minutes, we can be out of the township into the hills or on to the moors, yet it still embraces commerce, industry and all the inner-town facilities. Rochdale has a proud history. It was a great textile town, but sadly that is fading, although new industries are growing and thousands of small businesses now make a valuable contribution to our economy. Rochdale also has great companies with worldwide reputations.
Regrettably, however, unemployment is still above the regional average. While Rochdale does not have people sleeping out in cardboard boxes to any great extent, homelessness is still a serious problem and a social evil.
John Bright and Gracie Fields are famous Rochdalians. The Co-operative Movement was founded in Rochdale, as was the Workers Educational Association. In 1994, when it is reasonable to expect that I shall still be the town's Member of Parliament, Rochdale will celebrate some great events—the 800th anniversary of Rochdale parish church, the 150th anniversary of the Co-op, the centenary of the Rochdale canal and the centenary of the children's Moorland home. People, however, are the great wealth of Rochdale—its population, its voluntary organisations and its societies. Drama, music, church, community—just name it and we have it.

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We are a close-knit community, which is why the death of Conrad Cole, a young soldier from Rochdale, in the so-called friendly fire incident has affected Rochdale greatly. It does not seem likely that, under international law, the pilots can be extradited. Because of that, I urge the Government to use their special relationship with the United States to press for a further and fuller inquiry and for the results to be released to the parents and all interested parties.
It is perhaps not surprising that Rochdale has always been concerned about the people within its community. It has been deeply involved in the issue of community care. The first local authority home for the elderly was opened in 1950, the family group homes by 1960 and schemes to help pensioners with decorating and gardening were introduced in 1963. In the 1960s, a youth-helps-elderly scheme was pioneered at a time of severe weather conditions. It is therefore wholly appropriate, I hope, that my maiden speech as Member of Parliament for Rochdale should be concerned with community care. Therefore, I ask that before the House adjourns we should debate the pressing issue of community care.
I grew up in a disabled persons' home, as my mother was in charge of it. A lot of my friends, of course, were disabled. One particular friend and I used to go all over the place together. She was 16 and I was 11 when we arrived there, but what used to make me so angry was that when we were out together people frequently asked me questions and never talked to her first, even though she was five years older. I realised very quickly the sort of discrimination that people with disabilities have to suffer. I was determined to help to change that, not only for disabled people but for everyone, to create an equal and caring society.
I should like to ask: where is the vision, where is the idealism, where is the hope? They are certainly not there for the elderly, or for disabled people, or for the mentally ill, or for the homeless, or for those with learning difficulties. Care in the community was supposed to be the great hope, but what has happened to it? I shall tell hon. Members. It is grossly underfunded and has not been properly thought through. I believe very strongly that community care is the right way forward, but not in the way that it is operating at the moment in many places throughout the country. If we are not careful, more and more people will be left to roam the streets. More and more people will be placed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, with nothing to do all day. More people will be put into flats and bed-sits, without the proper back-up facilities. It is happening already.
We have a very good example of what happened when the large mental institutions were closed. Quite a lot of the inmates were dumped out, to fend for themselves. Many of them can still be seen wandering the streets and sleeping rough. We must not let that continue. We must certainly not let it happen again.
Community care has to be provided with proper resources. That money has to be ring-fenced to stop local councils being able to squander it on pet projects. We need to create a comprehensive disability income scheme so that people with disabilities can be given real financial freedom. We need also to create a new carers benefit that recognises the essential role that carers play in enabling people to stay within the community. We need to take positive action to
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get people off the streets and into real homes of their own. Our aim should be to reduce homelessness by at least 50 per cent. in the next four years.
All the groups of people I have mentioned have to be treated with dignity and respect. For too long they have been ignored; for too long they have been swept to one side; and for too long they have been the poor relations. As a Member of Parliament, I hope to make my contribution to improved community care and I am happy that my maiden speech should have been devoted to that cause.
4.53 pm
Mr. James Kilfedder: We have just heard a gracious and elegant speech, delivered with passion and compassion by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Miss Lynne). It is not surprising that we should hear such a speech from the hon. Lady because Rochdale produced, as she mentioned, Gracie Fields, who embodied the big-heartedness of that area. I hope that the hon. Lady will enjoy her stay in the House. I am sure that she will enjoy the same friendship that her predecessor, Sir Cyril Smith, who was a large and lovely personality, enjoyed here. I echo what she said about the need to look after the people of this country.
I urge the House not to adjourn, because of the threatened bed closures in my constituency of North Down in the Bangor hospital, the Ulster hospital and the Ards hospital. I denounce the Eastern health board's proposals to cut almost 100 hospital beds in the North Down area. Such bed closures will inevitably have an adverse effect on patient care in the area. There is no doubt whatsoever that waiting lists, which already are intolerably long, will grow longer still.
The board has announced that there will be consultations about the closures, but such talks—I speak from many years' experience of statements by the Eastern health board in the past—will, in my opinion, be a sham. They will be a cosmetic exercise to give a semblance of democracy to decisions already made to cut essential hospital beds—cuts which, if implemented, will clearly be detrimental to the people of North Down.
Every year, the North Down and Ards unit of management has imposed excessive expenditure cuts on hospital and social services in the North Down area. The present proposals are the result of a programme imposed on the unit by the Eastern health board to cut expenditure on hospital services by a further £1 million. I have charged the board with discrimination against the people of my constituency and elsewhere in the Eastern health board area. That area takes in the city of Belfast, which receives more than its fair share of money, in proportion to the population of Belfast, the number of hospital beds available in Belfast and the total expenditure of the Eastern health board on the city of Belfast.
I do not blame the Belfast hospitals for seeking to obtain as much money as possible. Money spent on patients is money well spent. The fact is, however, that money is being drawn away from the rest of the Eastern health board area to the city of Belfast. Therefore, I call for Belfast to be hived off from the Eastern health board area and established as a separate entity, because the cost of hospital beds in the Ulster and Bangor hospitals is lower than the cost of hospital beds in the Royal Victoria

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hospital or the City hospital, Belfast. I am shocked by the cuts which it has been decided to make in my constituency of North Down.
The whole of a medical ward in Bangor hospital is to be closed. That ward consists of 24 beds. Sadly, patients who need operations will have to wait far longer for them. That makes a mockery of the claim that the national health service is being organised for the benefit of patients. The closure of a whole medical ward will create appalling difficulties for Bangor. The population consists of 70,000 men, women and children. It deserves to have a fully operational hospital with a casualty department. Instead, the Eastern health board cuts, cuts and cuts again. I have warned my constituents that, in due course, despite assurances from the Eastern health board to the contrary, the board will seek to close the Bangor hospital completely.
It is an indictment of the undemocratic bureaucracy that governs Northern Ireland that such proposals can be made with no reference to the elected representatives of the Ulster people. The board is composed of people who were appointed by the Minister and who, therefore, are minions of the Government. Representatives of the press are not admitted to meetings and do not hear the deliberations of the Eastern health board. We find out what is happening by rumour; then, eventually, a statement is made to the effect that the proposal will be implemented following discussions.
The Ulster hospital's orthopaedic ward, with 20 beds, is to be closed. The Ards hospital will lose 52 beds. All those closures will create suffering for patients and relatives, and nurses and other staff will inevitably lose their jobs.
I call on the Government to ensure that the proposed bed closures in the North Down and Ards area are not implemented within the next few months as proposed but postponed until the proposals are fully examined and discussed by the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland. That can be done effectively only by means of a Northern Ireland Select Committee, which could cross-examine health board officials and other witnesses. I have been pressing for the appointment of a Select Committee for some time and I now repeat that demand for the restoration of democracy to the people of Northern Ireland.
If my fair and reasonable demand for the appointment of a Select Committee is still refused, I call on the Government to guarantee to the people of my constituency that the Eastern health board proposals will be postponed until the creation of another Northern Ireland Assembly. We understand from the discussions that have taken place over the past few months that there is a very reasonable prospect of a Northern Ireland assembly being established. The health board's proposals are an ideal matter for such an assembly to discuss, and I do not think that a decision should be made in advance of its creation.
In the name of my constituents, in the name of justice and in the name of community care, I urge the Government to ensure that the undemocratic bureaucratic Eastern health board does not proceed with the proposed hospital bed closures, which would create an appalling state of affairs in my constituency of North Down.
5.2 pm
Ms. Rachel Squire: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me to make my maiden speech to the House. I begin by congratulating you on your election to your new post—a tribute to your ability and of most welcome assistance to new and inexperienced Members like myself.
I shall refer first to previous—experienced—Members of Parliament for Dunfermline, West and Dunfermline Burghs. My immediate predecessor was Mr. Dick Douglas. During his long career in the Labour and Co-operative Movement, he displayed—shall we say—an independence of mind. That career began when, as a young apprentice in the 1950s, he helped to lead a successful strike in the Clyde shipyards. It is a particular shame, therefore, that he decided to end his career by breaking away from the Labour and Co-operative Movement.
The vast majority of past and present Labour Members of Parliament for Fife have been and are an example of the best that the movement can offer. My special thanks must go to my hon. Friends the Members for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) and for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish). I pay tribute to the ceaseless work of members of the Labour party throughout Fife and especially in my own constituency. My respect and affection for the people of Dunfermline and West Fife grow with every passing day. Throughout the century, they have displayed an unswerving loyalty and commitment to the Labour movement.
I cannot end this part of my speech without paying tribute to an outstanding example of that loyalty and commitment, a former Member of Parliament, Mr. Adam Hunter, who, sadly, died last year. He worked as a miner for 40 years before becoming a Member of Parliament, and subsequently he served the constituency of Dunfermline Burghs for 15 years in a most selfless and conscientious way. He was totally without pomposity and everyone who knew him speaks of him with the highest regard. I can only strive to match a small part of his ability.
That brings me to my constituency. I said that Mr. Adam Hunter had been a miner in the area for 40 years, but the history of coal mining in my constituency goes back much further—more than 700 years, to 1291, when the monks of Dunfermline abbey first extracted coal from Pittencrieff glen. Throughout the constituency, villages developed amid coal mines—Oakley, Saline, Blairhall and High Valleyfield, to mention but a few. Yet now there is only one deep mine operating in the whole of Scotland, at the western edge of my constituency at Kincardine on its border with that of my hon. Friend the Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill).
My constituency's history is fascinating. This year, we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of Culross as a royal burgh. Next year we will mark the 900th anniversary of the death of Queen Margaret. I hope, too, that Dunfermline abbey will begin to be recognised as the Westminster abbey of Scotland. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]
The communities of the constituency have a long history of work and welcome. They include communities from Townhill to Torryburn, from Charlestown to Crossford, from Cairneyhill to Carnock, from Halbeath to Limekilns and Newmills. The constituency's communities

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have a long defence tradition and we all owe a great deal to the people who live and work in Crombie, Pitreavie and Rosyth.
I am aware that this debate concerns the spring Adjournment. I should like to tell the House of all my concerns, but that would take days, rather than the few minutes left to me, so I have decided to use that time to raise just one issue—low pay.
George Bernard Shaw said, "Very few people can afford to be poor." I should like to think that that comment was history; it is not. The lowest-paid male manual workers earn less, relative to the average, than they did more than 100 years ago, in 1886. An unemployed married man with four children in Dunfermline was offered a job for 36 hours a week as a radio taxi controller for a wage of £54 a week. It would be comforting to think that that man was an exception; he was not. It would be comforting to think that low pay was confined to parts of Dunfermline; it is not. It would be comforting to think that it was confined to parts of Fife; it is not. There are 900,000 low-paid workers—one in three—in Scotland—and more than 10.4 million in the United Kingdom.
The Government have led the attack against Labour's call for a minimum wage of £3.40 an hour and the protection of wages councils. Will someone explain to me, and to the millions of low-paid workers, why the Government consider it immoral to pay a man or a woman £3.40 for an hour of work, yet moral to charge sick people—many of them on low pay and benefits—£3.75 for half a dozen pills on a prescription?
The Government have claimed that the introduction of a minimum wage would lead to unemployment. Given the extent of low pay, we should have full employment now. Instead, the latest statistics show an official figure of 2,695,300 unemployed, and the unofficial figure is much higher. Scotland is one of the parts of the country that have been hardest and longest hit by unemployment. Fife has the second highest unemployment rate in Scotland, with one in eight people out of work, and in parts of my constituency—central Dunfermline, for example—there is already an unemployment rate of 21.4 per cent.
The Government have said that they are keen on saving public expenditure. If that is the case, they should promote jobs with decent pay. If they did that, the people of Abbeyview in Dunfermline, 60 per cent. of whom depend on benefits, could instead earn a decent wage and contribute towards national insurance and tax. If the Government do not change their policy on poverty wages, that policy will add to the millions who already live on poverty pensions.
If the Government are keen to save on public expenditure, they should ditch the privatisation of the coal industry and the further attacks on local government and the health service. Privatisation will only add to unemployment, increase benefit demands and waste billions more of public money.
If the Government introduced a minimum wage, they could save public expenditure and increase income to the Exchequer. A minimum wage would bring in between £1.3 billion to £1.5 billion a year through tax and national insurance and fewer benefits. Minimum pay would also increase industrial efficiency and effectiveness. That is why 10 of our 12 European competitors have some form of
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minimum wage protection. The evidence that economic efficiency would be promoted by minimum pay has been provided by organisations such as the Contractors, Cleaning and Maintenance Association and the Electrical Contractors Association. I urge the Government to cease immediately any plans to abolish wages councils completely where the highest basic pay rate is a mere £3.08 an hour. Instead, the Government should assist employers to invest in equality and efficiency.
In conclusion, I want to quote Winston Churchill. He said that without the protection of minimum wages
"the good employer is undercut by the bad and the bad employer is undercut by the worst."
It is my hope and intention to work towards making that quote relevant only to the past—not to the present or the future.
5.11 pm
Mr. Michael Stephen: As is customary for those who have the honour of addressing the House for the first time, I wish to begin by referring to my constituency and to my predecessor. I am proud to represent Shoreham, which lies between the south downs and the sea in the county of West Sussex. We have a small port and an airport in Shoreham. In times gone by, we built wooden ships for the Royal Navy and for the merchant and fishing fleets. There was a time when Shoreham relied for its livelihood on shipbuilding contracts procured by its Members of Parliament. However, its Member of Parliament today has many tasks, but none is more important than to safeguard and promote the interests of local industry and commerce upon which the livelihoods of so many of my constituents depend.
Shoreham and Lancing are at the heart of the British simulator industry. Men and women of the most amazing technical skill and inventive genius build simulators to train the crews of aircraft and tanks. We also have a company that is equally extraordinary and at the leading edge of technology in the automotive engine industry. It designs engines for motor vehicles throughout the world. We also have a company that builds hi-tech operating tables and other extremely sophisticated equipment for the world's hospitals.
We have a famous public school at Lancing. At Findon we have a racing stables where Grand National winners have been trained. In the places that I have already mentioned and in Southwick, Sompting, Ferring, East Preston, and Rustington, there are pleasant residential areas to which people from all over the country come to spend their retirement years. Pensions are important for me. I have already joined the all-party pensions group and I have become a founder member of the group of 70 hon. Members who are pledged to fight for the Maxwell pensioners.
One of my predecessors as hon. Member for Shoreham was the father of the poet Shelley. However, my immediate predecessor was the right hon. Sir Richard Luce. He was a distinguished Member of this House for 21 years and he was well liked and respected by hon. Members on both sides of the House. He served his country well as a Foreign Office Minister and as Minister for the Arts. He is now vice-chancellor of Buckingham university and I am sure that the whole House will join me in wishing him every success in that new appointment.
On policy matters, I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on our policy towards Europe.

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Britain should play a positive role in shaping the future of our continent. We should be good Europeans, but that does not mean simply saying yes to what the others want to do. I believe in co-operation, not federation.
The Government will also receive my support for returning the nationalised industries to the private sector. The private sector should do that which is best clone in the private sector. I welcome the citizens charter because it is vital in any organisation, whether public or private, that the people who work in it know what is expected of them and that the people whom it serves know what they have a right to expect. In short, I believe that the citizens charter is the mission statement for the public service.
I would like to raise many issues in relation to the environment, but I shall refer to only one today. It is water. We all now know that water is a precious natural resource, and I would like to see the building regulations amended so that all new buildings are equipped with the means of collecting and storing rain water.
Many people in my constituency fought in the second world war, and many others lost their loved ones in that dreadful conflict. We must all be grateful that the cold war has ended, but we still live in a dangerous and unstable world. We must remember the lessons of the 1930s. Countries are attacked because they are too weak, not because they are too strong.
I had the honour to serve Her Majesty in The Life Guards. I regret the need to amalgamate some of our famous regiments, and I respectfully ask my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence to reconsider the manning levels required for the Army. However, I welcome the Government's commitment to provide our soldiers, sailors and airmen with the very best equipment that modern technology can provide.
I also practised as a barrister for 14 years and I therefore have a particular interest in law and order. In 1987 I wrote a pamphlet urging the Government to ask Parliament to confer on the Court of Appeal the power to increase over-lenient sentences, and I was very pleased when that power was provided by the Criminal Justice Act 1988. As we have seen in recent cases, that does not always mean that a sentence will be increased, but it does mean that a higher court now has the opportunity to reconsider the matter.
I believe that automatic remission of sentences should be abolished, because it is a fraud on the public. If a judge sentences a man to six years imprisonment, our constituents have a right to expect him to be behind bars for six years. I know that judges take remission into account when fixing sentences, but sentences should mean what they say. If judges wish to pass shorter sentences, let them do so and let them see what the public think about it.
I am aware of the need to maintain discipline in prisons, but our constituents do not receive reductions in their income tax for good behaviour. Good behaviour is to be expected in this country, both inside and outside prison, and those who behave badly in prisons should have their sentences increased.
I am not against parole, as opposed to remission, and prisoners should be entitled to earn reduction of sentence. Many people are in prison today because the education system failed them, and more thought and more resources need to be devoted to remedial education in prison. Far too much of the time that prisoners spend in custody is completely and utterly wasted, and it needs to be put to better use.
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Another matter relating to law and order is pornography. The law should be tightened up in relation to printed matter, films, television and the increasing use of the telephone system for pornographic purposes.
In Britain today, unemployment gives us all cause for concern. I will not say when the recession will end, because, as Groucho Marx once said, "It is dangerous to make predictions, especially about the future." However, I do know that the recession is temporary. Many people in our constituencies risk losing their homes because they cannot pay their mortgages. If they are on income support, they get their mortgage interest paid, but if they are on family credit, they do not. I have urged my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security to consider paying mortgage interest to people on family credit. That would be expensive, but when the taxpayer is helping a person to maintain and preserve a capital asset, I see no reason why the taxpayer should not get his money back when the recession ends and the property eventually is sold. For that purpose I suggest a legal charge upon the property.
The great majority of my constituents are Christian people. They believe that religious education in our schools should be predominantly of the Christian faith. They believe also, as I do, that everything that the Government do should be guided by Christian principles. Those principle are shared by the other great religions represented in our country today. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will never forget those principles, and I wish him every success in the years to come.
5.21 pm
Mr. Chris Mullin: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen). I am sure that he will make an able representative of his constituency. He and I have in common an interest in law and order, although I suspect they are slightly different aspects. I hope that the House will forgive me if I do not follow the tradition to a great extent and get carried away with a eulogy, because I do not want any thunderbolts to come down from heaven and consume me in the next 10 minutes. As it happens, before the recess we should spend a little time discussing an aspect of law and order which I should like to think would be of interest to the hon. Member for Shoreham, but I am prepared for the possibility that it is not.
Two years ago, after a statement by the Home Secretary the day after four innocent people had their convictions quashed for the Guildford and Woolwich pub bombings, the right hon. Gentleman set up a judicial inquiry under Judge Sir John May, a very distinguished judge, to consider not only those convictions but the seven other convictions that related to the Guildford and Woolwich case—those of Mrs. Maguire and her family, which have also been quashed. That inquiry seemed at the time to be urgent and there was an awful lot of curiosity about how it came to pass that those people were ever convicted of those offences. Two years and eight months have passed since that inquiry was set up, and it seems to have ground to a halt.
I cannot say that I am all that surprised. The history of judicial inquiries is not a happy one. Judicial inquiries into miscarriages of justice normally end by re-convicting those who have just had their convictions quashed. It became

