Commons Sitting of 5 November 1992

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  PRIVATE BUSINESS
    LONDON UNDERGROUND (GREEN PARK) BILL (By Order)
    Read a Second time, and committed.
    BRITISH RAILWAYS (No. 4) Bill (By Order)
      BRITISH WATERWAYS BILL [Lords] ( By Order)
        CROSSRAIL BILL (By Order)
          EAST COAST MAIN LINE (SAFETY) BILL. (By Order)

            GREATER MANCHESTER (LIGHT RAPID TRANSIT SYSTEM)BILL [Lords] (By Order)
            Orders fir Second Reading read.
            To be read a Second time on Thursday 12 November.

Oral Answers to Questions
  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Sheep Regime
    Mr. Ian Bruce: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the progress of the GATT negotiations as they affect the United Kingdom sheep regime.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Selwyn Gummer): Sheep will be subject to the same general commitments as other agricultural products under a GATT round settlement.
    Mr. Bruce: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that assurance. What is he doing to ensure that French farmers are not allowed to mess up the whole of the GATT round? He will know that the French people love to eat Dorset lamb but are often prevented from doing so due to unilateral action by French farmers. Will he ensure that the French Government act in a communautaire way in these matters?
    Mr. Gummer: The problems that we now face arose largely because, although the European Community was willing to move substantially, it seemed impossible for the American negotiators to have enough authority to move in an equal way. I am sad that we should be in a position in which the GATT round is so in peril. I hope that it will be possible for both sides to come to a conclusion.
    I pay tribute to Mr. MacSharry's work and his willingness to negotiate right to the end. I was not involved in the negotiations, but I was present nearby and was aware of what was going on from point to point. As President of the Agriculture Council, I thank him for the work that he has done.
    Mr. Stevenson: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that a serious disagreement between the United States and the European Community has been over the discredited and expensive oilseeds regime in the European Community? Will he—
    Madam Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Member that the main question refers to the GATT negotiations and the sheep regime. Perhaps he will direct his supplementary question to that point.
    Mr. Stevenson: I intend to refer to the GATT negotiations, Madam Speaker, including sheep.
    Madam Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Member will heed what I have just said. We shall have a statement later on the negotiations generally.
    Mr. Stevenson: Will the Secretary of State accept that, along with problems concerning sheep, the oilseeds regime is a big problem? Does he realise that if the European Community were to accept the GATT panel ruling relating to the oilseeds regime, progress on the GATT negotiations generally might be possible?
    Mr. Gummer: I fear that the hon. Gentleman is perhaps not in as detailed connection with the oilseeds regime, or indeed with the sheep regime, as are many in the House. In negotiations of this kind, it is a mistake to undermine those

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    who are trying to negotiate on our behalf as part of the European Community. I believe that Mr. MacSharry sought to do that fully, in accordance with the position of the Council of Ministers, which I represented as the President of that Council. When there is a mile to go and one side goes more than half a mile, it would be helpful if others were able to meet that progress.
    Sir Peter Tapsell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if we are now to be committed to a communautaire approach to all these matters we shall have to give a more sympathetic hearing to the French farmers, who are reluctant to hand over their German market to the United States? Is he further aware that those of us who think that our GATT arrangements are of profound importance to this country are concerned lest the deeper we get drawn into this European arrangement with the Maastricht treaty, the more difficult it will be to keep our trading arrangements with the United States on the friendly basis on which we want them to be.
    Mr. Gummer: If we were not deep in the European Community, I would have been nowhere near those negotiations and the United Kingdom would have had no possibility of playing a part in the GATT agreement. Britain on its own would have had to stand aside and watch the European Community make GATT arrangements with the United States of America. That is why those who voted in favour of the Maastricht treaty last night were right and my hon. Friend the Member for East Lindsey (Sir P. Tapsell) was entirely wrong.
    Mr. Ron Davies: It is in the interests of sheep producers as well as every other sector that we have a settlement at the GATT negotiations. I offer my personal support to the Minister in those negotiations. I know that he has just flown back from north America and we wish him well in achieving the settlement that he wants. Will he confirm, however, that at 3 o'clock this afternoon the Americans will announce retaliatory measures following the failure to reach agreement at the GATT round, principally on oilseed dumping by the EC? Will he also confirm that there have been two consecutive rulings by the GATT disputes panel against the EC on that issue? As Britain currently has the presidency of the Agriculture Council, will he now guarantee that he will not allow Britain's commercial interests to be prejudiced due to unfair protection by European Community farmers?
    Mr. Gummer: First, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his election to the shadow Cabinet. I know that we shall have some sharp exchanges, hut they will be fair and honourable and I welcome them—[HON. MEMBERS: "Resign."] To resign for being honourable and fair seems a sad attitude to take.
    The truth is that the European Community has sought to meet the objections and has suggested a range of ways in which that might be done. I am determined to do everything that I can to encourage those negotiations and discussions to go on. I am sorry that there did not appear to be authority on the other side—understandably, against the background of the United States elections, and so on —to proceed as could otherwise have been done.
    I shall continue to do my best to safeguard not only Britain's interests but, as President of the Agricultural Council for the time being, those of the whole of Europe.
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    There is no other way to deal with world trade than to get a GATT settlement, which is as important to farmers in Britain, France and the United States as anywhere else.

    Environmentally Sensitive Areas
    Mr. Morgan: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proposals he has to strengthen the incentives for environmentally sensitive areas.
    Mr. Gummer: The first group of ESAs were strengthened and enlarged earlier this year. Proposals for enhancement of the remaining areas have been the subject of recent public consultation and revised schemes will come into effect early next year. I also expect to make an early announcement concerning further ESA designations.
    Mr. Morgan: Will the Minister confirm to the House that he has lost the battle with the Treasury for further funding for environmentally sensitive areas? He lost it when he was in the United States recently, travelling incognito and signing himself in as Wyatt Earp at the Chicago Hilton. If matters continue in that manner, he will have to travel incognito around the Hilton hotels of this country, too.
    Mr. Gummer: I shall make an announcement soon, and I promise that I shall not detain the House for as long as the hon. Gentleman did on the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill.
    Mr. Hendry: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the gratitude of farmers in the North Peak area for the meeting that he arranged for them with officials in his Department following the letter that I wrote to him setting out their concerns? Will he assure us that, when the revised proposals for the North Peak ESA are published, there will be another opportunity for consultation so that any further concerns that they have can be taken into account?
    Mr. Gummer: My hon. Friend's remarks are kind. However, any Minister or Secretary of State who responded to such a question without saying that people will have to wait and see would be very silly on any subject during a public expenditure survey round. However, that does not mean that my hon. Friend should feel that what has happened in the past will not have some direction in the future.
    Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: The Minister will he aware that there has been a considerable welcome, among both the farming community and the environmental lobby, for the latest set of environmentally sensitive area designations in England and Wales, but is he aware that there is considerable concern that the timetable seems to be slipping back? The impression given to farmers is that the areas might he sacrificed in the current round of negotiations on public spending. Will the Minister assure us that that will not happen?
    Mr. Gummer: I was the Minister who took the original Bill on ESAs through Committee, and I have been committed to that legislation ever since. As Minister, I have also presented further extensions to it, so the hon. Gentleman will know that I am keen on the concept. In those circumstances, he must understand that the subject is among the range of priorities within my remit that I have been discussing. If I were to say, "This is okay" or "No, it is not", other hon. Members would present me with other

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    issues and ask similar questions. Therefore, I shall have to stick to saying that I will make an announcement as soon as possible.
    Mr. Clifton-Brown: My right hon. Friend will be aware that farmers in my constituency are pleased that the Cotswold hills appear in the next wave of published ESAs. I am pleased at my right hon. Friend's announcement today that he expects to be able to present guidelines on that ESA early next year. Will he assure the farmers in my constituency who enter the agreement voluntarily that they will not in future be subject to further environmental guidelines to which other farmers will not be subject?
    Mr. Gummer: The concept of the ESA is that it is a voluntary agreement between farmers and the community. That understanding must be supported and continued; otherwise, farmers will not enter into the agreements with their current alacrity and enthusiasm or voluntarily do more than they are paid for. I am impressed with the reaction of the farming community and I shall do nothing to undermine it.

    Animal Welfare
    Mr. Flynn: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to improve the welfare of animals transported from the United Kingdom to the rest of the EC.
    Mr. Hinchliffe: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the transportation of live animals.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Nicholas Soames): We shall continue to demand the highest possible welfare standards for all animals during transport. We are imminently expecting further proposals from the Commission.
    Mr. Flynn: Why has the Minister not demanded publication of the amendments to article 13 of the European Community transport directive? The amendments will improve the watering stops, and the feeding and resting arrangements for animals in transit, and will go a long way to ensuring that the terrible cruelty suffered by animals transported throughout the Community will be reduced. Britain is in the driving seat as it has the presidency, so why have the amendments not been published? Is this another example of the failing British presidency of the EC?
    Mr. Soames: The hon. Gentleman should know that the directive to which he refers establishes a good framework of controls. It is incomplete as it stands and we await further proposals from the Commission, which we shall address. We are intent on demanding the same high standards abroad that we have in this country. The hon. Gentleman should know that tonight my right hon. Friend the Minister, in his capacity as President of the Agriculture Council, is attending the annual dinner of the Federation of Veterinarians in the European Community in Brussels. He will once again stress the Government's determination and commitment to achieving the very highest standards of animal welfare throughout the Community.
    Mr. Hinchliffe: Has the Minister personally observed the conditions in which some live animals are transported
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    in this country? I recently witnessed the death of a terrified sheep which jumped off the top of a lorry on the M1 motorway and was killed. Has the Minister seen the conditions in which live poultry are crammed into crates and taken around parts of the country? Before we lecture people in Europe about their treatment of animals, should we not get our own act together in this country?
    Mr. Soames: We believe that, by and large, we have high standards of animal welfare in this country. From time to time, however, there are regrettable accidents and incidents. If the hon. Gentleman knows of any such incidents he should give me the details and evidence so that I can have them investigated with great vigour forthwith.
    Mr. Marland: Is my hon. Friend aware that a large number of people in this country are immensely grateful to him and to the Department for the steps that they have taken to improve animal welfare and the conditions of animals in transit? Will he use his influence to ensure that those standards spread throughout Europe? Is there any possibility under the Maastricht treaty—and the regulations whereby all member states must operate under the same conditions—of enforcing better animal welfare conditions throughout Europe?
    Mr. Soames: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising a most important point. The enforcement of the rules is essential to their integrity and to the confidence of people in this country and elsewhere that these high standards of animal welfare will be enforced. My hon. Friend should be aware that in the Maastricht agreement there was a valuable declaration on animal welfare which was promoted by the British Government. We very much hope that those details will be taken up by overseas Governments.
    Mr. Peter Atkinson: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his robust defence of our measures of minimum value for the export of horses. Will he assure the House that he will continue to fight the threat to this important animal welfare measure in the European Community?
    Mr. Soames: I am more than grateful to my hon. Friend. The minimum values have stood this country in good stead. It is our firm intention to fight with great vigour to ensure that they remain.
    Mr. Morley: Does the Minister agree that it is best to slaughter animals as near as possible to the point of production and not to take them long distances? Is he not concerned about the number of abattoirs that fail to meet EC standards? At present only 98 out of 686 abattoirs in the United Kingdom meet the new EC standards, and many rural jobs are being lost as abattoirs are forced to close down. That has implications for increased animal transportation.
    Does the Minister agree that we need equality in Europe? While some member states are receiving grants to improve their small rural abattoirs, our small businesses are apparently not getting the support from the Government that they deserve.
    Mr. Soames: The hon. Gentleman stayed well clear of the question; I will confine myself to dealing with the part of his remarks that dealt with animal welfare. He raised an important point about abattoirs and animal welfare. There is no reason why animals should not travel, provided that they are humanely and properly handled, but an animal

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    that is not fit to travel should not be transported any distance at all. The question of abattoirs exercises us greatly at the moment and we are giving it a great deal of attention.

    Knackers Yards
    Mr. Patrick Thompson: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the future of knackers yards.
    Mr. Soames: The Government have made clear the importance that they attach to the role of the knacker industry, and in forthcoming discussions with the Community we shall be negotiating with vigour to secure its longer-term future.
    Mr. Thompson: Does my hon. Friend accept that well-operated knackers yards prevent serious pollution and health problems? Does he share my concern that crippling charges likely to be imposed under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 could seriously endanger the operation of knackers yards? Will he support the knacker men?
    Mr. Soames: The Government stand foursquare behind the knacker men—particularly in the light of the events of the past few days. My hon. Friend has drawn the attention of the House to an important matter which is essential to the proper and orderly running of the countryside. It is true that the knacker men are very worried about the level of fees that they will have to pay for air pollution controls under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Officials in my Department are closely liaising with those in the Department of the Environment, whose legislation it is. I assure my hon. Friend that we shall do everything that we can to minimise the possible burden of these regulations on the knacker industry.
    Mr. Skinner: Last night the Government Whips were dragging Tory Members to the knackers yard and some of them have been squealing ever since. Instead of dragging those Tory Members out of one Lobby and into the other, should not the occupants of the whole Government Front Bench be sent to the knackers yard?
    Mr. Soames: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman heard what I said earlier: provided these animals are fit to travel, there is no reason why they should not do so.
    Mr. Wiggin: On a different aspect of the matter, in preparing his answer my hon. Friend may have studied the Select Committee report on the disposal of fallen stock and may be aware that not only is the present environmental attack on knackers yards causing that industry great difficulty, but the charges that knackers find it necessary to impose on customers have seriously damaged the industry. Will my hon. Friend look again at the Committee's recommendation that some support for the end product—perhaps paid for by the Department of the Environment—would recognise the important contribution that knackers yards make to the disposal of this disgusting material?
    Mr. Soames: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Naturally we studied the report of his Committee with great care. The knacker industry is not about to disappear and we aim to ensure that it will continue to play a key role in animal waste disposal. Hunt kennels, incinerators and
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    burial are also currently used to dispose of carcases. As I have said, we are aware of the great importance of the knacker industry to the countryside. Although there is no question of our subsidising the industry, I assure my hon. Friend that we shall do all that we can to remove its burdens.

    Surplus Food
    Mr. Cryer: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the distribution of EC surplus foods to pensioners; and what assessment he has made of whether sufficient quantities have been allocated to each outlet.
    The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. David Curry): Butter and beef worth about £17·9 million will be distributed by designated organisations to eligible people in the United Kingdom during 1992–93. Pensioners who fall into the eligible groups will qualify for the food.
    Mr. Cryer: Does the Minister agree that that amount is only a small part of the £2·5 billion per year that we contribute to the Common Market? That butter and beef is paid for by taxpayers. The arbitrary halving of allocated amounts to the various outlets because of the doubling of the number has therefore caused great concern to the voluntary organisations which, with good heart and good will, undertake distribution to pensioners and other poor people. In future, will the Minister seek to obtain more supplies for each outlet, such as Dovesdale working men's club in my constituency? Will he ensure that poor people receive a proper amount, and will he take into account the views of the voluntary organisations carrying out the distribution rather than impose arbitrary limits? Or does he not care about either category?
    Mr. Curry: The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. Either we give greater quantities to fewer organisations or we try to make sure that there is fair distribution across the country so that those who qualify manage to receive some of the product. It is a fixed budget, there are fixed amounts, and the pressure upon me has been to designate many organisations in order to ensure as fair a distribution as possible. I have done that, and I think that it is the right course.
    Mr. Hawkins: My hon. and right hon. Friends will be aware that my constituency has the highest proportion of pensioners of any constituency. They will also be aware that in recent years the distribution of that food has been of considerable benefit to those pensioners. Is there any opportunity for further distributions of surplus food? Is there a chance that the surplus mushrooms that have been grown in the Republic of Ireland will be distributed to pensioners there, rather than involve the payment of unfair subsidies which are damaging one of my most important employers, the biggest mushroom farm in the north of England?
    Mr. Curry: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his dexterity in making that question comply with the rules. We shall review the scheme to see whether it is reaching the right people and in the right quantities and products. One of the matters that I shall look at is whether we should look to a scheme that is tilted more towards beef than butter because there are fewer surpluses of butter and as

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    we all know, there is a horrendous surplus of beef. We shall see to what extent we can correspond to the economic conditions and, above all, make sure that it is fair to those who receive it.
    Mr. Ron Davies: May I press the Minister on the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer)? It is outrageous that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of good quality food are consigned to surplus stores while millions of people—pensioners and others on income support—are unable to afford those products on the open market. Does the Minister acknowledge that many people in the voluntary sector would willingly give their time to distribute the food but cannot afford the petrol? Does the Minister understand that if he made small sums available to the voluntary sector a decent system could be introduced to ensure that people who are willing to give their services free could get the free food to the people who need it?
    Mr. Curry: I readily pay tribute to those in the voluntary sector who organise the distribution of the food. It is by far the best system of distribution—much better than an attempt to distribute the food via supermarkets or other retail outlets.
    The quantities are limited, however. If we are trying to get rid of surpluses and control production, this is one of the least efficient ways of doing so. While the food is there, I am determined that people in the United Kingdom should have their fair share; but I should much rather look to an on-going reform of the Community that ensures that we do not generate the problem in the first place.

    Set-aside Scheme
    Mr. Butler: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he expects to announce details of the permanent set-aside scheme.
    Mr. Curry: We expect decisions on non-rotational set-aside to be made in time for farmers to choose this option next year if they so wish.
    Mr. Butler: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer. It is clear when we look around the countryside that rotational set-aside has disastrous environmental effects, whereas permanent set-aside will allow environmentally beneficial projects to be undertaken on the same land. I urge my hon. Friend to announce the details of his welcome reply as swiftly as possible.
    On a lighter note, may I commend to my hon. Friend for European consideration the world-famous Milton Keynes practice of decorating fallow set-aside land with concrete cows? They have the benefit of being low maintenance; they add nothing to the greenhouse effect; they neither suffer from nor pass on bovine spongiform encephalopathy; they are particularly difficult to rustle; they can be supplied with or without udders and other attachments; and, most attractive of all, they are totally non-productive and might therefore form the basis of a new standard Euro cow. Given that they are a singularly different breed, perhaps "MacSharry" would be an appropriate name for them.
    Mr. Curry: I hope that my hon. Friend does not mind a reply that is shorter than his question. I think that he may have solved the problem of the deficiency of the milk quota in Italy.
    Mr. Tyler: Does the Minister agree with the estimate in The Times that his policy for set-aside will cost British taxpayers £130 million a year, without making any real difference to EC yields and without any beneficial environmental effect?
    Mr. Curry: I disagree profoundly. First, Ministers can decide to vary the precentage of land put into rotational set-aside as a function of the decrease in yields that that generates. Secondly, in regard to the permanent set-aside —we have both the non-rotational and the longer-term schemes—we want the rules to permit us to incorporate two important environmental schemes: the farm woodland premium scheme, to encourage woodland, and the countryside premium scheme, to encourage habitat. If those two schemes can be married to the non-rotational scheme, we shall have an extremely effective environmental package.
    Mr. Lord: I am sure that my hon. Friend will know of the general unhappiness felt by farmers about the need to set aside fertile and productive land. He will be aware also of the need to return dynamism and hope to farming. What steps is the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food taking to encourage the growing of non-food crops on set-aside land, and also the establishment of trees?
    Mr. Curry: When we have the permanent and non-rotational set-aside schemes, we shall want to be able to put woodland on the sites concerned. We also wish to encourage farmers to plant crops that will yield biomass. Those two aspects relating to energy and trees will be very important. We are studying how we can target the longer-term set-aside—the 20-year permanent scheme—very specifically, to secure the best possible environmental benefits. Those could be related to amenity woodland.

    Farmers
    Illsley: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what measures he is taking to keep farmers on the land.
    Mr. Curry: The common agricultural policy provides a range of measures to support farming.
    Mr. Illsley: Is the Minister aware that many people consider his response to rural depopulation somewhat inadequate? Is he aware that between 1990 and 1992 British farming lost, on average, some 200 farmers and farm workers each week? Already articles are appearing in magazines such as Farmers' Weekly, comparing the state of agriculture to that of mining and forecasting huge job losses.
    How long can the Government continue to protect farm incomes through set-aside? Are decisions likely to be made that will be as disastrous to agriculture as decisions about the pits were to mining?
    Mr. Curry: The hon. Gentleman is right in one respect: there has been an enormous structural change in agriculture over the past couple of decades—in the United Kingdom, a quarter of a million people have left agriculture, and in the Community 4 million people have left. That is as big a structural change as there has been in any other part of the economy.
    We have to make sure that the surpluses and overproduction, which depress farmers' incomes, are

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    removed through reform. At the moment, the grain price is relatively buoyant and the sheep price is higher than it has been for many years. Because of the changes in the agrimoney system and the eventual green pound devaluation, we should put some income into the agricultural sector. That is very much needed, and we welcome it.
    Mr. Lidington: Is my hon. Friend aware of the difficulties faced by farmers in areas such as the Chiltern hills and the vale of Aylesbury, where efforts at diversification often fall foul of what are necessarily strict planning controls? Will he undertake to work with his colleagues at the Department of the Environment to make sure that we have both a beautiful countryside and one that rests upon the good stewardship of farmers making their living there and not turning the countryside into a museum?
    Mr. Curry: My hon. Friend will know that I represent an area with a large national park and that what is not national park is an area of outstanding natural beauty. I understand exactly the problems that he describes and we will work very closely with planning authorities to overcome them.

    Environmentally Sensitive Areas
    Mr. Harvey: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when the Exmoor environmentally sensitive area will come into being.
    Mr. Gummer: We plan to make an announcement on the proposed Exmoor environmentally sensitive area in the near future.
    Mr. Harvey: Does the Minister recognise the very real problems faced by Exmoor farmers who can no longer take part in countryside stewardship schemes and programmes because they have ended in anticipation of the ESA proposals? Because of the new requirements resulting from much of Exmoor being a site of special scientific interest, there is no money to meet those obligations. With bank managers hovering over many Exmoor farmers, what reassurance can the Minister give farmers to take back to bank managers that the money for ESAs which he announced earlier this year will not be taken away from other agriculture programmes?
    Mr. Gummer: I shall certainly make an announcement as soon as possible. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the ESA proposals, which began in this country, have now been taken up by the whole Community. We have been able to contribute to that process. That is why I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman was one of those who did not wish us to go on being at the heart of the Community. I honour all his colleagues who stood up for their belief in Europe.
    Mr. David Nicholson: With no reflection on the voting activities of the hon. Member for North Devon (Mr. Harvey) last night, I support his representations to my right hon. Friend. Is my right hon. Friend aware that Exmoor farmers in my constituency as well as in North Devon worked extremely hard to complete the form sent out by his Ministry in April, which, his officials may not be aware, is the lambing season on Exmoor? They were promised an early determination of this matter but are still
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    left high and dry. As someone who obtained votes in April on this matter of the ESA, I am extremely anxious that my right hon. Friend should keep the pledges that the Government made to those farmers and implement the ESA proposals as soon as possible.
    Mr. Gummer: I am never unhappy to have the support of my hon. Friend, as we had it last night.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: The Minister says that we shall have a response as soon as possible. Has he forgotten the solemn undertaking given to Exmoor, the Lake district and other national park farmers that they would receive ESA offers this year? Now that the Liberals, apart from the hon. Member for North Devon (Mr. Harvey), have bailed out the Government, enabling them to cut public expenditure further and threaten the ESA programmes, has not a large hole been blown in the Government's entire approach to environmental protection?
    Mr. Gummer: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on what I think is his first appearance at the Dispatch Box on the Opposition Front Bench. Of all Opposition Members, I should have thought that he would be the last to congratulate his party on putting party politics before principle and to attack the Liberal Democrats, who put principle before party politics.

    "The Health of the Nation"
    Dr. Goodson-Wickes: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what recent consultations his Department has had towards implementing "The Health of the Nation" proposals.
    Mr. Soames: Implementation of the White Paper is primarily a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. However, my Department has been involved both at ministerial and official level with a number of interested parties, about various aspects of the White Paper.
    Dr. Goodson-Wickes: I do not know quite how to put this to my hon. Friend delicately. I am sure that he would agree that Conservatives believe in enjoying life, and good eating is clearly part of enjoying life, but can he inform the House what efforts are being made jointly with his colleagues in the Department of Health to advise people how to eat healthily to avoid the development of coronary heart disease?
    Mr. Soames: My hon. Friend has no need to be so coy about these matters. I regard myself as a thoroughly good advertisement for healthy eating.
    The White Paper places emphasis on reducing smoking, improving diet and sensible drinking as key factors in the prevention of coronary heart disease, strokes and cancers. Dietary targets relate to a reduction in the population's average consumption of saturated fats and total fats. However, the White Paper points to the need for a whole-diet approach.
    Mr. Tony Banks: Is the Minister aware that vegetarianism is one of the healthiest eating habits that we can adopt? If he wants to set an example to the nation on healthy eating, he should give up grouse and start eating lentil bake.
    Mr. Soames: I am sure that it is, in its own way, an attractive proposition, but I have never regarded vegetarianism as a serious alternative.
    Mr. Bellingham: Is my hon. Friend aware that, when it comes to "The Health of the Nation", Ministers should set an example? Bearing that in mind, will he tell the House what steps he has taken as regards his diet and personal habits?
    Mr. Soames: Like the Government as a whole, I am committed to a pragmatic and practical approach to dietary targets, as outlined in "The Health of the Nation".
    Mr. Etherington: I am quite sure—
    Madam Speaker: Order. Question 12.

    Cattle Disease
    Mr. Etherington: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his policy towards random sampling for disease in cattle.
    Mr. Soames: A substantial proportion of cattle are at present subjected to ante-mortem veterinary examination at slaughterhouses, and all will be from 1 January 1993. All carcases are already subject to meat inspection. In general, I believe that random sampling has only a limited role to play in the control of cattle disease.
    Mr. Etherington: I apologise for my gaffe, Madam Speaker. It is the sort of thing that happens when one is running to and from a Committee.
    The Minister must be well aware of the very great public fear of mad cow disease. He will be aware also that that fear will dissipate only when there is thorough research into the subject. Can he therefore tell us whether there is vertical transmission of mad cow disease and what live research is being undertaken into the subject?
    Mr. Soames: There is absolutely no evidence whatever of vertical transmission, and nothing has occurred to cast any doubt on the opinion of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and its expert advisers that measures taken will eradicate the disease. We have a substantial and important research programme to which we are wholly committed and with which we shall press ahead.

    Bees
    Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the situation of the varroa mite among bees.
    Mr. Curry: To contain the spread of varroa, and in consultation with the beekeeping organisations, I declared an infected area south of a line between the Severn and the Thames. Movement outside that area is prohibited except under licence. Until now, the disease has been confirmed in 267 apiaries within the infected area. Varroa has recently been found in 17 apiaries in Suffolk and one in Lincolnshire. Following further consultation with the beekeepers, I have decided that the infected area will be extended from midnight tonight to include the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. I have written to the beekeeping organisations and instructed that copies of the letter should be placed in the Library of the House.
    Mr. Dalyell: As a beekeeper until the then Government Chief Whip, Lord Glenamara, brought it home to me that the requirements of swarming bees and Government Whips did not go together, may I point out that this is a very serious matter for beekeepers? Could the Government do something while the varroa mite is on the bee in its adult form rather than hidden in cells?
    Mr. Curry: I agree. It is a very serious matter. I have taken no action except in consultation with the beekeeping industry, because the industry is determined that we should try to limit the spread of the infection. We are doing important research into this matter and, following the discovery of varroasis, we have reviewed the bee health research programme and increased expenditure on it to about £200,000. The Central Science Laboratory has been asked to give priority to the development of a rapid field diagnostic test and, in addition, the Institute of Agricultural Crop Research will be undertaking long-term research into causes of mortality in varroa-infected bees.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Colvin: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 5 November.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings today.
    Mr. Colvin: Will my right hon. Friend find time during his busy day to decide how to use the diplomatic and negotiating skills which he deployed so effectively at Maastricht to prevent a trade war between the United States and the European Community? Will he pull out all the stops to achieve an agreement on the general agreement on tariffs and trade before President Bush leaves the White House, in the knowledge that agreement on GATT will do more than anything else to pull the world out of recession?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend on his last point—it is a very serious matter. It is for the European Commission, which has the responsibility to negotiate on behalf of member states, to make a deal, and we shall seek to reach a concerted position so that such a deal can be achieved. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade will make a statement about that a little later.
    Mr. John Smith: Why is it that, in the midst of all our present miseries—[Interruption.] Why is it that, in the midst of this situation, the Government think that it is a priority to abolish wages councils which offer a safety net for 2·5 million people, two thirds of whom are women?
    The Prime Minister: I think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman takes a very narrow view. When he studies the whole of the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Bill, he may have a more enlightened view. As he may know, we have decided that wages councils will be abolished because they distort the operation of the labour market. Abolishing them will lead

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    to more jobs rather than fewer. These days, wages councils are an anachronism. They no longer have a useful role. They were set up in 1909 and they are not relevant to 1992.
    Mr. Smith: Does the right hon. Gentleman not understand the truth that was expressed by Sir Winston Churchill when wages councils were set up, which was that, if there is no wage protection, the good employer is undercut by the bad and the bad is undercut by the worst? Does he not understand that people in this country are sick and tired of his professing concern about unemployment when 1 million people have lost their jobs since he became Prime Minister?
    The Prime Minister: It is precisely because of the concern to sustain and maintain jobs that we propose to get rid of the councils that destroy jobs. The fact of the matter is that they create unnecessary bureaucracy and add to the burdens on business. If that is the Opposition's industrial strategy—more burdens, less business and fewer jobs—the right hon. and learned Gentleman had better make it clear.
    Mr. John Townend: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 5 November.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Townsend: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Conservative Members are in favour of a very tough public spending round this year, especially on the revenue account, even if that means a public sector pay freeze to protect capital projects? Is he aware also that, when we are having to take painful decisions, it is not acceptable for Mr. Delors to ask for an increase in own resources? Will my right hon. Friend tell Mr. Delors that if he wants more cash, he should look to the waste, fraud and corruption revealed by a recent report of the Court of Auditors?
    The Prime Minister: On the first part of my hon. Friend's question, I cannot, of course, this afternoon anticipate my right hon. Friend's autumn statement which he will make to the House next Thursday. However, I agree with my hon. Friend that the Commission's proposals for a massive increase in Community spending are excessive in the present circumstances. No more than anyone else can the Community spend more than it can afford. I believe that, when we consider the future financing, we must be guided by the same principles of budget discipline and sound public finance that we all agreed to put in the Maastricht treaty.
    Ms. Glenda Jackson: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 5 November.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Lady to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Ms. Jackson: Does the Prime Minister recall the pledge that he gave in his election manifesto that the value of child benefit would increase each year in line with prices? Despite the wriggling evident in his previous answer, will he repeat that pledge to the House today?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Lady must wait for the autumn statement next week, and I will tell her why. When
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    asked to anticipate a financial statement in the election, the Leader of the Opposition said, "You'll have to wait till next week when I make it." That applies to us as well.
    Mr. Knapman: Does my right hon. Friend believe that a single currency for Europe is a desirable objective?
    The Prime Minister: I have indicated often enough in the House, not least yesterday, that I do not believe that that is a remotely likely objective to be reached in the time scale set and that one can only determine whether it is desirable in the circumstances of the day, when the decision needs to be made. That is not now.
    Mr. Janner: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 5 November.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Janner: Does the Prime Minister agree that the closure of the 31 pits would make 30,000 miners compulsorily redundant and destroy the jobs of up to 70,000 people in related industries and that very few of them would have any chance of finding other work? In those circumstances, what does the Prime Minister say in response to the extraordinary revelation made by the chairman of British Coal yesterday to the Employment Select Committee that, when he and the President of the Board of Trade decided to close the pits, he had no discussion, conversation or consultation with the Secretary of State for Employment?
    The Prime Minister: There has been a great deal of consultation in government for some time over the whole question of pit closures and there was a great deal of detailed consideration for some time. The hon. and learned Gentleman now knows precisely what the situation is from a lengthy and detailed statement made by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.
    Mr. Lidington: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, although this country's links with our friends in Europe continue to strengthen, our special relationship with the United States of America remains as vital now as it ever has been?
    The Prime Minister: It has been a very close relationship. I believe that my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) referred to it yesterday as an historic relationship. It has remained that for many years. I believe that that results from the shared interests that we have around the world and from a shared historical background. I have no doubt that that will continue.
    Madam Speaker: Mr. Paddy Ashdown—[Interruption.] Order. The House must come to order. Mr. Ashdown.
    Mr. Ashdown: Is it not the case that the decision taken last night by the House, by however narrow a margin, nevertheless means that Britain's future in Europe has been saved and, with it, tens of thousands of jobs around Britain?
    The Prime Minister: May I say first to the right hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. The House must come to order and hear the response from the Prime Minister.
    The Prime Minister: May I say first to the right hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister must be heard in the House, as every other right hon. and hon. Member should. The Prime Minister.
    The Prime Minister: Thank you, Madam Speaker. May I say to the right hon. Gentleman that the price of principle is often abuse, but he was right last night in the vote that he cast. [Interruption.]
    Mr. Sykes: Does the Prime Minister agree with the business men of Scarborough and Whitby who say that the social chapter would devastate jobs?
    The Prime Minister: That is a view with which I entirely agree. It is a view expressed not only by the business men of Scarborough and Whitby, clearly with great clarity, but by business men across this country. The social chapter was not in the interests of this country. We were right to reject it.
    Dr. Berry: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 5 November.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I gave some moments ago.
    Dr. Berry: Is the Prime Minister able to explain why he believes that an increase in public expenditure will severely damage the economy while hoping and praying that exactly the same activity by the private sector will get Britain out of recession?
    The Prime Minister: I do not know on what basis the hon. Gentleman produces his question. The Government's position on public expenditure has always been that it must be prudent, it must be affordable and it must be in the interests of overall management of the economy. That was, is and remains the case.
    Sir Peter Emery: Will my right hon. Friend take the opportunity to extend an invitation to President-elect Clinton to come to this country, immediately after 20 January, when he can?
    The Prime Minister: I am delighted to take the opportunity of saying that I look forward to meeting President-elect Clinton before Christmas. I have already had the opportunity of sending my congratulations to him and stating them both privately and publicly, and I look forward to meeting him before Christmas. I hope that it will be possible for him to visit this country.
    Mr. Fatchett: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 5 November.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I gave a few moments ago.
    Mr. Fatchett: After the Prime Minister's poor performance in yesterday's debate and after his policy
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    failure on unemployment, the mines, British industry and devaluation, does he agree that his recent 16 per cent. approval rating in an opinion poll shows the generosity of the British people?
    The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman was looking for one person in this country who has good reason not to trust opinion polls, he has just addressed a question to him. As to yesterday—right sentiment, wrong leader.
    Mr. Ian Taylor: Does my right hon. Friend share my view that the true test of compassion in public services is not necessarily the amount of money spent but the quality and efficiency with which it is spent? Does he, therefore, share my horror at the lack of compassion of Lambeth council, which has already spent £400,000 of local charge payers' money on phantom teachers?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I did see that particular report, which illustrated not only that Lambeth council is inefficient but that it is slightly less inefficient than Islington council, which spent rather more on the same matter.
    Q.8. Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 5 November.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Hoyle: Will the Prime Minister repeat in the House the assurance that he gave to the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Carttiss) that he would not introduce the Third Reading of the Maastricht Bill until after the second Danish referendum? Does that not show that there was no limit to the wriggling of the Prime Minister in his attempt to obtain votes in the Lobby last night?
    The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman's last point had been right, there would have been no debate yesterday. It was precisely because I was concerned to get the Bill through that there was a debate yesterday and we will move to Committee stage, and move forward.
    I am happy to make the point entirely clear to the hon. Gentleman. Yesterday, the House reaffirmed its assent to the Bill proceeding to Committee stage. In doing so, no thanks to the official Opposition, it reaffirmed our determination to play a leading role in Europe and strengthened our negotiating hand in Edinburgh. As for progress, there will be a limited discussion before Christmas. We will return to the Bill in greater detail in the new year. I wish to have plenty of time for full and proper discussion on all the details of a constitutional Bill which is of great concern in the House. It is important to carry the assent of the House on the Bill. That will take time.
    The present intention of the Danish Government is to hold a referendum in May. Given the Committee timetable that we have in mind and the full discussion that we need, we will need to take the Third Reading after that date in May. That has been and is the position, and that is the point that was made clear yesterday.

Business of the House
3.31 pm
Mrs. Margaret Beckett: Will the Leader of the House state the business for next week?
The Lord President of the council and leader of the House of commons (Mr.Tony Newton):The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 9 NOVEMBER and TUESDAY 10 NOVEMBER—
Second Reading of the Education Bill.
WEDNESDAY II NOVEMBER—Proceedings on the Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Bill [Lords]
Motion on the Registered Homes (Northern Ireland) Order.
THURSDAY I2 NOVEMBER—Debate on the Adoption Law Review on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
FRIDAY I3 NovEMBER—Private Members' motions.
MONDAY I6 NovEMBER—Second Reading of the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Bill.
The House will also wish to know that European Standing Committee B will meet on Wednesday 11 November at 10.30 am to consider European Community document No. 6224/92 relating to culture in the European Community.
[Wednesday 11 November
European Standing Committee B
Relevant European Community Document
6224/92 Culture in the European Community.
Relevant Reports of the European Legislation Committee HC 79-i (1992–93 ) and HC 79-viii ( 1992–93)]
Mrs. Beckett: I thank the Leader of the House for that statement.
Can the right hon. Gentleman add anything to the statement made by the Prime Minister yet again at Prime Minister's Question Time as to when exactly it is planned to bring the Committee stage of the Maastricht Bill back to the House? Can the Leader of the House say anything to cast any light on the contradiction between the assurance that the Prime Minister gave to the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Carttiss) last night and the Prime Minister's statement today that the Third Reading would not need to be until the summer and what was said yesterday about the urgent need for yesterday's debate? Does it not show that the only urgency about yesterday's debate was the Prime Minister's urgent need to shore up his battered Government and that the only interest served was that of the Conservative party and not that of the nation?
When can we expect the social security uprating statement? Will the Leader of the House bear it in mind that if, as has been widely trailed, the statement contains an attack on the living standards of many of the most vulnerable people in society, the House will want a full day's debate on the issues raised in that statement and not merely half a day, as has been the practice recently.
Finally, will the Leader of the House find time soon for a debate on financial institutions, so that the House can consider the growing calls for statutory regulation of the City and the inadequate service provided by many high street banks and building societies in the light of the
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Consumers Association report today which states that their service sometimes amounts to "monumental incompetence"?
Mr. Newton: Taking those matters in reverse order, there is to be a debate tomorrow on the Bingham report when some aspects of financial institutions will be relevant. Unusually, as I have already said, there will be a debate early after the autumn statement in which it might be possible to advert to some of those matters, so I cannot promise a separate debate in response to the hon. Lady.
The social security uprating statement will certainly be made as soon as possible. I hope that that will prove to be the case next week. As to the question of a debate, perhaps we can consider that through the usual channels when the hon. Lady has had a chance to consider the statement. She will be well aware that legislative action, at least of a secondary kind, is normally required by social security uprating statements, which would naturally provide a focus for debate.
On the timing of yesterday's debate, I must advert to the fact that it took place in response to persistent requests from Her Majesty's Opposition. When it took place, it turned out that its main purpose had to be to overcome the Opposition desire to delay considering the Bill at all, despite their alleged commitment to Maastricht. There is no contradiction between the various reports that have been referred to, but I certainly cannot add to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's comments a few moments ago on the timing of the Bill's progress. I can fill them out in one respect: I said some weeks ago that I expected to begin to make some progress on the European Communities (Amendment) Bill after the autumn statement and the debate that I have promised on it.
Mr. Terence L. Higgins: Has my right hon. Friend read early-day motion 733 on the Accommodation and Works Committee's proposal to move Members and their secretaries from 7 Old Palace Yard to 7 Millbank?
[That this House rejects the decision of the Accommodation and Works Committee to recommend transferring honourable Members and honourable Members' secretaries from 7 Old Palace Yard to 7 Millbank; deplores the fact that this decision was taken without any consultation with honourable Members most affected and that the Committee having reached a decision in July failed to inform honourable Members of it until October; believes it would be inefficient and a waste of honourable Members' and secretaries' time for secretaries or honourable Members to have to walk back and forth from offices in Millbank to offices in the House—a journey in some cases of half an hour; notes that the House of Lords is nearer to Millbank than the House of Commons; does not believe an expenditure of some £3 million on refurbishing accommodation for non-office holders in the House of Lords, who do not have to deal with constituency mail is appropriate at this present time when public expenditure generally is being severely curtailed; and calls on the Government to delay transferring honourable Members and honourable Members' secretaries from Old Palace Yard until alternative accommodation is provided in the Phase II development.]
In view of the fact that that has now been signed by all Members concerned other than Ministers—indeed, some Ministers are also concerned about the matter—and that