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clear early on that Sir John May was not willing to be party to a whitewash and that he was conducting a rigorous inquiry. From that moment on, it also became clear that Sir John May would never be permitted to report. The years have ticked by and there is no sign of a report. I understand, although I have not spoken to him, that Sir John is considerably frustrated about the situation.
The reasons why I have never believed that he would be permitted to report are not all that difficult to work out. The Guildford case is distinguished from the other big celebrated miscarriages of justice in that all those concerned—it is possible to demonstrate it and I attempted to demonstrate it in my evidence to Sir John May's inquiry—must have known that they had got the wrong people. They chose not to face up to that for fear, perhaps, of the consequences for their own careers or for fear that the roof of the legal system might fall in. It is quite easy to demonstrate that. We have only to look at the cast of characters involved to see why there will be no report from Sir John May.
The judge was Lord Donaldson, now Master of the Rolls—the judge, I believe, in both the Guildford and Woolwich trial and the Maguire case that followed. The senior policemen involved—many police officers were involved—were Sir Peter Imbert, now the Metropolitan Commissioner, Commander Bill Hucklesby, who became very senior in the Metropolitan police before he retired, and Commander Jim Nevill, who was also extremely senior in the Metropolitan police. They helped to capture the IRA unit called the Balcombe street. There was a big siege at Balcombe street, which many people will recall —it lasted a week.
From that moment on, it must have been obvious—indeed, it was obvious—that those were people who carried out the Guildford and Woolwich pub bombings. They were prepared to confess to it. They were able to describe it in enormous detail—such great detail that it was not possible to pretend that they had not been involved. The script had to be rewritten, and it was rewritten on a fairly spectacular scale. The problem was that the Balcombe street people insisted on owning up. When they came to trial, they all got up in court and said that as members of the Provisional IRA they would not normally recognise a British court, but on this occasion, since innocent people had been convicted for offences for which they were responsible, they proposed to plead not guilty to the enormous list of charges in front of them, and invite their barristers to participate in the proceedings only in so far as it would draw out the enormous amount of fraud and perjury that had been committed.
As a result of that dramatic new evidence, the Guildford and Woolwich defendants were entitled to a retrial. That posed a very serious problem for the authorities because there was a serious danger that the truth would emerge. Had they owned up at that stage, we could have said, "Oh well, it was a mistake," and perhaps it was up to that point, although I do not necessarily accept that either. But that is not what happened. A little-known 17th century procedure was revived whereby the Court of Appeal could sit also as the court of first instance, thereby knocking out the appeal to which those innocent people were entitled and the retrial to which they were entitled, at
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a single go in the absence of a jury.
That is an important point, because the Royal Commission on criminal justice is coming under a lot of pressure to blame it all on the juries. If it has succumbed to that pressure, it has been had. I will say only that. At every crucial stage in all such big cases steps have been taken to make sure that no jury is around. One cannot blame the jury. In this case, Lord Roskill, Lord Lawton, a former British Union of Fascists candidate for Hammersmith, and Mr. Justice Boreham presided. Even on the most generous interpretation, it is very hard to believe that they could not see what was going on and that the script was being rewritten from top to bottom.
Besides the distinguished people I have mentioned—Sir Peter Imbert, Commander Hucklesby, Commander Nevill, Lord Roskill, Lord Lawton, and Lord Donaldson —the Crown in all those cases was represented by the late Lord Havers, subsequently the Lord Chancellor. Now that we see the cast of characters involved it becomes clear, does it not, why we are never going to hear from Sir John May's inquiry? I have never believed that we would, and I now see reports saying that we are not going to. A decision has not yet been made, but it is about to be made. No doubt that will be when we are in recess. Perhaps it will take the form of a planted written answer to a tame member of the governing party.
I was invited, along with some other people, to submit evidence to Sir John May's inquiry. I did so and attempted to point out in words of one syllable where I thought that the responsibilities lay. I invited him to draw the appropriate conclusions.
When the royal commission was set up, after the release a year or two later of the Birmingham Six, to inquire into the criminal justice system in general, all those of us who had submitted evidence received a letter from the inquiry asking whether we would mind if our evidence was transferred to the royal commission—and no doubt subsumed into the enormous amount of evidence that it would receive. I wrote back and said no, I did not wish my evidence to be transferred. My evidence was specific to the Guildford and Woolwich inquiry. I wished it to go before Sir John May. I have heard nothing since that time. I knew from that moment on that the inquiry was doomed.
My purpose in raising this matter is to make only one point. When each of the great miscarriages of justice has occurred, the Home Secretary and occasionally the Attorney-General or someone else comes before the House and makes a statement. They say that everyone is upset about it, they hope that it will not happen again and they are determined to learn a few lessons from the case. I just hope that, if Sir John May's inquiry is to be abandoned —and it is—the Home Secretary will have the courage to come to the House and explain why it is to be abandoned. I hope that he will submit himself to questioning by the House and that we shall not one day find in Hansard some planted written answer telling us that it is all over.
5.30 pm
Mr. John Greenway: First, may I welcome you to your post, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is good to have two Yorkshire folk in the Chair in this new Parliament. I

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also congratulate the hon. Members who have made maiden speeches in today's debate. I can scarcely believe that five years ago I stood here in fear and trepidation doing much the same thing. It is clear from the quality of what we heard tonight that the new Members elected to Parliament in this latest election will grace our debates and will certainly be great ambassadors for the constituents whom they represent.
In my judgment, the House should not adjourn for the spring recess until it has considered and taken stock of the widespread opposition throughout North Yorkshire to the plans of the National Grid Company to construct a new overhead powerline from Teesside to Shipton in the Vale of York. It would go right through the Vale of York, running some 60 miles. The proposal is the subject of a public inquiry which began today in Northallerton. That inquiry is expected to last at least two months—a clear indication of both the serious nature of the proposal and the strength of opposition to it.
The proposed power line would pass through the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Langbaurgh (Mr. Bates) and for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who raised the issue in debate last April. My right hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) and my hon. Friend the Member for Boothferry (Mr. Davis) have also received many representations on the matter. All my hon. Friends whom I have mentioned wish to be associated with my remarks this evening.
It is the first time for almost a quarter of a century that a major extension to the national grid has been sought. The application arises out of the decision to construct a new gas-powered electricity generating station at the ICI complex at Wilton on Teesside. Neither I nor any of my hon. Friends have any objection to that splendid project in isolation, but we believe that there has been a clear failure of the planning procedures laid down in the Electricity Act 1989. It is a matter of great importance to the House that an amendment to those provisions be considered as a matter of urgency.
It has been well established that, when permission was granted for the Teesside project, no consideration was given to the potential consequences for the national grid. None of the local authorities—in my constituency, North Yorkshire county council and Hambleton district council —none of the parish councils or residents and landowners who would be affected by the consequent power line were consulted about the power project application. Yet residents and landowners are told that the new power line is essential to transmit the electricity generated by the Teesside plant into the national grid.
Without question, those affected by the proposed new power line should have been consulted before the power station was approved because the power line has clear environmental impact. That impact should have been a relevant consideration in granting the power station consent.
Mr. William Hague: Does my hon. Friend agree that in any case the National Grid Company has yet to demonstrate that there is a compelling and clear need to construct the lines, which makes the environmental cost of their construction even harder for local residents to bear?
Mr. Greenway: My hon. Friend has anticipated the very point that I was coming to. It is indeed the view of North
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Yorkshire county council that the National Grid Company has not demonstrated the need for the proposed power line, and that existing transmission lines are adequate for the current level of electricity which it is obliged to transmit through North Yorkshire, including the power generated by the Teesside plant. However, there is a strongly held belief that further gas-fired generating stations are planned and that the proposed new power line is largely anticipatory of the likely requirements for transmission capacity in future.
The proposed power line should be a matter of grave concern to all right hon. and hon. Members for reasons that I shall explain in a moment. Privatisation of the electricity industry has brought many welcome benefits to both industry and domestic consumers and has introduced much-needed competition into power generation. The potential growth of cheaper and more cleanly generated capacity will bring environmental benefits in terms of reduced emissions. Those benefits are most welcome, but they should not be at the expense of the environmental impact of transmitting the new capacity through the national grid.
I make three points. First, this is the first major extension of the national grid for more than 20 years. What happens now will be a precedent for potential similar applications to extend the national grid in the years ahead. Secondly, as a result of the former point, the Electricity Act 1989 should be amended to require new generators, electricity boards and the National Grid Company to assess the implications for the national grid of any new power plants before permission is granted.
Thirdly, although in the past 20 years there have been many welcome advances in the technology of electricity generation—indeed, the Teesside project is one of the most advanced in Europe, if not the world—it appears that little if any advance in the technology of transmission has occurred in that time. We still have the same 150-ft-high pylons every 400 yd right across the country, of which there are already far too many in both my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague).
I am sure that many hon. Members often pass through North Yorkshire on holiday or en route to other destinations and will have observed the number of pylons there. They are a blot on the landscape. Their environmental impact is immense for the many people who live in their shadow. The National Grid Company claims that it can blend the pylons into the contours of the landscape. I fail to see how that can be achieved in the flat, open landscape of the Vale of York, especially at the southern end of the proposed line in my constituency.
I have never known such outrage, anger, resentment and despair as has been aroused by the proposed power line. The healthy increased majorities enjoyed by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks and myself, as well as the return of the Langbaurgh constituency into Conservative hands at the general election demonstrates that the proposal is not seen as a party issue. Nor is it seen as a quarrel with the Government. My constituents see it as an issue of moral justice. They will gain nothing from the proposal, but they will lose a great deal if the proposal goes ahead.
Would my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House convey those concerns to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, in his new post, with his new responsibility for energy? Many of my constituents

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now look to him to reject the National Grid Company's plans to review the provisions of the Electricity Act 1989, and to press the company to give the highest priority to the research and development of less environmentally damaging methods of electricity transmission.
Until then, the National Grid Company's obligations to link any new generating capacity into the national grid should be ended, unless it can be shown that there will not be the sort of environmental damage that is likely to result in north Yorkshire.
I can think of no more important matter affecting my constituents on which to make my first speech in this new Parliament. However, this is not a NIMBY issue. It is not a local protest but a matter of the gravest national concern. Unless the provisions of the Electricity Act 1989 are amended, the constituents of other right hon. and hon. Members will face the same sort of proposal very soon.
5.40 pm
Dr. Lynne Jones: Thank you for calling me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I congratulate other new Members of Parliament who have gone through the nerve-racking process of making their maiden speeches and have acquitted themselves so well.
As a member, just, of the West Midlands police authority—a singularly ineffective body, for which I take no responsibility—I would like to use this opportunity to comment on the announcement by the Director of Public Prosecutions that there are to be no prosecutions as a result of the West Yorkshire police inquiry into the operation of the West Midlands serious crime squad.
Before I do so, I understand that it is traditional to pay tribute to one's predecessors and I do so willingly. I first became active in the Labour party just before Tom Litterick, the only former Labour Member for Selly Oak, was elected in 1974. Like my immediate predecessor, Tom Litterick was renowned for not always supporting the Government line. Unfortunately, I think that I am the first Member of Parliament for Selly Oak whose party is in opposition, and I shall not be faced with such difficult decisions.
Tom Litterick was one of the first to speak out in support of Mrs. Maguire and the other people whom we now know were the subject of miscarriages of justice. He did so at a time when that was very unpopular. I am proud of Tom Litterick's record for speaking out. I know that he would have been as concerned as I am about today's announcement.
Anthony Beaumont-Dark also had a reputation for being something of a rebel. Who am I to disagree with him about the poll tax? He has said that at times he was even paired with a Member from his own party. Hon. Members may be interested to hear that Mr. Beaumont-Dark recently confessed that there had been occasions when he was glad that he was not in the majority on a certain issue.
Anthony Beaumont-Dark had voted to restore capital punishment. During the election campaign, he told a public meeting how relieved he was that other hon. Members had not agreed with him and had voted consistently against bringing back the death penalty. In making that change of heart, I think that his mind was on the evidence of miscarriages of justice that has emerged in the past few years. The case of the Birmingham Six is
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especially relevant to the area that I represent. I am pleased that Mr. Beaumont-Dark has recognised that we should never restore capital punishment.
The West Yorkshire police inquiry was mostly concerned with events which have taken place more recently. However, I am worried that two officers involved in the interrogation of the Birmingham Six were still in the serious crime squad when it was disbanded in 1989.
Early cases, such as that of the Birmingham Six and of Keith Twitchell—who, after six months, is still awaiting the result of his petition to the Home Secretary—took place before the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. That Act, which was supposed to put right some of the previous problems with police operations, has been routinely ignored by the serious crime squad, who continued to behave arrogantly and ruthlessly. At least 20 cases have gone to court, and to the Court of Appeal, where there has been evidence—most noteworthy is the ESDA evidence—to show that confessions and forensic evidence have been fabricated.
The police have not dealt with the use of supergrasses in the way that one would expect, and plenty of the evidence in court has given us cause for concern. Today we have heard the outcome of the inquiry into those cases.
When the Police Complaints Authority summary was sent to the West Midlands police authority, it expressed concern about a report in 1985 by Commander Hay of the Metropolitan police, which made various recommendations. The most noteworthy recommendation was that officers should not spend more than two years, or a short time, in squads such as the serious crime squad. Those recommendations were completely ignored.
I have been trying to get to the bottom of the matter and to find out who saw the recommendations and why they were not acted upon. I have written to Geoffrey Dear, the chief constable at the time. He denies seeing the report, even though the Police Complaints Authority stated that several chief officers within the West Midlands police saw it. I then wrote to Les Sharpe, his deputy at the time, who is now chief constable in Strathclyde.
He could not help me, and it is still impossible to find out who saw the report, why it was not acted upon, why officers involved with the Birmingham Six case were still serving in the serious crime squad in 1989, and why so many of them had served for more than five years in the squad and had created a culture in the squad which has resulted in many people in the west midlands being deeply troubled by the operation of their police service.
We need to be concerned not merely about members of the serious crime squad but about the management structure of the West Midlands police and the way in which the culture of the serious crime squad was allowed to continue.
It is to be regretted that the inquiry has taken two years and nine months to come to its conclusions. Although the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department gave assurances last December to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) that there would be absolutely no cover-up in the investigation into the serious crime squad, the public in my constituency and in the west midlands, who want absolute confidence in their police force, will be deeply troubled by today's new announcement.
The chief superintendent in charge of the West Midlands police division that covers my constituency had direct line management for the serious crime squad. I am

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concerned that the role of those police officers will not come to light and that we shall not find out who was responsible for the fabrications and the activities which have led to such public concern.
My constituents want a police force that they can trust and the House should not adjourn until the matter has been discussed adequately.
5.49 pm
Mrs. Ann Winterton: I follow in the footsteps of the new hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Ms. Jones) and congratulate her on a fluent maiden speech, in which she expressed very positive views. I am sure that the House will hear from her on many future occasions. I was pleased that the hon. Lady conformed to tradition, at least at the beginning of her speech, by paying tribute to her predecessor, Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark. However, I was a little saddened that she did not continue with the tradition that the House has kept for some years, that a maiden speech should not cover matters that are controversial. However, the hon. Lady is of her own mind, and no doubt we shall hear a lot more from her in the future. I congratulate her and all the other hon. Members who have made maiden speeches today.
I am glad to have the chance to speak in this brief debate and raise an issue which affects my constituency. The subject was touched upon earlier in a powerful maiden speech from the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms. Lynne). I relates to the decisions and funding requirements of regional and district health authorities as they affect two of the most vulnerable sectors of the community—the elderly and the mentally and physically handicapped. Such decisions are crucial to the provision of community and residential care for the mentally and physically handicapped.
In the previous Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) served as Chairman of the Select Committee on Health. He said:
"As a result of the policies of community care pursued by successive Governments, too many patients are being discharged too soon, for the wrong reasons, and without adequate support into communities which are unwilling, or unable to accept them."
I agree with that.
The announcement made on Thursday of last week by Crewe health authority that Cranage Hall hospital is to be closed in March 1995 falls into that category of closure, although the health authority added the rider that the decision will be subject to available resources being in place. Although some mentally and physically handicapped people belong in the community, when the necessary support structures are in place, individuals remain who, for whatever reason, require the security and stability of long-term hospitals—hospitals, which, in many cases, have been their homes for many years or decades. Those people cannot be expected to leave them without being caused considerable distress.
There are 255 residents in Cranage Hall hospital, and they are described by the health authority, with a glib attempt at semantic subversion, as "individuals with learning difficulties". Such a categorisation serves simply to distract attention from the real medical and social needs of many severely handicapped patients. In Cranage Hall hospital, there is a hard core of severely mentally and
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physically handicapped people. I have argued for the retention of a facility for them on that site since I was first elected to Parliament nine years ago.
I must put on record my appreciation of the efforts of Mr. Richard Jackson of RESCARE, who has done so much to represent the best interests of patients, and of Mr. Derek Stubbs, the present chairman of the Cranage Hall parents and residents welfare society, who has also played a key role. I have worked closely with those two groups to further their proposed alternative concept for the future of the site—a future which involves the creation of a village community, with full medical and social support for those patients who require an institutional or semi-institutional setting and who quite simply could not survive the harsh realities of life beyond its boundaries.
The regional and district health authorities, in their wisdom, have totally rejected a plan by the Bradford and Northern housing association, which is a non-profit-making body. It envisaged a brand-new facility on part of the Cranage Hall site, which would have been funded by the sale and development of the rest of the buildings and grounds. The plan provided hotel and leisure facilities, and housing of different categories for the local community. It was an imaginative plan that deserved consideration, but sadly it did not receive it. One had hoped that the plan would have had some appeal because it would have transferred the patients—and the costs of treating them—from the health service budget. They would have become tenants of the Bradford and Northern housing association.
The number of mentally ill and mentally handicapped people in our prisons, and sleeping rough on the streets, not just of our capital city but throughout our country, is a testament to the failure of the speed at which the policy of community care is being implemented. However, there have been successes in community care where committed and experienced staff have established close inter-agency links, and have been given adequate funding and resources. They have made a real go of things. I have visited such facilities and have been much impressed by what I have seen. None the less, the costs of running them are extremely high. Community care can only work if it is given adequate funding and has a high priority on the agenda of those authorities responsible for health, social and community services provision.
I must admit that I am appalled by the discourtesy of the chairman and chief executive of Crewe health authority in not informing me, as the local Member of Parliament, of the decision until after the public announcement of the closure had been made. It is not acceptable that hon. Members who have been actively involved in an issue of such importance which directly affects their constituency should be left to hear of such a decision through a telephone call from a local radio station which had already been given a full statement—albeit a statement which misled the media and the public about the practical effect of the proposals and the type of patients involved.
An added dimension to the decision to "fast-track" the closure of Cranage hall hospital is the problem of capital resources and how that will impact upon the care of the elderly who also live within the Crewe health authority. Three years ago, the health authority's elderly bed strategy went to consultation. It proposed that both Barony and Arclid hospitals would close in September 1993 and that new homes for elderly persons would be built, one of

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which would be located in Sandbach to cover my constituents' needs. The acute and rehabilitation service would be relocated at Leighton hospital in two or three brand-new wards. In the meantime, following on from the health service reforms, Leighton became the mid-Cheshire trust hospital and separate from the health authority.
The bid by Sainsbury's for the site at Barony hospital was accepted by the health authority; a contract was signed between the two parties, and an agreement was reached to clear the site in a set period, because the supermarket was to be built and opened by the end of 1993. It was intended and understood that health authority money would build new acute rehabilitation wards at Leighton hospital and that the trust would run them. The capital cost of the building would go via the region to the trust as an external financing limit allocation. The trust has a satisfactory capital plan—although it is not perfect—and it has much to renew in the way of equipment, some of which is many years old.
It is my understanding that the region is now saying that the district health authority cannot have the so-called Sainsbury's money, and that the trust must build the needed acute and rehabilitation beds at a cost of £2 million out of its present external financing limit. At the moment, the region is not committed to the building of those wards, but building must start in September of this year, for occupation in September of 1993. Therefore, contracts will have to be entered into without certain knowledge of where the huge capital sum is to come from.
The region cannot continue to step back from the problem. The real fear is that it is planning to rob Peter to pay Paul by using the proceeds of the sale of Barony hospital to Sainsburys to fast-track the closure of Cranage Hall hospital for the mentally handicapped. The Mid-Cheshire hospital trust at Leighton would be left in some financial uncertainty unless a clear commitment were given by the region now, as a matter of urgency, that the £2 million extra capital funding for the acute geriatric and rehabilitation beds will be forthcoming, as was previously understood to be the case by all the parties concerned.
I appreciate that I have dealt with detailed matters, but they are vital to my constituents. I call on the regional health authority and Crewe health authority to come clean with the people of my constituency, to tell them what the plans are and from where the money will come. Having done that, they should announce that the fast-track closure of Cranage Hall hospital will be put back by at least a decade, during which time other valid plans can be fully and properly researched.
6 pm
Mr. Richard Burden: I wish at the outset, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to congratulate you on your appointment and to add my voice to those who have congratulated other maiden speakers. I particularly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Ms. Jones). Many, especially on these Benches, appreciated her comments.
Three new seats were won in Birmingham by Labour at the general election. We had spent the previous two years being told that they were barometer seats. We gathered that whichever party won Northfield, Selly Oak and Yardley would go on to form the Government. It seems
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that something went wrong with the barometer. I am convinced that in four or five years from now, we will be concerned not simply with so called barometer seats in Birmingham but with constituencies throughout the country, and that Labour will form the next Government.
Of course, one cannot be certain that there will not be any by-elections between now and then. I and my two colleagues from Birmingham—my hon. Friends the Members for Selly Oak and for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms. Morris)—have been allocated offices across the adjoining main road. We are worrying already about the problems that we might face as we cross the road together, perhaps coming to vote in a Division.
It is customary in a maiden speech to speak of one's predecessor. In Northfield, I succeed Roger King, who represented the constituency for nine years. He thrived on the reputation of being the motor industry Member. One of his claims to fame was to have won the first House of Commons versus House of Lords motor race. I think that if he wanted to be remembered for anything—he referred to the subject even in his own maiden speech—it was his campaign against the special car tax. No one could mistake the delight on his face when finally that tax was reduced by half in the last Budget. His only regret must have been that it was the party that he supported that introduced the special car tax in the first place in the 1970s. The recent reduction is welcomed by many of us on the Labour Benches. I add my congratulations to Roger King on his new appointment. He is not leaving the motor industry, for he has been appointed director of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
Northfield is synonymous with the motor industry. It lies to the south-west of Birmingham and contains the giant Longbridge car plant. Many of my constituents work there or in the associated component supply industry. The work force at Longbridge has contributed to the success of Rover in recent years, yet the car industry, like manufacturing as a whole, which is so vital to the Midlands, has been hit hard by the recession. Sales of new cars were down by 20 per cent. in the last year alone.
Those points are not simply of academic significance. Northfield's unemployment rate increased by 36 per cent. in the last year, but that bald figure hides a story of human misery and deprivation. The problems of poverty in Birmingham's inner city are reasonably well known. Though faltering and incomplete, some resources have been put into such areas and are beginning to tackle the problems of poverty in the inner cities. Far more invisible is the issue of outer ring poverty, in particular the poverty on our outer ring estates.
I might mention the estates at Bartley green, Weoley, Longbridge and Northfield itself. There are pockets of unemployment in those areas of between 70 and 80 per cent. They contain a high proportion of older people with a high dependency on benefits. There are also growing numbers of lone parents. In addition, startling poverty and deprivation results from the spiralling problem of debt which affects many of our constituents.
It is ironic to realise that a standard indicator of deprivation is lack of access to a motor car. A report by the director of public health in south Birmingham revealed that the area with the lowest access by families to a motor car was the ward of Longbridge. They make motor cars there, but they cannot afford to own them.
Where there is poverty, ill health soon follows. In south Birmingham, the area that I represent, along with my hon.

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Friends who represent Selly Oak and Yardley, one clearly sees the problem of ill health. There is a high proportion of low-birthweight babies and stress-related illness is common, with people having a high dependence on tranquillisers.
If the Government are serious about tackling the problems of ill health in society, they must begin seriously to tackle the problems of poverty, bad housing and environmental deprivation. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Ms. Squire) that it also means tackling the scourge of poverty pay. Unless and until we tackle the problem of poverty in our outer ring estates, we shall have increasing problems with racism. We must reject any attempt to stir up resentment against people who live in the outer ring or inner ring. We shall not achieve anything until we address the problem of poverty in the outer ring and empower the people who live there to contribute to their own destinies.
An example in my constituency is the possible development of about 200 acres of land currently occupied by the psychiatric hospitals on what is called the Rubery and Hollymoor hospital site. It is due to be closed and redeveloped. That raises large issues about the kind of care in the community that will follow. If that land is redeveloped—it is being sold off by the regional health authority, to he developed, we understand, by a firm called Charters, which has had an involvement in Docklands—there must be choices about the type of development that will take place.
Will that development provide offices but few jobs for local people and will it provide housing that local people cannont afford? In other words, will commercial considerations be paramount, and will the local community merely be consulted and the real decisions be taken elsewhere? There is an alternative to that. Real jobs could be provided in that development, along with the necessary training. Housing could be provided in a way that is affordable for local people. It could also be constructed to protect the environment. In other words, the local community should be partners in the whole process and be given a say in the decision making.
As their representative in this place, I know which choice I shall make. It will be for the regional health authority and the developers to choose, but I shall be returning to the whole issue time and again, because the whole community deserves no less.
For the Government, there is the challenge of deciding whether they are prepared to face up to the problems of poverty and deprivation on our outer ring estates. Are they prepared to devote the necessary resources to improve housing conditions, protect the environment, provide adequate levels of benefit and abolish low pay?
Much has been said recently about citizens charters and the rights of citizenship. Those rights will mean little if they are not accompanied by the right to have decent living standards and to live in a pollution-free environment—in other words, to have a decent home. I, and my hon. Friends from Selly Oak and Yardley, will be bringing that issue before the House time and again because it greatly concerns the people we represent.
I am grateful to have had this opportunity to address the House.
6.9 pm
Mr. Walter Sweeney: I am honoured to have been elected to represent the Vale of Glamorgan and should like to thank the 24,220 people who voted for me, particularly the 19 people who wavered most before putting a cross next to my name.
I am honoured because I follow in the footsteps of Sir Raymond Gower, one of the most distinguished Back Benchers. He acquired a reputation as the most prolific letter writer in the House. He also had a reputation for turning up on people's doorsteps at the most unexpected moment. It is said, no doubt anecdotally, that many of his constituents would hear a light tap on the door and would arrive at the door just in time to see him disappearing down the path. However, he was an assiduous Member of Parliament. He represented the Vale of Glamorgan—previously the old seat of Barry—for 38 years.
Sir Raymond's death in 1989 led to the famous by-election victory of my immediate predecessor, Mr. John P. Smith, who won by 6,000 votes. I pay tribute to John Smith for his extremely hard work as MP for the Vale of Glamorgan. He established himself as a popular Member of Parliament and very nearly pulled off the virtually impossible task of holding on to a seat won by Labour from the Conservatives in a by-election.
The Vale of Glamorgan is a beautiful constituency. If anyone is considering taking a holiday within the United Kingdom, I recommend it. It has about 20 miles of coastline and some attractive inlying areas, and so far, the countryside is relatively unspoiled. We have also benefited from the highest level of inward investment of any constituency in Wales, so there is much prosperity in the vale. One sad thing blights that picture: the breakdown of law and order, which has been widely experienced by my constituents.
My solicitor's office, which lies in the heart of Barry, was burgled five times in a few months, and I decided to conduct a survey on what was happening elsewhere in Holton road, which is the second largest shopping street in south Wales. The results of my survey made grim reading. One retail business has been burgled more than 200 times in two years. That reflects a national problem: last year, 5.3 million crimes were reported in Britain.
Before adjourning the House, we need to send strong messages to certain people. I welcome the announcement of a victims charter, but it does not go far enough. The main message that must go forth from this House is that we care far more about the interests of victims than those of villains. We need to send a message to the police, criminals, the motor industry, the courts, solicitors, victims and the public.
The message to the police should be that we support them in their tremendous endeavours to protect us. In return, we look for increased efficiency from them. We need to back up the police. If a police officer is assaulted in the course of his duty, we need to be able to rely on the courts to hand out tough penalties to his assailants. If a police officer or member of the armed forces is murdered in the course of his duty, the death penalty should be reintroduced. On the whole, the police force are marvellous but, as in any profession, there are a few rotten apples. Where those rotten apples cause miscarriages of justice through tampering with evidence, the courts should fall on them like a ton of bricks, and long prison sentences should be imposed.

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The main message for criminals must be that crime does not pay. Offenders who reoffend while on bail should know that they will be automatically remanded in custody and not given a chance to commit further offences. They should also know that, if they commit a string of offences and are eventually brought to justice, they cannot expect a string of concurrent sentences. The more offences they commit, the heavier should be the punishment. They should be made aware that, except in the most exceptional circumstances, they must pay full compensation to the victims of their crimes.
Our message to the courts should be that they should order full compensation, fines and prosecution costs. It is a disgrace that the Barry magistrates court does not normally award prosecution costs against defendants. When I put that to clerks of the court, I was advised that it was difficult to get blood out of a stone—most of the criminals are unemployed. If people are unable or unwilling to pay the orders made by the court, they should be set to work in a new scheme analogous to community service. They should be paid for that work but the money they earn should go first to the victims of their crime, secondly to the court in payment of their financial penalties, and thirdly to the prosecution in payment of costs.
The House should also send a message to solicitors, and I call on the Lord Chancellor to review the operation of the courts. I understand the Lord Chancellor's reasoning in trying to control the ever-burgeoning costs of legal aid by introducing standard fees for criminal legal aid work in the magistrates courts. I declare an interest, having practised for many years as a solicitor in courts. The Lord Chancellor has failed to take account of one of the main reasons why the cost of legal aid has gone up.
With the increased number of defendants appearing in court, there is far more waiting time, for which solicitors get paid at an uneconomic rate. They need to be able to charge for that waiting time if their bills are to reflect the amount of time devoted to the cases in question. Although I do not object to fixed fees for legal aid, the legal profession should, in return, have a reform of the courts' system. Such a reform should get rid of unnecessary adjournments, which are not the fault of solicitors acting for defendants, and reduce waiting time—for example, by introducing a staggered listing system similar to that which already exists in county courts.
The next message is to the motor industry. I want the House to legislate to make the installation of deadlocks on motor cars compulsory at the manufacturing stage. No new car should be sold in this country today unless it is fitted with a satisfactory lock. We have already legislated to make seat belts compulsory: why should not deadlocks also become compulsory? That would save an enormous amount of money in insurance claims, and young people driving high-powered cars would no longer be penalised because their cars were more likely to be stolen. It would be much cheaper to install those locks at the manufacturing stage than to add them later as accessories.
The most important message is to the victims of crimes. They should be allowed to use force to protect their personal property, provided they give full notice to the malefactors of the risks that they run by proceeding with their criminal actions. It is no good victims relying on the
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police. A report in the Financial Times today said that a police constable on the beat in London is likely to come within 100 yards of a burglary being carried out only every eight years. We cannot rely exclusively on the police, and must allow the victims to help themselves. I should also like victims to be invited to attend court so that they have the opportunity to make representations on compensation. Courts should make apologies to victims if full compensation is not granted, and explain why it has not been awarded.
The message from the House to the public should be that the House will not rest until the citizens of Barry and every other city, town and village are safe to go about their business in peace.
6.20 pm
Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: I add my congratulations to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment.
In rising to make my maiden speech I confess to feeling "ever so 'umble". I am aware of the great traditions of this, the mother of Parliaments. I cannot deny the contribution made by the Chamber to the history of the British Isles. The irony is that I stood for election to the Westminster Parliament to secure my release from it, and the return of my nation to the full nation status that is richly and rightly deserved.
Mine is a particular privilege and honour as I represent the constituency of Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, where I was born and bred. I have the pleasure of representing my people, among them family, friends and innumerable acquaintances. Meirionnydd Nant Conwy is a geographically large constituency, although it is sparsely populated. My constituents have traditionally been staunchly independent—a tradition that, thankfully, persists.
In 1974, my predecessor, Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas, was elected to represent the constituency—one of the first real breakthroughs for Plaid Cymru. He held the seat with distinction until his decision last year to resign and make another career move. He was well known in the House as possessing a supreme intellect, and his contributions to debates are legendary. He also set the scene for a debate on the proper place for Wales in the European scenario. A committed European, he typically foresaw the proposed integration of the states of the European Community well before others. Many of his early speeches of 10 or 12 years ago still find favour today.
We in Wales, particularly Plaid Cymru, have always been comfortable with the concept of further integration, while preserving one's identity to the full. As well as being committed to Europe, my predecessor worked tirelessly on behalf of the people of Meirionnydd Nant Conwy and the people of Wales. He served on the Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts, the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs and the Standing Committee that debated the Broadcasting Bill. He was a former president of Plaid Cymru and had a keen interest in regional and countryside policy, as well as cultural and educational policy. Last year he served on the Standing Committee on the Further and Higher Education Bill. He is a hard act to follow and I am mindful of the presssure.
I emanate from a professional stable once occupied by another Welsh wizard, Mr. David Lloyd George. I served my articles at the firm of Lloyd George and George, and

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was articled to Lloyd George's nephew, Dr. William Lloyd George. My father knew Lloyd George—actually, he did not, but I thought that I would say so, anyway.
Welsh is the first language for the vast majority of Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, a constituency of breathtaking scenic beauty, and an amalgam of rural hill farms, slate mining towns and villages, coastal holiday resorts and traditional county councils. There is a saying in Welsh, "Tra Mor, Tra Meirion". For those who do not speak the language of heaven, I shall paraphrase the saying: Meirionnydd will last as long as the sea lasts. That is a romantic concept, but one which could soon be evidenced by local government reorganisation.
Meirionnydd Nant Conwy has everything that one could ask for, including gold mines. It could be argued that the monarchy might be in difficulty were it not for the reserves of high-quality gold in the hills of my constituency. I have to be careful not to romanticise overmuch—a temptation when one is describing something that one dearly loves. However, we do have problems —problems which may threaten the very existence of my constituency. They include high unemployment and chronic youth unemployment. There is a housing crisis of staggering proportions and crises in agriculture brought about largely by the Government's laissez-faire attitude to the common agricultural policy reform proposals. Such an approach appears typical when one considers the depth of Euro-cynicism among Government ranks.
Nothing that I have heard in the Chamber gives me comfort or reassurance that the serious problems are being effectively addressed—in fact, the contrary is true. Urgent initiatives must be taken if we are to combat the chronic youth unemployment. Is it not possible to re-evaluate the youth training schemes to make them more attractive to the young and to prospective employers? Would it not be possible to set a mandatory longer term for employment to qualify for the scheme?
We must try to regenerate the economy of Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, particularly as the Trawsfynydd power station is soon to be decommissioned. During a recent visit to the European Community headquarters in Brussels, I canvassed the possibility of funding for the future in the event of the station's closure, and was staggered that the subject had not previously been discussed.
We need inward investment, and to ensure that, we need a transport infrastructure that will attract jobs and job creators to Meirionnydd Nant Conwy. I referred to the crisis in housing. In the public sector, 1,100 people are on the local authority waiting lists. That figure is creeping upward daily. If there is to be a serious reorganisation of local government in Wales, it provides the opportunity to bring responsibility back to the local authorities, where it should be. The right-to-buy legislation had benefits for individuals, but wrought havoc on the public housing stock. The Government should be urged to fund Tai Cymru properly and so assist enthusiastic housing associations in their vital role. The problem is sufficiently acute to merit an attack on both fronts.
Planning legislation should be introduced in the private sector to minimise the detrimental socio-economic effect of second homes and the consequent harm to the constituency's intrinsic culture. It is well know that a small amendment to the Use Classes Order could readily address that problem. That would involve minimal legislation, but could have a major effect.
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One family in five in my constituency depends either directly or indirectly on the agricultural industry. We must face the challenge posed by the CAP cuts head on, and we must cut the cloth to suit our needs. Only then can we be assured of a healthy and prosperous future for the constituency. It is no use sitting here and complaining: the answer is to take a full part in the European deliberations. The Secretary of State for Wales, as the Government Member responsible for agriculture in Wales, should have done so at an early date. I am hopeful that he will shoulder his responsibilities as he should and, even at the eleventh hour, take on the challenge for our communities.
On 11 May, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) said that Plaid Cymru
"did incredibly well to win four seats in Wales",
although he confessed that he did not know what the message was. He also invited my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Dafis) to
"explain to the House where he thinks Wales is going."—[Official Report, 11 May 1992; Vol. 207, c. 427.]
My hon. Friend is well able to answer any questions put to him, as he displayed in his masterly maiden speech, but I shall reply to the hon. Member for Christchurch.
Wales is on its way to self-government. The electorate of Wales will see Plaid Cymru as the only radical party in Welsh politics. They see Plaid Cymru as being in the main stream of European politics and they see in support for Plaid Cymru the way forward to solving its problems, some of which I have but briefly highlighted.
I pledge to work tirelessly and ceaselessly for the benefit of my constituents and the people of Wales. Thank you, Sir, for your indulgence.
6.28 pm
Mr. James Clappison: I rise with trepidation to make my maiden speech. Earlier today, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister referred to the making of a maiden speech as an occasion that no hon. Member would ever forget. I am sure that that is as true of me as of every hon. Member.
My trepidation has been increased by the series of eloquent speeches from other new Members, including the hon. Members for Rochdale (Ms. Lynne), for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Ms. Jones), for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Burden) and for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) and my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen). I particularly enjoyed the speech by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms. Lynne). I once visited Rochdale to watch a rugby league match, and I agree with the hon. Lady that it is a most interesting and agreeable place—and underrated—but I regret to tell her that on that occasion Rochdale Hornets lost by a wide margin.
I rise to make my maiden speech today to draw the attention of the House to a serious problem that has arisen in Hertsmere, but before doing that I should like to pay tribute to my predecessor, Cecil Parkinson, not just as a matter of custom but because everyone in Hertsmere would want me to. Besides occupying the highest offices of state, he was always held in the highest esteem and affection by his constituents, as a tireless servant of their interests. I know that he has many friends in this place and many others in the constituency.
Cecil Parkinson represented Hertsmere for more than 20 years. He first entered the House in a by-election in 1970, following the tragic death of Lain Macleod, then the

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Member for Enfield, West. One of the many pleasures of representing Hertsmere is that of meeting many people in Potters Bar and other parts of the constituency which used to be in Enfield, West who remember lain Macleod to this day, who cherish his memory and who are proud of the influence that he exerted on the public life of this country. They are proud of his legacy and of the one-nation ideal which is still very much alive today. Their association with the late Iain Macleod is a matter of great pride to my constituents.
Besides Potters Bar, Hertsmere consists of a number of other communities in the southernmost parts of Hertfordshire, each fiercely independent and proud of its identity, but linked by a common thread of interest. Hertsmere has some of the loveliest countryside in close proximity to London. In the past week or so, we have heard many maiden speeches praising the beauties of the countryside of various constituencies, and I would add Hertsmere to that list—with the distinction that there can be few other places so close to London with such beautiful countryside. I know that both my predecessors were keen to preserve the quality of life in that countryside against the inevitable encroachment consequent on its proximity to London.
My constituents would also like me to mention the rail links between Hertsmere and London. It seems to be almost a convention that maiden speakers should complain about the state of the railway services to their constituencies, and we have heard a long list of such complaints—to which I should like to add a word of praise. Over the past 13 years, there have been great improvements in the rail services in my constituency, especially with the introduction of Thameslink, which has been supported by a considerable programme of investment in the railways. That in turn has greatly improved the rail services between my constituency and London.
Unfortunately, given the almost infinite capacity of British Rail to give with one hand and take away with the other, the improvement in daily services has been accompanied by a threat to Sunday services in the constituency, particularly to the communities of Radlett, Borehamwood and Elstree. In other parts of the constituency too, Sunday services leave something to be desired and my constituents want them improved.
My constituents are also interested in housing. A few moments ago, the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) mentioned complaints about housing. My constituents are pleased with the developments in housing in the past 13 years—especially the 3,600 of them who had the chance to purchase their own homes through the council house purchase-of-property scheme. Thousands of others became home owners over the same period.
In the current economic climate, my constituents greatly appreciate the suspension of stamp duty on house purchases which continues in effect until August—and they would be pleased if the scheme were extended.
One other matter gravely concerns a large number of my constituents. They all find it disagreeable, but for some of them it causes a great deal of hurt. I refer to a series of systematic attacks on the Jewish community in my
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constituency. In the past three months, Jewish people have been subjected to organised attacks on themselves, their religious institutions and their leaders.
In March, one of the synagogues in my constituency was visited twice by criminals, who attacked the premises and daubed them with slogans of the basest kind, thereby causing great pain to constituents who attended the synagogue. That was followed in April by two incidents when, at a different synagogue, congregants attending services were verbally harassed in an unpleasant way by people who were clearly acting in concert.
On top of all this, the private home of a rabbi was recently visited by people who one can only conclude were the same miscreants who had perpetrated the earlier offences. Once again, appallingly hurtful slogans were daubed, this time on the rabbi's private home; not only was his privacy invaded, but the entire Jewish community in the constituency were greatly affronted.
All right-thinking people in my constituency—my constituents are right-thinking people—are filled with the greatest disgust by these actions. Among the Jewish community, they re-awaken old fears and create potent new ones—and they cause the greatest possible hurt.
I raise this matter on the Adjournment because it is important, and I do so in the full knowledge that the Government have had an exemplary record of taking action against just this sort of activity. We know that the resources of the police have been greatly increased in the past few years, and legal machinery has been put in place to deal with such activities.
The Public Order Act 1986 created the new offence of incitement to racial hatred—a fact which I am sure is of considerable solace to my constituents at this time. They will be pleased to know that anyone engaging in this type of activity can now receive a sentence of two years' imprisonment. I hope that, when the courts deal with this sort of offence, they will take a robust view of sentencing and will sentence not only according to the immediate physical consequences of an act but according to the wider hurt and fear that it may create.
I urge the Government to take every opportunity, as I know they will, to stamp out this sort of activity. I am absolutely confident that it represents the antithesis of what the Government and the Prime Minister stand for and of the sort of society that he wants to create—indeed, this sort of activity should have no place in any decent society.
Although they can create a great deal of hurt, the people who perpetrate these crimes are probably very few in number. Nevertheless, my constituents are also concerned about the fact that, in recent times, extreme political parties have apparently enjoyed so much success in countries not far from our own. In those countries, sentiments espoused by political extremists in this country are expressed clandestinely, or even openly.
In the light of that, I urge the Government to continue to defend our constitution and our electoral system. I believe that that constitution and electoral system have served this country well, at times when other countries' constitutions and electoral systems have served them much less well. It would be a very sad day when the forces of extremism that we now see in other countries gained even a foothold in our own.
I have made my maiden speech with a great deal of pride. I am proud of being a Member of the House of Commons, and I am proud of its history; I am also proud