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apparently no consultation took place and the Committee seems to feel that it is not accountable, can we debate the matter next week?
Mr. Newton: I very much take note of my right hon. Friend's comments and I am sure that they will be carefully taken into account by the Chairman of the Accommodation and Works Committee for whom, as he says, this is a matter.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: Will the Leader of the House confirm that the normal rules on Opposition supply days will apply? As the House knows, the official Opposition have about 20 days at their disposal, and the minority parties have only three between them. Given the peculiar political circumstances that we are in, we would be interested in choosing subject matter for discussion in the House.
Mr. Newton: I was not absolutely sure whether the hon. Gentleman was asking me to review the conventions that govern such matters, which I would be unwise to undertake without discussions through the usual channels, or whether he simply sought the allocation of a supply day for the minority parties, which I shall certainly bear in mind. Obviously, I cannot make one available next week, and it is likely that we shall be looking for time to debate the autumn statement in the week after that. I do not, however, dismiss his concern and I shall keep it in mind.
Mr. Michael Jopling: Given that during the summer the Government accepted the vast bulk of the report of the Select Committee on Sittings of the House, will the Leader of the House be able next week to lay the amended orders to enact those recommendations? If not, will he give an undertaking that they will be laid soon?
Mr. Newton: A week or two ago I said that I was seeking to identify a basis for discussion through the usual channels with the aim of being in a position to bring forward substantive motions at an early stage. I do not think that I can go beyond that at the moment. My right hon. Friend will realise that there have been one or two of what I shall delicately call other preoccupations recently, but I hope to make progress as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I hope that one or two things that I have done, including giving more advance indications of business than has been customary in the past, have at least been helpful to my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Alfred Morris: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the growing concern in all parts of the House for the miners and others who can benefit from the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council's report on compensation for occupational emphysema and bronchitis? Is he aware of the Department of Trade and Industry's memorandum which argues that the longer the Government delay, the less they will have to pay? That, of course, is due to the high death rate among people with occupational emphysema and bronchitis. Is that any way to talk about people, many of whom often have to struggle to breathe? May we have a ministerial statement next week about the Government's intentions?
Mr. Newton: I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman who has previous experience as a Minister with responsibility for disabled people, which I share, is well aware of the difficulties and complexities of many of these
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matters and reports. I cannot add to what I said last week, when the issue was raised in somewhat similar terms. I expect an announcement about publication to be made shortly by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security. I know that both he and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People will be giving careful consideration to those matters.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: My right hon. Friend has announced that the trade union Bill is to be considered on Monday week. He will be aware of the various peculiar answers given by a Minister on Tuesday about wages councils.
I have had a number of written questions answered and have as yet failed to have a meeting with the Secretary of State on the issue, despite having been asking for several months.
Will it be possible before Monday week to obtain some estimate from Government of whether that measure will have a significant effect on the pay of some people at present protected by wages councils and on employment, which some would doubt?
Mr. Newton: I shall draw my hon. Friend's remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment. My hon. Friend will no doubt have noted what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said on the matter in an exchange during Question Time. My hon. Friend will have an opportunity to ask his questions and make his views known during the Second Reading debate, which was announced in my business statement.
Mr. Ted Rowlands: Will the Leader of the House make arrangements for the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to make a further statement on the position of the 10 pits, when he could take the opportunity to answer a report by a professional mining engineer which I submitted to him a week last Monday and which demonstrated that the Taf Merthyr pit would be closed within three or four days? Will the right hon. Gentleman bring the Secretary of State to the House to make a statement on that vital issue?
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman will know that my right hon. Friend will have looked carefully at the remarks that the hon. Gentleman made last week. My right hon. Friend answered questions in the House yesterday and has seen the Select Committee. I cannot promise a further appearance by the President of the Board of Trade in that context, but I shall once again make sure that he is aware of what the hon. Gentleman has said.
Sir Peter Emery: Although my right hon. Friend did not say so, will he confirm that we are to have the autumn statement next week? Secondly, will he consult or help the usual channels on both sides to arrange for the setting up of the Procedure Committee? A number of matters awaiting consideration have been referred to me and it is about time that we got on with that.
Mr. Newton: I note the latter part of my hon. Friend's suggestion. I suppose that I should have played the familiar Front Bench trick of announcing good news for the second time in the hope of obtaining additional good will. As I announced some time ago, the autumn statement is expected to be made on Thursday 12 November.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: As the Government are now keen to accede to the Opposition's request for a debate, will the right hon. Gentleman explain why no opportunity has yet been provided for us to discuss the crisis facing the fishing industry? I raised the matter with him last week and I met representatives of the fishing communities last weekend. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the sense of bitterness, resentment and anger that is building up is such that we must, as a matter of urgency, debate the common fisheries policy and its implications for our communities?
Mr. Newton: I made some comments about the matter to the hon. Lady last week, as she rightly says. I will again draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to the hon. Lady's remarks. I cannot promise a debate now, but she will have heard what I said to the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) about the question of supply days for minority parties. I cannot add to that, but I meant what I said and I will try to be helpful as soon as I reasonably can.
Mr. Anthony Coombs: In view of the increasingly desperate plight of the Muslims in Bosnia, particularly with the onset of winter, and to highlight the courageous efforts made by the Cheshire Regiment in providing food and supplies to those who desperately need them, may we have a debate next week to discuss what else the British Government, as President of the Community, can do to end what seems to be a systematic attempt at the extermination of the Muslims in Yugoslavia by the Croats and the Serbs?
Mr. Newton: I cannot promise a debate next week, but I can promise to bear my hon. Friend's interest in mind. He may find it possible to ask a question after the statement that the Home Secretary is about to make.
Mr. Andrew Faulds: When will the House have an opportunity to debate the extraordinary and damaging decision of the chairman of English Heritage to dispose of and flog off a large proportion of English Heritage properties?
Mr. Newton: I have received a number of requests for a debate on that matter, which I shall continue to bear in mind; I will add the hon. Gentleman's name to the list.
Mr. Nigel Evans: Will it be possible for the House to receive a statement next week on the European fighter aircraft? Is my right hon. Friend aware that thousands of people in my constituency work for British Aerospace and that many of them came to the House last week to lobby? Morale among them is extremely low. Indeed, every time they open their newspapers they feel deep concern about the future of their jobs, especially when they read first that the Germans are in on the project, then that they are out, then in again, and then that the Spanish and Italians are thinking about whether to be in or out. Those workers backed us during the Gulf war by working many hours of overtime. We owe them some certainty about the future of their jobs.
Mr. Newton: I cannot, under present circumstances, promise a statement, but my hon. Friend knows—and, I am sure, accepts—that the Secretary of State for Defence is very concerned about those matters and is discussing
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with our partners whether the options presented to us offer a basis on which the four nations might continue to collaborate.
Ms. Rachel Squire: Will the Leader of the House arrange for us to debate early-day motion 668, which deals with the uncertainty of Rosyth royal dockyard?
[That this House notes with concern reports that the Government in considering closing one of the two remaining naval dockyards at Rosyth and Devonport; notes that the closure of either dockyard would mean the loss of several thousand jobs in the defence industry and supporting businesses; notes that both dockyards have been successful in diversifying into other commercial activities whilst improving efficiency in their core defence business; and therefore calls on the Government to consider all possible means, including, if necessary, a single combined management, by which a way can be found to keep both dockyards open and preserve at least some of the jobs dependent on them.]
Will he also ask the Secretary of State for Defence to make a statement about the future of the dockyard?
Mr. Newton: That matter was raised with me last week. Various proposals concerning the dockyards are very much under consideration. No decisions have yet been made about the future arrangements for dockyard management, and I am afraid that I cannot add anything further on the subject today.
Mr. James Paice: Before the debate next week on the Education Bill, will my right hon. Friend make it clear to the Secretary of State for Education that we hope that he will take powers, either in that Bill or later, to prevent the obstructive and intimidatory approach being taken by many local authorities against the governors and parents of schools which wish to become grant-maintained?
Mr. Newton: I affirm that the Government regard it as quite unacceptable for local education authorities to intimidate, or seek to intimidate, parents or anybody else into voting against grant-maintained status. I am sure that the Secretary of State for Education will make every effort to prevent any such occurrence.
Mr. Dennis Canavan: Can we have a Government response next week to early-day motion 736, condemning the Duke of Atholl for trying to deprive ordinary people of their rights of access to the Scottish countryside?
[That this House condemns the decision of the Duke of Athol! to challenge the status of the Minigaig Pass as a right of way; notes that the route is one of Scotland's ancient mountain drove roads which has been used by the people of Scotland for centuries and is still regularly used by hill walkers and mountain climbers with no evidence of resultant damage to the countryside or wild-life; is concerned that a loss of right of way status for the Minigaig Pass could endanger similar rights of way throughout Scotland; deplores the anachronism whereby the Duke of Atholl is the only person in the United Kingdom with a private army; fully supports all walkers who refuse to be intimidated and exercise their rights of access to the Minigaig Pass; and calls upon the Government to take all necessary steps to ensure that the access rights of walkers are not reduced in any way by the Duke of Atholl or any other militant

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members of the landed gentry who claim too much of Scotland's land which should be part of the national heritage.]
Will the Leader of the House show his respect for the House that he leads and the people whom we represent by joining me in a walk through Minigaig pass to assert the rights of the common people against the rapacious, militant landowners who frequent the House of Lords?
Mr. Newton: Pleasing—I think—as the prospect of a country walk with the hon. Gentleman is, I am not sure whether I can promise an early visit to Scotland for the purpose.
Mr. Harry Greenway: Will my right hon. Friend arrange a debate next week on early-day motion 746, which draws attention to the fact that Clarke Foods, formerly Lyons Maid, in my constituency has recently closed —putting 108 people out of work, some of whom have worked there for more than 40 years, and one man for 48 years?
[That this House notes with great concern that the Clarke Food ( UK) Limited works in Greenford, which were formerly Lyons Maid, have been put into administrative receivership and that 108 employees have been made redundant; notes with further concern that Clarke Foods have reneged on assurances given over redundancy payments at the time when they acquired the plant; expresses strong support for former Lyons Maid workers who transferred to Clarke Foods,. come of whom have worked on the site for over 40 years and who have been told that there will be no redundancy payments for them; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to investigate the fairness and legality of the situation in which the said employees and ex-employees are now placed.]
Those employees' jobs have gone without pensions because of what appears to be maladministration by Clarke Foods. Can we have an early debate on that matter so that I can seek help for my constituents who need it?
Mr. Newton: I well understand my hon. Friend's concern, which is typical of his concern for his constituents. I understand that the redundancy payments service has received 95 claims for statutory redundancy payments and a number of other claims in connection with those problems, and that those claims are being processed as quickly as possible. I hope to reinforce that by drawing my hon. Friend's remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Is the Leader of the House aware that the Welsh Grand Committee, which used to meet five or six times a year, has not met for almost nine months? In view of the numerous problems facing the people of Wales in terms of the economy, pit closures, unemployment, the future of the education service and many others, will he tell the House whether the Committee has at last been finally abandoned as a useless talking shop? If so, what alternative bodies will he give Wales to discuss our vital issues?
Mr. Newton: I am not quite sure whether the hon. Gentleman is denouncing the body or demanding a meeting of it. Whichever it is, I shall try to ensure that there is some contact with him through the usual channels.
Mr. John Bowis: When my right hon. Friend has completed his walk through the ducal pastures
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of Scotland, will he try to walk the plebeian route across the bridges of the River Thames in London and then come back and let us know when we can have a debate on transport in London? We need to see how three London boroughs can close three bridges at the same time and whether the Government need to take powers to ensure that traffic and transport in London is better co-ordinated.
Mr. Newton: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport may wish to look at some of those observations without my even drawing them to his attention, but I shall try to ensure that he sees them. On the further request for me to go walkabout in various parts of the country, I shall try to put those in ranking order as between Scotland and Battersea.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: With reference to the elusive memorandum concerning the Danish decision, is the Leader of the House aware that it did not contain the important statement of Herr Klaus Kinkel, Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic, writing in Die Welt on 19 October? The article said that that decision was arbitrarily a halt to
"a healthy, historic growth process".
Would it not be a good thing for the Government to dissociate themselves from such a point of view in that memorandum or any other? Will he ensure that memoranda which should be literally placed on the Table or in the Vote Office are advertised and not just semi-surreptitiously put in the Library?
Mr. Newton: I think that I can safely assure the hon. Gentleman that there was no surreptitious intent. If he has specific practical suggestions as to how the handling of such matters can be improved, all my right hon. Friends and I would be ready to consider them. On the proposal that such memoranda should include a commentary on every observation anywhere in Europe about which we might have reservations, such memoranda would be very long indeed.
Mr. Gyles Brandreth: Would my right hon. Friend consider the possibility of a debate next week on the British tourist industry, which is one of the most important industries in our country? It contributes as much as aerospace or the motor manufacturing industries, providing 6 per cent. of employment in this country, but from researches in the Library—it was fairly crowded— I understand that the subject was last discussed four years ago.
Mr. Newton: That is another request that I shall very much bear in mind, but I shall have to fall back on the standard reply: I do not anticipate finding time next week.
Mr. Gerry Steinberg: Will the Leader of the House make a statement to the House next week? I ask that because of the answer given to me yesterday, reported in Hansard at column 271, when I asked about the future of Tursdale workshop in my constituency. I was told by the Minister that he was concerned about the issue but that the closure of the workshop and redundancies there were not the subjects of the review. I am led to believe that, even while the Minister was speaking yesterday, British Coal announced 60 redundancies in that workshop. I should be grateful if the Minister would make a statement to the House on that.
Mr. Newton: I will draw the issue to the attention of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.
Mr. Jacques Arnold: Will my right hon. Friend consider letting us have a debate on the postal service, as we could then refer to the fact that first-class post has the highest ever figures for reliability and there is to be a freeze on postal rates? Is that not an example of the quality of services under the Government?
Mr. Newton: I am glad to have a more friendly message to communicate to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Members' interests?
Mr. Newton: We shall obviously have to have a standard question and standard reply exchange—the hon. Gentleman will say, "A" and I will say, "B". I am considering the matter, but I am not yet in a position to give the hon. Gentleman definite information.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: When will the Leader of the House make a statement about the plight of disabled people who come to the House of Commons to lobby? This week more than 100 people came from north Derbyshire to Westminster hall, where it was cold and draughty. Some 30 of them were in wheelchairs and could not use the toilet facilities. In addition, they could not use the Grand Committee Room as they were incapable of climbing the 30 stairs. The right hon. Gentleman has made promises before, and it is high time that when people come to lobby at Westminster those who are disabled should be given preference. Many promises have been made during the 22 years that I have been here—it is time somebody did something about this. I am asking the Leader of the House to do something, not just for the 100 people who came, but for the thousands who have come in the past and who should have the same rights as able-bodied people when they come to lobby Members of Parliament.
Mr. Newton: In view of the hon. Gentleman's phrasing, may I say that I do not recall making promises of the sort that he mentioned since acquiring my present responsibilities. However, I need hardly say that I shall take the matter seriously—not least because, as I said to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), I have been Minister with responsibility for disabled people and I am aware of the problems and concerns. The hon. Gentleman will know that, under the new structure set up in recent years to administer the House, I should properly refer the matter to the Accommodation and Works Committee, but that is not to say that I wash my hands of it. I shall certainly see if there is any way in which I can encourage or facilitate improvements of the sort that the hon. Gentleman wants.
Mrs. Alice Mahon: Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on the growing problem of low pay? Is he aware that in Halifax today some of the very few jobs on offer pay the following low rates: a care assistant in a private home £2·50 an hour; a cleaner in a store, £2·45 an hour; a trainee hairdresser, £35 a week? Would not the Government be better employed looking at the problem of low pay rather than abolishing some of the few organisations which protect low-paid workers, such as the wages councils? Does the Leader of the House really want us to become the sweatshop of Europe?
Mr. Newton: It would be wrong for me to enter into a prolonged exchange on economics with the hon. Lady, but I should state that forcing up wage levels can easily lead to fewer jobs. No one debating these issues could or should dismiss that. I well understand that there are many potentially complicated arguments about the matter, and it is clear that the hon. Lady will have an opportunity, should she catch the Chair's eye, to make that sort of point on Second Reading of the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Bill, which I announced at the beginning of these exchanges.
Mr. John Gunnell: When will we have an opportunity to discuss opencast mining? We are awaiting a statement on the withdrawal or revision of minerals planning guidance note No. 3, and we are anxious that it should be withdrawn. We would like to know whether this matter will be considered in the context of other announcements on coal. This is a matter of considerable anxiety in many constituencies, as four early-day motions testify. People are worried that many people in those constituencies will lose their jobs because of the closure of the deep mines and will face the rape of their countryside because of the continuation of opencast mining. May we discuss that?
Mr. Newton: I cannot predict the timing of any further debates on the issues included in the review of the closures being undertaken by the President of the Board of Trade. The hon. Gentleman will know of the undertakings that have been given. It would certainly be surprising if he did not have a chance to raise some of his points in the course of the review or subsequent debates on it.
Mr. Barry Jones: Can the Leader of the House find time time for a debate on the future of the aerospace industry, in the course of which we can discuss the future of the European fighter aircraft project and the Superb executive jet's long-term future? Does he know that my constituents formed part of a lobby last week when people came in their thousands from all over Britain to show that they were deeply worried about the industry? May we have a debate on the future of this large and important manufacturing industry?
Mr. Newton: I note the hon. Gentleman's request, which ties in with a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans). I am afraid that I cannot promise a debate next week.
Mr. Tony Banks: May we have a debate soon on inequality in British society? I draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to early-day motion 730.
[That this House is shocked by the revelation that Richard Branson paid no tax on his £229 million capital gain in selling the Virgin Music Group to Thorn EMI; notes that he used tax havens in Jersey and Guernsey to avoid a United Kingdom tax bill of £92 million; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to effectively close this tax loophole which is losing the United Kingdom over £4 billion a year.]
It draws the attention of the House to the fact that Richard Branson paid no tax on his £229 million worth of capital gains from selling Virgin Music Group to Thorn EMI. What sort of obscene Government allow a multimillionaire like Branson to avoid a tax bill of £92 million

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while the same Government are proposing to abolish wages councils which protect people who earn as little as £2·50 an hour?
Mr. Newton: If the linkage that the hon. Gentleman believes he has established stands up, at least in his own mind, he will have the opportunity to make the point in the debate in 10 days' time.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Madam Speaker: Order. If hon. Members ask questions which meet the criteria for business questions, I will try to call all hon. Members who are standing. I ask them to be brief and to the point.
Mr. Calum MacDonald: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen early-day motion 727?
[That this House believes that the report by Lord Justice Bingham shows the Bank of England to have been negligent in its supervisory duty to protect British depositors with BCCI; notes that this is not a matter of hindsight, for, as Bingham shows, as early as 1979 the Bank 'was not only entitled but obliged to refuse a licence' to BCCI, (paragraph 2.30) but granted one anyway; notes that in 1984 the then Governor approved a plan to incorporate BCCI in the United Kingdom in order to regulate it more effectively but that the bank failed to carry this policy through when it encountered resistance from BCCI, and that the Bank 'was rather easily deterred' ( 2.46); notes that from 1985 the Bank shied away from taking the lead supervisory role over BCCI and thus accepeted 'a highly unsatisfactory supervisory situation as should have been obvious at the time' ( 2.57); notes that by 1986, adequate grounds existed to revoke or to impose conditions upon BCCI's licence and that in their failure to exercise their powers, 'the supervisors tended to lose sight of their primary duty to protect the bank's United Kingdom depositors' ( 2.67 ); notes that on this occasion and subsequently, 'the Bank failed to measure up to the task' ( 2.72); notes that on several occasions in the 1980's the Bank failed to make the enquiries that a 'rigorous supervisor' ought to have done (2.162 ); believes that the ultimate responsibility for this damning catalogue of errors resides with the Governor; and concludes that for him to continue to cling to his position leaves him with neither credibility nor honour.]
It condemns the Bank of England's negligence over the Bank of Credit and Commerce International and calls for the resignation of the Governor. Can the Leader of the House assure us that tomorrow's debate will not be the last opportunity to discuss this vital issue, and that if the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee produces a new report we shall have time to debate the issue again?
Mr. Newton: I cannot give any undertakings beyond the fact that, as is well known, there are mechanisms whereby Select Committee reports can be debated if that is thought sensible. We would want to judge that when we see the report. I think that I was pretty good to arrange a debate on Bingham as quickly after the report as I did.
Ms. Liz Lynne: Further to the reply that the right hon. Gentleman gave a few moments ago, will he give us his personal assurance that he will put disability access on the agenda of the next Accommodation and Works Committee meeting?
Mr. Newton: I do not think that I can—I am not even a member of the Committee, let alone its Chairman—but
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I can safely assure the hon. Lady that her request will be noted by the Chairman, to whose attention I will make sure that it is drawn.
Mr. Derek Enright: Will the Leader of the House persuade the President of the Board of Trade to indemnify private factories which have to pay £1 more per tonne for imported coal than they paid for Grimethorpe coal before that colliery was closed?
Mr. Newton: Once again I have to say that I will communicate the matter to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.
Mr. Rhodri Morgan: Further to the call by the right hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) for an early debate on the lines suggested in early-day motion 733, which has been signed by hon. Members who have their offices or those of their secretaries in 7 Old Palace yard, may I tell the Minister—as one who dices with death at least a dozen times daily crossing Millbank—that an examination of the poll tax records of Westminster council for 1606 reveals that a Mr. Catesby and a Mr. G. Fawkes lived at 7 Old Palace yard. I understand that the G stood for Guy. The right hon. Gentleman should stop the Select Committee on Accommodation and Works spending £3 million refitting those premises and instead put in a tunnel under the road. If he does that, we promise not to use it for the purpose for which such a tunnel was used by Mr. Fawkes.
Mr. Newton: I am grateful for the assurance at the end of the hon. Gentleman's question. I genuinely note his request, as I genuinely noted the request of my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins).
Mr. Harry Barnes: After last night's Divisions, the Leader of the House will be painfully aware of the importance of every single vote. Is he aware that at the recent general election almost 2 million people were missing from the electoral register and that the information about that is hidden in the Commons Library? May we have a debate about the electoral register and on the action to be taken to get everyone's name on it so that there is a full franchise for the election which may be held in the near future because of the situation in the House?
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman should not pin his hopes on the last part of his question. I am in the happy position of having the Home Secretary, who is the Minister responsible for electoral registration matters, sitting close by. I therefore do not need to draw the point to my right hon. and learned Friend's attention because he will have heard it.
Mr. Andrew Miller: In preparing for the business on Monday 16 November, will the Leader of the House ask his colleagues to reflect on the importance placed on collective bargaining by General Motors, which yesterday opened its magnificent new ECOTEC engine plant? Will he ensure that no attacks on such bargaining processes are included in legislation? While he is speaking to his colleagues, will he also reflect on why no member of the Government was present at such an important event?
Mr. Newton: I am certainly not in a position to answer the last part of the hon. Gentleman's question, hut I know

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from experience, albeit not in that Department, that there are more requests for Ministers—and perhaps for you, Madam Speaker—to attend functions than they can possibly fulfil. The earlier part of the hon. Gentleman's question raises the danger of staging a forerunner of the debate which is to be held in 10 days, so I shall simply refer the hon. Gentleman to that debate.
Mr. Jimmy Boyce: Will the Leader of the House, who is a compassionate man, make time next week for a debate on cold weather payments? I have asked for such a debate before, and I ask this compassionate Minister once again to arrange a debate before the onslaught of winter.
Mr. Newton: I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman that there will be such a debate next week. However, his hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) asked about the social security uprating statement which I said that I expected before long. During the making of that statement, or in a debate which might follow in due course, the hon. Gentleman will have a good opportunity to raise that matter.