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because I know that, in every party represented here, there is no place for the extremist activities that I have described. I hope that that will long continue, and that I never see the day when extremists occupy our Benches.
6.41 pm
Mr. Jamie Cann: I feel rather as I did when I first went to the dentist—full of trepidation, but knowing that at least it will all be over soon.
I have the honour to have been elected to represent Ipswich in the Labour interest, and in the interests of the people of that town. Before I go any further, I must mention my predecessor, Michael Irvine, who was an assiduous attender of the House and also a very pleasant man. He fought hard and defended the Government's position with courage, and I was therefore delighted to scrape home with a majority of 265.
Let me also mention Mr. Irvine's predecessor, who will still be well known to many hon. Members. Ken Weetch was the Labour Member from 1974 until 1987. and he is still very popular in both the constituency and the House.
Ipswich is just up the River Orwell from the port of Felixstowe, and was founded in the 5th century as an Anglo-Saxon village called Gyppeswic. It was burnt down four times by the Vikings, but we are still in favour of Europe—just. This year, its football team won the second division championship. It is now going into the premier league, and it is a matter of some sorrow to me that I shall not be able to watch the away matches because the rights have all been sold to BSkyB, or whatever it is called now. The team also won the 1978 FA cup against Arsenal, I am pleased to say. At that time, everyone in the town was incensed by the football commentators' description of Ipswich as a "sleepy little market town". We are not that; we are an industrial-relations town at root.
Ipswich still has many manufacturing industries, producing grass-cutting machinery, compressors, car components, lift motors, valves, pipes, castings and so forth. It has, however, broadened its range, and is now a large commercial centre specialising particularly in insurance firms. It is also the fifth largest container port in Britain. We in Ipswich have many facilities, and we live in a beautiful area in which we take a great deal of civic pride. We consider ourselves the regional capital of East Anglia; colleagues in Cambridge and Norwich dispute that, but of course they are wrong.
We have our problems, of course, but I wish to mention only one of them today. A large concern in the constituency. Ransome and Rapier, recently went bust; not only did it go bust, but, unfortunately, it went bust a few months after it had been bought by Robert Maxwell, and its pension fund is one of those that have been looted by him. The House will not be surprised to learn that I am one of the hundred or so Members of Parliament who are trying, on an all-party basis, to get something done about that. It is all very well for us to adjourn for our holidays next week, but some of my constituents do not know whether they will receive their pension cheques at the end of the month. Already a pension fund has closed down, affecting some people in Suffolk.
I believe—along with all the other members of the action group—that it is right, proper and desirable for the President of the Board of Trade to make a statement. We should like that statement to say that the Government undertake to drip-feed and underwrite any pension funds
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that may be in danger of closing absolutely, so that they may be kept going until investigations have apportioned blame. In particular, we should like the right hon. Gentleman to assure us that he intends to help to force the banks to release the £217 milion of pension fund money that they are holding. It is not their money; it was lodged with them as security, but it belongs to the pension fund, and we should like the Government to help us to get it back. We also believe that the right hon. Gentleman should take on board the 30 suggestions made by the Select Committee on Social Services, so that we can ensure that such a thing never happens again.
That is the only problem affecting Ipswich to which I shall refer today, because it is the most urgent. Ipswich has other problems, however, and I promise that on future occasions I shall bring them to the notice of the House.
6.46 pm
Mr. Jon Owen Jones: I have been privileged to sit here this afternoon and hear the many contributions made by other hon. Members, particularly the maiden speeches. However, the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) made me feel even more daunted by the challenge.
In making my maiden speech, I find little difficulty in following one convention—that of referring kindly to the previous Member of Parliament for my constituency. Mr. Ian Grist is an old-fashioned gentleman of courage and integrity, and I have met no hon. Member on either side of the House who thought ill of him. He was very well regarded by his fellow Welsh Tory Members, who showed particular and unusual loyalty to him when he was sacked last year as a junior Welsh Office Minister.
It was said at the time that Ian Grist paid the price for backing the wrong horse in the Tory leadership election. I hope that it will now be of some comfort to him to learn that his friend and colleague, the hon. Member for the neighbouring constituency of Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones), has succeeded him in his former post. Let me take this opportunity to congratulate my fellow Cardiff Member on his promotion: I am sure that, like Mr. Grist before him, he will seek consultation and consensus before controversy and conflict. One result of the general election for which we can thank my hon. Friend the new Member for Pembroke (Mr. Ainger) is the reversal of a "Major" change in the Welsh Office: again, there are three Heseltinians working in harness there.
Reading the maiden speech that Mr. Grist made 18 years ago, I was struck by his reference to the changing structure of employment in the constituency. He noticed the decline in traditional industries that was taking place then, and the fact that the service sector was becoming dangerously dominant. Over the past two decades, little has changed in that regard. If anything, the trend has accelerated: with the notable exception of Panasonic and Allied Steel and Wire, it is the service industries that now dominate Cardiff to an excessive degree.
The service sector provides over 80,000 jobs in a city that has a population of less than one third of a million, and during the past decade there has been a further 9 per cent. reduction in the activity of productive industries. Jobs in metal goods and vehicles have declined over that period from 10,000 to 8,500. Other manufacturing has seen a decline in employment from 8,500 to 7,000. The figures confirm a long-term loss of Cardin productive

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sector and the manual employment that it provided, and it is no longer an industrial city. Indeed, Bournemouth manufactures more than Cardiff. The Government generally and the Welsh Office especially must help local authorities and industry to redress the employment imbalance.
This month's employment statistics show that, in Cardiff, Central, 4,765 people are officially registered as unemployed. It is the second highest level of unemployment in Wales—higher than the levels of unemployment in the valley constituencies. That is the unemployment that is to be found in the centre of the Principality's capital.
The constituency contains pockets of dangerously high levels of male unemployment. It is 27 per cent. in the Adamstown ward and 20 per cent. in Cathays and Plasnewydd. These inner-city wards need work desperately. In some parts of the city, as many as one in every two young men are out of work. The stresses and strains that this places on our society can be seen, perhaps, in Coventry and Los Angeles. They were evidenced in Ely, another Cardiff ward, last year.
My research has shown that, before Mr. Grist, the Member who represented my constituency was my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands). My hon. Friend won the seat in 1966 and held it for the next eight years. When he made his maiden speech as the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central, he referred to the building of the Severn bridge, and that presents an opportunity that I can hardly resist. During his eight years as the Member for my constituency the toll on the bridge decreased from half a crown to 12p in 1974, which was a 41 per cent. decrease in real terms.
The toll increased to £1 during the 18 years of Mr. Grist's representation of the constituency. In real terms, that was perhaps a modest increase of 35 per cent., about 2 per cent. per annum above the rate of inflation. I have represented the constituency for only one month, and the toll has already increased by 40 per cent. for cars—the charge is now £2.80—and 180 per cent. for light vans, for which the charge is now £5.60. In only a month, the tolls have increased by much greater amounts than the sum total of previous increases over the previous 26 years.
It is worth comparing the figures with the tolls that are levied on the Dartford bridge, which are currently 80p each way for cars and light commercial vehicles. It is a valid comparison, as the Dartford bridge, which was opened in October, was built to relieve bottlenecks between Essex and Kent. Could the difference in treatment relate to the number of Conservative-held constituencies in Essex and Kent, bearing in mind that there are only two Conservative-represented constituencies in Gwent and Glamorgan?
If, as we are told, high tolls are needed to finance the second crossing of the Severn, why are there no tolls on the new M40, which was built at considerable cost to relieve the M1 and the M6? Over the next few years, it is estimated that £1 billion will be collected on the Severn bridge, and much of that money would have been spent in south Wales. As we have no overall tolling policy in the United Kingdom, unlike some other countries, we have what amounts to a selective tax on the economic region of south Wales.
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Two hundred years ago, small farmers and traders in west Wales became so enraged at the unfair tolls exacted on the goods they took to market that they burned down the toll gates, but I am not advocating burning down the Severn bridge. The farmers disguised themselves as women, and the uprising became known as the Rebecca riots. My wife has an ancestor who, as a Rebecca rioter, was deported to Australia. Press reports suggest that business men and women who are running small businesses in Avon and Gwent will demonstrate on the Severn bridge during the bank holiday, thus producing even more traffic chaos than normal.
I ask the Government seriously to reconsider the tolls and to note the protest. The tolls are unjust and have caused otherwise law-abiding citizens to consider taking action that even threatens to drive the hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Evans) into the arms of the daughters of Rebecca. I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones), the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman for Wales, to use all his influence to change the unjust tolls.
6.57 pm
Mr. Tony Banks: First, Madam Deputy Speaker, I congratulate you on your appointment. As you know, I have long been one of the your greatest admirers in the House. I look forward to a long and happy relationship with you. It is one that has started most auspiciously this evening.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Owen Jones) on his maiden speech. He made it with wit and with a succinctness that I shall try to follow. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott), the Opposition Front Bench spokesman, wishes to respond to the debate at about 7 o'clock, which gives me only two minutes. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central that it takes some courage to refer to early cross-dressing in Wales in a maiden speech. I look forward to hearing more of his speeches.
There is a lesson for all newly elected Members, and it was the first lesson that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) taught me. I think that it is a lesson that he teaches everyone. It is important to know that, if we are to take advantage of this place, we must be present. Being here is the important thing. There have been two wonderful examples today of the advantage of being here. The first example was provided by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover, who took advantage of the opportunity that our proceedings offered to have a debate on a matter of principle. That was followed by a somewhat controversial vote, but it was an interesting manoeuvre.
We then heard my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). He provided an object lesson for all newly elected Members and experienced Members. He demonstrated how useful this place can be for an assiduous Member who wants to pursue the cause of justice, as my hon. Friend has done so well and so often.
In the short time that is available to me, I suggest that the House should debate the disposal of county hall before we move off for the spring adjournment. I should explain for new Members who do not know London that county hall is the wonderful building almost opposite the House that used to be the headquarters of the Greater London council. It is a grade 2 listed building. It was paid for by London ratepayers, and it was there to be the home of

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Londonwide local government. Had my party won the election, it would have been restored to that position. It would have been the home of the new greater London authority. Unfortunately, an ungrateful electorate did not give the Labour party the majority that it merited, which means that we shall not have to return to this issue on a later date.
The House should surely have some time to consider the various options that are now being proposed for county hall. The GLC was abolished in 1986, as an act of political spite by the Government. It was inspired and initiated by that vicious old loony who is now on her way to the other place. That viciousness was subsequently compounded by a decision not to allow county hall to be used for public purposes.
It was suggested that it should be used for offices for Members of Parliament, and that would have been welcomed on both sides of the House. There was also a proposal that it should be used by a Government Department, and we would have been prepared to accept that if we could not have it for a new Greater London authority. If officials of the Department of the Environment are to move, perhaps they should move into county hall rather than being moved down river to Canary Wharf to save Olympia and York.
Currently, there are two proposals for county hall—one from the London School of Economics and the other from a Japanese hotel organisation called the Shirayama group, which is a privately owned company with a staff of seven and a turnover last year of only £10 million. The LSE has put forward a more than adequate proposal for the use of county hall, so it is absurd that a proposal from a fly-by-night cowboy concern should be looked on with apparent favour by the Government, and certainly with favour by the London residuary body.
It is scandalous that an international academic institution such as the LSE should be bounced in favour of a cowboy Japanese hotel group. If county hall were to be turned into a luxury hotel and luxury flats, patronised by Japanese tourists, it would be an obscene and absurd use of that wonderful building. I hope that, when the Government consider the proposals from those two very different organisations, they will favour a British educational institution over a Japanese hotel group.
7.1 pm
Mr. Bruce Grocott: I congratulate you on your appointment, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Broadcasting Select Committee's loss is the Chair's gain. I am sure that you will enjoy your position; we shall certainly enjoy your presence in the Chair.
It has fallen to me to respond to a large number of Adjournment debates over the past five years, and I must confess that there have been occasions on which my attention has wandered while I have sat through three hours of speeches. However, I appear to have done the job so well that I am asked back time and again.
My attention has wandered much less today than in the past, because of the interesting maiden speeches that we have heard. It always sounds patronising to say that maiden speeches are outstanding, but I truly thought that they were today. Most of us tend to put more sweat into a maiden speech than into subsequent speeches, so perhaps the amount of work put into their preparation is reflected in their quality. The quality was certainly high today.
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Although, there were 10 maiden speeches, and it would take me more than the 10 minutes available to respond to them all properly—but I shall try.
The hon. Member for Rochdale (Miss Lynne) spoke with great fluency about the discriminisation experienced by people with disabilities. I am sure that she will want to speak about that on future occasions and that the House will want to hear her.
I am sure that the House will understand when I say that the two maiden speeches that gave me the most pleasure were by Members for west midlands constituencies. We did our bit in the west midlands, with seven net gains for the Labour party. That will increase the west midlands regional group—already a splendid group—by 25 per cent. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Ms. Jones) made a highly knowledgeable and serious speech about the west midlands serious crime squad—one that certainly demands a response from the Minister when he replies to the debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Burden) produced the most startling statistic—that the lowest access to car usage by families in any south Birmingham ward is in the Longbridge ward. It is a statistic that in future I shall quote as though it were my own.
It is appropriate also to refer to a speech that was not a maiden, but which in many ways related to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Selly Oak. I refer, of course, to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). I do not need to patronise him, but I thought that it was a masterly speech, given his tremendous record on exposing miscarriages of justice. The Government should understand the sense of outrage that people feel about those who have received sentences—which in the past undoubtedly would have been capital sentences—and who are now known to have been innocent. My hon. Friend controls his outrage in a most remarkable way. His comments certainly need a response from the Minister.
Other hon. Members also made their maiden speeches on law and order, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South said, they were of a slightly different flavour from his. The hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) spoke about law and order, and we do not like to disagree with comments made so early in someone's parliamentary career. However, he also said something with which I strongly agree, and that was about the plight of the Maxwell pensioners. That issue was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Cann), who also made a splendid maiden speech. Again, the Government must respond to those speeches. I am sure that many other hon. Members would also have raised that matter had they had the opportunity to do so.
I was impressed by the phrases used in the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Ms. Squire). I liked the phrase she used about parts of her constituency, where "work and welcome" are characteristics. Again, that is a phrase that I shall use as though it were mine. The substance of my hon. Friend's speech was about the low-paid, a subject to which I hope she will return again and again. Labour Members make no apologies for the campaign we fought during the general election on the basis of a strong belief in a national basic minimum wage.
The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Sweeney) was most generous in his remarks about his

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predecessor, my friend John Smith, who was a splendid Member for Parliament for that constituency. The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) spoke with pride about the area that he represents, and he too paid tribute to his predecessor. The hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) spoke fluently and without notes in his maiden speech. He showed quite remarkable confidence.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Owen Jones) made an extremely witty speech. It is difficult to jest in this place, but he managed to do so while also making serious points. I hope that he does not incite his constituents to riot. He certainly made a powerful case about toll charges on the Severn bridge.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich raised another issue about which I want to speak before my coat is pulled; I am rapidly running out of time. As my hon. Friend said, due to the operation of the free market, his constituents, like those of other hon. Members, will have less and less choice in the amount of sport that they can see on television. I raise that matter in what is perhaps a populist manner, but it is extremely serious and important. The new Leader of the House is the fourth in five years, and one of his key responsibilities will be as a member of the Broadcasting Select Committee—where I hope to join him.
That was one of the few achievements of the last Parliament and one of the few about which I feel pleased. Most of the others I opposed. However, we massively extended our democratic system by allowing television pictures from this House to reach millions of our constituents. That has been an unqualified success. I hope that the televising of Parliament will be extended and developed. I hope, too, that there will be television coverage of more Select Committees and Standing Committees and that there will be more regional coverage by the regional television companies. In addition, I hope that more educational use will be made of the signal from this Chamber.
The Leader of the House must, however, have a few words with some of his right hon. Friends. There is not the slightest point in transmitting spectacularly good pictures of what goes on in this Chamber, or anywhere else, if there is no national system of broadcasting. I used sport as a very important example. We were unable to watch World Cup cricket and we will be unable to see many Football League matches, because the so-called market forces have ensured that a small company with a lot of money behind it has denied most of my constituents, who do not have satellite dishes, the right to watch all these events.
If that is an extension of freedom of choice, it is a new definition. It is not even, in any sensible way, the operation of market forces. If market forces had operated in relation to satellite broadcasting, the companies involved would have gone bankrupt a long time ago, but, they were bailed out by other related companies with plenty of money to spare.
Having referred to the sports side of the question, I return to the television coverage of the proceedings of this House. It is not just that national television is being threatened as a result of the loss of the coverage of sporting events that previously all people could watch. There are now serious threats to the news and current affairs
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coverage that is provided by our national television networks. Tremendous damage was done to the system by the Broadcasting Act 1990. Now we hear that programmes such as "World in Action" are likely to lose their prime time slots. "This Week" and other current affairs programmes are also threatened. We hear that some companies think that programmes such as "News at Ten" are taking up prime time slots and that "News at Ten" should be changed to "News at 3 am" so that a game show can be transmitted at 10 pm.
The effectiveness of the way in which politics and current affairs are covered in this country, including the way in which the signal from this House is used by the broadcasters, depends upon serious programmes being transmitted at times when viewers are able to watch them. The BBC and ITV national networks must be defended and sustained. No good will be done by unedited transmission of the proceedings in this House to a few people with satellite dishes. People are informed about national issues by news and current affairs bulletins that are made available to everybody and transmitted at a time when they are up and awake and able to take advantage of them.
I do not believe that I am putting in too grandiose a way when I say that, if anybody says anything about the coverage of the general election campaign, they will have to acknowledge, in fairness, that, if the people of this country had had to rely on newspapers alone for their information, any remote notion that the election was fought on a level playing field would have been ludicrous. The only conceivable argument that it was or began to be a level playing field would be that there was national broadcasting on radio and television that followed the guidelines laid down by the House.
If, during the next five years, the national broadcasting system is undermined—we see it already in sport and we may see it in current affairs—and it becomes more like the newspapers, with dozens of editions available but no content of substance and no requirement that there should be fairness and impartiality, the next election will be fought on a grotesquely unfair basis, because people will not be provided with proper, balanced information about news and current affairs.
The responsibility of the Leader of the House to this House is different from that of any Member of the Cabinet. He will be judged not by the extent to which he is a hatchet man for the Government but by the extent to which he sees that he has a responsibility to the whole of the House, which includes ensuring that the affairs of this House are properly transmitted by television signals and other means to the public at large, upon which they can make a balanced judgment on how we go about our affairs and debate the great issues of the day. It is his duty and responsibility to do that in as non-partisan a way as he can. If he does that, he will certainly have our support.
7.15 pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): I hope that the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott) will forgive me if, during the short time available to me, I do not refer to all the points that he has made. The spirit in which I shall approach my duties as Leader of the House was fairly

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well set out in the speech that I made at the conclusion of the debate last week on the Gracious Speech, which I hope did not qualify me for his terminology as a hatchet man.
I do not suggest that I used to have fantasies about being Leader of the House, but I have always had a hankering to be in the position, at the end of this particular debate, of being able to look the House in the eye and say to all those Members who had made speeches that they had been so persuasive that I had decided that we should not have the recess. However, I have decided that discretion is the better part of valour.
Therefore, on this slightly strange occasion, when the Leader of the House is supposed to be one of the world's most formidable polymaths, capable of replying to all the points that have been made in profusion during the debate, I shall do what is expected of me. If I am unable to communicate as much information as the House would like to hear, I have to admit that I have learnt a great deal, including the names of an almost infinite number of towns and villages. At one point I thought that I was going to learn from my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West (Sir A. Grant) the name of every squirrel in Brampton wood.
Let me attempt to comment, in the time available to me, on some of the speeches, including a formidable number of very good maiden speeches. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms. Lynne) paid what we all regarded as a pleasing tribute to her predecessor, Sir Cyril Smith, who was certainly one of the characters of the House in the time that I have been here. She showed that she will be a worthy successor because of the vigour with which she spoke about community care. That did her great credit. I hope that she will understand that, were I making a longer and different speech, I should wish to comment on the way in which the Government's plans for improving the delivery of community care are moving forward at this very moment, in the way she knows. However, she was right to place great emphasis on the importance of the subject.
We also heard a pleasing maiden speech from the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Ms. Squire), who is not currently in her place. [HoN. MEMBERS: "She is."] I apologise unreservedly.
Mr. Tony Banks: The right hon. Gentleman cannot afford the eye test.
Mr. Newton: I can now assure the hon. Gentleman that he will get left off the end of this speech.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline, West brilliantly described her predecessor, Dick Douglas, as a man of independence of mind, a description with which all of us would agree, and went on to make a plea on behalf of Dunfermline abbey as the Westminster abbey north of the border. That drew a surprising degree of assent—given that there must be a number of other competitors—from some of her Scottish colleagues on the Opposition Benches.
The hon. Lady spoke more controversially, although not unacceptably so, about the problems of low pay. On that front, I would merely observe that only two Community member states—France and Spain—have a statutory minimum wage of the kind that she appears to advocate. France is experiencing record levels of unemployment and Spain has the highest unemployment
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of any country in the Community, so those two countries are not an especially good advertisement for what the hon. Lady proposes.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) spoke of his predecessor, Sir Richard Luce—a man held in high regard by all of us—and then went through a formidable list of demands which, to my great pleasure, appeared to bear a considerable resemblance to the Conservative party manifesto, thus presenting me with a rather less difficult task than some Opposition Members did. My hon. Friend spoke persuasively, and his was an impressive maiden speech.
I think that I am right this time: the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) is not in her place. [HON. MEMBERS: "She is."] In that case, she has moved. You, Madam Deputy Speaker, will probably agree that it is useful if hon. Members sit in the same place most of the time because we then have some chance of knowing whether they are here. At any rate, I am glad to remedy that error, too, and say how pleased all of us on the Conservative Benches were with the hon. Lady's comments not only about her Labour predecessor, Tom Litterick, but about her immediate predecessor, Anthony Beaumont-Dark, whom we remember even better and with a good deal of affection and respect.
The hon. Lady commented mainly on the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions in respect of the investigations of the West Midlands serious crime squad. She will probably understand —as her hon. Friends certainly will—that the only comment that it is proper for me to make is that the decision whether to prosecute is entirely for the DPP. It was a fluent and impressive maiden speech, none the less.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Burden) recognised not only his own interest in the motor industry but the formidable interest of his predecessor, Roger King, both in the motor industry in general and in the sport of motor racing in particular. Reference was made to Roger King's victory over the House of Lords —which the absent hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) would no doubt regard, approvingly, as some kind of symbol—in a rally some time ago.
The hon. Gentleman's speech will have struck a chord with many of his Scottish colleagues. He referred not only to the problems of inner cities, which we all seek to address, but to a problem that is more familiar to Scotland —the outer-ring estates around cities—and drew a parallel with Birmingham. The Government are well aware of the sort of problems of which the hon. Gentleman spoke, although we might not all agree on what is the right solution. I shall certainly ensure that the hon. Gentleman's interesting remarks are drawn to my right hon. Friend's attention.
My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Sweeney) spoke in a way that will have impressed hon. Members on both sides of the House about his immediate and short-lived predecessor, who won the seat in the by-election. My hon. Friend properly paid tribute to John Smith, who, as he said, nearly pulled off the very difficult task of retaining the seat at the general election. Conservative Members are pleased that my hon. Friend managed to pull it off himself, and I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary will look closely at his remarks about crime in the area.
I have some difficulty in competing with the remarks of the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr.

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Llwyd), the name of whose constituency I have some difficulty in pronouncing. He clearly shares with us a high regard for his predecessor, Dafydd Elis Thomas. We were sad to see Dr. Thomas go, but it is clear from the hon. Gentleman's remarks that he will be a worthy successor in speaking for the Welsh interest in the House. In view of his reference to Welsh as the first language of his constituency, I hope that he was pleased to see that a Welsh language Bill was included in the Queen's Speech.
As the hon. Member for The Wrekin said, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) spoke with tremendous fluency and without notes, and in a way that will have commanded support across the party divide about the disgraceful attacks on synagogues in his area. He will have drawn the support of us all for his remarks on that, and I assure him that the Government and all my right hon. and hon. Friends will be concerned to do anything that they can to help him and the police and other authorities in his constituency to try to stamp out that entirely unacceptable behaviour.
I fear that I must apologise to those who spoke in the debate who did not make maiden speeches, as I may not be able to comment on what they said in the two minutes left to me. Instead I come to the last two maiden speeches. The hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Owen Jones) paid tribute to a long-standing friend of mine, Ian Grist, with whom I used to be in the Conservative party organisation years ago, and made some remarks while I was briefly out of the Chamber which I had recorded for me. The hon. Gentleman apparently referred to the burning of toll gates in Wales during the 18th century and appears to have referred to—although I hope not made —a threat of similar demonstrations in the vicinity on a bank holiday in the near future.
Lastly, I come to my nearest neighbour in my Essex constituency of Braintree, the new hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Cann). I much appreciated his remarks about his predecessor, Michael Irvine, who brought a number of Maxwell pensioners to see me when I was Secretary of State for Social Security. I know Ipswich rather well. I was a boy in Harwich, and I used to watch Ipswich play football in the days when there was still something called third division south and nobody had heard of Ipswich. One thing that he and I have in common, across the political divide, is our great pleasure at the success of his town in football over the past few years.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House, at its rising on Friday 22nd May, do adjourn until Tuesday 2nd June.

Orders of the Day

  Non-Domestic Rating Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  7.27 pm
  The Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities (Mr. John Redwood): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The Bill will reduce the non-domestic rates for businesses in England and Wales facing the largest increases in their rates following the 1990 non-domestic revaluation. It honours the pledge given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget speech on 10 March. The Budget proposals in question were well received by the Opposition. I hope that the Bill, too, will be welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House.
  The 1990 reforms have brought substantial benefits to many businesses. Those that have reached their full new rate bills are already benefiting from the limitation of any increase to the rate of inflation. About half of all properties in England and Wales would have experienced rate rises of only 4.1 per cent. this year, anyway—before the Bill was introduced.
  For a number of businesses, however, the 1990 reforms would have meant much larger increases this year. That is primarily due to the effects of the large shift in rateable values resulting from the revaluation. For many businesses, particularly shops and offices in the south-east, values have not caught up with the changes in rental values during the boom years of the 1980s.
  Many hon. Members will agree that we could not go on using valuations based on the market as it was in 1973. Adjustment was bound to be painful, which is why we are phasing in the changes gradually.
  Under the transitional arrangements already in operation, no bill was to rise by more than 20 per cent. a year in real terms. For smaller businesses—those with a new rateable value of £15,000 in London or £10,000 elsewhere—the limit was 15 per cent. For properties with living accommodation attached, we reduced the limit to 10 per cent. from 1 April 1991, on top of the £140 reduction in personal community charge on the domestic element.
  I know that the recession has created difficulties for many businesses and some of those that would have faced the largest increases this year have been particularly hard hit in the recession. The Government have therefore decided that their costs this year should not be worsened by any real increases in the business rates.
  We propose a one-year freeze to provide a breathing space. We estimate that almost a quarter of a million shops and offices, many in the south of England, will benefit from reductions worth more than £160 million from this measure alone. Manufacturing industry in the north will also benefit. More than 80,000 properties in the industrial sector in the country will receive reductions totalling £25 million. A further 160,000 business premises will gain relief worth £110 million, bringing the total cost of the measure to more than £300 million this year and £200 million next year.
  The gains for individual businesses could be substantial. A small business property outside London with a new rateable value just below the £10,000 threshold

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  could save around £1,000 over the next two years in the amount that it has to pay. A property in London with a new rateable value just below the £15,000 threshold could save about £1,500. In each case, the saving is equivalent to about 12.5 per cent. of the full annual rates bill of the property concerned. For larger properties, the gains could be even more substantial. A property with a new rateable value of around £50,000 could save more than £6,000 over the next two years.
  In 1955, a new revaluation based on the state of the property market as at 1 April 1993 will come into effect. Given the downturn in the market since 1 April 1988—the valuation date used for the last revaluation—rental values in those sectors which have been worst hit by the recession may be lower than in 1988. If so, rateable values will fall at the next revaluation. That means that some businesses still in transition in 1994–95 towards the highest rate bills implied by the 1990 valuation, might never reach those bills. The present pause in the increases will be especially helpful in such cases, and I am sure that all hon. Members will welcome that measure.
  Mr. John Greenway: My hon. Friend the Minister has touched on a point that is of great concern to many businesses in my constituency, particularly in the shops and hotel sector, where the revaluations introduced two or three years ago mean that it would take about 15 years at the current rate of progress for those valuations to work through. While the pause is very welcome and has been extremely popular, there is a great worry that, in two or three years' time, businesses will face massive increases in their bills. Will my hon. Friend assure the House that that will not occur?
  Mr. Redwood: I am aware of the problem. As my hon. Friend illustrates, the problem is not confined to the south. It also affects many towns and settlements in the north. I will repeat the assurance that I have just given. If, on the date of the next revaluation, the values in 1988 turn out to be peak values, and next year's values are lower, that of course will be reflected in 1995 in the bills that businesses in my hon. Friend's constituency will have to pay. They will never have to pay those very high bills based on the 1988 values if those values turn out to be peak values, which, in some cases, I believe will be the case. 1 hope that that reassures my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Greenway: Will my hon. Friend assure the House that the phasing will continue? We are likely to face a situation in which even the 1988 values may only be halfway through being implemented. If those values are confirmed in real terms—one expects that there will be valuation changes across the country—businesses are seeking an assurance that the phasing will be continued.
  Mr. Redwood: I will answer that nearer the time. I have told my hon. Friend that the important relief that would arise is if the values turn out to be lower at the next valuation. In some cases, I believe that that will prove to be the case. Those businesses will never have to pay the high values based on the 1988 valuation if the current decline in the property market is confirmed at the time of the 1993 valuation.
  Mr. David Blunkett: Perhaps we can make sure that we understand this absolutely correctly. Is the Minister suggesting that there will be a permanent transitional period which, ad infinitum,
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  continues like a moving staircase, with no one ever reaching the valuation that was originally set because of the transitional arrangements and because the next valuation will overtake the first one before people have reached it?
  Mr. Redwood: I am not making any changes in the transitional arrangements as a result of the Bill, other than having a pause for one year in the introduction of the transitional increases in the way that I have described. I have already been very specific about what would happen in the case of a business property if the value in 1993 to become effective in 1995 turned out to be lower than the value in 1988. Whatever the transitional arrangements, that would mean that that business would never have to pay the full amount implied by the 1988 valuation, because it would have been overtaken by the events of the subsequent valuation. Many hon. Members will welcome that and believe that it is a positive step forward for businesses in their constituencies.
  Many businesses which benefited most from the 1990 reforms have had their reductions phased in to offset the cost of protecting those facing increases. The rate at which the gains have been coming through has been increasing since 1990–91, and we have decided to increase them further—by 3 per cent. in England and 13 per cent. in Wales—in 1992–93.
  The Bill provides that all remaining gains will flow through in 1993–94. All businesses which gained from the reforms will soon see the full benefits. I hope that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) will welcome that. Far from prolonging the transition, where there are winners, we are accelerating it. I hope that the Opposition will welcome that.
  We estimate that 60,000 manufacturing properties, many in the north of England, will share more than £40 million in additional rate reductions this year as a result of the measure. Sixty-five thousand shops and offices will also gain, with reductions of more than £12 million. In total, 150,000 business premises will benefit to the tune of around £85 million in the current year. For an individual property with a new rateable value of just under £10,000, that could mean a reduction of about £180 in this year's bill, and for a property with a new rateable value of around £50,000, the saving could be as much as £580.
  One further change will provide significant help for a number of businesses which are trying to dispose of property in the recession. At present, transitional protection for those facing rate increases is lost when a property changes hands. The Bill will fulfil our pledge to remove that restriction with effect from 11 March of this year.
  Taken together, those measures will mean that no business will face a rise in rate bills this year in real terms. In the 1980s, business suffered from a 37 per cent. rise above inflation under local rates. The Bill provides a much better deal for many. If local rates had stayed, business would have paid £1,000 million more in 1990–91 and £850 million more in 1991–92. That shows the value of the changes that we have made. The Bill would increase benefits to businesses by a further £1,300 million over the next three years. I commend it to the House.
  7.37 pm
  Mr. David Blunkett: This is my first opportunity to congratulate the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities on his new appointment. Whatever this philosophical and ideological background, I hope that he will bring fresh thinking and a new spirit of partnership to the relationship between local and central Government. I hope also that he will bring a degree of sanity and clarity to a system that has seen so many transitions, gearings and crankshafts over the past 13 years—
  Mr. William O'Brien: No, just cranks.
  Mr. Blunkett: As my hon. Friend has pointed out, we have certainly had cranks. We have had nothing as clear cut or as craftsmanlike as a crankshaft, as I know from the production lines in my constituency. Instead, we have had one cobbled-together solution after another.
  Although we do not oppose the proposals in the Bill, we are obliged to point out what a shambles the system has been. First, we had a delay in the valuation process which was substantially responsible for ensuring that industries and productive parts of our economy were penalised long after the valuation of the sites and rental values of the premises on which they were reliant had ceased to be relevant in terms of the economy of the north of England, the midlands and Wales.
  The need for an urgent revaluation led to considerable dislocations because of the dramatic changes. Attention has already been drawn to the fact that the valuation base was 1 April 1988, at the height of the boom. The hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) validly raised with the Minister what would happen. We had an interesting reply, that given that the transition goes through to the date when the new valuation will apply, and given that next year the new valuation base will apply, property and rental prices could change dramatically and people will never have to pay on the valuation that was adjudged to be right from April 1988.
  Given that we are aware of helping the Government to avoid pitfalls and the misfortunes of what is no longer local government finance in the strict sense of the term but centrally raised Government finance for local government, let us surmise for a moment that, under the new valuation, there are such substantial gains for some and such unwarranted losses for some commercial and industrial properties that a new transitional arrangement has to be brought in. Those who were to be penalised so heavily under the 1988 revaluation base and who now find themselves with a revaluation below that level, and who, in the Minister's words, would never actually reach the original threshold, will find themselves so badly penalised in the recession next year that they will be entitled to special help.
  Because there are others who are gainers, and because losers have to have their losses phased in, we need a new transitional period in which those who thought that they would gain only slowly, as they have done since the 1990 change, and those who thought that they would lose only in phases in order to protect their businesses, as has been the case since April 1990, the whole dog's dinner will continue through until we reach the base from which the third revaluation will take place. Presumably the merry-go-round will start all over again and the people who thought that they would gain the most benefit will not
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  gain and the people who would incur the greatest losses will be protected from reaching their losses. It will carry on ad infinitum.
  That absurdity is brought about by the original lengthy delay, the failure to appreciate the consequences of the revaluation and the failure, until tonight, to acknowledge that there is a major problem arising out of the date chosen, at the height of the property-led boom—a boom which has now been shown to be transitory—and a failed promise of economic prosperity and regeneration. Of course, property prices and the inability to let property, particularly in places such as Canary Wharf and the difficulties that are being experienced in docklands, underline the extent of the collapse in the property market and the real problems of our economy.
  I shall never forget sitting on a tube and hearing two people discussing what was in the Financial Times that morning. It is always instrumental to sit on an underground train in the morning, if one can get a seat. The two obvious City finance experts were discussing when they would acknowledge that there was a real problem for the British economy. One of them said that it clearly would not be when industry in the north of England cried even louder and there was higher unemployment. The other said, "No, but a clear sign will be the collapse of the London property market." That occurred some time ago. Olympia and York is an example. What a cockeyed economy it is that is based on such precepts.
  Mr. Redwood: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his remarks that were kind towards me—I think that some of them were kind.
  Mr. Paul Murphy: Just a few.
  Mr. Redwood: Just a few, perhaps. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), who welcomed the revaluation and said that the Government are taking a very important step? If so, is he now saying that Labour party policy is to have no transitional protection whatsoever? That would be of great interest to businesses which welcome transitional protection. Far from thinking that the measure is a dog's breakfast, they think that it is an essential protection given the increases in values that some of them face.
  Mr. Blunkett: Revaluations are not a dog's dinner, it was the system and the way in which the Government implemented it over the past 13 years, including the domestic and non-domestic changes. My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) rightly said that we welcome the changes. They are long overdue in terms of assisting many hard-pressed areas and ensuring that business does not pay more than it can afford given valuations and the rental of the sites on which its activities are based. Of course we accepted that, given the enormity of the change, there had to be transitional arrangements. We are seeking to get those things right.
  At the beginning of October, the Minister's predecessor acknowledged that there were 673,000 outstanding appeals under the unified business rate appeals system. I have no evidence that that level has dropped. Evidence in the early part of this year showed that there was greater awareness by businesses of the problem that they were facing. In February, the London Chamber of Commerce

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  showed quite clearly that three out of four enterprises in London were going to be losers and declared itself to be extremely unhappy with the situation.
  We welcome the general approach. We also welcome the Government's ability to find money when it suits them. We welcome the fact that we are talking about £1.3 billion of Government expenditure—only a few weeks, of course, after the Government vilified the Labour party for daring to favour interventions by public resources to help industry and commerce to recover—any resources that would have to be found by the Exchequer to invest in our economy and our country.
  The hypocrisy beggars belief. In the six weeks leading up to the calling of the general election, Government spokesmen announced more than £2 billion of new expenditure—we have new expenditure before us tonight —and then attacked the Opposition for being in favour of new expenditure. Regrettably—we and the Government's friends in the media must take some share of the blame —we were responsible for not getting the message across about the hypocrisy which exists on the Conservative Benches when it comes to deciding where public expenditure should go.
  We welcome the belated measure to recognise what we have been pressing for all along. I must emphasise that we pressed that those who would gain—it applies to large parts of the country where manufacturing industry and real productive industries are struggling to survive—should be able to have their gains immediately the revaluation came in. They should have been enabled, with a measure that was not interventionist in the sense of distorting the market but was interventionist in terms of helping productive economic capacity, to be alleviated from a fixed cost, which we recognise is difficult in a recession. When we are in a boom and profits are being made, rates are discountable against corporation tax, and when they are not that forms a substantial problem of liquidity for many industries.
  It is time that we in the Labour party spelled out an historical commitment which has often been misunderstood. It is time that we spelt out that we are in favour of productive manufacturing industry.
  By backing those who use their enterprise and initiative, we follow in the role that was a traditional and vital part of the growth of the skill trade unions and the Labour movement. Tonight I wish to reiterate that by saying that it is an important role for the Labour party of the 1990s to advocate and champion the small business, the self-employed, those seeking self-reliance and self-determination and people who are willing to use enterprise and innovation not merely for their benefit but in the interests of the well-being of the community in which they live. That is our historic role.
  We back productive industry against the freeloaders —the people who thought that they could make a quick buck in property development or on the stock exchange. It is our role to back the little man and woman against the vested interests of big business, international finance and corporate interests which know no boundaries and care little about the communities or individuals with whom they deal. If we assert that role more clearly people will understand that we are speaking with them and on their behalf. With the growth of self-employment and self-reliance in the 1990s we shall take on the Conservative party and defeat it.
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  Our role in defending small businesses is the reason why we advocated rate rebates for small businesses. It is the reason why we said that people who are struggling to get into business and make a living for themselves need help in paying the rates to pay towards community provision. It is why we said that those who were struggling to stay in business should be entitled to a rate rebate and that small shops on housing estates and in villages and towns should be supported and enabled to stay in business in the face of the vagaries of the big shopping complexes with which many local neighbourhood centres have to compete.
  Mr. Matthew Carrington: The hon. Gentleman gives a great litany of the advantages that the Labour party would bring to small businesses. As I recall, one of the Labour party's policies for small businesses was to give control over the rate level back to the local councils in which businesses are located. The local council in Hammersmith and Fulham raised the rate by almost 50 per cent. when the Labour party took power in 1986. That was an amazing attack on small local businesses. The hon. Gentleman cannot possibly support giving control of the taxation of small businesses back to spendthrift Labour local authorities.
  Mr. Blunkett: It is interesting that the Institute of Directors, which is not known for its radical socialist thinking, and the Association of British Chambers of Commerce are in favour of decentralising the business rate. They are in favour of it because they genuinely believe in partnership. They do not just mouth platitudes. Ministers preach responsibility but deny it. They call for increased opportunity but stifle it. They talk about partnership but withhold the means and motivation to make it possible.
  Real partnership means that those who are elected at local level and are responsible to local people must work with their local business community. In the 1980s, people learned and understood that lesson well. When the business rate was centralised there was more partnership in Britain than there had been for many a long year. Breaking that partnership was a foolish and unhelpful act. It diverted the concentration of mind of local politicians from the reality that local business and its community sink or swim together. I remember that time in the 1980s well. Separately, neither can survive, because business needs decent education and training, fit housing, good public transport and an environment in which people are proud to live. The local community needs the enterprise and yield which business provides if social provision is to be a likely proposition.
  We need decentralised structures so that people can work together. Of course, if we had won the election and decentralised the business rate, we should have had to fix the business rate for next year. This Bill would have been about the process of decentralising the structures to local level and fostering and encouraging responsibility.
  Why is it, I ask the Minister and his colleagues, that other countries in Europe and throughout the world can accept the responsibility that must fall on local people and their elected representatives, but Britain cannot? Are we so immature politically, so inept in our democracy and so lacking in vision or foresight that we must treat local councillors and their electorates as if they were tiny