Yugoslav Nationals (Visas)
4.9 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): With permission, Madam Speaker, I will make a statement about Government policy towards nationals of the former Yugoslavia arriving in the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom and its European partners have consistently held the view that the objectives of international aid to the former Yugoslavia should be to provide the means and create the confidence for as many people as possible to stay as close to their homes as possible. so that their eventual return remains a clear prospect. Without that, a fair and lasting solution to the political problems will be made very much more difficult.
The United Kingdom and its partners, however, have also recognised that for some people that policy will be neither practical nor humane. That is true, for example, of people who have been deeply traumatised by their experience, including men released from detention camps, many of whom have lost contact with their families; people who have been wounded; children who have lost their parents; and families who have lost their fathers.
The Government's view is that we should continue to help those most vulnerable groups. I believe that the British people wish to make their humanitarian contribution to ease the sufferings of the innocent victims of the civil war, but, at present, we are receiving in this country an increasing number of self-selected people from the former Yugoslavia, including arrivals from safer parts of the country well away from the war zones. For example, in an analysis of a large sample of those from the former Yugoslavia who have applied for asylum, one third were found to have come from Serbia, where many of them are seeking to escape the effects of economic sanctions.
Since the beginning of this year, the number of former Yugoslav citizens who have applied for asylum in the United Kingdom has increased month by month. Some 2,000 applied in October alone. More than 4,000 former Yugoslav citizens have continued to arrive each month as visitors. Some have subsequently made clear their intention to stay on a more permanent basis by applying for local authority housing. In addition, some 15,000 people from other parts of the world have applied for asylum in the United Kingdom since the beginning of the year.
It is extremely important that the humanitarian efforts that this country wants to make are targeted effectively on those innocent victims of the war who are suffering most. We will only achieve that if we exercise more control, and, therefore, organise specific arrangements for the reception of those whom we most want to help. At present, there is a danger of our receiving uncontrolled numbers of citizens of the former Yugoslavia who are well able to afford the air fare, and random groups organised by well-meaning organisations.
The United Kingdom is one of the few countries in Europe that have no visa requirement for any of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia. In recent weeks, several countries—for example, Germany, Sweden and Denmark—have announced the imposition of visa regimes on parts of the former Yugoslavia. It is now necessary for the United Kingdom to do likewise, so that we can control the process of admission and concentrate our efforts on the

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needy. From midnight tomorrow, therefore—with the exception of those holding passports issued by the Governments of Croatia and Slovenia—all nationals of the former Yugoslavia will need to obtain visas before travelling to the United Kingdom, for whatever purpose. At the same time, however, the Government will make it clear to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross that we are ready to receive from Bosnia, and from other parts of the former Yugoslavia, people with special humanitarian needs who the international organisations judge should be evacuated, including those released from detention camps.
Numbers and timing will be discussed with the UNHCR and the ICRC. In the first instance, we shall be informing the UNHCR that, from the coming weekend, we are ready to receive 150 former detainees—and in due course, any dependants whom they may have—probably making about 600 in all. The Government will be making suitable arrangements for their reception and initial accommodation, and are urgently considering how they can best be looked after in the medium term.
It is the wish of all European Governments, and of many refugees themselves, that those who have fled from the former Yugoslavia should eventually be able to return to their homes in safety. We do not intend, therefore, that those whom we bring to the United Kingdom should make their permanent homes here; but while they are with us, we shall want to make them as welcome and as comfortable as possible. In the longer term, we shall continue to monitor the political situation with the international agencies, and when the time comes we shall be ready to assist the international organisations with the practicalities of returns.
Mr. Tony Blair: We welcome the decision, obviously, to respond to the direct requests to us by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mrs. Ogata, and her deputy, Mr. Stafford, to join the long list of countries that have taken detainees from the Bosnian camps into their own countries. But, while the Home Secretary may have given hope to that small group of people with one hand, by his announcement on visa requirements today he is, with the other hand, taking hope away from many more.
Of course, some of those from the former Yugoslavia may be economic migrants or even normal visitors, but will he confirm that thousands of them are applying for genuine asylum? The real question is this: what is the practical effect of insisting upon a visa in such areas as Bosnia in the present circumstances? What effect will it have on those people?
Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman therefore confirm that the impact of this statement in practice is that, as refugees, as I understand it, cannot obtain a visa until they have left the country which they are fleeing, as they cannot leave the country without a visa, and as airlines, under the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act 1987, face fines of up to £2,000 per person if they carry refugees without a visa, all such refugees currently coming here will effectively be barred?
Worse still, as regards those refugees who are in Bosnia and are trying, as their only means of escape, to get into Croatia, the UNHCR informed me—perhaps the Home Secretary can say whether this is right—that they are often unable to get a visa in Bosnia because of the situation there
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and are not allowed into Croatia because the authorities there will not allow them in if they require a visa for the country of their eventual destination.
In other words, is not the truth that the announcement today, by imposing this requirement for a visa, is not simply an administrative test because, in the chaos and slaughter in the former Yugoslavia, the right hon. and learned Gentleman is, in practice, whatever the theoretical position, erecting an absolute barrier to entry for many of these people who at present regard Britain as their sole means of survival? That is the impact of his statement.
As for the right hon. and learned Gentleman's suggestion about other countries, such as Germany, Sweden and Denmark, perhaps he will confirm that those countries have already taken many more refugees than has the United Kingdom. Furthermore, as I understand it, those countries do not enforce their provisions on carriers' liability as strictly as does the United Kingdom. Therefore, their requirement on visas is not as big a practical obstacle as ours.
Was it not these circumstances that led the Home Secretary to say just a few weeks ago in response to widespread alarm among those helping refugees about the impact that any such visa requirement might have:
"Unlike many other European countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom has no visa requirement for nationals of the former Yugoslavia and we have no plans to impose them."?
Perhaps he would confirm that this was reiterated by his junior Minister a few weeks later.
In the view of many, the real reason for this announcement is that the Government are making the plight of refugees coming to this country infinitely worse by failing to plan properly for their arrival here. Back in September, the Refugees Arrivals Project, which deals with many refugees from Yugoslavia, asked for emergency funding to help with this problem. Not merely was that request turned down, but its funding is now frozen. Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman could confirm that. As a result, there are large numbers of families sleeping out on airport concourses, in dubious hotel accommodation or simply turned over to London local authorities. Many of these London authorities, Conservative and Labour, are happy to play their part in dealing with this problem, but they want to know where the burden of cost and funding will fall.
I must remind the Home Secretary of the scale and nature of the crisis with which we are dealing here. Sir Donald Acheson of the World Health Organisation—
Madam Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he should be asking questions on the Home Secretary's statement, not making a speech on the matter.
Mr. Blair: I accept that, Madam Speaker. I merely wanted to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether he accepts that Sir Donald Acheson and many others are warning that literally hundreds of thousands of people may die unless we find a proper concerted solution to the problem. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman takes this decision today without due regard for its consequences, for many thousands of people it will be dangerously and momentously wrong.
Mr. Clarke: With respect, the hon. Gentleman has not properly analysed the effect of my announcement, the whole point of which is to allow us to plan what we can do to ease the humanitarian tragedy taking place in parts of

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Bosnia, to prepare for those who are coming here, and to supplement all our efforts to get humanitarian relief to those on the ground in Yugoslavia, to whom I am sure Sir Donald was referring in the comments that the hon. Gentleman cited.
Since I last made a statement about visas, circumstances have changed because of the large numbers of people leaving Yugoslavia. We are one of the last countries to introduce a visa requirement, and we are doing it for the same reason as all the other countries are having to do it —to control entry, to make sure that we concentrate on the genuine cases—the people most in need of refuge abroad—and to plan properly for their arrival.
In comparing the number of people coming here with the figures for other countries, one is often not comparing like with like. Instead, one is comparing those who have already applied for asylum here with everybody who has moved to countries such as Germany.
So far this year, more than 40,000 people have come here from Yugoslavia, and 4,424 have so far applied for asylum. I suspect that most of the 40,000 will not go back to their country until matters have improved there. Last time we analysed the figures, we found that only about a quarter were coming from Bosnia, which is the main war zone, a quarter from Croatia, about a third from Serbia and a few from Slovenia and Macedonia.
Mr. Blair: It does not matter where they are coming from.
Mr. Clarke: It does. People are coming here for a variety of reasons, no doubt all of them understandable. Some are suffering from the effects of the economic sanctions that we are imposing on Serbia. Some are trying to avoid being drafted into the fighting. No doubt some are coming simply because they find it easier to get a livelihood and a more secure existence outside their country.
We are asking the United Nations High Commissioner for Regugees and the International Red Cross to help us to identify the sort of people whom we have seen on our television screens, who are being driven from their homes into camps or shelled as they move across the country, and to plan for the controlled reception by this country of a number of those people.
The result is that we are ending the uncontrolled flow of people who happen to be able to afford the air fare and who—as the hon. Gentleman says—sometimes find themselves living at or near airports, and we are substituting the far more sensible arrangements that I have described, which I think match the feeling in the country that we must make an organised effort.
On finance, the British Refugee Council will handle the transition for the first group to come from the UNHCR, and we will be paying it, as our agent, for the transitional cost. We must ensure that proper arrangements are made in the medium term for those who come here, and we are urgently considering the most suitable mechanism, particularly for the provision of some help to those local authorities that have been most hard pressed as a result of some sudden unexpected influxes in recent weeks.
Sir Ivan Lawrence: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that, because the steps that he proposes are both unfortunately necessary and manifestly
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sensible, they will be have widespread support among the people of this country? Can he confirm that, of the 40,000 Yugoslavs whom we have welcomed to our shores in the past year, none have been returned to countries other than the western country that they chose as their first place of asylum?
Mr. Clarke: We have returned very few people. We turned away 46 asylum seekers who arrived not from Yugoslavia but from a safe country, to which they could obviously safely return, and about 400 other visitors who failed to give a satisfactory explanation for their visit on arrival at the ports—in the same way as we send other people away under our immigration control arrangements. My hon. and learned Friend is quite right: some 40,000 people have been admitted and there is absolutely no question of any of them being returned to a war zone in Yugoslavia. I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for his support for the measures that we are taking to organise our future response to the flow.
Mr. Robert Maclennan: Does the Home Secretary recognise that his statement will be regarded with dismay by the British people whose instincts and judgment are more humane than those of his Department? Does he recognise that the only organisation that he appears to be putting his mind to is how to get these people back out of the country? This is institutionalised inhumanity. The reality is that those who are seeking to come to this country from the moving war-torn zones will find it neither practical nor possible. Neither the consular facilities nor the necessary documentation to acquire these visas will be available, and the sole result will be to increase the problems and pressures on other, neighbouring countries, particularly Germany which is already receiving some seven times as many refugees as this country.
Mr. Clarke: With great respect, that is all simply not the case. At present we have a large number of people coming here, as I have just described, not all of whom by any means have even been in a war zone so far. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross approved the general policy of concentrating most of the help to keep people near their homes where they want to stay, and Britain is one of the leading contributors to the humanitarian effort on the ground in Yugoslavia. The UNHCR and the voluntary bodies here do not approve of the well-intentioned practice of going out there and bringing coach loads, for example, of children back here and trying to place them in this country, not always with any idea of the background of the children and no proper arrangements for them here.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is asking countries like our own to take their share of the people identified by the organisations on the ground as being most in need of refuge overseas, and we have responded to that. The first batch of people will come here under that arrangement, as I have announced to the House today—probably 600 people in all eventually—and we shall be discussing with the UNHCR and the ICRC what further people we should receive.
The UNHCR and the ICRC are on the ground. They know the people who most desperately need the support of

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the British public, and we are organising ourselves to make sure that we have planned entry and proper arrangements for their well-being when they get here.
Sir John Wheeler: Will my right hon. and learned Friend accept that most people will agree that it is necessary to have an orderly regime imposed by visas to allow for a proper entry of people into the United Kingdom? Will he also agree that it is necessary to look at where they will live, because the London boroughs, in particular, cannot accommodate the increasing number of refugees? Will he further confirm that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has expressed disquiet about the removal of children of tender years to this country, and that there is an important procedure to be followed through the Department of Health with regard to the adoption of children? Will he agree that that must be pursued as well?
Mr. Clarke: On the first point, my hon. Friend is quite right to remind me that there are some councils, including his own, that are very hard pressed by the number of refugees who have arrived, particularly in recent months. For that reason, when the British Refugee Council seeks to move the incomers into local communities it will obviously look for local authorities that can be helpful, but I suspect that it will be moving them to those parts of the country that are not so desperately hard pressed already as Westminster, which is one of the places to which people just make their way when they get off the aircraft.
The second point that my hon. Friend makes is extremely important. The people organising these movements of children are, I am sure, acting from the highest motives, but it is the view of people in social services departments, voluntary agencies and adoption agencies that it is not desirable for well-meaning people to bring in children the way they are doing at the moment, either just handing them over to social services or seeking to place them with families without going through the very careful procedures that we quite rightly have in this country.
Ms. Ann Coffey: What practical help can be offered to local authorities? In Stockport we have 54 Bosnian Muslim refugees in temporary accommodation. I have been to talk to these families, and I can assure the Secretary of State that they are the very families who have had horrifying experiences and have been traumatised by them. It is likely that many of those families cannot return because there is nowhere for them to return to safely. In three, five or six months, there will be serious problems in respect of resettlement, rehousing and integrating those families into the wider community. What practical help does the Secretary of State envisage offering Stockport and other authorities? I hope that we will not have to wait until we reach crisis point and hon. Members such as I have to send letters begging for help. I urge the Home Secretary to tell us now what practical help he envisages offering.
Mr. Clarke: We expect that the people who will be handed into our charge by the UNHCR will also largely be Bosnian Muslims who have been through the same experiences as the people who are now living in the constituency of the hon. Member for Stockport (Ms. Coffey).
The long-standing position in this country is that people who are resident here acquire certain statutory
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rights which they claim from the authorities in the areas where they take up residence. Up to a certain point, that has been a long-standing feature of our arrangements and no doubt it is taken into account in the ordinary financing of local government. However, I accept that some local authorities have experienced a sudden and unexpected influx and they are having urgent discussions with my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning about what should be done.
The Government recognise that recent uncontrolled arrivals have imposed substantial unanticipated burdens on public services in some localities. We see a strong case for some assistance to some of those local authorities. However, I am not sure whether 54 additional people in Stockport necessarily places Stockport in that category. My right hon. Friends and I are considering urgently the most suitable mechanism for providing assistance to those local authorities that are particularly and exceptionally hard pressed.
Mr. Alan Haselhurst: Does my right hon. and learned Friend recognise that there will be no dismay in Uttlesford district about his announcement today? Will he acknowledge that Uttlesford recently had to cope with an influx of 171 refugees who could not be classified as necessarily the most oppressed and faced the prospect, before my right hon. and learned Friend's announcement today, of unlimited further arrivals of people in that category? Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the only rational and humane way of discharging our international obligations—which I hope that we will discharge—to oppressed people is to do that on a national basis which tries to help the worst afflicted?
Mr. Clarke: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I am well aware of the problem in Uttlesford. The incident in Uttlesford had a great deal to do with the urgent discussions inside the Government which led to today's announcement. The constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Haselhurst) suddenly found that about 170 Albanians arrived at Stansted airport from Kosovo—a dangerous part of the world, but not somewhere where a great deal of fighting is taking place at the moment. Those people must be cared for and they have claimed their statutory entitlement from a comparatively small district council. I quite understand that the council rightly fears that similar planeloads of people could arrive at Stansted quite steadily—at least, they could have done—unless we impose the visa requirement. The problem now facing Uttlesford is a subject which my right hon. and hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning, are considering urgently.
Mr. Peter Shore: The Secretary of State will be aware that there are more than 2 million refugees within the territories of the former state of Yugoslavia. Clearly, there will be enormous pressure and it is therefore right to adopt as sensible and selective a policy as we can devise. However, is the right hon. and learned Gentleman satisfied that it makes sense to impose the visa requirement on Bosnia, the major war zone, and not on Croatia or Slovenia—although I accept that he is imposing it on Serbia—where there is no fighting at the moment? Surely it does not make sense to establish a visa regime against the one area where the most desperate fighting is continuing.
Mr. Clarke: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that one's initial reaction to that is to say that it seems to be the wrong way round. However, if we consider the countries on which we impose a visa requirement and the practice of other western European countries, it is clear that visas are imposed on the places where the difficulty is occurring. It is from there that one must control the flow.
At the moment, Slovenia, I believe, is almost as peaceful as Austria. We do not have a great influx of people from Slovenia. There is no need to burden the authorities there with a visa requirement. That is not a problem, but Bosnia and the former states of the former Yugoslavia are. The problem is people travelling on passports from the former Yugoslavia. Therefore, one imposes a visa which in the first place is restrictive so that then one can have the planned and controlled entry of those whom we most want to help, of the kind that we can arrange with the United Nations.
Mr. Simon Burns: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that his statement will be warmly welcomed by the vast majority of people? May I seek clarification in regard to housing, to which my right hon. and learned Friend has alluded, as it is critical? Is he aware that local authorities have had it explained to them that if refugees come to their areas, they are to be treated under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 as unintentionally homeless? Regardless of the numbers, that will cause problems to certain local authorities. Also, if housing is to be made available under the homeless persons Act, it might stop other people who have been on a housing waiting list for a long time. One does not want an increased race relations problem on such emotive grounds. If more help or more consideration can be given to a way of helping to solve a potential problem, which would cause great resentment, it will be greatly appreciated by many local authorities and many private individuals.
Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friend makes a very valuable point. We are trying to encourage the humanitarian instincts of the population. We want to avoid those things that might arouse resentment in areas that become too hard pressed. My hon. Friend accurately describes the present position in which those who seek asylum are entitled to be given priority as unintentionally homeless. There are authorities in which it is almost impossible to house a long-standing resident because all the housing has been taken by refugees. That underlying problem will be addressed in the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Bill, which had its Second Reading earlier this week. [Interruption.] It does not leave refugees with no roof over their heads. It does not put them on the streets. It allows them to have temporary accommodation and not, as long as they are in temporary accommodation, acquire that first priority over the queue when it comes to homelessness applications and local authority housing.
Mr. David Trimble: The Home Secretary drew a distinction between giving assistance to persons who are genuinely suffering from the war and others such as economic migrants. In the light of that, does he agree that it seems very difficult to support the distinctions that he is drawing between various parts of the former Yugoslavia? Although he gave a reply about Slovenia to the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), in his earlier statements he said that a quarter
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of the refugees are coming from Croatia. Why no visa requirement there? May we be assured that more help will be given to people from Bosnia, particularly as Her Majesty's Government, in view of the Foreign Office's crazy idea of ethnic cantonisation, which was put forward by Lord Carrington some time ago, have some responsibility for encouraging the development of the war there?
Mr. Clarke: I will not go into Balkan politics, but I think that it is a rather far-fetched theory that we have encouraged the war there. Indeed, we have been in the forefront of those making strenuous efforts to try to restore peace to that rather stricken part of the Balkans. We will not be imposing a visa requirement on those who carry Slovenian passports or Croatian passports, because we do not have a particular immigration difficulty with them. People with those passports often come from peaceful parts of the world as visitors and go back again. Bosnia will have the visa requirement. but I expect that, because the fighting is worse in Bosnia, the United Nations will be asking us to take people overwhelmingly from that part of Yugoslavia.
Indeed, I am sure that the people whom we are expecting to receive in the next few days will all come from Bosnia because they have been driven from their homes. They are in a camp there and they have to be moved from the camp so that more people can go in. The effect of what I have described will be that all those people who are coming here, for whom we are now organising arrangements, will be identified as the worst victims of the war.
Mr. Harry Greenway: May I remind my right hon. and learned Friend that, two weeks ago, Ealing had to refuse 150 Bosnians because it simply could not house them, but it still faces the problem of the legality of that action. That matter will be addressed in the Bill. Will my right hon. and learned Friend assure the council, which acted in the very best of faith, that there will be no problem in terms of the legality of that action? Will he also consider allowing section 11 money to be extended to cover the necessary education of children of refugees from countries such as Bosnia and other countries, as well as those from new Commonwealth countries?
Mr. Clarke: I can assure my hon. Friend that I am aware of the particular problems in Ealing; I have already referred to the city of Westminster. Indeed, the Minister for Housing and Planning is an Ealing Member of Parliament, so he is particularly well placed to know about the position.
The position is that those who come here and take up residence have certain statutory entitlements to social security and services. Under the homelessness legislation, they are also entitled to be treated as homeless in certain circumstances. We are modifying the homelessness provisions. The refugees cannot legally be refused statutory entitlements; nor do I think that we would want them to be so refused.
We are examining the problems of councils that have a flow of refugees that is out of the ordinary compared with the flow of homeless families who might normally turn up in any borough. There are not many such councils, but some face particular difficulties. The Government accept

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that there is a strong case for providing financial assistance to such authorities. We are urgently considering the best way of providing that assistance.
My hon. Friend makes a valid point about section 11. To change section 11 would require legislation. I have long considered it a weakness that section 11 is confined to ethnic minorities from the Commonwealth. That is perfectly reasonable, but section 11 excludes Vietnamese, Bosnians and other groups until we eventually find the parliamentary time to amend that part of the Act.
Mr. Tony Banks: The great housing burden in respect of refugees has fallen on both Conservative and Labour boroughs in London. Although the Home Secretary has heard stories of 150 or so refugees going to other places, some London boroughs are trying to look after anything up to 10,000 refugees from various parts of the world. We want to give a proper welcome to those refugees, but we cannot do so because of the enormous pressure on housing resources. What urgent measures are being considered? Is the Home Secretary prepared to meet delegations from the London Boroughs Association and the Association of London Authorities so that he can fully understand how widespread is the problem of housing refugees in the capital city?
Mr. Clarke: I made it clear that I am aware of the pressures. They are not confined to London, but I readily accept that the worst pressures are probably felt by some of the London boroughs. I have already responded but I cannot undertake to receive delegations because that aspect of the problem is not part of my departmental responsibility. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning are seized of the problem. Discussions are taking place, and delegations on housing problems should be addressed to them.
Mr. Jacques Arnold: My right hon. and learned Friend may remember that I raised the matter in the Second Reading of the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Bill and highlighted the pressure that it puts on certain local authorities in Kent. I welcome the rapid response and the co-ordinated assistance for refugees from Bosnia. Does that not dovetail with the humanitarian aid that the Government have already sent to the former Yugoslav republics?
Mr. Clarke: I remember that my hon. Friend made the point strongly in the debate earlier this week. The assistance dovetails with what we are doing in Yugoslavia. We have sent £70 million in aid to the relief effort in Yugoslavia. Our aircraft are making flights into Sarajevo, sometimes at considerable risk. Many lorries have been sent to Yugoslavia. We have troops on the ground protecting the humanitarian convoys. We have given £2·5 million of medical supplies to the World Health Organisation. We have contributed £3 million to the UNHCR for the provision of winter accommodation in Bosnia.
The British have responded as positively as any other member of the international community to the problems in Yugoslavia. The bulk of the help should be given on the ground in and around Bosnia and in Yugoslavia. We are
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also prepared to make a proper and organised humanitarian response in Britain to the problem of people who must get out of the territory to receive help.
Ms. Kate Hoey: Does the Home Secretary not realise that as a result of his statement today many people will believe that the Government discriminate against Muslims? The Muslim population in Bosnia is suffering most. To introduce visa requirements for those people alone seems nonsense. Does he recognise that, instead of spending a great deal of time trying to push through the Maastricht treaty, the Government should do more to bring together the European countries to do more than simply feed people so that they can die with full stomachs rather than die poor and hungry?
Mr. Clarke: The hon. Lady has her arguments upside down. We do not know the religion of the people who are coming here, because we do not ask them and we do riot discriminate. Only a quarter come from Bosnia. The people who will be prevented from coming here under the arrangements that I have announced are people from Serbia who cannot demonstrate any reason for making a visit. I anticipate that the people whom we shall receive from the Red Cross and the UNHCR will overwhelmingly come from Bosnia—instead of a quarter, I expect that it will be almost 100 per cent. We certainly expect the first batch to be overwhelmingly Muslim, because more Muslims than people from any other group are being displaced. It is precisely the reverse of what the hon. Lady suggests. I have listed our humanitarian efforts, which exceed those of most other developed countries.
The British convened the London conference to take forward the peace effort. David Owen, appointed by the Government, and Cyrus Vance seek to take forward the peace effort in Yugoslavia. With the greatest respect to the hon. Lady, it is positively carping and misleading to claim that the British are not responding on all possible fronts to the desperate crisis in the former Yugoslavia.
Mr. Stephen Milligan: I welcome the statement made by my right hon. and learned Friend. He will be aware that Britain was criticised by other members of the Community for not playing a full part in receiving refugees from Yugoslavia. Will he outline how the measures that he has announced today compare with what other European countries are doing? What effort is being made to co-ordinate a European response to ensure that all countries in the Community play a fair part?
Mr. Clarke: Some of the criticism from western Europe was based on a misunderstanding of the figures and a belief that our regime was different from that which we had. I know that there was some resentment in Germany, to which hundreds of thousands of people from the former Yugoslavia have fled, largely because there were already many Yugoslavs in Germany. I have no idea how many of the Yugoslavs in Germany have fled directly from the war zones and how many former Yugoslav citizens simply think that Germany is a slightly better place to live until things become quieter back at home.
The Germans thought that we had taken only the number that we had published as asylum applicants, but the great bulk of refugees arrived in the first place as visitors. The figure is already more than 40,000 this year and it is increasing steadily. We believe that the best way of sharing the burden that has been urged on us is to work

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with the UNHCR and the ICRC, which support our policy of giving most of the help on the ground. They have identified for us the people who must be moved out. We are one of the first countries to offer to take a share. The Americans have offered to take 300. Other European countries have made no response so far to the request of the United Nations to take some of the people from the camps.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: The Home Secretary said earlier that the Government did not intend to return to the war zones any of those who were already in the United Kingdom. Will he give an assurance that the Government do not intend to return any of them to transit camps in other European countries such as Austria and Germany? How quickly will he decide the exact status of those who have been helped to come here by voluntary organisations? Many of them are here on a temporary basis. Unless the Home Office grants them official status they will be excluded from many of the statutory entitlements.
Mr. Clarke: Again, I give the assurance that we shall not return anyone to a war zone. We only return people to safe places. We shall continue to return holders of passports from the former Yugoslavia to third countries from which they have come, but not if they merely passed through them as part of the journey. There is no reason why we should not return people to countries where they have been living for some time and where they are safe. We never accept people here as political refugees if they claim to fear persecution in one country, but have been living perfectly safely in another country before they arrive here. That is a sensible rule which we have to adhere to.
There is a backlog in settling the status of asylum seekers. We do so as rapidly as possible. The Asylum and Immigration Appeals Bill was yet another attempt to speed up and improve the clogged-up and overcomplicated decision-making process. We can give exceptional relief to people whom we admit from the United Nations when they arrive, and their statutory entitlements will be in little doubt. The British Refugee Council is expert at advising them on those entitlements.
Mr. David Winnick: This will indeed be a bad day for our country's reputation. Is the Home Secretary aware that, given the prevailing circumstances in the former state of Yugoslavia, common humanity demands a generous approach by the British Government, and not the mean-spirited approach that we have heard about today? If the same policy had been adopted at other times, many people who live in this country would never have been able to come here in the first place when they were fleeing from terror and persecution.
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Why should the Home Secretary not take effective steps with his Cabinet colleagues to co-ordinate local government action to deal with the problem in the right way, as well as trying to ensure that European Community countries take a common approach, so that, instead of closing the door, we do everything that we can to help people who, in the main, are fleeing because they are terrified of what will happen to them? Many are children who want a safe haven, at least temporarily.
Mr. Clarke: I know that we are going through a period of heightened political controversy in this country, but I cannot for the life of me see the point of some Opposition Members trying to pretend that this is a mean-minded response to which they are opposed. Labour and Conservative-controlled authorities will welcome the statement for some of the reasons that we have already heard, not least those mentioned by the hon. Member for Stockport (Ms. Coffey). We are going in for a planned and organised response, taking our share of the refugees that the United Nations is asking countries around the world to receive. We shall make a more effective contribution to relieving the suffering caused by the civil war than we have done hitherto.
When the hon. Gentleman considers the matter quietly and calmly—perhaps not in public—I suspect that he will realise that it is a perfectly sensibly way to proceed.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: Is the Home Secretary able to state whether discussions have taken place between officials from his Department and the Scottish Office concerning the offers made by certain voluntary associations and charities in Scotland to place children from the war zones with families in the west of Scotland? I remind the Home Secretary that social work departments in Scotland have lists of approved foster parents, many of whom are experienced in dealing with traumatised children. Such children, who are devastated by the terrible losses that they have suffered, might be better off being placed with such foster parents than being adopted by exceedingly well-meaning, but ill-experienced, people.
Mr. Clarke: We have been keeping in touch with the Scottish Office throughout. I shall ensure that we continue to do so, because Scottish local authorities and voluntary organisations will undoubtedly be involved. I agree with the drift of the hon. Gentleman's comments about the reception of children. It is essential that it is handled by people who have experience and who know what they are doing, and who have the necessary data on where they might properly be placed. One instant and good effect of the visa regime will be to stop well-meaning people turning up with large numbers of children, not knowing how to provide properly for them in this country.

GATT (Uruguay Round)
4.53 pm
The President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Michael Heseltine): With permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the position in the GATT Uruguay round of trade negotiations.
The House will recall that the Uruguay round of trade negotiations—the eighth GATT round—was launched in 1986. Its coverage was ambitious—fifteen different areas and 108 parties—making it the biggest trade negotiation in history. As well as traditional GATT areas, such as tariff and non-tariff barriers, it covered the new areas of services, intellectual property and investment, and the development of new GATT rules for agricultural and textiles trade. It also aimed to improve the rules and functioning of the GATT generally.
Those aims were ambitious, but they have now been very largely achieved. The draft text produced by Mr. Dunkel, the GATT Director General, at the end of last year proposed a basis for agreement on all these issues. More than 80 per cent. of the proposals were agreed by all the parties. However, there remained a number of unresolved problems, principally over agriculture, which led the European Community to say that the text was not acceptable as it stood. Negotiations also still have to be completed on the commitments by individual parties to cut tariffs and barriers to trade in services.
I must make it clear to the House that the European Commission is responsible for negotiating in the GATT on behalf of the European Community. It negotiates under authority from the Council of Ministers, who will have to approve any final agreement. For their part, the Government have consistently supported a Uruguay round agreement. That has been particularly true during our presidency, when we have made concerted efforts to help achieve a satisfactory conclusion.
Since the Dunkel text appeared, efforts have concentrated on bilateral negotiations between the European Commission and the United States. They were aimed at resolving their remaining bilateral differences, mainly on agriculture, and so open the way to the completion of a full multilateral agreement in Geneva.
The latest round of the talks took place earlier this week in Chicago between the European Community's Agriculture Commissioner, Mr. MacSharry, and the United States Agriculture Secretary, Mr. Madigan. As well as continuing attempts to settle the remaining difficulties over the GATT agriculture agreement, they were also trying to resolve a separate but related trade dispute over the Community's support regime for oilseeds. The Community and the United States have been negotiating changes to that regime, following the findings of the GATT panel that it breached the EC's GATT obligations.
Some progress was made on both issues, but final agreement had not been reached before the talks were suspended on Tuesday evening. The gap between the two sides has nevertheless been narrowed substantially, and the remaining differences are very small indeed. The Government are working to bring both sides back to the negotiating table as soon as possible.
A few moments ago I was informed that the United States had just announced retaliatory action in the oilseeds
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dispute against $300 million of Community exports. I understand that that covers various types of wine, rapeseed oil and wheat gluten. That is a highly regrettable development and the Community will need to consider its response carefully. I stress that the first list will only be expected to come into effect after 30 days. The question of EC counter-retaliation, which some in the Commission have mentioned, will only arise if there is no settlement in the meantime, and would in any case be subject to the approval of the Council of Ministers. It is in the interests of both sides to avoid starting a spiral of retaliation, which can only harm exporters and damage the prospects for GATT agreement.
Little time remains if we are to meet the end-year target set for conclusion of the GATT round by the G7 summit and the Birmingham European Council. That is also important if the United States Administration are to take advantage of their arrangements for so-called "fast track" approval under which any agreement must be notified to Congress by March. We may never have a better chance to conclude such a wide-ranging agreement. If this chance is missed, the prospects for the negotiations and for the world trading system are serious, and those most directly concerned will carry a heavy responsibility.
While the remaining issues are difficult, the two sides have also never been closer together. A settlement both of the GATT issues and the oilseed dispute is achievable. The benefits of agreement would be substantial. Apart from the extra $200 billion annual world output which, on an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimate, would result from the round, there is the immediate boost to business confidence which agreement would give. We can and must grasp that prize.
Mr. Robin Cook: All parties in the House will agree with the closing remarks of the President of the Board of Trade on the gravity of the challenge to the world economy from the breakdown of the talks. In particular, I endorse his recognition that we are unlikely to obtain any agreement if we cannot conclude the talks by March when the fast-track mandate from the United States Congress expires.
The President may also wish to recognise the impatience of the rest of the world that an agreement which benefits more than 100 countries, including some of the poorest, should now be halted as a result of a bilateral dispute between the two most powerful trading blocs.
The President cannot pass responsibility for failure to the EC as though Britain were not part of it. Britain is currently President of the EC. Has the right hon. Gentleman forgotten that, on 30 June, the Prime Minister assured the House that he was looking for a successful outcome of GATT during his presidency?
In order that we can judge the concerted efforts for success to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, can he tell us whether the Government accept the finding of the two GATT panels, that the EC is at fault in its oilseed regime? If the Government accept the outcome of those two panels, what have they been doing during their months in the EC presidency to resolve that matter? Equally, does the President recognise that there is fault on both sides of the dispute?
Have the British Government reminded the United States Administration that they have secured progress on cutting EC subsidies and obtaining protection of intellectual property which must have exceeded their

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expectations six years ago when the talks began? Does he agree that the United States stands to gain most from the current agreement on offer, and that it would be unwise to throw it away for the sectional interest of oilseed farmers?
What protest have the British Government made bilaterally to their friends in the present United States Administration to remind them that there are great dangers to the United States as well as to Europe in starting a trade war? In the event that those representations are not successful, I put to the President two questions on which industry will want reassurance.
First, what attitude will be taken by the British Government at the meeting of the Council of Ministers, which I understand is to be held on Monday, to consider retaliation against today's announcement by the United States? As it appears that British products have largely been excluded from the first round of sanctions announced today, will the British Government resist imposition by the EC of tariffs on United States products which will put up the price equally for British consumers? Will Britain argue against the futility of tit-for-tat retaliation?
Secondly, will the President clarify the Government's current position on the multi-fibre arrangement in the light of the latest deadlock on GATT? He will be aware that progress on MFA depends on progress on GATT. Can he confirm that the existing MFA will be prolonged so long as GATT remains in abeyance?
It almost beggars belief that, at a time of world recession, a major stimulus to world trade should be at risk over a difference in negotiating position of just over 1 million tonnes of oilseed production. The gains to industry and commerce could be immense. The Government and the House must not permit those gains to be lost in a dispute over a row of soya beans.
Mr. Heseltine: I find myself in almost total agreement with the hon. Gentleman. I think that the House will share his indignation that, after six years in which the process has been under way, we have not been able to reach agreement on what is, by any standards, one of the most significant things that could give a boost not just to the economies of the advanced world but to the economies of the less privileged parts of the world.
The British Government's position has been consistently in favour of reaching a satisfactory outcome to the GATT round. The Prime Minister has been continually in touch with those people who can influence its momentum and direction in order to urge them to make progress.
The hon. Gentleman drew our attention to a number of specific issues. It was envisaged that the multi-fibre arrangement would be replaced as the new arrangements came into place, and we shall now have to consider how that meshes in with the present situation.
But the British Government's overriding interest is to continue to exercise whatever influence they properly can as an independent nation and as President of the EC to get the talks started again. It will be of no surprise to the House that there is continual contact on the matter in order to try to ensure that the suspended talks reopen. I give the House my emphatic asssurance that the Government will do everything they can in order to bring that about.
As the House well knows, the European Commission negotiates on behalf of the Community, and at the recent
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Birmingham Council the European Commission was clearly mandated to move towards a satisfactory resolution of the negotiations with the United States.
The hon. Gentleman asked what steps the Government have taken to "protest", to use his language, to the President of the American Administration. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there has been constant communication with the American Administration in order to ensure that the dialogue is maintained.
It is, as I say, much to be regretted that we have now moved to this dangerous stage. The question of retaliation will have to be considered in the light of discussions within the Commission, but in the end it is a matter for the Council. Much the most important thing that could be achieved is not to move to retaliation but to the restoration and, hopefully, the successful outcome of the talks.
Mr. Michael Jopling: Does my right hon. Friend recall that it was this Government who played the leading role in bringing agriculture into the Uruguay round, and that we brought the EC kicking and screaming into that agreement? Does he understand that a successful settlement of the discussions will cause considerable difficulties to agriculture in Europe? He knows my interest in that. Does he agree that agreement is essential for world trade in general and for the economy of Britain in particular? In the negotiation that the Commission is currently conducting, is there a qualified majority of members of the Council who would support a settlement to which, currently, the Commission is refusing to agree because of a minority of nations which are being particularly intransigent?
Mr. Heseltine: My right hon. Friend has profound experience in the role that agriculture has played in the general conduct of the Uruguay round. I recognise the specific problems caused for the agricultural industry, but many of those have flowed from the reform of the CAP which has been an important step in moving to a point at which we can, hopefully, resolve the outstanding issues of the Uruguay round. I know that the House will understand if I say that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who is responsible for the detailed negotiations under our presidency, has been resolute in the energy and dedication that he has applied to that task.
I cannot comment on the existence of a qualified majority because no such position has been tested. These matters are, in the first case anyway, open to resolution of the Council by qualified majority, but we have not reached the stage where that has been tested.
Mr. Malcolm Bruce: Will the President of the Board of Trade accept that the House and country will be looking to him, as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and to the Government, to prevent a potentially fatal escalation of the confrontation and to secure agreement? However, will he accept that the position of the Government and the EC would have been substantially weakened had the vote last night gone the other way? Is it not crucial that the EC is able to maintain and secure a united position to prevent the escalation of a trade war?
Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman illustrates clearly the interrelationship of so much of our commercial and foreign policy within the Community. For Britain to have a proportionately important influence, it is important that

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we should be seen to be at the centre and committed to the process that we were discussing yesterday. It is very much our view that the worst deterioration that could take place would be from a tit-for-tat consequence to the American lists that have been published today. We shall do everything we can, as President of the Community, to bring the matter back to the conference table and, hopefully, resolution.
Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock: My right hon. Friend will be aware of my interest in the GATT round over a considerable period, particularly relating to textiles. As he will be aware, the apparel and textile industry has sales of about £15 billion a year and still employs nearly 500,000 people. We wish to see that continue. He will also be aware that the MFA was extended to the end of this year in the hope that there would be a settlement in the GATT round. Can he assure British industry generally that the MFA will be extended on its present terms beyond the end of this year for as long as is necessary?
Mr. Heseltine: I certainly know of my hon. Friend's interest in textiles, and in other industries—[Laughter.]—although we find it easier to agree with her views on textiles. I can go a long way to reassure her on this occasion, if not on others, that the Commission is negotiating the extension of the multi-fibre arrangement until the GATT round is concluded.
Mr. Bob Cryer: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is an indictment of the European Community that it has allowed agriculture to dominate when agriculture represents only 10 per cent. by value of world trade? May we be assured that a strong position will be taken in the negotiations by Her Majesty's Government, who will demand that manufacturing industry, particularly textiles—in Bradford, for example, 12,000 people are employed directly in that industry—will not have its interests put to one side in the interest of agriculture?
In particular, will we press for the period of the MFA to be retained for at least 10 years to protect the industry and the jobs that rely on it? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that 450,000 jobs in textiles and clothing in Britain depend on there being proper, progressive trade negotiations, that the stealing of copyright designs must be prevented and that there must be more access to markets over trade barriers that are far too high in many countries? I have referred to some important aims that must be achieved if industry is to have confidence.
Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman makes some points with which I agree. The disquieting aspect of the negotiations is that the interests of an important but, in proportionate terms, relatively small industrial sector in world terms is at the centre of the difficulties that frustrate us. That is true in the European Community and in the United States. The agricultural interests are politically of great significance on both sides of the Atlantic. That has been the stumbling block which has prevented us from making progress.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that, from the point of view of the self-interest of the parties to the GATT negotiations, a whole range of industries has much to benefit. Indeed, the overwhelming self-interest of the countries concerned is to proceed with GATT. But there is
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no escaping the fact that there are areas of political difficulty in trying to deal with the problems of agricultural surpluses or subsidies.
Mr. David Madel: As America is about to begin the lengthy process of changing its Administration, will the British Government be arguing at the European Council that no retaliatory action should take place until America's new Administration is in place? As it is a long time until 20 January, will the Commission soon be starting informal talks with President-elect Clinton and his Administration to see what their policy is likely to be?
Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend will appreciate that it is for the Commission to discuss how it pursues the negotiations on behalf of the Community. Without doubt, the matters to which my hon. Friend refers will be discussed. I have no doubt that at the informal meeting of Ministers, which is due to take place tomorrow under my presidency, those matters will be raised. But there is no immediate power for a particular country to take over responsibility for negotiations that are properly those of the Commission.
Mr. Adam Ingram: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that those of us who represent manufacturing constituencies—albeit their industries, especially in the aerospace sector, have been devastated by Government policy—are greatly concerned at the possibility of an escalating trade war? Is he aware that it is not good enough for him to hide behind discussions that have taken place in the European Community? What pressure has he put on the French Government to end the problems that have been created by the intransigence of the French farming community?
Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman will know from reading the newspapers that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who is President of the Agriculture Council, was present in Chicago while discussions between Commissioner MacSharry and Mr. Madigan were taking place. He was not negotiating—it was not his task to do that—but he was there to make clear the strong sense of commitment that this country has, as President of the Community, by being as close to the negotiating machine as possible. So there is no doubt that, in every conceivable way open to us, we have sought to make progress in the negotations. But in the end, we are dealing with sovereign states and the self-interest of those states, and no powers are available to us to compel people to do what they do not want to do.
Mr. Peter Viggers: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his negotiating position has widespread support and that it is vital to avoid a cycle of retribution and retaliation which would damage us as a major trading nation and do considerable damage to third world producers? Does he think that there is any prospect in the negotations ahead of detaching oilseed from the GATT agenda? Might that be a possible way forward?
Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend raises an interesting point, which I hope will be heeded. There is no reason technically why the two issues should not be separated, but those who have some idea of the ways in which the negotations are proceeding see no reason why we cannot conclude a satisfactory GATT round. The margins of