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  children while we in the House can be seen as responsible, mature, adult people who know best? It is nonsense, and we all know it.
  One day we shall have to return to a decentralised structure. I shall tell the House why. The gearing effect of the present structure is causing havoc with the provision of local services and the sensible financing that is necessary to achieve it. The gearing effect is created by the fact that, in England, 86 per cent. of local government expenditure is fixed by central Government. In Wales, the figure is even greater, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) will spell out later. As we saw last week, even the last 14 per cent. is fixed by the capping arrangements.
  When only a small percentage of total revenue can be determined locally, not only is a gearing effect created whereby local councils have to raise a great deal more from that small percentage to take account of even the most modest percentage increase in their expenditure but major distortions are created. That was true in the case of the world student games in Sheffield. Business gained from the investment undertaken but made no contribution to the revenue costs incurred. That was regretable.
  A second factor is a lack of ability to compensate for the ills that afflict local communities when major new developments occur which have some beneficial consequences but also have knock-on effects with which we are all familiar. I give one example from my constituency. The Meadow Hall shopping complex is an excellent and well produced development, which cost hundreds of millions of pounds, but the consequences for the city centre have been devastating.
  In any sane society, the revenue raised from the new development in Sheffield would have been available to compensate for the action necessary to refurbish and renew the city centre. That would make possible a partnership with the chamber of trade to revamp shopping sites and shopping centres to bring life back to the city centre. As we have seen from north America, that is vital if we are to prevent the decay and decline which leads to the squalor that urban policy is supposed to overcome but which sensible planning and economic policies could avoid in the first place.
  Mr. Redwood: On the point that the hon. Gentleman raised about the protection of businesses from high-spending, high-taxing Labour authorities, he might like to remember that, when the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) was asked what would happen if local authorities whacked up the business rate if they were given local control, he said that that might be a problem. Indeed it would be. We saw it before. That is why the changes were introduced. We saw it in Sheffield, where a high tax was imposed on business. We would like to know Labour's answer to that problem.
  Mr. Blunkett: I am sorry that the note or whatever the Minister scribbled on reached him so late. I had moved well on from the point about decentralisation of the business rate which the Minister's hon. Friends made. I had moved on to how one aspect of local government revenue raising can compensate for the disadvantages which arise in a complicated local economy where local people know best and can decide for themselves.
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  However, I shall take the question head on. The responsibility that local people feel about how crucial the wealth-creating aspects of their local economy are to the well-being of the community—in terms of the provision of services—weighed heavily with politicians of all political parties as we reached the end of the 1980s. It reached a point where many people acknowledged that efforts to hold down the rates, and subsequent efforts to hold down the poll tax, were clearly evident. Until 1985, capping did not exist but there was not a calamity. Often the will to do the job together existed. That will must be reintroduced and reshaped in the future. That is why the Institute of Directors, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce and, at one phase, the Confederation of British Industry were in favour of that genuine partnership at local level.
  We cannot oppose the Bill, but it is a missed opportunity to do a good job on behalf of businesses and their communities, by getting rid of the gearing impact —in its substantial form—by restoring some sense to local authority finance, by broadening the tax base and decentralising the business rate, by having rebates for small businesses and by ensuring that the gains that companies have had to wait for are introduced immediately.
  More importantly, we also believe that, when introducing the council tax next year, the Government should recognise the need to integrate the two systems. There will be a domestic property tax and there will have to be an equalisation formula for the distribution of grant and compensation which is needed to take account of the different rate bases throughout the country.
  Some regions have lost heavily. My own Yorkshire and Humberside region lost £289 million in a full year in business income to the local authorities together with the withdrawal of the equalisation grant. That is a large sum of money, for which the local authorities have desperately tried to compensate, even under the poll tax capping regime.
  I know that some Conservative Members with expertise in local government will recognise the importance of the reintroduction of equalisation, and unless those things are taken together, we will again have missed an opportunity to get it right.
  In the past 13 years, there have been so many wrongs in local government finance. Let us hope that some sense will prevail and that the Government will take the opportunity to listen and to learn.
  8.2 pm
  Mr. Bill Olner: I congratulate the new Secretary of State for the Environment on his appointment and thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to address the House.
  I believe that it is in the best tradition of maiden speeches that I pay tribute to my predecessors, and I do so warmly. However, there has only been one previous Member for Nuneaton, because, before 1983 and the Boundary Commission's changes, the constituency was Nuneaton and Bedworth. For many years Frank Bowles, later to become Lord Bowles in the other place, held that constituency. When Frank Bowles retired, Frank Cousins held the seat for a short time. I well remember that. As the voting age was then 21, Frank Cousins was the first person

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  that I was old enough to vote for. I remember him touring our estate in an old, yellow, open-topped Rolls-Royce—very smart it looked too.
  Then Mr. Leslie Huckfield became the Member of Parliament for Nuneaton, and I am sure that the House will remember him. He went on to that House over the water for a short spell.
  My predecessor was Mr. Lewis Stevens, who was the Member for Nuneaton from 1983. I believe that he was a quiet but hard-working and conscientious Member of the House, and I think that he was well respected on both sides of the Chamber. From looking at the records, I understand that he had the eighth best voting record in the last Parliament. He was a very diligent Member. However, it might have been better for the people of Nuneaton if there had been some more "no" votes in that record—they were all "yes" votes—especially in the votes on the financial strangulations of the poll tax and the discredited standard spending assessments that have burdened local government in the past few years. In every other respect, I believe that Lewis Stevens served his constituents to the best of his abilities and was well respected by them for it.
  I agree with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) on the Bill. I shall certainly not oppose what has been put before the House. However, we should all recognise that all parts of the local community have a role to play to ensure good services and an infrastructure most suited to the community's inhabitants and to the industries and commerce that flourish within it.
  Those two links are important. One cannot ignore the fact that people who live in a community are employed there in commerce and in industry. There is an historic and traditional link, started by the Rowntrees, who believed that people needed good services, homes and education, because that was better for the companies employing them. I think that that is still as true as it was then. In the fullness of time, history will repeat itself.
  During the past two years, constituencies such as Nuneaton, which is in Warwickshire, have suffered from reduced Government grants and the SSAs, which have led to capping—I asked the Minister a question on capping in this place last week. They have meant some real hardships for people in my constituency, hardships that they are suffering and that they will probably continue to suffer. With the threat of another £6 million of public expenditure being taken away from them, none of my constituents know, with any assurance, what the future means for them.
  Some elderly people live in authority-run homes in my constituency, but those homes are now being sold off by the local authority. The police authority has had inadequate resources. I know that one Conservative member of Warwickshire county council had his knuckles rapped sharply in the last round of public expenditure talks, when he rebelled against his group and said that the police authority needed extra money. He was not on his own: his colleagues in the social services and education departments were saying exactly the same about their services.
  The fire and rescue services in my constituency are so under-funded that the Home Office, with its formula, is questioning their viability.
  Education is one of the great things that we have all benefited from, and the education service is suffering at all levels from inadequate resources, which means fewer
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  teachers, leading to higher pupil-teacher ratios. That, combined with cuts in the budgets for equipment, means that we are denying young people rights to the best education possible. Lest we all forget it, we only come this way once. We are only young once, and it behoves us all to ensure that everyone has the right to equal opportunity in education because that is the key to our future in the Chamber and to the work of commerce and industry.
  Not only is that right being denied but this year, for the first time, young people in Nuneaton will be put at risk because many of the professional services that have run the youth service in Warwickshire so successfully for many years will be cut. Youth service leaders have taken people through the Duke of Edinburgh's award schemes year after year, and they are extremely saddened that their future ability to do so will be greatly diminished.
  Nothing in the Queen's Speech gave any hope to those constituents who are either homeless or inadequately housed—there are many of them. Nothing in the speech gave local councils the ability to build the houses that would meet the needs of those people and thus create employment in the construction-related industries.
  While I am the Member representing Nuneaton, I shall seek to protect and further local government, and to bring it closer to the people, which includes industry and commerce. I remember my years as leader of Nuneaton borough council. Year by year, I faithfully consulted the leaders of industry and commerce before the council set the rate. The leaders of industry and commerce often told me that I was not spending enough on the infrastructure that they so badly needed to make their industries flourish. It is crucial for the democratic process in this country that all parts of the community play a full and cohesive role.
  I shall also seek to look after the needs of industry and ensure that they are not ignored or overlooked. I will ensure that the voice of the people of Nuneaton will not go unheard in this Chamber.
  8.11 pm
  Mr. Nigel Jones: I congratulate the Minister on his new role and the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Olner) on his maiden speech. The hon. Gentleman may not know it, but I have three rather tenuous links with him. First, for my sins, I went to the same school as Leslie Huckfield. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman's Liberal Democrat opponent in the recent election is one of my colleagues on Gloucestershire county council. The third link is that Gloucestershire county council, like Warwickshire county council, faces capping.
  It is unlikely that many Opposition Members will argue against the Bill. Any measure that promises to reduce business costs by £480 million this year must be good news, given that business has been so buffeted by the longest peacetime recession since the 1930s. The introduction of the uniform business rate, with its revaluation, came at the worst possible time for business. Interest rates were high and consumer demand was plummeting, but the Government asked some businesses to endure massive increases to their fixed costs.
  In Cheltenham, dozens of small commercial units are lying empty. At a meeting at the end of last year, the former Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs was asked to help the local business community. There was much talk from him about the small business start-up packages, but a good friend of

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  mine, a Cheltenham business man and former Conservative councillor, told the Minister that he needed a business survival package to save his existing small business.
  A cut in the UBR now has sadly come too late for many businesses, but it is a welcome recognition of past sins. It is sorely needed by many firms which are still struggling and which cannot see an end to this awful recession. The welcome cut in business taxation creates a dilemma for the Government. They have said that the recession is over. If that is so, why are they hurrying to cut business taxes? On April 28, the Prime Minister told the Institute of Directors that he was
  "more confident than ever that recovery is under way."
  I hope that he is right. On 12 May, the Prime Minister told the House:
  "Since polling day we have a dramatic change in the confidence of the markets and individuals."—[Official Report, 12 May 1992; Vol. 207, c. 496.]
  If recovery is under way, why make such temporary reductions? If there has been a dramatic change in confidence, why are the Government spending 'half a billion pounds on boosting business? Either the Government do not believe their own rhetoric on the recession, and they realise, as Liberal Democrats realise, that the recession is still hitting many businesses, or they proposed the cut in the business rate for other reasons.
  On 13 March, the Municipal Journal, perhaps mischievously, thought that it knew the real reason for the cut in UBR. It stated:
  "One benefactor from the budget boost to small businesses is forecast to be the former environment secretary and Tory Party chairman Chris Patten, who is defending a slender 1,412 majority in Bath."
  I am glad to note that, despite the result in Bath, the Government have not decided to drop the proposal, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) will testify, the UBR is still causing small businesses great problems. Any measure designed to mitigate the impact of the recession, however late in the day, must be welcome.
  This debate is surely an opportunity to ask where the Government should go with UBR now the election is over and to examine how the Bill could be improved. Ideally, the control of non-domestic rates should be decentralised —or perhaps it is better to say, denationalised. Business rates, whether levied on the property or land, should be raised by local councils and not central Government. This happens in most other European countries which realise that differences in local business tax rates are not as distortive as some people have suggested.
  Where there are lower business taxes, land prices and rents will adjust to remove any benefits. Moreover, if business taxes are local, the local authority is far more likely to have a closer relationship with the business community, and therefore to understand the needs of local business. A small business man in Cheltenham has a far greater opportunity to talk to his councillor—he may even be a councillor—than he does of talking to the Minister.
  I should not be surprised if the introduction of the council tax does not force the Government into a complete rethink on this issue. With the 1991 Budget switch from community charge to value added tax, councils are now raising only a small percentage of the revenue they spend
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  —only 14 per cent. Therefore, small changes in spending or small changes in their grant allocation inevitably lead to large changes in the local domestic tax bill.
  This so-called gearing effect may make the council tax almost as unpopular as the poll tax, and, wary of yet another change in local personal taxation, the Government may then be forced into reopening the business rate debate. For the sake of the strength and vitality of local democracy, we hope that that happens.
  Until the furore over the council tax begins, it is perhaps too much to hope that the Government will use the Bill to decentralise the UBR. How then could we realistically expect the Government to improve the Bill? The most simple measure would be to make larger reductions than the Bill proposes. The Liberal Democrat alternative budget proposed an overall reduction, costing £800 million in 1992–93, by simply freezing the poundage increase. That was originally proposed by the present President of the Board of Trade in September 1991.
  Our proposal differed slightly in terms of the incidence of the tax reductions. It is possible that the Government's measure is more effectively targeted, although whether it is targeted more on Tory marginals than on areas of most acute distress may be debatable. If the Government's measure is better targeted, how much more effective would any additional help be if the Minister could only persuade his Treasury colleagues to give a little more leeway.
  There are many other problems with the UBR that could be tackled in the Bill with some imagination on the part of the Government. The Bill at last recognises the absurdity of the original decision to restrict eligibility for transitional relief to the orginal occupier. That decision caused some ridiculous anomalies, and I will give just two examples.
  Firms wanting to cut costs in the recession by moving to smaller premises found that, if they did so, any cost savings were outweighed by the increase in the rates bill that they suffered because their residency in the smaller premises would not be eligible for transitional relief. Firms coming into towns after 1 April 1990 found that their rates bills were far higher than those of a competitor across the street. In some cases, those anomalies further aggravated the already appalling state of the commercial property market.
  That anomaly is to be corrected only from 10 March 1992. Why cannot the entitlement to transitional relief be made retrospective? According to a parliamentary answer given on 18 February to my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), the cost of such a proposal in England would be about £90 million. Another answer gave the cost in Wales as about £1 million. The Government should at least look at the suggestion.
  Another improvement would be the restoration of the right to have a rateable value reduced if it were higher than the market rental value. The commercial property market has been through such an extreme cycle of boom and bust that many rateable values are far above current market rental values. The Government might protest that a revaluation is due within the lifetime of this Parliament. Such a response is no good to a small business desperately struggling to keep itself going. The restoration of that right could make all the difference to some firms and keep many people employed.
  The Scottish issue must also be dealt with. Unlike the famous poll tax gap of the 1991 Budget, when the Government failed to apply the cut in the community

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  charge on an equal basis in Scotland, at least on this occasion they have remembered the existence of Scotland. But Scottish businesses are still penalised relative to English businesses through the rating system. The reduction announced in the Budget did not further close the gap between Scotland and England.
  While the English business rate poundage is 40.2p, the rate poundage in Glasgow is 63.3p. In Edinburgh, it is 57.6p, and in Dundee and Stirling it is about 57p. The average Scottish poundage in 1992–93 will be 56.6p compared with the English poundage of 40.2p. The Government have two years left in which to harmonise the poundages either side of the border if they are to stick to their previous timetable. The Council of Scottish Local Authorities calculates that they will need to find a further £260 million in that period. This measure would be an opportunity to guarantee Scottish business that the Government will meet their promises on time, if not sooner.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. I should be grateful if the hon. Member would bear in mind the fact that the Bill is restricted to England and Wales. I hope that he will not be developing his argument too far on the Scottish dimension.
  Mr. Jones: I understand, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Although the Bill is welcome, and we on this Bench will be supporting it tonight, it attempts to ameliorate a bad system which has caused hardship and worsened the already awful effects of the recession. If the Government want to make a proper job of atoning for their recessionary sins, there are many ways in which the Bill could be improved in detail, and we shall attempt to do so in Committee.
  8.24 pm
  Mr. Michael J. Martin: I congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment as Chairman of Ways and Means, the Minister on his appointment, and my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Olner) on his maiden speech, which I enjoyed greatly. It is good to have in our ranks another hon. Member with expertise in local government. I have no doubt that we shall hear him on many occasions in the future.
  Any measure that can help businesses, particularly small ones, in England and Wales—I hope that there will be a similar Bill to assist Scotland—is beneficial. I have in my constituency many talented men and women who are self-employed and earning a decent living. They have been forced into self-employment because of redundancies, especially in the railway workshops and in other industries in Glasgow.
  I have often asked people who have been made redundant, "Why do you not open a shop or some other business and employ people?" The response is often, "Having a shop means having a commitment to pay rates. It means that, whether the trade is good or bad, you know that, come Monday morning, you must find the money for the rates, apart from the other expenses." So I am glad that at least some help is being given to the business community.
  I represent a Scottish constituency. I take on board, Mr. Deputy Speaker, your reference to the fact that this legislation covers England and Wales, but I must refer to
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  the deep anxiety that exists in Scotland because the system there has meant that every five years there was a revaluation, and that led to a great gap. Examples have been given, for example, of football pitches in Glasgow and London and other major cities where a big difference exists in the rates.
  Non-domestic ratepayers north of the border are bound to feel aggrieved that compensation is being given to ratepayers south of the border because the Government failed to introduce a compulsory five-year revaluation. Had such a revaluation existed in England and Wales, this measure would not have been necessary. So Scottish taxpayers' money is having to be provided for non-domestic ratepayers south of the border. I take the view that what a friend gets is no loss, but others may not share that view.
  For years, and particularly in the previous Parliament, some Tory backwoodsmen kept complaining about what they described as whingeing Scotsmen being subsidised. Indeed, even one of their Lordships in the other place complained about what he called over-subsidised, whingeing Scotsmen. We are tonight discussing an area about which complaints might legitimately come from north of the border, simply because the Government failed to get the revaluation completed on a regular basis. What a blow it would have been to shopkeepers and factory owners in the south if it had been completed on time.
  Reference has been made to so-called overspending local authorities. I think that I see the Minister nodding in assent over that. We must consider what is happening in areas where the recession is biting deep, as it is in my constituency. I do not accept that Strathclyde arid Glasgow are overspenders. Indeed, if it were not for the local authorities, many more businesses would be going to the wall.
  The Government have introduced compulsory tendering because the private sector is experiencing so much difficulty in the recession that it is moving into the public sector and obtaining local government contracts. Were it not for those local government contracts, many men and women would be out of a job.
  I clearly recall that, when Margaret Thatcher came to power, a civil engineering company in my constituency was pleased. It went on record as saying that it would cut on town hall work, but within five years, the director of that company was in the House of Commons Lobby pleading for local government work to keep the company alive.
  If local government spending were cut by Government edict, savings would be made not by cutting the numbers of young girls working behind the counters in the city chambers and the licensing department and on the word processors and typewriters, but rather by cutting roads contracts. Roads maintenance and street lighting would go.
  The Labour party will not oppose the Bill, but if the Government constantly have a go at local authorities, they should not blame people who must pay the rates for having a go at local authorities. The Government must carry responsibility for those rates bills, because they have capped local authorities throughout the country. They should tell business men and women that local authorities are, on the whole, responsible. They are run by dedicated men and women who give their time voluntarily.
  Those men and women are not like Members of Parliament. We complain of inadequate secretarial