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division are very narrow indeed. To be frank, it would seem incredible if such narrow differentials precluded a satisfactory outome to the round.
My hon. Friend raises a point with which the whole House will agree. We spend a huge amount of time—we have today—discussing aid to the third world. No aid programme within our gift could in any way equal the benefit to the third world that would come from a satisfactory outcome of the GATT round.
Mr. Terry Rooney: The President of the Board of Trade will be aware of the deeply difficult trading conditions facing the textile industry. Is he aware, for example, that the industry, particularly in Bradford, is delaying investment decisions because of the lack of a conclusion to the MFA situation and GATT? Will pressure be put on the United States in particular in Geneva to remove artificial and protective tariff barriers that are themselves in contravention of GATT?
Mr. Heseltine: The negotiations in Geneva will be multilateral. Great progress has been made, but not the whole way, and it will be for the Commission, which will represent us in Geneva, to secure a deal, which must then be presented to the Council of Ministers for approval.
The point made by the hon. Gentleman adds to the concern that hon. Members have expressed. This is not just a question of tariff walls being erected: it is the uncertainty that flows from that. Understandably, the textile industry is hound to ask about the future and, if it is unable to get certain questions answered, will delay investment. All that is part of the cycle of deteriorating confidence that the failure to achieve success creates.
Mr. Phillip Oppenheim: Is it not a disgrace that the European, and particularly the French, agricultural lobby—probably the most subsidised and protected industry in Europe—should be allowed to hold the GATT round and the whole global trading system to ransom? The amount of intervention and protection that the industry has enjoyed since the war is surely the best argument against political interference in industry, intervention in business and protectionism in agriculture, textiles, coal, steel or any other industry.
Mr. Heseltine: I hear what my hon. Friend says, but it does not quite reflect how the negotiations in Chicago unfolded. Commissioner MacSharry went as far as he could reasonably have been expected to go to secure a closing of the gap between the two sides. I wish to put that firmly on the record. However, those political self-interests exist to which my hon. Friend has drawn our attention, and I hope that no country will put the sectoral interests of a small part of its economy against the overwhelming interests of the world trading economy.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: Will the President of the Board of Trade confirm that, as the Chair or President of the relevant Council of Ministers, he is the nearest thing in the European Community, and certainly in the House, to a politician taking responsibility in this matter? Is not the surplus of oilseed, to which he referred as a casus Belli, controversial both in the European Community and in this country? Was it not exported around the world, including to the United States, with the
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assistance of public money? If so, has not the use of public money—unwisely in that case—prejudiced the reactivation of world trade?
Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman asks me to confirm what everyone knows—that the level of subsidies in oilseed is one of the causes of concern that has led to the threat of retaliatory action. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not get drawn into the precise details of what is essentially a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
Mr. Mark Robinson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the further breakdown and delay in those talks will be greeted with dismay in the agricultural community? Will he assure us that he will do everything in his power to urge on the parties—both the United States and the European Community—the necessity of cracking that last part of the agreement? Then, and only then, will we be able to take the matter forward.
Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I give the unreserved assurance that he seeks. The whole House will accept that only the most naive economists argue that we should try to support the prosperity of our agriculture by impoverishing the rest of the economy. Nothing is more likely to help to create the markets for agricultural products than a buoyant restoration of the confidence of the world economy.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Does the President of the Board of Trade accept that it will be an unmitigated disaster if we cannot get out of the difficulties with the GATT round, not least in areas like Wales, where a number of American companies have invested? The uncertainty created must have a detrimental effect on possible future investment. In seeking a compromise, will he give an undertaking that there will he no compromise on the environmental dimension, which has had some consideration in the background to the negotiations?
Mr. Heseltine: I am not aware of an area where environmental divisions separate the negotiators. Naturally, I accept that, if the GATT round were to fail and we were to proceed into a trade war, that is as dangerous a situation as we could envisage, given the present state of the world economy. It would be bad in any circumstances, but it would be catastrophic in the present circumstances.
Mr. Gary Waller: Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge the impressive exporting success of the British textile and apparel industries in recent years? Does he accept that a successful GATT agreement must encompass greatly strengthened rules and disciplines, and better access to other markets for our products? Does he agree that the British textile and clothing industry wants not protection but a fair marketplace where it can compete with other countries?
Mr. Heseltine: I am glad to hear that my hon. Friend feels that, because he represents a textile area and has a considerable knowledge of the subject. I readily acknowledge that industry's success in export markets, as in the domestic market. I certainly agree that, if we are to have international machinery for trade negotiations of that sort, it must carry with it the assumption that people will stick by the rules. That is one reason why it is so important that the oilseed dispute be resolved.
Mr. Thomas Graham: The President of the Board of Trade will recognise that that is another of the Prime Minister's predictions that has failed miserably. Many of us have lost thousands of jobs in our constituencies. What contingency plan will the Government put into operation to help some of the companies which, if a trade war takes place, could face the inevitable—unemployment, bankruptcies and closures? What plans do the Government have in the meantime?
Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman can have no concept of the scale of the disaster that a trade war and a failure of GATT would have. No conceivable Government action can substitute for the scale of the marketplace which would be denied them by this development that we are discussing today. There is no conceivable level of tax that could be raised, or whatever it was, to produce the subsidies to support the companies for the orders that they would lose. It is utterly naive not to realise the awful dilemma that the trading economy of this country would face if we see this development proceed as badly as we fear.
Mr. Matthew Carrington: Will my right hon. Friend join me in deploring the United States Government's action in raising tariffs, which is clearly a crude negotiating tactic to try to force a settlement of the Uruguay round quickly and on their terms? It would be wrong if the EC retaliated in kind, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will ensure that the Council of Ministers does not do so. Does he agree that the effects of a tariff war would be to turn the world recession into a world slump, which would be a disaster for our industries and for all industries throughout the world?
Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend comes close to the analysis that I have been trying to give the House. However, in trying to make progress in the matter, one must recognise that the Americans have been pursuing the oilseed dispute through the GATT machinery and their case has been found to be substantiated through the existing machinery. There is therefore no gain for me in trying to raise the temperature in that fragile situation. A possibility raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) was that we could separate the two issues and make progress with the GATT arrangements, which are now close to potential resolution. We could then seek ways of resolving the oilseed dispute, which remains under existing GATT arrangements.
Mr. Harry Barnes: The Maastricht treaty alters almost every section of the treaty of Rome, often in considerable detail. However, not one item, word or dot of the agricultural elements in that treaty is altered. Would it not have been helpful in the negotiations if moves had taken place to tackle, through the Maastricht treaty, the agricultural problems?
Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman must have missed out on the fact that there has been a major reform of the common agricultural policy, which was negotiated with considerable success and in which the British Government played a major role. The object of the exercise was to change the regime, and that has been concluded.
Mr. Spencer Batiste: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the shock and horror in British industry, particularly at the consequence of an international trade war, bearing in mind how relatively large a proportion of
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our gross national product we export around the world compared to our Community partners. Will he therefore make it clear to those of our partners in the Community whose unreasonable intransigence stands in the way of reaching a successful conclusion to the GATT round that we shall oppose any reciprocal tit-for-tat trade war arrangements proposed within the Community unless they are prepared to be reasonable in finding a solution?
Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to remind the House that, per capita, we have the largest exports of any nation of our sort in the world: so there is no doubt about the damage to our economy that such a threat poses. My hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not get drawn into where that retaliatory process might end. Certainly the Government will do everything they can to ensure that it does not begin.
Mr. David Trimble: There is a tremendous disparity between the amount of time that the House has spent discussing the Uruguay round—which, if successful, could lead to a considerable increase in world trade and the reflation that our economy needs—and the amount of time that we have spent discussing the treaty on European union which, if implemented, would result only in further deflation.
Is not part of the problem the incredibly complex and cumbersome machinery within the European Community that has prevented effective decision making and allowed narrow political self-interest—not just in France, but in the Commission—to obstruct progress? Is it possible for the Council of Ministers not just to give mandates to the Commission, but to instruct the Commission on what it should do?
Mr. Heseltine: That is exactly what the Council of Ministers did at Birmingham: it instructed the Commission to conclude a negotiated settlement of the outstanding agricultural issues with the Americans of the Uruguay round so that the Commission could proceed to Geneva for the wider dialogue. That is precisely what the Council of Ministers, under our presidency, did. The discussions in Chicago were conducted by Commissioner MacSharry on behalf of the Commission, and it is fair to say that he moved the position of the European Community in order to meet the American position. Perhaps the Americans should consider whether they could have reciprocated more than they did.
Sir Peter Emery: I think that the House will thank my right hon. Friend for emphasising third world countries, as reaching an agreement is even more important to them than it is to the industrial world. My right hon. Friend will know my interest in the issue as I was responsible for the general agreement when we were both Ministers together at the Department of Trade and Industry in the 1970s.
While an absolute solution across the board is desirable, if it obviously becomes impossible to achieve that in time to meet the fast track with the American Congress, will my right hon. Friend examine more closely the possibility of contracting out the oilseed from the general agreement? I believe that that is legally possible, and it would mean that the whole agreement could go forward, with the exclusion of the agreement between Europe and America. In that way the Commonwealth and

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the third world could benefit from the general agreement, and the resolution of the separate agreement could be left to a later date.
Mr. Heseltine: I look back on our time together at the DTI in the 1970s as among the happiest years of my life, and I am glad that my hon. Friend shares those memories.
There are two issues: the dispute over oilseed under the existing arrangements in the GATT; and, coincidentally, negotiations proceeding to a new GATT. It would be possible to separate the two, which might enable us to make progress towards the new agreement, but there is no doubt that, in the real world, the same people are negotiating and the same subjects being discussed. Therefore, the escalation of the existing oilseed dispute into a trade war would significantly colour the atmosphere in which we tried to make progress on GATT.
Theoretically, we could separate the two issues and make progress on the GATT front. That would be desirable, but the human and political dimensions make it harder to achieve progress in that way than if we could simply process both arrangements in one package.
Dr. Kim Howells: Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that a senior Minister from the French Government was cited on Radio 4's "World at One" as "celebrating" the breakdown of the GATT talks? Does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that it is difficult for the British people to place much faith in the European Commission and the Council of Ministers when those organisations appear to be paralysed by a numerically small but politically powerful lobbying farming group? During the remaining period of his presidency, will the right hon. Gentleman turn his rhetoric and artillery on that lobbying group as he did on the British miners?
Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman must realise that, where there is a strong national interest—there is in France —the country involved would he a party to the GATT negotiations in its own right were it not represented by the Community. Therefore, difficulty would undoubtedly arise as national Governments negotiated, and we would find ourselves in a not dissimilar position as we do now with the Commission negotiating on behalf of the 12 countries.
It is arguable that the Commission is empowered to conclude an agreement in the GATT machinery, and the French Government would have to decide what to do about that. That is the legal position, but, obviously, in the give and take of the real world, the interests of France must be considered by the Commission in the same way as it would consider the interests of all Community members. The Commission is empowered to negotiate and reach an agreement, which is what it was instructed to do.
It is of considerable importance that the credibility of the Commission as a negotiating bloc should not be diminished by what is happening. I have made it clear that Commissioner MacSharry discharged his responsibilities in that manner, and I hope that French Ministers will not undermine the position. We have made it as clear as we believe is relevant that Mr. Delors should act as President of the Commission, not as a French citizen.
Mr. Anthony Coombs: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, on a conservative estimate, a
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successful resolution of the GATT talks would allow improvements in the gross national product of £30 billion a year for Europe alone? Does he also agree that France is the second largest food exporter in the world and, as the largest beneficiary from the common agricultural policy, has a specific responsibility to ensure that it demonstrates its Community credentials—not just theoretically by treaty ratification, but practically, by putting pressure on its massively over-subsidised and over-numerous farmers?
Mr. Heseltine: I agree with the thrust of my hon. Friend's remarks. If I remember the figures correctly. the agricultural interests of France are 5 per cent. of its economy, so the overwhelming proportion of French people stand to gain from a GATT resolution. The politics in France are no doubt difficult, but the politics of the GATT machinery present challenges and difficulties for all of us. That is a sacrifice worth making in each country in various ways, because the overall gain in national and world self-interest is so obvious. It is calculated that about $200 billion of additional annual world output stands to flow if we reach an agreement on the GATT round.
Mr. Richard Caborn rose—
Madam Speaker: Am I right in observing that the hon. Gentleman was not in the Chamber when the statement was made?
Mr. Caborn: That is not true at all. I have been in the Chamber ever since the statement was made—indeed, I entered the Chamber specifically to hear it.
Madam Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is not on my list as having been in the House when the Secretary of State made his statement, but he must ask his question if what he says is the case.
Mr. Caborn: It is the case that some people consider the questions asked. Having heard all my colleagues ask their questions, I wish to explore a different aspect of the statement. That is why I entered the debate late.
Having heard every word that the President said, may I ask him to advise the House on whether he will take the initiative inside the Council of Europe to split the negotiations between oilseed and GATT? Is that possible and practical? Can he take that initiative to give new directions to the Commission's negotiating team? We are in a strong position to do that.
Mr. Heseltine: As President of the European Community, the Prime Minister, together with his colleagues, will take a continuing interest. I cannot say that it will be a new interest, because we have kept closely in touch with all events, but ultimately it is the Commission's responsibility. Therefore, we are in a good position to be able to constantly remind—
Mr. Caborn: It is the politicians who instruct the negotiators.
Mr. Heseltine: No, conducting negotiations is not a political responsibility, but the Commission's. However, there is a constant interchange between the politicians and the Commission's bureaucrats, as there is between politicians and negotiators across the Atlantic. There is a constant dialogue on all matters, and most of those involved are talking to each other on an extended basis. The House should have no doubt that we as a Government

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will do everything that we properly can to bring about a successful conclusion, which will necessitate the restoration of the dialogue.
Mr. Stuart Bell: The House will welcome the assurance from the Secretary of State that the involvement and interest of the British Government will continue. We find it delightful—nay, delicious—that the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) said on behalf of the Liberal party that he thought that Mr. Madigan, when negotiating on behalf of the United States, was concerned about the vote in the House last night—the more so since the vote took place 24 hours after he had pulled out of the negotiations.
I should like to give the Secretary of State certain messages to take away from the House. He was asked whether the deadline might be extended to take into account President-elect Clinton's not taking office until March. I caution him against that advice; we ought to stay within the deadline set by the G7, which is the end of the year.
The third world has an immense interest in a successful conclusion to the GATT round, if it is to gain access to our markets and be able to pay back its debts. We are thankful for small mercies. The Secretary of State has announced only about $300 million-worth of retaliatory tariffs on wine, linseed oil and wheat gluten—not the $1,000 million-worth originally suggested. The House is not interested in tit-for-tat tactics.
My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) mentioned the meeting of Foreign Ministers on Monday, and the right hon. Gentleman has referred to a meeting tomorrow on this subject. We urge the Government and the Secretary of State to use the influence of the presidency to ensure that no tit-for-tat tactics are begun.
Secondly, we ask that the oilseed problem be taken out of the negotiations and made subject to arbitration, so that the industrial side of the GATT negotiations can reach a successful conclusion, in the interests of the world and of ridding the world of recession.
My final plea is that we hear more from the President on this subject in the weeks to come.
Mr. Heseltine: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's remarks. The Americans were offered arbitration by the Commission on the oilseed dispute, and refused it. It
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would certainly be a way forward but it cannot be imposed —only offered. I understand the strong feeling expressed by hon. Members on both sides that the last thing we want is a tit-for-tat trade war. I confirm that it is also the last thing the Government want, and that we will do everything possible to prevent it.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we should try to stick to the deadline at the end of the year. Opening these things up only brings in a new range of complications and everything begins to unravel. The incentive to keep within the deadline is that it would keep us within the American fast-track procedure—which it would also be unwise to open up again.
I think that I was the first to mention today that those who will suffer most are the least privileged and least well-off people and economies of the world. We all stand to gain a great deal, and I assure the House that I will keep it in touch if there is anything that we can add to what I have said today. We will continue to deploy every energy to making a success of the Uruguay round.

BILL PRESENTED
  TRADE UNION REFORM AND EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS
  Mrs. Secretary Shephard, supported by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. John Selwyn Gummer, Mr. Secretary Howard, Mr. Secretary Hunt, Mr. William Waldegrave, Mr. Secretary Lang, Secretary Sir Patrick Mayhew, Mr. Secretary Patten, Mr. Michael Forsyth and Mr. Patrick McLoughlin, presented a Bill to make further reforms of the law relating to trade unions and industrial relations; to make amendments of the law relating to employment rights and to abolish the right to statutory minimum remuneration; to amend the law relating to the constitution and jurisdiction of industrial tribunals and the constitution of the Employment Appeal Tribunal; to amend section 56A of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975; to provide for the Secretary of State to have functions of securing the provision of careers services; to make further provision about employment and training functions of Scottish Enterprise and of Highlands and Islands Enterprise; and for connected purposes: And the same was read a First time, and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow; and to be printed. [Bill 78.]
Orders of the Day

  Civil Service (Management Functions) Bill [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  5.44 pm
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. William Waldegrave): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  It is one of the engaging aspects of this House that we can move from the highest political drama on a worldwide perspective to focus somewhat more narrowly. This is my first opportunity of welcoming to the Front Bench the hon. Members for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) and for Vauxhall (Ms. Hoey)— to posts which we will endeavour to ensure remain Opposition posts.
  This is a technical Bill of restricted scope. It is limited in three important ways. First, it deals only with the management functions of the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service which have been subject in the past to transfer of functions orders—essentially the powers to settle the terms and conditions of civil servants. Secondly, it deals only with those functions in so far as they relate to members of the home civil service or the Northern Ireland civil service. Thirdly, it seeks authority to redistribute those powers only to people who are in the service of the Crown.
  The Bill is a technical one. Its purpose is to resolve a legal barrier to the better management of the civil service. At the moment, the Government are constrained from devolving to Departments and agencies many detailed matters concerning the management of their staff. As a result, the present legal framework requires a highly centralised degree of control of the management of the civil service which is inimical to the good management of the many different and varied businesses of Departments and agencies.
  Dr. Kim Howells: Does the Chancellor acknowledge that when such powers have been devolved to what are called quangos, such as the Development Board for Rural Wales, there have been unmitigated disasters of administration resulting in large losses of public funds and cases of near corruption? There was a serious court case in Cardiff only the day before yesterday involving just such a problem. What will he do to ensure that these quangos are maintained with some degree of accountability and control by Whitehall?
  Mr. Waldegrave: At the moment such powers cannot be devolved—that is the whole point. I will come to the extent to which, under so-called discretions, some devolution is allowed at present. I reassure the hon. Gentleman—he is perfectly right to raise the matter—that nothing in the Bill removes the accountability to this House of such agencies, or the ultimate responsibility of Ministers or Departments of State for them. I shall argue that it is in the interests of good management that some management accountability should be devolved, but accountability to this House and to the Public Accounts Committee must and should
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  remain. If anything has gone wrong, it is the job of this House, the PAC and the press—and everyone else—to ensure that accountability remains.
  Mr. Dafydd Wigley: When authority has been transferred to agencies in the past, Ministers have been reluctant to answer letters and we have had difficulty asking questions in the House. Can we have an absolute assurance that Ministers will be answerable, both to questions in the House and to correspondence from Members of Parliament? Decisions such as that taken at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea, which is causing a great deal of anxiety, must not be allowed as direct ministerial responsibility to the House for them would not exist.
  Mr. Waldegrave: I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that he seeks. Better arrangements for the reporting of letters from the chief executives of agencies to this House will be put in place, and rightly so.
  Mr. Doug Hoyle: Long overdue.
  Mr. Waldegrave: I agree. Market testing, which is the issue at DVLA—
  Mr. Donald Anderson: No, it is not.
  Mr. Waldegrave: What is at stake is an examination of the framework of the agency—a three-year re-examination of the framework agreement. That can look across the board at whether full privatisation is in order or whether market testing is, or whether the work should continue to be done there—but that is not relevant to the Bill. Those are policy issues for which Ministers are rightly accountable. They cannot be devolved, and they would not be under this or any other Bill.
  Mr. Alan Williams: I know that the Minister genuinely believes what he is saying, but if he talks of accountability, can he explain what happened recently? A chief executive of an agency was sitting beside a Minister talking to three Members of this House about the future of the DVLA. That chief executive had a proposal to dispose of 3,000 jobs at the agency. Not only did he not disclose it to the Members who were present, but the Minister sitting beside him was unaware of it, as was the Secretary of State for Wales, who is responsible for jobs in Wales. Where is the accountability in that?
  Mr. Waldegrave: It is perfectly legitimate to raise these issues in the context of a potential privatisation, if that is at stake—or of market testing, if that is—but they are nothing to do with this Bill. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that whatever exchanges took place on that occasion—I was not present—Ministers remain accountable for these policies, and so they must. Ministers will rightly be called to account in the House in the way in which I am being called to account for the behaviour of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales. There were many opportunities to question him.
  If I made a prolonged speech defending privatisation or market testing, I would be ruled out of order, but I will go as close as possible to the bounds of order in justifying those policies. The Bill does not deal with the devolution of executive functions but with the potential to devolve from Ministers to chief executives of agencies—properly and for the first time—power to negotiate terms and conditions of service. That is sensible.
  Mr. Brian Wilson: I should like to pursue the issue of the DVLA. The document clearly states that the alternative to privatisation is contractorisation. One of the advantages held out for contractorisation as an alternative to outright privatisation is that there is no need for legislation. However, it removes many functions from ministerial control and leaves only discretionary functions, with officials acting on behalf of the Secretary of State. Can the Minister be more precise about the status of the document and state exactly the responsibility of the Minister in relation to an agency which had been hijacked in such a disreputable way?
  Mr. Waldegrave rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. I urge the Minister not to stray too far along that route. Hon. Members should stick to the terms of the Bill.
  Ms. Marjorie Mowlam: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I hope that it is indeed a point of order.
  Ms. Mowlam: It certainly is. It would be useful to clarify the terms of reference and the implications of the Bill before the debate proceeds further. The Minister says that the Bill is technical, has limited scope and relates only to the delegation of powers on pay and conditions. But that is crucial because when those powers are delegated down, public expenditure will be ratcheted down. My hon. Friends have given precise examples. The manager of a contracting-out unit will be able to decide on pay and conditions for his work force and the matter will not come to the House. It is crucial to discuss those issues because if we do not, the Minister will be getting away with murder.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Lady was beginning to argue on a point of substance and not presenting an issue for the Chair. If hon. Members allow the Minister to make progress on explaining the Bill, they will be in a better position to judge and question him.
  Mr. Donald Anderson: Further to that point of order. There are two interpretations of the Bill. The Minister says that it is technical and narrow but others, as came out in the debate in the other place, and trade unions see it as part of a continuum. They see in the Bill momentum towards privatisation. On Second Reading we should be empowered to look beyond the precise words of the Bill, especially in the light of what has happened in my constituency and to people in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) who work in the DVLA. The Bill can be construed as a step on the road to privatisation.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That may be so, but let us hear what the Minister has to say. When he has finished, hon. Members will have a good chance to speak because there are not many names on the list. Let us start on the Bill and see what is in store for us.
  Mr. Waldegrave: I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The rules preclude me from directly quoting the Opposition spokesman in the House of Lords but I draw to the attention of the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) that that spokesman covered the whole circuit and was finally quite satisfied that none of these issues was raised. If I were allowed, I
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  could quote the words of Lady Turner of Camden, the Opposition spokesman, who said she quite understood that none of the issues was raised by the Bill.
  The hon. Member for Redcar properly spoke about a much more limited devolution. I shall come back to that. The hon. Lady asked about the effect of devolving the setting of terms and conditions and whether they would get better or worse. That matter is entirely germane to the Bill, but it has nothing to do with privatisation because nothing in the Bill affects privatisation, market testing or contractorisation. The Opposition spokesman in the Lords accepted that.
  Ms. Mowlam: If the Bill delegates power to negotiate pay and conditions down to a level such as that at the DVLA, contractorisation, lower wages or changed terms and conditions are possible. Therefore, it is well within the scope of the Bill to discuss the DVLA and other such institutions.
  Mr. Waldegrave: There was contractorisation and market testing for many years before the Bill was presented and before the DVLA was an executive agency. They cannot be germane to the powers sought in the Bill.
  Mr. Wilson: I am making an intervention, but perhaps it should be a point of order because I do not think that it is in order for the Minister—doubtless unintentionally—completely to misrepresent the Opposition spokesman in the Lords, who accepted that the Bill was not a vehicle for privatisation but said that the Opposition objected to the manner in which it was apparently intended to hive off civil service functions to the market. The Minister is welcome to read what my noble Friend said.
  Mr. Waldegrave: We are making heavy weather of this. The spokesman in the Lords said that she objected to our policy of privatisation and market testing, but the passage makes it quite clear that she accepted that the Bill does not—
  Mr. Wilson rose—
  Mr. Waldegrave: If I were allowed under the rules to read the passage, I should be delighted to do so. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The House must come to order. I know that we are recovering from yesterday—
  Mr. Hoyle: Disgraceful.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not want any more sedentary remarks.
  Mr. Waldegrave: Perhaps I may be allowed to proceed with an explanation of the Bill. The Opposition spokesman in the Lords accepted that the Bill had nothing to do with privatisation. She objected to the policy of privatisation, which is not in the Bill. The noble Lady said:
  "We accept that the Bill itself is not a vehicle for privatisation but we still object to the manner in which apparently it is intended to hive-off Civil Service functions …"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 29 October 1992; Vol. 539, c. 1299.]
  I shall attempt to demonstrate that the Bill is much less exciting than the Opposition hope. At the moment, the Government are constrained from devolving to Departments and agencies many detailed matters concerning the management of their staff. As a result, the present legal framework requires a highly centralized

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  degree of control of the management of the civil service which is inimical to good management. The Bill is intended to rectify that, while maintaining intact the principle of ministerial accountability to Parliament. It does not contain new powers—or any powers whatever—to facilitate the privatisation or contracting out of Government activities. Privatisation and contracting out, where appropriate, remain important planks of Government policy. When we need new powers to achieve our aims in that area we shall present proposals accordingly. This Bill, however, relates only to the management of the civil service and is not a vehicle for that.
  Secondly, the Bill does not in itself change the terms and conditions of any civil servant in any way. I think that that issue was mentioned by the hon. Member for Redcar and I will return to it. Thirdly, the Bill affects neither the normal rights of staff in the civil service nor the usual process of consultation with the civil service trade unions at an appropriate level. I shall have more to say about that, and about the detailed operation of the Bill's powers. Having briefly outlined what the Bill is, and what it is not, it may be helpful to put it in a wider context.
  I have not consulted my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, but if Opposition Members felt that the House should engage in a wider debate on the collection of issues involved in the management of the public service, I should be perfectly willing to put that to my right hon. Friend. We could then discuss issues connected with privatisation, market testing and other policies relating to our approach to the management of the public sector. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Redcar would find that an attractive offer, but in any event I should be happy to speak to my right hon. Friend.
  Ms. Mowlam: Of course we welcome the chance to debate market testing and competitive tendering in Government time. The Secretary of State eventually had to give a promise to that effect in private negotiations to try to get the Bill through the House of Lords. Would it not have been better, however, if he had had the decency to debate issues of market testing and competitive tendering in the House of Commons before embarking on their implementation?
  Mr. Waldegrave: Market testing has been going on for many years; indeed, I think that examples can be found dating back to the last Government. As I have said, I think that a wider debate is a good idea, and I shall put it to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.
  Mr. Frank Field: I am now slightly confused about what the Bill will do. Whether the provisions are drawn narrowly or broadly, the Secretary of State is plainly seeking powers—hence the Bill. I thought that he was seeking the power to delegate in regard to terms and conditions of employment, and I thought that he went on to say that that would not change anyone's terms and conditions of employment. If that is so, what is the point of seeking such powers?
  Mr. Waldegrave: It could lead to changes, but such changes would have to be negotiated in the normal way, as I shall explain.
  Mr. Field: In his Mansion house speech, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made an important point when he said that, from now on, it would be Government policy to examine every change that the Administration might wish to initiate and to consider the employment consequences. Will the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that, if such consequences result from the Bill, his promise will be triggered at some stage?
  I can see why that will not happen now, because the powers now being sought only "could" result in such consequences. Our worry is that, if the Bill confers the power to lay down terms and conditions of contract, at some stage not only pay but the number of workers may be cut. We want a guarantee that at that stage—in view of the important statement made by the Chancellor—the Government will consider the employment consequences of their every action.
  Mr. Waldegrave: I will ask my officials to check, but I do not believe that the Bill has any direct implications of that kind. We do not seek to devolve the powers that have always been enjoyed by the Minister for the Civil Service —the Prime Minister—or by the Treasury, which control civil service numbers. As the hon. Gentleman will recall, they used to exercise manpower control; that obtained under both Labour and Conservative Governments. I do not think that any provision in the Bill will lead directly to a change in numbers. Of course, in management terms the need may arise for such a change, but nothing in the Bill will alter the powers available to Ministers or managers in that regard.
  Mr. Donald Anderson: Is the Secretary of State denying that one of the powers to be delegated by the Bill is the power of wage bargaining? Presumably, that must of necessity lead to different wage rates in the public service in different parts of the country and in different undertakings. Such a development can only represent another step along the road to privatization—more of the preparation of turkeys for Christmas which represents the Government's current policy.
  Mr. Waldegrave: I do not see how any particular outcome relating to numbers can he assigned to a Bill which devolves pay negotiation powers. I suppose that it could be argued that higher wages mean fewer employees, but that strikes me as a paradoxical argument for the hon. Gentleman to put.
  Let me make a little more progress, particularly as I wish to respond directly to the questions asked by the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field). Like all Governments since the war, we have inherited a civil service containing many extremely able people—I doubt if I need to convince the House of that—and has high ideals in regard to public service. Equally, however, that civil service has struggled for many years with outdated management structures. The structure of the civil service is highly hierarchical. It was designed to apply to a small civil service whose purpose would be to advise Ministers on policy. It is a Victorian structure. That, I think, is common ground between the parties. I believe that the Opposition accept the principle of the "next steps" agency, although they opposed it originally. I think that they now agree that it is sensible to try to organise the delivery of services with more devolved accountability, and more clearly specified units of managment. It is not sensible to operate a great centralised hierarchical structure. The powers conferred

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  by the Bill are necessary to make the required change a reality—or, rather, to simplify the process that will lead to it.
  So far, we have created 75 agencies under the so-called "next steps" initiative, and nearly as many executive units which are run along the same lines. All are directly accountable for achieving clear and published targets to improve the quality of service and efficiency. It is all part of a refocusing on the absolute necessity for the civil service to deliver a better value service to the public, as its customers and paymasters: I make no apology for that. There is nothing special about such proposals. I would guess that all large organisations, public and private, constantly need to re-evaluate their performance. In particular, they need to check constantly that they are continuing to achieve their aims as effectively as they can —and, under the banner of the citizens charter, we have been trying to make that possible.
  To the civil service, that new emphasis on the quality of output—on measuring what we do, and establishing whether it constitutes an improvement—represents something of a challenge. The aims of the citizens charter campaign, however, also recognise that better services can be achieved only if management structures and systems are increasingly driven from the customers, patients and clients upwards, rather than operating a hierarchical top-downwards, Whitehall-downwards system. That is what I have been trying to explain.
  Local staff and local managers should be given discretion, within the minimum of centrally imposed regulations, to deliver the services that their own customers need. The concept of Government as a single business with a single client—the public—is dead; it does not work. The real task is to meet the needs of the many individual customers of the Government's many different kinds of business. If we are to do that, we must increasingly enable the managers of those businesses to run their organisations in ways that represent the most appropriate and effective approach to their particular circumstances.
  In the civil service, as in any other organisation, if we are to unlock the enormous potential and commitment of managers and staff, we must increasingly trust them to know what is best, and give them the freedom—together with the accountability—to achieve their objectives. It is against that background that the need for the Bill has emerged.
  The management of the civil service is carried out under the royal prerogative. The power to determine the terms and conditions of civil servants—their working hours, pay, allowances, and so on—is delegated by the Crown, by civil service Order in Council, to the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Since 1968, those powers have been transferred to and fro between the two central Departments, frequently by means of transfer of functions orders.
  Mr. John Garrett: Why is the civil service regulated by Order in Council under the royal prerogative? Why cannot the Civil Service Act establish its status and, in particular, its duty to the Crown?
  Mr. Waldegrave: The answer is lost in the mists of time. Since the 19th century, that has always been the case. It is, perhaps, another relic of the great 19th-century reforms; but it serves us fairly well, and it can be modified from time
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  to time as new needs develop. I note the hon. Gentleman's desire for a great blockbuster Bill in this area. If there were a need for it, no doubt my officials would advise me of it. They are always keen to have such Bills.
  The power to determine terms and pay is, as I have said, delegated to the Treasury and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Since 1968, these powers have been transferred to and fro. In the present organisation, however, the Treasury is given the responsibility for determining pay, grading, expenses, allowances, holidays, hours of work and other related personnel matters. The Minister for the Civil Service regulates the conduct of civil servants and those other conditions of service which are not allotted to the Treasury. These responsibilities relate entirely to what can broadly be called the personnel management of civil servants. They do not, for example, extend to the statutory powers of Ministers or civil servants, to policy-making, and so on.
  As things stand, surprisingly perhaps, the Treasury and the Prime Minister cannot lawfully delegate those functions to the Departments and agencies; they cannot be delegated to another Minister—the relevant Secretary of State, for example—let alone to agencies which are responsible for the day-to-day management of the staff that they employ. Whether it is sensible or not—I do not think that it can be—decisions affecting the working conditions of all 560,000 or so civil servants must conform to rules laid down by the two central Departments, and those rules, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, must then be obeyed.
  What the central Departments can do and have been doing is to grant to individual Departments and executive agencies discretions under which they can manage defined aspects of personnel policy, but that is a pretty poor substitute for real delegation and is hedged about by all kinds of obscure legal restrictions. Because of those legal constraints, the Treasury and the Minister have at present to grant those discretions within the framework of principles and rules, and references back to the centre for approval, however unnecessary they may be. Although, therefore, the central Departments can give operational Departments and agencies a degree of freedom over the terms and conditions of service of their staff, they cannot make them genuinely responsible and accountable for them. Accountabilities become blurred, alibis get written and unnecessary procedural obstacles can all too easily be placed, or be seen to be placed, in the way of Departments and agencies managing their affairs as effectively as they can.
  Ms. Mowlam: The Minister began by arguing that accountability would not be changed by the Bill, that accountability would still be strong. The argument that he has just given as the whole point of achieving delegation rather than discretion is that it would delegate responsibility and accountability. He cannot have it both ways.
  Mr. Waldegrave: I believe that that is precisely what one can have in this respect. A sensible Parliament will not attempt to manage in detail the things for which it is responsible. Ministers retain overall responsibility. If those to whom we delegate manage badly, we are responsible. It was very foolish of Nye Bevan to say, in that famous phrase, that if a bedpan is dropped in the health service the Minister should hear about it. That is no way to run an

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  organisation. The attempt to continue to run organisations in that way has ended. Surely the Opposition, by accepting the agency programme, have understood that. I am disappointed if the hon. Lady wants to go back to that. If the delegation does not work or management is badly carried out, however, we are still responsible for having appointed the person concerned and for the policies within which he works, and we must take the responsibility. It would be crazy to try to run any great organisation in that old way. It would produce the kind of sclerotic organisations. which provide bad service for our people. But that does not mean that the House cannot call a Minister to account for any failure to use that delegation sensibly.
  Mr. Frank Field: I believe that the Chancellor of the Duchy was in the House on Monday at social security Question Time, when we raised the question of some of our constituents who were claiming the new disability living allowance. The relevant Minister came to the Dispatch Box and said that this was something which had been delegated to the Benefits Agency, and which the agency should improve. Technically, therefore, the Minister answered questions—but only to tell us that it was someone else's function to run the service properly. Clearly that is better than saying that he would not even answer questions, the Table Office refusing those questions, but it is a different ball game from when the Minister himself had to answer to the House for initiating a new benefit and there being an enormous cock-up over it.
  Mr. Waldegrave: The new system is far more honest and open. In the old days, Ministers pretended that they knew the details of the administration of great Departments. Under every Government, that was always a myth. Now, a Minister in whose Department, or in an agency of whose Department, what the hon. Gentleman referred to as a cock-up is made is still ultimately responsible for that. It is perfectly legitimate to explain which bits of the chain have failed, if failure there has been, but accountability still rests firmly with the House, and nobody can escape that.
  Mr. Terry Davis: Does that mean that Ministers accept responsibility for the recent failings of the National Rivers Authority and the Development Board for Rural Wales?
  Mr. Waldegrave: The hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not being immediately familiar with the cases to which he refers. There is a difference between non-departmental public bodies, which was the old style of devolution, and agencies. The former are not agencies and do not necessarily have nearly such clear accountability. An agency has a framework agreement with the Department which sets out the policy, and the lines of accountability are very clear. It was one of the weaknesses of the previous model, which goes back many years to the Attlee Government, that those old-style quangos very often did not have any clear line of accountability to anybody. I do not know whether that deals with the particular cases referred to by the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Davis: I was not referring to the failings under the Attlee Government—I was referring to much more recent
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  failings which were the subject of two reports to the Public Accounts Committee. If the Minister does not know the answer, and I can understand that, will he at least give an assurance that he will look at those reports and then write to me and other members of the Committee saying whether it is the Government's considered view that Ministers accept responsibility and are accountable for these appalling wastes of public money?
  Mr. Waldegrave: I will certainly look at the cases that the hon. Gentleman has raised and write to him. The very fact that the matters were before the Public Accounts Committee must mean that they were proper ones for accountability to the House.
  Ms. Mowlam: On the point of accountability, the Secretary of State has just said that accountability would be back to the PAC. It is important to clarify this; otherwise, he may be slightly misleading the House as to the difference between discretions and the delegation of powers in this Bill. Under this Bill, as I understand it—I hope that I shall be corrected if I am wrong—it is not back to the relevant Minister; it is back from the delegated person—whether it be in a "next-steps" agency or a long way down the Department—back to the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service; and the only people to whom they are accountable are the members of the PAC. The PAC does a very effective, efficient job, but it does it post facto. Is that the only course of accountability—back through that chain of management structure—that will be available?
  Mr. Waldegrave: We are again going far wider than this poor little Bill. The structure of accountability of accounting officers—normally permanent secretaries, but in some cases now the heads of executive agencies—for their financial duties runs in the way it always has run, to the Public Accounts Committee. Nothing in this Bill comes anywhere near touching any of those issues. This shows what an interesting debate we shall have when we have the wider debate which I fear that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, would rule out of order today.
  Mr. Davis: I emphasise to the Minister that I was not referring to the responsibility of accounting officers to the PAC; I was referring to the accountability of Ministers. That is the question that I want him to address in correspondence.
  Mr. Waldegrave: I shall be delighted to do so. There is nothing in this Bill immediately relevant to that issue.
  The power of delegation cannot be achieved simply by altering the Order in Council, because from time to time all these responsibilities have been transferred between the Treasury and the Minister by transfer of functions orders. Therefore, they are all the responsibility of a named Minister and one cannot, I am told, achieve what we want to achieve by altering the Order in Council.
  The Government's legal advice is that the power to delegate must be taken by primary legislation and not by the prerogative—hence this Bill.
  I turn now to the Bill itself. Clause 1(1) allows delegation to take place but limits the power to delegate in three ways. The functions to be delegated must be management functions—none of the wider policy issues that we have been discussing; they must have been the

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  subject of transfer of functions orders, as they have all been; and they must relate to the management of the home civil service.
  The scope of the Bill is also limited in a most important way by subsection (2). Delegations can be made only to another servant of the Crown. "Servant of the Crown" is a functional definition covering people who are in the employment of the Crown. That means that the Bill cannot be used to transfer civil service personnel management functions outside the public service. The Bill can have no effect, therefore, in enabling the contracting-out or privatisation of Government organisations. Its provisions are circumscribed by clause 1(2) so that the central Departments will be able to delegate their management powers only to Ministers, civil servants, statutory office holders, members of the diplomatic service, the armed forces, and so on. That broad, but restricted, definition has been adopted to give the Government the maximum flexibility over delegations to people who are currently, or who may be, employed in relevant positions, such as chief executives of "next steps" agencies.
  Mr. Donald Anderson: On a point of clarification, how can the fact that it is possible to delegate those powers to members of the diplomatic service be reconciled with the argument that the Bill affects only the home civil service?
  Mr. Waldegrave: The functions are those of the home civil service, but if a distinguished ambassador chose to apply for a particular job or, as an ambassador, was offered a job running a particular part of the home civil service, it would seem foolish to exclude him. There was some discussion of that point in the House of Lords. Lord Russell thought that, if powers could be delegated to members of the armed forces, there was a great danger that we might move to a military dictatorship. Others thought it wrong that retired colonels should be excluded from the chance to obtain such jobs. Both suggestions are fantastic. The provisions of the Bill merely mean that people employed in the Crown service could occupy positions to which certain home civil service functions were delegated. They do not cover any of the diplomatic service's functions.
  The remainder of clause 1 deals with the conditions under which delegations may be made. Subsection (2) allows the central Departments to attach conditions to a delegation if they wish. Subsection (3) allows them to require that the delegation must be carried out by the person to whom it is delegated, while subsection (4), conversely, allows sub-delegation. Those subsections therefore enable the central Departments to delegate to a Minister and require him or her to exercise the power in person, contrary to the usual position; or, for example, to delegate to an agency chief executive but to permit him to have those powers exercised on his behalf by another Crown servant. The legal background to all this is set out in more detail in the notes on clauses which have been made available in the Vote Office.
  Clause 1 is the meat of the Bill, and the remaining clauses build upon it. Without wearying the House with details which might best be left for consideration in Committee, I should explain that clause 2 mimics the effect of clause 1 for the minority of civil servants whose terms and conditions are determined not under the Order in Council but under powers granted in the statutes which
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  govern the organisations in which they work—for example, Customs and Excise, the Office of Fair Trading, the regulators of the privatised utilities, and smaller bodies. In such cases it is usual for the statutes to require the Treasury to give its consent to the determination of the terms and conditions of those staff by the head of their organisation or their Secretary of State.
  Clause 2 allows the relevant central Department to create the equivalent of a delegation by waiving its powers to approve terms and conditions of service. The same safeguards come into place in this situation as in clause 1. Subsections (2) and (3) of clause 2 allow for the statutory power of approval to be waived, subject to whatever conditions seem necessary, and allow the person who waives consent to require the holder of the power to exercise it personally if they see fit. Lastly, subsection (4) covers those cases where the sanction of two Ministers is required to the determination of terms and conditions—typically, the Treasury and the sponsoring Secretary of State—makes any delegation subject to their joint approval.
  Finally, clause 3 deals with Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland civil service is making progress with its own citizens charter and "next steps" initiatives with the same efficiency and quality of service objectives as their mainland counterparts.
  In Northern Ireland, the Department of Finance and Personnel exercises the same responsibilities for the Northern Ireland civil service as the Treasury and the Minister do here. The Bill allows for the introduction of the Order in Council, subject to the negative resolution procedure, provided that it has the same effect on the management of the civil service in Northern Ireland as the Bill does in Great Britain.
  Lest there be any doubt, I should perhaps make it clear that the Bill does not force the Treasury or the Minister to delegate anything to anyone. There is no requirement in the Bill to decentralise or delegate: the power is an enabling one. Nor could the central Departments force a delegation on an unwilling Minister or official, which would otherwise be unlikely but possible. In practice, delegations will proceed only where the parties concerned agree that delegation is appropriate. The power allows the central Departments to set any conditions on a delegation that they think fit, and to vary, extend or withdraw them depending on how things work in practice.
  Equally, as regards the rights of civil servants as employees, I can assure the House that the Bill gives no powers either to the central Departments or to the recipient of any delegation to change the terms and conditions of any civil servant without conforming to the normal procedures and processes of consultation with unions and staff. Where arrangements for consultation with the unions are specified—in the national pay agreements, for example—those arrangements will continue to apply. Where, outside those agreements, the central Departments propose to delegate functions, the national unions will be given the opportunity to comment on such proposals. Where the recipients of a delegation wish to exercise the powers delegated to them to change the terms and conditions of service, again staff and their representatives will be consulted appropriately. So although the parties to any consultation may change as a result of delegations, there will be no change in the principles involved.
  Mr. Garrett: The right hon. Gentleman is skating over the Bill without touching on the fundamental point about it. There was a long discussion in the House of Lords as to whether the Bill was a privatisation measure—which, of course, it is not. The big change embodied in the Bill is the end of the national civil service. That is the point of the Bill: agency employees—at present, civil servants—will be subject to the terms and conditions, employment regulations, recruitment and training policies and rights peculiar to the agency concerned. Instead of having a national civil service, we shall have a conglomerate of agencies, all with different terms and conditions.
  Many of us think that the national civil service, which was set up in 1854 following the Northcote-Trevelyan report, has been one of the glories of the nation. The Minister cannot scoot through Second Reading without explaining to the House that the end of that national civil service is precisely what he proposes.
  Mr. Waldegrave: The hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) has at last accepted that the real question is whether we want devolution in the civil service. That is what the Bill is partly about, and the hon. Gentleman is perfectly right to raise that question, although I shall argue forcefully that the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms, designed to allow for a tiny central policy-making civil service of a few thousand people, are quite inappropriate to the management and organisation of hundreds of thousands of people delivering services to the public. Following the acceptance across the party divide of the "next steps" agency programme, I had thought that that was now more or less common ground.
  I visited Companies house the other day and asked how much movement there was between that organisation and the rest of the civil service. Apparently, there is virtually none, and there has never been much—except, very occasionally, at a very senior level. The idea that our great service agencies have been a unified structure in the sense that people have moved from one to another is a myth. That is the heart of the argument.
  The hon. Member for Norwich, South is perfectly right: I believe it necessary to trouble the House with the Bill because we want to introduce—and believe it right for the people of this country that we should introduce—more variegated styles of employment in our great public service. Many agencies already come to us saying, "We have negotiated something with our people that they want, but it does not coincide with the national terms and conditions." The agencies cannot implement what they have negotiated without surmounting an immensely complicated system of hurdles set up when the Treasury was, in effect, the personnel department of a small central civil service. I argue that those arrangements are wholly inappropriate to the needs of 1992.
  Perhaps I could go a little further and say what I think will happen when the Bill is enacted, because the hon. Member for Redcar and I should debate this. The central Departments will use the powers that the Bill grants them to examine areas of personnel management and establish those which may best be decided by Departments and executive agencies as a whole, or by a particular Department or agency which has a justified claim to determine some aspect of its management without reference to the centre. Personnel management matters in
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  the civil service will be progressively devolved to the most appropriate level within the civil service. I am sure that that must be right.
  There will always be a clear line of accountability for delegations made in this way. I come back to the point which was rightly raised earlier by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis). Ministers will be accountable to the House in the normal way for the exercise of powers that they receive from the Treasury or the Minister for the Civil Service. When the central Departments delegate to officials such as agency chief executives, Ministers in the central Departments can and should be challenged on the delegation and the use to which it has been put, as they can be now on matters where they have granted Departments and agencies management discretions.
  I should also perhaps reassure hon. Members—this answers the point made by the hon. Member for Norwich, South—that the Bill will not hamper the maintenance of the common standards which we all wish to see protected in the civil service. I think that we would all agree that this country has been fortunate, since the reforms to which the hon. Member referred, in having the support of a civil service which is politically impartial, honest in its dealings with the public and, in the enormous majority of cases over 100 years or more, incorruptible. Those core standards will remain the basis of employment in the civil service, and they will be maintained in the form of central rules. The bath water may be disposed of, but that particular vital baby will not be.
  Ms. Mowlam: Will the Secretary of State explain how he expects those core rules to be kept? If he accepts that particular agencies can negotiate deals at local level and if, as he says, he wants to continue with contracting out and privatisation, when that has happened does he expect the private buyer to have the core rules written into its company rules? That is contrary to company law. How on earth will he make it stick?
  Mr. Waldegrave: We are talking here about delegations to Crown servants, and the rules stick then because they remain policy. There are other matters which are not actually in the contracts or in the negotiated agreements but which are policy matters, such as equal opportunities employment or the rather good record of the civil service on the employment of disabled people. They are not negotiated agreements, but policies that Ministers will continue to maintain as they do now, whether in agencies or not. It is essential that they do so, and I am sure that the Labour party would not have come to see the agency programme as a sensible one if we had not been willing to make it absolutely clear at the time that such matters would be retained as central policies.
  Mr. Terry Davis: I should like to put two questions to the Minister before he finishes. Will he tell the House whether it is Government policy to delegate the decision on how many people should be employed in a particular agency or operation—a most important aspect of personnel management—and whether it would be a question not only of the total number of people employed but of the number by grade, a variation which can be an extremely important managerial decision? Secondly, if the Bill has no connection whatever with market testing, in what way will the Government give the House a chance to debate market testing?
  Mr. Waldegrave: On the latter point, perhaps the hon. Member for Hodge Hill was not in the Chamber when I said, as part of the general discussion that we had earlier on matters going wider than the Bill, that I thought it right to put to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House the case for having a debate in Government time on those wider issues, which are controversial and which are a matter of party division in a way in which I hope to demonstrate that it is not necessary for this Bill to be. That is a fair suggestion by the hon. Member.
  On the hon. Member's first point, nothing in the Bill changes the situation in relation to numbers. For many years, long before agencies, decisions about how many people were needed to carry out particular functions in particular parts of the civil service were taken, in effect, by managers themselves, although the legal power rested then with Ministers, as it does now because those actual number controls, in so far as they are still exercised centrally, are not delegated in this Bill.
  Mr. Garrett: This is wrong because it was never up to managers to decide how many staff were required in a particular division or unit of a Department; it was a highly centralised arrangement—a matter of establishment officers and their staff inspection branches.
  Mr. Waldegrave: I absolutely agree, but it was establishment officers in particular Departments. I was a civil servant many years ago in the Cabinet Office, and it was the Cabinet Office establishment officer—I remember that his name was Mr. Day—who was responsible for taking me on. Or it may have been the late Lord Trent or the late Lord Rothschild. But it was still not a matter to be brought to the attention of the Prime Minister of the day —it was delegated to the people running the little unit in which I worked, and the legal powers remain the same.
  To summarise, the Bill represents another small but important step in dismantling the barriers which civil servants currently face and which prevent them from being organised in a way which allows them to give of their best. I put on record, although I hope I do not need to do, that I have greatly admired our civil service from both within and without. There is immense enthusiasm and commitment there and I am convinced that we must never cease to look for ways to allow their better expression and more efficient use. It is on that basis—a less fundamental, perhaps less interesting, but still important basis—that I commend the Bill to the House.
  6.35 pm
  Ms. Marjorie Mowlam: The Secretary of State began to give away the full import of this small and limited Bill in his closing words when he said that he wants the Bill to go on the statute book because it will allow civil servants to be organised in such a way that they can do their best. Of course we want civil servants to do their best, but since, as he has made clear on numerous other occasions, the Secretary of State believes that the civil service will do its best through the mechanisms of privatisation, market testing and contracting out, it shows the force of the argument that the Opposition tried to put forward at the beginning of the debate, that the Bill is a facilitator, an enabler which will make that possible. It shows that we can debate those broader issues.
  However much we welcome the Secretary of State's willingness to offer a debate on competitive tendering,
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  market testing and contracting out, his offer comes a little late in the day. Although we welcome it and we will see his strength in Cabinet in achieving that debate in Government time as soon as possible, it is a little disingenuous, having gone through years of market testing already and when part of the concern about the Bill arises because these issues have not been aired in Parliament. If the Secretary of State were serious about giving the House the chance to debate the matter, he would have done it some months ago and not introduced it almost as a sop now to keep us quiet.
  Mr. Waldegrave: I do not blame the hon. Lady for not recalling this, because she was not in her present post, but there was a whole day's debate on this very subject on the Queen's Speech not long ago.
  Ms. Mowlam: The chance to debate it for a day on the Queen's Speech is obviously welcome. The difficulty is that, as the Secretary of State himself has made clear with this small Bill, when we look at the complexity of the issue, many hon. Members want the chance to discuss the full impact of market testing. The Secretary of State has made it clear elsewhere that he believes that the private sector can do things better than the public sector. If we are talking about 560,000 civil service jobs going into the private sector, the House deserves more than a day of debate on the Queen's Speech.
  The Secretary of State also said that he did not want us to get too excited about the Bill because it was so little, so wee, so minor. In view of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) that implicit in the Bill is the end of the national civil service with Whitley terms and conditions that have served industrial relations in the civil service so well for so long, we will get excited about the Bill, not just tonight but in Committee and at Third Reading because of the full implications of the system that the measure will help facilitate.
  The Secretary of State began by looking for common ground and said that he was sure that there was common ground here. I am sure that there is, and the Opposition agree with some of his comments. There is always room for better management and the Government are no exception in that regard. The Opposition would like to see improved services delivered more efficiently to customers because we believe that the customers have a right to quality services. The reforms to which the Secretary of State referred will inevitably mean change. Hon. Members are aware that people do not find it easy to accept change and, in that respect, the civil service is no exception.
  As the Minister said, the Labour party welcomed earlier reforms. The "next steps" executive agencies were welcomed by the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee and by the Leader of the Opposition earlier this year. However, as my colleagues have pointed out today, there is still understandably great concern about the accountability of those agencies.
  The difficulties were clear with the disability living allowance. In respect of difficulties, the Benefits Agency is one of the worst. The difficulties stemmed from accountability to Parliament. The decision to print in Hansard letters from chief executives of next steps agencies was not taken as a result of open government. The Minister described that decision as a generous gift from the Government. The truth is that if my hon. Friend the