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  back-up, but they depend on their wives, sons and daughters to answer phones while they are out attending meetings. Their tea, supper and Sundays off are often interrupted because they have volunteered to serve on local government. Yet every time a Minister gets to his feet, he has a go at so-called overspending local authorities.
  Tory Governments have always been keen to talk about law and order. Indeed, a maiden speech earlier tonight discussed that subject. However, the Minister must know that, because of Government cuts, the morale in our police force is in a terrible state. In 1979, if I went to a senior police officer and told him of vandalism in a certain corner of my constituency, he would offer to have extra men sent in and some officers working overtime. Consumers benefit from that. Now, officers in my local authority and, I dare say, authorities in England and Wales, say that they cannot employ the manpower necessary to protect people.
  The other day in my constituency, a terrible thing happened. A runaway car was running around a housing estate—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mrs. Browning) laughs, but it was not funny. Once the young vandals had stolen the car, they pushed it down a flight of stairs in a main street and killed a young woman who was coming from her home.
  Mrs. Angela Browning: I have yet to make my maiden speech, and I had no intention of participating in this debate. The hon. Gentleman is mistaken, because I was not discussing his remarks but a quite different subject. He was wrong to suggest that I was laughing at what I believe to be a serious matter. Will he withdraw his accusation?
  Mr. Martin: The hon. Lady should not be engaged in conversation in the Chamber but should be involved in the debate. I understood her to be engaged in, the debate. I accept that she was not laughing, but, if she was involved in a discussion with her colleague, she should not be here. Earlier this evening, hon. Members were taking part in a debate while others were engaged in private conversation. I understood the hon. Lady to be laughing at a serious point.
  The so-called law and order party is not supporting the police because it is not supporting local authorities. Although some business people may say, "Three cheers, the Government will give us cheaper rates," because the Bill will provide some respite, the same shopkeepers and factory owners will go to their group leaders, the Lord Provost and lord mayors asking why their companies are being vandalised. They want to know why, when their vans go into housing estates, they are vandalised.
  The answer will be that there is inadequate coverage for the police authorities. Although there will be cheaper rates for factories and shops, what will we do about the shopkeepers who sometimes come to us and say that things are so bad that they must stay the night in their shops to prevent them being broken into? What is the point of charging cheap rates when the party of law and order cannot protect the very people whom it claims to serve?
  The Minister—there is a new broom in the Department —should meet the leaders of the local authorities. In Scotland, we have a convention of local authorities. I hope
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  that the Secretary of State will meet the equivalent in England and Wales. Instead of trying to score points off one another, with the Government saying that the problems are all caused by Labour authorities and Labour authorities arguing that they are caused by the Government, why do not they get together and do something for consumers? Ultimately, the people who pay the rates, domestic and non-domestic, are entitled to the best possible service from local authorities and the Government.
  8.38 pm
  Mr. Paul Murphy: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Olner) on a first-class maiden speech. His remarks were generous, and his local government background will offer much to the House. As a former leader of the borough council at Nuneaton, he gave a good survey of local government in his area.
  The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) referred, rightly and wisely, to the cuts in grant to Gloucestershire county council, which have a parallel with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton about Warwickshire. The hon. Gentleman also referred to the fact that the former chairman of the Conservative party, Mr. Christopher Patten, owes his new job as governor of Hong Kong to the business rate. There is no doubt that he lost his seat on account of the devastating effect of the business rate on small traders and shopkeepers in the city of Bath.
  Obviously, we welcome the Bill, so far as it goes, because it means that some of the excesses in the business rate in England and Wales will now be abolished. During the past three years, Opposition Members have said that some of the changes should have been effected immediately. I can clearly recall saying that people who are changing their business should be eligible for relief in the same way as those who have been in business in the same property for some time. The changes are to be welcomed. But I echo the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) that the transitional relief schemes within both the business rate and the poll tax have brought much uncertainty to the way in which local government finance is regarded in Wales and England.
  The new Under-Secretary of State for the Environment will have to answer questions about the Principality of Wales. I intend to target most of my remarks on Wales. However, I am sure that he will meet the challenge, as he has done during the years that he and I have served on Standing Committees.
  I understand that 30,000 business rate bills in Wales are likely to be frozen as a result of the legislation, 7,000 businesses are to have their reductions speeded up and 35 per cent. of business properties are to benefit. We welcome those improvements. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brightside said, we wonder where the money is coming from, as the shortfall in Wales is to be made up by Welsh Office grants—£25 million in this financial year, £22 million next year and £13 million the year after.
  The money for some of the transitional relief schemes that we have been told about during the past year or so seems to come from nowhere. We welcome the schemes and the money behind them, but I and other hon. Members, such as my hon. Friend the Member for

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  Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin), wonder why the money could not be found for other important services such as the police force. I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Springburn about law and order. The whole of south Wales, from the city of Swansea to the Wye valley, has been allowed only one extra policeman for this current year. I am sure that, if the £25 million could be found, the money for more policemen could be found.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Brightside referred to rebates. We believe that the business rate should relate to the ability of business people to pay it, as the individual's council tax or poll tax relates to his or her ability to pay it. That is why we argued at the general election, and still do, that rebates of up to 100 per cent., related to the profitability of businesses with an annual turnover below a specific level, would be welcome. The business rate as it stands is nothing more than a business tax. It is not a rate, as it bears no relation to how rates used to operate or the new council tax is to operate. The business rate is a national tax imposed on business people.
  Earlier, we heard exchanges across the Floor of the House on the former business rate levied by local authorities. Of course, some local authorities will spend more than others—that is the ways of things—but if we accept that democracy must be genuine, and local, we must acknowledge that all the benefits of a local business rate in linking the local business community with the local community itself are valuable. Local authorities provide an educated work force, roads, infrastructure, firefighters, housing, environmental services and, particuarly in Wales, important developments in relation to local businesses and general economic development.
  The business tax seems unrelated to the commercial activity of a given district. Some 20 or 30 years ago, the great Llanwern steelworks was placed in a rural parish in my constituency. It brought jobs and prosperity, but changed considerably the community's nature. It was right and proper that the !coal authority should derive the benefit of the business rate from the enormous steelworks in a part of the world that was changed by its presence.
  A local business tax or rate should be set, collected and used locally. I believe that that is the view of local government generally and of many business people in this country. However, in Wales, as in England, the current business rate distorts the local government finance system. Local authority associations, like many others, are deeply concerned about the different changes that local government finance in the business sector has experienced during the past few years. There is a credibility problem. Many people, both within and outside the business community, have lost confidence in the system of local government finance, whether the poll tax, council tax or business rate.
  There is another problem: local authorities, strapped for cash, will encounter difficulties relating to the new change to be introduced by the Bill. The recession means that there are many cases of arrears in England and Wales which in turn burden local authorities with extra administrative costs. Only recently, the Local Government Chronicle said that the changes to be introduced by the Bill were unlikely to have an immediate effect due to the complexities of the computer software of local authorities.
  It is important that the Bill proceeds as speedily as possible, which is one reason why we are helping it on its way. However, it is also important that local authorities should be given every possible assistance, not just financial
  222
  —although that is important. They should also be given advice on how their computers and software can cope with the changes.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Brightside said, the Bill's worst consequence for the local government finance system will be on the so-called gearing effect. In Wales, every 1 per cent. increase in expense means an increase of about 9 per cent. in the poll tax or council tax. Only just over 11 per cent. of local authority income is determined by the local council. There may well be advantages, but I cannot see them.
  Due to the gearing effect, if a local authority is to have a genuine revenue-raising power, the national business rate—collected in Wales and distributed in Wales from Cardiff—together with the grant system, which is crazy anyway, will mean that local councils can do virtually nothing unless they increase local taxes dramatically. The gearing effect has distorted local government finance and effectively meant that local authorities no longer have a proper revenue-raising function. That has enormous implications for the future of local democracy in Wales and England.
  I hope that, when the Bill is passed and the Government set themselves the task of administering the new council tax, they will look carefully at the joint impact of the business rate and the council tax on the proper revenue-raising functions of our local authorities. Without those functions, local democracy cannot function properly.
  There is a special case in Wales, as it seems that British local government reform is on the horizon. We have been told, although not yet in the House, that the Secretary of State for Wales intends to reform local government in the Principality fairly soon, a White Paper will be with us in the autumn, and the county council elections in Wales scheduled for next year may even be postponed.
  If we are to have a system of unitary authorities in the Principality and if that system is to enjoy any consensus among those in Wales who understand and are involved in local government, there must be alongside it a change in the system of local government finance which means that the standard spending assessments are much more realistic. That in turn will mean that the business rate is related locally to how people raise it and how local authorities spend it.
  Mr. Michael J. Martin: I was a councillor when reorganisation took place. Does my hon. Friend agree that the displacement of officials will entail a fantastic cost in terms of redundancies? Last time, and ludicrously, officials made redundant from one authority immediately applied for posts in a new authority. The Government talk about saving ratepayers money, but I fear that we are in for spending another fortune.
  Mr. Murphy: I agree. I, too, was involved in the last local government reorganisation in 1974. Of course, it was extremely costly; I rather suspect that the reforms in England have been postponed because of the enormous costs that they would involve. I should be interested to know how we can avoid them in Wales—I assume that they can be avoided somehow. We are told that the reforms will pay for themselves, but I confess that I have never known that happen yet. Whatever happens, the reforms will be upon us fairly soon, so it behoves the

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  Welsh Office to examine local government finance at the same time as it examines the structure and functions of our new Welsh councils.
  We cannot keep having changes and reforms in local government: it must eventually settle down. The key word now must surely be stability in local government, and I hope that the Government will think again in the months and years ahead about the importance of returning the business rate to the local authority dimension and of ensuring that local democracy is both local and democratic.
  8.51 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Robin Squire): If I am a little tardy in congratulating you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that is because this is my first opportunity to do so. I hope that you will have many happy years in your new post.
  I also thank the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) for his kind words. He referred to shared pleasures of serving on Standing Committees. I have a strange feeling that we will be returning to those shared pleasures on this and other measures as and when they arise.
  I sincerely congratulate also the new hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Olner) on what I thought was a first-class maiden speech, delivered with sincerity and conviction. He spoke generously about his predecessor, Lewis Stevens, who is remembered with affection in this House—I do not believe I am being controversial when I say that he is affectionately remembered by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber.
  The hon. Member for Nuneaton wisely highlighted the links in a community between work, housing and education. Perhaps, as a fellow paid-up member of the club of former leaders of councils, I may also welcome his contribution tonight and look forward to hearing from him again. When he mentioned SSAs, I realised that he will be welcomed into an even more exclusive club—those who wish to understand SSAs and to take part in debates on them. He will be welcome in the rarefied atmosphere surrounding such debates.
  The Government are encouraged by the wide range of support for the Bill in tonight's debate, even though, perhaps predictably, some hon. Members' comments went just a fraction wider. The Bill is certainly good news for business. In a nutshell, it means that no business, whether in transition or not, will face a rate increase of more than 4.1 per cent. this year; and 150,000 businesses will enjoy reductions of up to 27 per cent.
  To those who argue, as did the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones), that we could or should go further, I can only reply that this is already an exceptionally generous package, worth more than £1.25 billion over the three years concerned.
  Speaking of the hon. Member for Cheltenham, whose presence we welcome, he asked a couple of questions that I would like to answer straight away. First, he asked why we are proceeding with the Bill if the economy has turned around. The answer is that the Government believe in fulfilling their promises. This was promised in the Budget and we believe that it should be carried out. Realistically speaking, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will concede,
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  even with the economy turning round, the change will be gradual and many businesses will still face considerable pressures over the next couple of years, so we think it right that they should continue to receive the promised assistance.
  The hon. Member for Cheltenham also suggested that we consider back dating the relief for properties that will benefit from having been left empty during the transitional relief stage. That would be a major exercise, and we should have to unscramble every transaction between 5 April 1990 and 10 April 1992. That would not only be chaotic—it would be undesirable, and it would involve retrospective legislation. Many businesses entered into these purchases and sales taking account of the law as it stood, and we think that it would be unfair to change the underlying ground rules now, as I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree on further reflection.
  The hon. Member for Torfaen asked me one or two questions which I will try to answer. If I do not, I promise to write to him with such residual queries as he may trace—
  Mr. Murphy: In Welsh?
  Mr. Squire: Preferably not.
  I can confirm that just under 30,000 businesses will benefit under the so-called loser clauses alone. A further 6,800 businesses will benefit by having their gains accelerated. Altogether, about 35 per cent. of businesses in Wales will be affected, at a cost of about £1 million to the Exchequer.
  The hon. Gentleman made a passing reference to rates being based on ability to pay. Before 1990, the basis of local business rates was broadly the same as for NNDR, in that they were based on rateable values. To the extent that businesses will not generally be prepared to pay more in rent than they can afford, market rents and hence rateable values are linked to overall business profitability.
  The Bill is certainly good news, targeting help on all businesses. If we simply aimed at small ones, we would not have been able to help some of those which face the largest increases under the 1990 reforms and the largest year-on-year changes under the transitional arrangements.
  The decision to end transitional protection on a change of owner-occupier is designed to ensure that the occupiers of new buildings and the new occupiers of old buildings are treated the same. It also allows more money to flow to gainers within the total. I have already mentioned that in the Welsh context.
  I should like to say a few words on transitional relief in the light of the earlier exchanges involving my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett). If large increases in rates bills emerge from the 1995 revaluation, the Government will certainly consider using their powers to put in place a new transitional scheme after 1995. We have repeatedly given businesses that assurance, and I am happy to underline it again tonight.
  We know that, despite the existing scheme, businesses have had problems coping in the recession. The Government have monitored the position, and have listened. We accept that the loss of transitional protection has put some brake on property changing hands; the

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  Chancellor's Budget announcement included an improvement in the transitional scheme, which will help businesses in difficulties with the recession and assist their return to profitability.
  Mr. Murphy: Can the Minister tell us how long the transitional period is likely to last? Is there a norm, or do transitional periods go on for ever?
  Mr. Squire: I sense that the hon. Gentleman was being less than helpful in that intervention. The answer is, of course, that he cannot expect me to reply to his question from the Dispatch Box tonight—but I can tell him that the Government will examine the way in which businesses are affected from year to year, and will make decisions on that basis. I hope that he will agree that that is the only intelligent way in which to proceed. As I have said, the Government recognise the possibility of a further transitional scheme if we consider such a scheme justified.
  Incidentally, that momentary pause for reflection was helpful, in that I realised that I had made a slip of the tongue. I can confirm that the cost of the Welsh proposals will be £25 million in 1992–93, not the £1 million that I inadvertently mentioned a moment ago.
  The Opposition parties sought to tempt us back to locally set rates. Conservative Members are not moved; we are committed to protecting business rate payers. Only last week, and again tonight, my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. Carrington) drew attention to the enormous rate rise—an increase of over 100 per cent. in local rate, and of 44 per cent. in the general rate—that the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham imposed on businesses in 1987. In 1989–90, poundages ranged from 122p in Kensington and Chelsea to 400p in Sheffield. I know that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) is more than aware of that figure. We cannot go back to that.
  I noted with considerable interest, and qualified agreement, what the hon. Member for Brightside said in his speech. If what I have just described could be termed the 1970s mode of the Labour party—in those days, a number of its members were quite content for businesses to be soaked, and soaked very heavily—we have now clearly moved into 1990s mode. Now, the Labour party champions small businesses. How that will blend in with the championing of the Transport and General Workers Union and other union paymasters, time will show.
  Mr. Blunkett: I shall ignore that rather frivolous throwaway remark. Perhaps the Minister will reflect on where the poundage to which he has referred placed the city of Sheffield on the league table of rates paid by businesses. During the period he mentioned, Sheffield—the fourth largest city in Britain—ranked 61st on the league table. That bore no relation to the actual pence in
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  the pound that had to be levied to raise the necessary revenue to sustain what Her Majesty's inspectorate described at the time as the best education system in Britain.
  Mr. Squire: Of course I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the details of the poundages from the Dispatch Box. I can say, however, that over the years I have heard successive Sheffield Members, referring to the old system, bemoan the high cost of Sheffield's rates. I pass that on for the hon. Gentleman's information and possible edification.
  We have always made it clear that, although set nationally, proceeds of national non-domestic rate would be distributed fully to local authorities. The approach in the Bill underlines that commitment. The NNDR pool will be fully recompensed for any reduction in rate yield that is due to the Bill. Local authorities will be allowed to net off reasonable costs of re-billing from NNDR payments. We shall look carefully at any evidence from authorities that NNDR payments in the first month of the year have not kept pace with the profile of payments to the Department set at the beginning of the year, and we shall consider adjustments if they prove necessary.
  Local authorities will be given plenty of time to prepare for re-billing after enactment by delay in the commencement of the Act by about one month. They will be required to give refunds back to 1 April—or, in the case of transferred property, 10 March—to those who have overpaid, and to adjust future instalments downwards.
  I am sure that the House will wish to see the Bill on the statute book as soon as possible, so that ratepayers can benefit from it. It gives significant help to all businesses, big and small, during the current financial year. It does so by restricting increases for all businesses, and by ensuring that those who benefited most from the 1990 reforms receive all that benefit during this year or the next. As my hon. Friend the Minister of State said when he moved Second Reading, no business this year will face a real-terms rise in its rate bills.
  We believe that this is an important, targeted and necessary measure, and I urge the House to give it unanimous support tonight.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House. —[Mr. Mackay.]
  Committee tomorrow.

  NON-DOMESTIC RATING BILL [MONEY]
  Queen's recommendation having been signified—
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Non-Domestic Rating Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other Act.—[Mr. Squire.]

  Customs Duties
  9.5 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Technology (Mr. Edward Leigh): I beg to move,
  That the Customs Duties (ECSC) (Amendment No. 7) Order 1992 (S.I., 1992, No. 792), dated 16th March 1992, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th March, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.
  The order implements a decision of the Governments of the European Coal and Steel Community meeting within the Council on 3 February 1992. The purpose of the decision, which is part of a package of economic measures agreed by the Community to bring an end to the conflict in the Yugoslav region, is to reinforce preferential tariff rates on imports of all ECSC categories of goods originating from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia. Such imports were temporarily subject to normal rates of duty following the denunciation of the ECSC-Yugoslav agreement and implementation of Community decision 91 588. The order does not reintroduce preferences for goods originating in Serbia.
  For most industrial products, the Community's external tariff can be amended by Council regulation, which is directly applicable in all member states. For legal reasons, however, changes in the tariff related to products covered by the ECSC have to be incorporated in United Kingdom law by means of a statutory instrument through the affirmative resolution procedure. Hence the need for the order.
  9.6 pm
  Ms. Joyce Quin: I begin, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by congratulating you on your appointment. I hope that you have much enjoyment in presiding over our proceedings, whatever the subject and whatever the hour.
  The subject with which we are dealing is similar to one that the Minister and I debated in Committee a few months ago when the (Amendment) (No. 6) order was considered. Against that background, perhaps I can take the opportunity to repeat some of the questions which I put to the Minister on that occasion, which I feel were not entirely answered.
  We have not had a major debate on Yugoslavia, and I realise that it will not be possible to have one when considering an Order as narrow as the one that is before us. During the debate on the Gracious Speech, however, we dealt with foreign affairs. That provided hon. Members with an opportunity, quite properly, to voice their concerns about Yugoslavia.
  I understand the procedure that relates to the Order, which the Minister clarified in his statement. When he replies, perhaps he will be able to say whether there is any way of speeding up the procedure or anything that would make it more effective in the face of the ever changing situation in Yugoslavia—or what, perhaps, more properly should be called the former Yugoslavia.
  When we discussed these matters in Committee, several hon. Members referred to the different parts of Yugoslavia and spoke of how we should respond to the emerging republics. Only a few months ago, through the order on ECSC customs duties, we were proceeding on the basis that the whole of Yugoslavia still existed, even though it was clear that different relations with different republics
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  were emerging on the part of the members of the European Community. It worries me that in such a rapidly changing situation some of the measures with which we are dealing through the procedures can quickly become out of date.
  The order tackles the problem of trade with the different republics in the former Yugoslavia, and no longer with Yugoslavia as a single unit, but I am not sure that it actually deals with those different republics in an entirely acceptable way. It exempts all the republics from ECSC customs duties, except Serbia. However, I understand that Serbia and Montenegro are operating as one unit, even though Montenegro is exempted under the order. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that, because it appears to be rather strange.
  We know that the different republics in the former Yugoslavia have evoked different responses among EC member states. Whereas many of us feel that Slovenia has done a great deal to commend itself to the European Community, there are doubts about some of the developments in Croatia—for example, many people have expressed concern about human rights there.
  It is not a simple matter to deal with the different republics, so I wonder whether the Minister could enlarge on his brief statement and say what sort of discussion of these matters has taken place in the European forum and what was the attitude of the British Government to including all the republics except Serbia in the order.
  Perhaps the Minister could also say a little about how the measures affect the different countries of the European Community. I know that, on the wider issue of sanctions, Greece, for example, is concerned that it might be more detrimentally affected than the various republics in the former Yugoslavia. I put that point to the Minister when we previously discussed this matter in Committee, but he did not respond. Will he now give us some details on that?
  I imagine that the order is of only minor relevance to this country, but as the Minister did not say anything about that aspect, perhaps he could confirm it. Could he also tell us whether he has found it necessary to hold discussions with industry about imposing the duties on steel for Serbia, but removing them for the other republics? What was the practical effect of introducing the previous order that we discussed in Committee? Did it make any major difference to the steel trade between the different republics of Yugoslavia and the different countries of the EC? The Minister has given us no details on that.
  I assume that we are dealing with modest measures that are probably insignificant within the overall trading position between the republics of the former Yugoslavia and EC countries. However, I should be grateful if the Minister could give us some feedback on how that overall trading relationship is now viewed within the EC. While I certainly sympathise with the attitude that the EC is taking towards Serbia in particular, I think that all of us believe that it is important to support all the groups in all the republics that are opposed to the war, which are seeking to preserve or to reopen the channels of dialogue and trying to achieve some sort of solidarity between the various national and ethnic groupings. I should like the Minister to deal with that matter when he replies.
  Although the order is of minor importance in the overall relationship with Yugoslavia, it allows us to raise various questions—some of which I have tried to raise tonight, to which I hope the Minister will respond. The overall sanctions relating to Yugoslavia are adopted by regulation in the European Community and are

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  immediately binding on all the member states, so they have not given rise to debate in this House. The different procedure that applies to the ECSC allows us to raise some of these issues tonight, and I hope that the Minister will respond.
  9.14 pm
  Mr. Leigh: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Gateshead, East (Ms. Quin). She is right to ask those questions. It is also right that the House should be given the opportunity to debate the tragic events in Yugoslavia. I do not intend to deal in detail with those tragic events, because the scope of the order is narrow. All I would say is that Government will continue their twin-track policy in Yugoslavia. They will give all aid, comfort and support to my noble Friend Lord Carrington in his sterling efforts on behalf of the people in that region and will also encourage the different sides in the dispute in Croatia and Bosnia to come together.
  I shall do my best to answer the questions that the hon. Lady put to me. If I fail to do so, I shall be happy to write to her. She asked whether my Department had been in contact with United Kingdom importers and exporters. Our exporters face a difficult situation in Yugoslavia. They will need to reassure themselves that their customers have funds to pay for goods or services provided. That will not be easy. Many companies in the former republics have been badly hit by the present conflict, while others have money in banks outside those republics and can fund purchases with that money. Another problem is transportation of goods to the customer. The whole House will appreciate that our exporters face severe problems. My Department is ready to assist in every way that it possibly can.
  The hon. Lady asked me about the impact of European Community sanctions on trade with Yugoslavia. That is difficult to quantify. The main impact on trade has been the current conflict in the former republics. That has led to the value of United Kingdom trade declining by 37·5 per cent. in the first four months of 1992, compared with the same period last year. I am afraid that I do not have figures with me relating to the value of trade lost by other European Community members, but I shall be delighted to write to her with that information.
  The hon. Lady also asked me about who is to blame in this sad dispute. In our view, no side in Bosnia is without blame. The United Nations Security Council resolution 752 of 15 May calls for the withdrawal of units of the federal army and elements of the Croatian army from Bosnia. Serbs, through the federal army and irregulars, are the major aggressors.
  The hon. Lady asked me why, in the light of recent developments, Montenegro is included in the list of republics benefiting from the reintroduction of preferential access. I am sure that she will appreciate that this is a sensitive issue, upon which I should not like to dwell. However, at the time that the decision was taken Montenegro was deemed to be making a positive contribution towards the peace conference. The hon. Lady will recognise that that decision was taken by the European Community's Council of Ministers in December 1991.
  That leads me to the first point made by the hon. Member for Gateshead, East. She said that there is a rapidly developing situation and she was asking whether
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  our procedures are sufficiently flexible to deal with it. We are in a difficult position, since we are committed to moving together as a Community. If one were talking about normal trade—for example, textiles—it would be possible to take a decision simply on the basis of the Council of Ministers decision. That is not possible when it comes to matters that relate to the European Coal and Steel Community. The hon. Lady will recognise that that is a much older agreement, dating back to the 1950s.
  The House may find it useful if I state the exact legal position. Section 5(3) and schedule 2(4) of the European Communities Act, as amended by section 19 and schedule 2 of the Customs and Excise Duties (General Reliefs) Act 1979, require that, where an order imposes or increases any customs duty, the affirmative resolution procedure has to be used unless the duty is imposed pursuant to a Community obligation. If this order were being made pursuant to a Community obligation, the negative resolution procedure could be followed, but as, instead, the order is made pursuant to a decision of the Governments of the member states, it cannot be followed.
  I apologise for that somewhat legalistic language. In layman's terms, it means that, under the European Communities Act, we must use the affirmative procedure. The Council makes a decision which comes into force and, within 28 days, the House must approve it by affirmative resolution. If the House did not approve the course of action, the order would lapse.
  Such matters can usually be dealt with far more simply in Committee, but, as the debate is taking place so soon after the general election, the appropriate Committee has not been constituted. It is a rather complex legal point—
  Ms. Quin: Given that the situation in what was formerly Yugoslavia is changing, is a series of meetings envisaged, within the purview of the European Coal and Steel Community, to monitor what is happening to custom duties and possibly to change the arrangements again if it is felt appropriate to do so?
  Mr. Leigh: That is a fair point and I shall certainly take it on board. The House recognises that matters are moving quickly. Ministers and those who advise them will keep a close eye on the situation and, if it changes—for instance, if it becomes clear that there is a change in attitude by the Serbian Government—the Government will want to come back to the House, presumably having consulted other members in the Community, to see whether any change is appropriate. For the time being, however, we think that the order represents the best response.
  The order is part of a package of measures designed to put pressure on those whom we consider to be the principal aggressors—the Serbians. We think that ours is a balanced approach. I should add that we have also recalled our ambassador to Belgrade, who is now in London. We are determined to do all that we can to help to alleviate the tragedy in Yugoslavia. The order is part of the twin-track policy to which I referred earlier.
  I hope that the House will approve the order and will want once again to pay tribute to the tireless efforts of my noble Friend Lord Carrington.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Customs Duties (ECSC) (Amendment No. 7) Order 1992 (S.I., 1992, No. 792) dated 16th March 1992, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th March in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.

  Defective Housing (Gosport)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Andrew MacKay.]
  9.23 pm
  Mr. Peter Viggers: This is the first opportunity that I have had to address you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in your new role. I wish you well and congratulate you on your appointment. May all your Adjournment debates come up at 9.23 pm, and not much later, as many do.
  I am glad to have the opportunity to raise the subject of the plight of 278 families who are living in flats and maisonettes in my constituency—specifically in flats and maisonettes that were previously in the ownership of the Ministry of Defence.
  In the 1960s, John Laing, the builders, built for the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works, then for the Ministry of Defence, several blocks of flats under the system of construction known as the Jesperson 12M system. That system was originally Danish and was used satisfactorily elsewhere in the United Kingdom. However, there were serious problems in Gosport. The Jesperson 12M flats and maisonettes in Gosport were not built as they were elsewhere. In Gosport, most of them were built not with internal balconies but with external balconies. The idea was to provide more internal space. That type of construction seemed to work satisfactorily when the properties were owned by the MOD.
  The MOD found that it needed fewer of its properties for MOD occupation and it decided to sell some of them and to lease others. Of the properties that are causing difficulty at the moment, 275 have been leased to the borough of Gosport and provide council occupation, and 278 were sold by the MOD initially to property developers and, through them, to owner-occupiers.
  All was well until one day in September 1991, when, quite unexpectedly, a balcony on one of the blocks of flats in Sephton close collapsed. The inspection that took place immediately after the collapse rapidly revealed defects in the Sephton close blocks and in other flats in the development.
  The balconies were held in position by large C-shaped joints, about 3m high, secured at top and bottom by a hollow rectangular shaft which ran from the balconies into a receiving hole in the buildings where the shaft was secured by bolts. The whole of the joint structure was covered in concrete, thus making it impossible to discover whether there are defects. After the first balcony collapsed, it became necessary to shore up the other balconies with scaffolding. That remains the position today. That was the beginning of the crisis.
  The Government have been helpful and, through the MOD, have provided 350 housing units which the MOD will make available to housing associations, with the MOD retaining about half the nominations for five years, so that it will be able to rehouse returning service men, should that be necessary. The other half of the 350 units will be made available to the borough of Gosport. That will ease the borough's problem in housing its tenants and will help it to carry out the necessary redevelopment. However, the people in most severe difficulty are the owner-occupiers—the residents of the 278 privately owned blocks.
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  The Building Research Establishment, which is responsible to the Minister, has produced a paper which states:
  "We attributed the cause of the failure to the corrosion of the hollow steel fixing caused by water penetrating the cladding and being held in the shuttering and mortar/concrete encasing the steel section where it passes through the timber cladding."
  The paper also states that access to the troubled area
  "was gained by 'opening up' the construction from the outside of the building."
  It is clear from the Building Research Establishment paper that it was not possible to establish the defect prior to it manifesting itself in the most dramatic way through the collapse of the balcony.
  What can the owner-occupiers do? They paid between £25,000 and rather more than £40,000 for their properties, depending on location and timing. However, they cannot sell because there is no market. One cannot sell if no one is prepared to buy and if people believe that the estate is blighted—as it is at the moment. Selling is not an option.
  I pay tribute to the Minister's predecessor at the Department of the Environment, my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo) and to the Department of the Environment, which has been helpful in working out with Gosport borough council the possibilty of obtaining common parts grants under the housing renovation scheme. It seems that such grants will be available, ranging from £5,700 to £6,300.
  A detailed scheme has been produced by Michael Dyson Associates, chartered structural engineers, of Southampton, and it seems to have some support. At the moment, the owner-occupiers are not minded to proceed along that route, because they do not regard repair as their way ahead. They want to be able to sell their housing units. I have urged the owner-occupiers to proceed along the repair route because that does not rule out other possibilities. I certainly urge them to bring together the necessary three quarters of residents in the owner-occupied blocks and to apply for common parts grants with the assistance of Gosport borough council.
  The second route along which the residents may proceed is to take legal action. That, too, is in hand. It is very difficult to bring together a disparate group of 278 owner-occupiers who need initially to obtain legal aid and to obtain counsel's opinion on who they might be able to take legal action against. One possible defendant, of course, is John Laing, the builder of the blocks, who undoubtedly constructed a block with a very dangerous defect within it. Another possibility is the Ministry of Defence or its predecessor in terms of authority for construction, the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works. Certainly the Ministry of Defence was not only responsible for having the block built but ran it for many years and was responsible for selling the block to the ultimate owner-occupiers. The Ministry of Defence might be an appropriate target for action.
  Also, there are the building societies that advised the owner-occupiers when they bought. In most cases, the owner-occupiers paid a modest surveyor's fee of £75. In other words, they did not have a proper structural survey. However, there is no doubt that the owner-occupiers were encouraged to use certain building societies, particularly the Halifax building society, and there may be an implication that the Halifax itself could be liable for that reason. There is a possibility of legal action.

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  It is difficult to see how that process can bring about a solution in the near term. We are looking for a shorter-term solution to that terrible situation in which the owner-occupiers find themselves—that is, of not being able to sell and not being able to move. There is no doubt that the dwellings are defective, and there is no doubt that the defect was not capable of normal discovery at the time of purchase. For anyone involved in housing legislation, that should begin to ring bells because it makes one think about the Housing Defects Act 1984.
  That Act is intended to cope with exactly that situation. On Second Reading of the Bill, our late lamented friend, Ian Gow, the then Minister for Housing and Construction, said:
  "The purpose of the Bill is to relieve the very serious distress and financial hardship of those who, often using all their savings, have bought their homes from public sector bodies in good faith and now find that those homes, through no fault of their own, have been very seriously devalued because of faults in design and construction which have since been discovered and confirmed by the Building Research Establishment."—[Official Report, 26 April 1984; Vol. 58, c. 894.]
  That is exactly what has happened in the case of the owner-occupiers on the Rowner housing estate.
  I brought an all-party delegation from the borough of Gosport to see my hon. Friend's predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, South on 11 February. It was a short meeting because it was disrupted by a bomb scare and had to be curtailed, but I put it to the Minister as forcefully as I could that the housing defects legislation should apply in the case of the Rowner flats. We from Gosport were amazed—all four of us on our side of the table remember the words very well—when the Minister's adviser said that the defect in the flats was discoverable at the time of construction.
  I gather that that statement was denied subsequently, and we are told that the official said that the defect was discoverable at the time of purchase. However, that is not particularly significant to my case. The Minister ruled out the best route for my constituents, which is to use the housing defects legislation to require the local authority to buy their housing units at 95 per cent. of the defect-free price. That is what my constituents want.
  The Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry), who will answer the debate, has written to me, again referring to the meeting on 11 February. In his letter of 6 May he said:
  "Defects legislation was reserved for dwelling types with serious inherent structural defects which could not have been known about or discovered on survey at time of purchase".
  I maintain that that is exactly what we have here, unless my hon. Friend has someone in his Department who is so clever that he can see through concrete. There was no way of discovering the defects. They arose as a result of water seepage through the concrete which corroded the metal within the concrete. No one could have discovered those defects until suddenly the balconies collapsed. I maintain that, on discoverability, the Rowner balcony flats fall precisely within the terms of the housing defects legislation.
  I suppose that it could be maintained that the Jesperson 12M class generally did not have defects. Of course that is true, but the flats constructed with balconies in Gosport, of which there are several hundred, had defects. Therefore, I maintain that the proper class is Jesperson 12M with balconies, as constructed in Gosport. I see no reason why that should not be accepted as a proper class.
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  In his letter of 6 May, my hon. Friend the Minister pointed out that my constituents would be better off if they had their properties repaired than if they took advantage of the housing defects legislation to have the houses repossessed. He said that it would cost some £7 million to have the houses repurchased under the housing defects legislation, whereas it would cost only £1 million to repair them under the house renovation scheme. He says that the latter would be better from their point of view.
  I walked around the area again last weekend and spoke to some of the residents. I can tell my hon. Friend that that is not what they want. I put it to him that it is not for him to tell me what I should tell my constituents is best for them. I am telling him on behalf of my constituents that they desperately want the opportunity to sell their flats and maisonettes under the housing defects legislation.
  When our friend Ian Gow moved the Second Reading of the Housing Defects Bill, he said that he had had many letters describing the moving cases of people who were unable to sell their houses and flats—people in the most difficult situation. No case could possibly be worse than that of my constituents. They feel that they are stuck with blighted flats and maisonettes. Some of them work for the Ministry of Defence and have been relocated to other jobs in Bath or elsewhere. They cannot move. It is intolerable for them. Therefore, I ask my hon. Friend to think again.
  If the advice that my hon. Friend has been given leads him to believe that he cannot designate the properties, I ask him to look again at that advice and the facts that back it up. I ask for designation under part XIV section 528 of the Housing Act 1985. If my hon. Friend discovers that he cannot designate the flats and maisonettes, that it is not policy for him to do so or that the law does not allow him to proceed along that route, I ask him to do exactly what my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Sir J. Stanley) did in 1982 when he realised that a special case had to be made of the Airey type of construction, and introduced emergency legislation.
  I also ask my hon. Friend to do exactly what Ian Gow did in 1984 and to introduce legislation which will help a further group of 28 classes of housing. I ask my hon. Friend to be responsive to the special problem of my constituents. I have met them, and they are essentially decent, reasonable and deeply worried people. They are our kind of people. They are the kind of people who are anxious to get on the escalator of house ownership. They bought their first property, and it has let them down. I believe that the Government owe them some help.
  9.39 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Tony Baldry): I fully appreciate the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers), and I shall endeavour to deal in full with the issues that he has raised. My predecessor, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo) met my hon. Friend and members and officers of Gosport borough council early this year. A further meeting was subsequently held with my noble Friend the Earl of Arran, the then Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces. That allowed ministerial colleagues to explore the issues involved in detail and to prepare a way forward which, it was hoped, would provide constructive assistance to the owners of the flats in as short a time as possible.

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  The facts are these: the defects in the balconies could and should have been discovered at purchase; but, that aside, at the second meeting with ministerial colleagues, Gosport council's officers confirmed that the owners should be eligible for 100 per cent. grant aid.
  However, judging by various comments that have appeared in the media and elsewhere, misunderstandings persist and I therefore welcome the opportunity to set the record straight. I am also grateful for the chance to set the advice that we have alread given within the wider context of the Government's policy on ex-public sector housing stock in which structural defects become apparent.
  Whatever their construction, all older houses may have defects. Sometimes they will be trivial and sometimes more serious, but, provided that they are recognised, the buyer will be able to take into account future maintenance and repair costs likely to be associated with the defects and to reflect those costs in the price that he or she is prepared to pay for the property—they may even decide not to purchase. That is why we advise all local authority tenants contemplating the right to buy to obtain an independent survey, and why we warn them that a survey carried out by the lending institution is for valuation purposes only and will not necessarily reveal structural problems. That is sound advice for any prospective purchaser. We then expect owners to make proper provision for future repair and maintenance.
  Where serious, inherent, structural defects exist which could not possibly have been known about or discovered in a survey at the time of the purchase, that is a different matter. Research in the early 1980s by the Building Research Establishment revealed defects of that type in a number of prefabricated, reinforced concrete house types designed before 1960. As a result, owners who had bought from the public sector in good faith experienced a substantial loss of value. So, in 1984 the Government, with all-party support, introduced the housing defects legislation to ensure that their houses could be designated as inherently defective, and the owners could be assisted.
  The BRE has since investigated the range of system-built dwellings in this country, but it has found no further types that meet the criteria that I have outlined. Last year's efficiency scrutiny of the legislation concluded that any further designations were highly unlikely.
  The Jespersen 12M form of large panel system—LPS —construction, used in the flats at Gosport, was among the types surveyed by the BRE. Its report of LPS dwellings in 1987 revealed no cases of flats or houses which were structurally unsound, but BRE warned owners and purchasers to check that LPS buildings had been constructed to the standard system and that no one-off variations were present. Clearly, if such variations existed, they would need further investigation.
  When the balcony failures occurred on the Rowner estate last year, Gosport borough council wisely called in BRE to advise, and it found that the balcony design was unique to the estate and represented the sort of variation that it had warned might exist. It further concluded that the crucial fixing detail was highly vulnerable to rain water penetration and the uncovery work that it then carried out confirmed that severe deterioration of the metal supports,
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  through corrosion, had indeed taken place. However, there is no evidence that the flats, which were built to the standard Jespersen system, had any such problems.
  I understand that the cost of replacing the balconies will fall far short of the substantial reduction in notional overall value required by the housing defects legislation and that the defective detail does not meet the policy criteria for designation. Ministers have clearly and consistently been advised that any building professional carrying out a structural survey on the flats could and should have recognised that the balconies were non-standard, realised the extreme vulnerability of the fixing details, and advised that uncovery work would be necessary to determine the current condition of the fixing.
  We do not know what structural surveys, if any, were carried out when the flats were first sold, as found, on the open market by the Ministry of Defence to the three original property companies. Nor do we know whether the present owners commissioned such surveys when the flats were subsequently sold on. Various allegations have been made, but clearly it would not be right for me to comment further on questions of liability that might ultimately be for the courts to decide.
  My hon. Friend has suggested that the detail should have been seen as vulnerable at the time the flats were constructed. As he knows, no such statement has been made by my professional advisers, but even if that were true, it would merely reinforce their advice that the defect could and should have been discovered on survey at the time of purchase. That should not be our immediate concern today.
  The owners of leasehold flats and maisonettes are clearly in a very difficult position. Many, if not all, of them will be unable to fund the cost of the necessary repair works from their own resources. As every day passes, the cost of the temporary scaffolding, erected to make the balconies safe, mounts higher and higher.
  As I have already said, designation of the dwellings under the housing defects legislation would not be appropriate. Nor, as I shall show later, would it in any event be in the best interests of the owners, the council and the lending institutions that have advanced mortgages on the estate. Furthermore, as was explained to my hon. Friend and Gosport council when they met ministerial colleagues, and as I hope that I have further explained in correspondence, a better solution is to hand.
  As my hon. Friend has clearly and sensibly set out, since the housing defects legislation was passed, we have introduced the house renovation grants scheme to cover properties such as those on the Rowner estate, which were not previously eligible for repair grants. Since the scheme was started in 1990, local authorities have already agreed grant aid in just less than 40,000 cases, amounting to spending of more than £100 million, and targeted on owners—such as those on the Rowner estate—who would otherwise have real difficulty in carrying out essential repairs.
  As I have said, Gosport borough council's officers have confirmed that, in their view, all the affected owners could be eligible for 100 per cent. grant aid toward the cost of repairs, under the common parts provisions of the scheme. That could cost as much as £1.5 million, which is obviously a lot of money, but that is very much less than the £6.5 million that the council would need to spend to repurchase these homes at current "defect-free" valuations under the housing defects legislation.

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  That £1.5 million would restore the flats to the valuations that they enjoyed before the balcony failure, and the owners could keep their homes. Contrast that with the effects of repurchase under the housing defects legislation. It provides for repurchase of designated flats at 95 per cent. of the current defect-free value. I understand that those valuations would average about £25,000 a dwelling.
  However, I understand that the majority of owners have mortgages well in excess of that, since they bought at the height of property prices. Figures as high as £45,000 have been quoted, and it seems clear that, after repurchase, the average owner might be left with mortgage debts of as much as £12,000 to repay, on top of any rent, and without the value of a leasehold asset.
  That obviously cannot make sense. It certainly does not make sense to the lending institutions, which agree that assistance under the house renovation grant scheme is the only viable option. It surely cannot make sense either to Gosport borough council, which would, after all, have to foot the bill. Nor does it make sense in terms of overall public expenditure.
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  I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that the only practical way forward for the owners is for them now to submit grant applications on the basis of the repair scheme that their structural engineers have already drawn up, and which will, I understand, be considered by Gosport council's planning committee as soon as 2 June. Once that has been done, the way will be clear for the council's officers to discuss with the Department's regional office how the resource implications for the council of grant aid can best be met, and the defective balconies replaced as soon as possible.
  As I and ministerial colleagues have repeatedly said, we are keen to provide constructive assistance to the owners of the flats in as short a time as possible. If they submit grant applications and enable Gosport council's planning committee to consider them on 2 June, and then to consider that matter with my Department's regional office, I hope that we shall indeed provide that constructive assistance to the owners in as short a time as possible.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at nine minutes to Ten o'clock.