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  Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) had not campaigned month after month for those letters to be printed, they would not have been printed. It is up to Opposition Members to improve accountability. That accountability has not been improved as a result of the efforts of the Minister or his Cabinet colleagues.
  The Minister said that the Bill had limited scope. He parroted Lord Howe who, in another place, said that it was a minor measure, of limited scope and that it was a short, technical Bill. If the Bill were simply about decentralisation of limited pay and service conditions within the civil service; if it were just about pay, terms and conditions; if it were—as the Minister tried to portray it tonight—just about flexibility, improved management and decentralising decision making closer to where decisions are taken, we should in principle have no trouble with an efficiency management Bill that did not affect the nature of the national civil service.
  However, the Minister and I are well aware that that is a facade and a smokescreen. As my colleagues have argued tonight, the Bill is about the end of the national Whitley conditions for negotiations. That will change the nature of the civil service.
  Members of another place and the press have realised that. The 560,000 members of the civil service are also aware of that, because their jobs will be on the line as a result of the Bill. Whether the Government call this hiving off, contracting out, market testing or privatisation, we must place on the record the fact that the nature of the civil service will change.
  The Minister tried to limit this small, technical Bill to the isolated issue of pay and conditions, unrelated to the other things happening in the civil service. The Minister has been body-swerving. The fact is that the Bill will be a ratcheting down mechanism on public spending, regardless of the quality of service provision. When managers have to meet financial targets and goals, they will have to act in terms of budgets set. We must bear in mind the fact that the main financial part of those budgets is pay. That is the bottom line. The result may be a lack of sick pay and holiday entitlements. It may affect pay and redundancies.
  The Government tried to offer the miners a redundancy package, saying that if the miners did not take advantage of it within a certain period, it would not be available. In the same way, under market testing the Government will set the financial targets and the cuts will have to be made in-house in a desperate effort to save jobs. That is why the Bill is insidious.
  The Minister referred to Northern Ireland. Many of the people to whom I spoke in Northern Ireland over the past two or three days are deeply concerned about the impact of the Bill on Northern Ireland and about the provisions tacked on to the Bill in clause 3. As it stands, apart from Committee and Third Reading, there will be no opportunity to debate the implications for Northern Ireland specifically.
  The Minister tried to say that the Bill would have no impact on the fair employment provisions in Northern Ireland, particularly in terms of equal opportunities and the problems in Northern Ireland. It is important to recognise that people in Northern Ireland are very worried about the delegation of pay and conditions.
  Mr. Waldegrave: The hon. Lady is right to raise that important point and I hope to still some of those concerns not just in relation to employment policy in Northern Ireland, but in a range of other employment policies. This kind of Bill can stir up anxieties, but the concerns to which the hon. Lady refers are completely unfounded. There is no need for people in Northern Ireland or anywhere else to worry about the wider employment policies. which may or may not be adequate, but which are not affected by the Bill.
  Ms. Mowlam: If a Department or "next steps" agency is free to negotiate its own pay, service conditions, holiday allowances, entitlements and hours, and if that is the flexibility that the Minister is talking about, why is it not on the face of the Bill that equal opportunities and fair employment in Northern Ireland are sacred? In respect of the courts, it will be the Bill and not our debate that matters.
  When similar questions were raised in the other place, instead of providing specific answers, Lord Howe referred to what may be considered areas of delegation and then recounted a list similar to that provided by the Minister tonight. The list gives a flavour of what might occur. It is illustrative, not exhaustive—hypothetical rather than definitive. If the Minister acknowledges correctly that there is much worry about the Bill, why does he not allay that concern by making it clear in Committee what is and what is not delegated?
  The Minister referred to transfer of functions orders and what has been delegated in the past. Will he clarify the issue on the face of the Bill to allay what he considers to be totally unfounded worries and fears?
  Mr. Waldegrave: We cannot clarify matters that are not based on statutes, but are policies. It is impossible to clarify in statutes separate policies such as equal opportunities in employment. That is not a matter for statutes, accepted in the framework of the law of the land. It is a matter for employment policy of the civil service. It has nothing to do with this Bill or any other.
  Ms. Mowlam: I take the Minister's point and in the day-long debate on CCT and market testing, which the Minister has promised to use his great powers and influence in Cabinet to obtain, I look forward to hearing a commitment to equal opportunities and protection of those rights, if that is the proper forum for such commitments, so that those fears about what is happening in the civil service can be allayed.
  The Minister said on several occasions tonight that the Bill is technical and has little influence. To put the Bill in context, I want to refer to a paper that was circulated to all Departments last year. That paper was entitled
  "Selling Government Services into a Wider Market."
  Paragraph 2 said:
  "The Government's policy is to restrict the size of the public sector and in general the presumption is that services should wherever possible be provided by private sector rather than public sector."—
  [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Conservative Members may say, "Hear, hear". However, if that is the case, the Government cannot have it both ways. If they want it primarily in the private sector, they cannot argue that there is a level playing field for the civil service to bid against external contractors. The Minister made exactly the same point when he spoke to the Institute of Directors

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  in July and talked about the revolution that he is leading in Whitehall, introducing the entrepreneurial spirit into the corridors of power. He added:
  "Whenever it was in the interests of the taxpayer and user the Government would prefer to privatise."
  If it is his intention that with market testing there will be a level playing field and fair competition in-house and outside, I am sure that we will leave that matter for another debate. However, it raises questions about the full intent of the introduction of the Bill.
  The Minister explained very well the—excuse me, that sounded like a compliment. The Minister explained the structure of the Bill in terms of the delegation of responsibilities that would alter in the Cabinet and central civil service departments and what would happen when those changes were enacted. If the measure is so technical, simple and modest, why did he feel unable to consult civil service unions before he introduced it? He met them all on 3 June to discuss a number of matters.
  The Bill was introduced into the House of Lords on 4 June and it was not until 8 June that the Minister considered it worth while to write to the civil service unions. That does not create a very good climate. The Minister assures us that there will be discussions at local level between civil servants and that the consultation procedure is good. However, why did he not consider it reasonable to have open discussions with civil service trade unions? If they are scared and fearful about what the legislation means, surely it would have been common sense or common decency for the Government to discuss the Bill with them before it was presented in the House of Lords.
  Discussions would have made a difference to the response that the Minister received. On Second Reading, the House of Lords objected very strongly. The Minister had to meet colleagues in the other place to get the Bill through. That caused great concern to many people in the other place.
  The Minister argued that the Government have already delegated functions. That is true. Under TFOs, delegations have taken place, but, actually, it is only discretions that have taken place, not delegations. The Minister's only argument for change is that it would be slightly simpler because the present structure is impractical. He seems to want to have his cake and eat it. He says that the system needs to be changed because it is impractical and needs to he simplified, but, to reassure people, he goes around saying that he is not going to use it when passed. The Minister looks confused. In a letter to the Council of Civil Service Unions of 26 June, in answer to a set of questions, he said:
  "We are not committed to introducing any particular delegations as a result of this Bill … There is no shopping list and no work has been commissioned to provide one."
  The Minister cannot have it both ways. If there is a desperate need to revolutionise the corridors of power and allow the entrepreneurial spirit to come in, and if simple delegation would help to achieve that, it would be much better for the Minister to be straight and say, "Yes. We want to introduce a lot of delegations. We are going to get things moving fast." The speed with which the Government are moving on market testing and so on suggests that that is their absolute concern; to deny that they will adds to the fear and confusion.
  The Minister referred to the problem of accountability. He tried to assure the House that accountability would work as well as it does now with the "next steps" agencies.
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  As hon. Members have pointed out, there is great doubt about the value, speed and perspicacity of the present system of accountability. As I understand the technical detail of the Bill, the Carltona principle, which has always been the basic principle of accountability, will also be changed by the difference between discretion and delegations. "A civil servant is the Minister so acting," is the Carltona principle as we understood it in the past.
  As clauses 1 and 2 state, accountability will not be directly to the Minister; it will be from a "next steps" agency or an individual in a Department, back up through the Treasury to the Public Accounts Committee. That is not positive, straight accountability to the House; it is a further watering down of accountability to the House. The PAC performs a very useful function, but it is always post facto. It always looks for value for money after the money has been spent. Many of the changes that the Minister is talking about introducing—not on the face of the Bill but in terms of market testing and competitive tendering which the Bill helps to facilitate—will radically change the nature of the civil service. That means that we need to look at accountability much more than we have had the chance to do so far. The Minister has often argued that
  "not only power but accountability has been centralised upwards to Ministers and Parliament."
  The Bill will enable more accountability to be decentralised. We have all those management decisions on pay and conditions being decentralised, and we now have accountability being decentralised. It is difficult to understand, but accountability to whom? If there is a fiddle in the Inland Revenue or a leak in a Ministry of Defence department that has been decentralised by the Bill, who will be accountable? The PAC will be accountable years later. That is not accountability as we have known it—directly to the Minister—in the past. That will change the nature of the civil service as a national body and decimate what we know the civil service to be.
  We will certainly carefully scrutinise the Bill in Committee because it will have an impact on the future of the civil service. The Minister talked about great respect for the civil service, how valuable it is and how it has worldwide respectability. That is absolutely true. Many countries in eastern Europe have turned to our civil service for advice when setting up their own civil services. If the Bill is passed with the decentralisation of pay and conditions, linked with market testing and contracting out, we will have a very different civil service. Some of that is already happening.
  We are well aware that high standards and quality of service are already beginning to decline, not as a result of the Bill but because of what the Bill would facilitate in different parts of the civil service in order to accommodate tenders for market testing. One way to accommodate tenders is to lower pay and conditions and do away with holidays and sick pay; others such as statistical requirements of the Civil Service Commission have already been lowered in the past year. The breadth and depth of the information that it is keeping has changed. Similarly, at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, statistical requirements have been lowered again, at the very time when European requirements in respect of statistical information on food safety are being raised. As a response to the decentralisation of decision making, we already have those alterations. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) mentioned the

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  Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the 3,100 jobs that are challenged there. That is exactly the difficulty when one decentralises pay and conditions.
  Mr. Bernard Jenkin: Is the purpose of the civil service to provide a good service to the public or is it to employ large numbers of people doing rather inefficient things? [Interruption.]
  Ms. Mowlam: One of my colleagues has said that the hon. Gentleman has probably outlined the purpose of the Cabinet rather than of the civil service. Clearly, the civil service exists to perform a public service. Like others, civil servants are taxpayers and consumers of services. They also have a right to decent pay and conditions and to be valued, because morale is an important part of doing a good job. With respect to the hon. Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin), it is not a matter of if people are valued and have decent pay and conditions we will have a decent civil service. Historically, we in Britain have valued that.
  Quality of service could be affected by the decentralisation of pay and conditions in another way. At present the civil service has a great deal of expertise, whether it is in taxation, European Community law or public law in general, which it is difficult to match outside the civil service. The civil service has a great fund of valuable information and well-trained people.
  The impact of changes such as those in the Bill will not be that the private sector will take over different parts of the civil service; it will be that the civil service will go to the private sector. It will work in exactly the opposite way. The skill and expertise will be lost and the public will suffer as a result.
  I should like to mention briefly two other possible results of decentralisation and the delegation of powers on pay and conditions. I am sure that the Secretary of State will agree that impartiality has always been important in the civil service. Impartiality has been the bedrock of civil service pay and conditions, but it will not be embodied in any private company rule book. Private companies have a duty first and foremost to their shareholders. When the Government decentralise pay and conditions—the Secretary of State looks confused—as a precursor to privatisation, the first duty will be to the shareholders.
  It is intended that both the consumer affairs and legal services divisions of the Office of Fair Trading will be market tested. The OFT could well face bids from the very companies that it is supposed to regulate. That is the sort of confusion which will result from decentralisation and making market testing easier.
  Mr. Waldegrave: I do not wish to slow down the hon. Lady's speech, but I was not looking confused. It is just that we are on another subject again. The Bill is about the delegation of personnel matters to Crown servants, not private companies.
  Ms. Mowlam: I take the point. We had that discussion at the beginning of the debate. The Secretary of State cannot divorce the delegation of powers on pay and conditions to different parts of the civil service from preparing the ground for further market testing. The Bill
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  will enable the Government to do that. The changes will have an impact on the impartiality, confidentiality and, ultimately, value for money of our national civil service.
  The hon. Member for Colchester, North asked about the costs and who the civil service was there to serve. Some of the contracting out and tendering that has taken place in the civil service has resulted in a worsening of conditions and services. That is the lesson that the Secretary of State has failed to learn.
  On this measure, as on so many other policies, the Government are driven solely by ideology dogma rather than common sense and best practice. The Opposition want efficient services and flexibility of management. The Secretary of State may want flexibility of management and decentralisation of decisions, which we welcome, but it is not necessary to do away with the national Whitley negotiating conditions. Those conditions have led to good practice and good industrial relations in the civil service.
  The Secretary of State is not decentralising for flexibility and improved management; he is facilitating and enabling competitive tendering and privatisation. The way in which he pretends that this is a simple Bill gives hypocrisy a bad name.
  We will take the matter up in Committee and we will lobby hard during the coming months. Unless the Secretary of State changes his attitude, the Opposition will vote against the Bill on Third Reading. When I came into the debate today I received a memorandum from the Home Office which said that there had been a general circulation of memoranda asking for future works on privatisation to be presented by the end of November. That is what is going on behind the scenes. We will use the Bill to enable us to have the debate in the House now and later.
  7.4 pm
  Mrs. Margaret Beckett: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We seek a fresh statement from the Leader of the House on the utter chaos that now surrounds the announcement of the timetable on the Maastricht Bill. When the Prime Minister made his statement in Prime Minister's Question Time today he confirmed the report that he was prepared for the Third Reading to be delayed until after the second Danish referendum in May, at the earliest. During business questions the Leader of the House made it clear that the Committee stage is unlikely to resume for three weeks, although last night the Government rejected our amendment to delay the Committee until after the Edinburgh summit in five weeks, on the grounds that thousands of jobs would be lost and an issue of principle was at stake.
  Tonight we have heard that Downing street is briefing the press, although not the House, that the Bill may not complete its passage through both Houses until September or October 1993. We have also heard that the Liberal Democrats, and not this House, had advance warning of, and accepted, such a timetable, despite what the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) said last night and today about issues of principle and job losses, which required his party to support the Government last night.
  It is now clear that a series of shoddy deals has been done. The House has been kept in ignorance and misinformed. We need a fresh statement on the Government's real intent.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): The Chair is not aware of that information. I am also not aware of whether the Leader of the House intends to make any further statements. I have no doubt that the Government will have taken note.
  Mr. Bob Cryer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In view of the serious nature of the information, and as the Government scraped home yesterday by three miserable votes—they were bailed out by the Liberal Democrats—would it not be a good idea, especially as the Government are denying Parliament information when they were supposedly so concerned about Parliament yesterday, for you to consider suspending Parliament while we find out about the skulduggery in which the discredited Government are indulging? The Government are at sixes and sevens on this discredited Bill.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is not really a matter for the Chair. I have no plans to suspend the House. I have already informed the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) that the Front Bench will have taken note.
  Mr. Doug Hoyle: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The information came about only as a result of the question that I asked the Prime Minister this afternoon. If I had not asked the question, we would not have been privy to the information or the double-dealing that has taken place between the Government and the discredited army led by the Home Guard captain.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is a similar point of order. I can add nothing further to what I have already said.
  Mr. Max Madden: Further to that point of order. Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is clear that yesterday's vote is shrouded in double-dealing and dirty tricks. I am sure that many Conservative Members who went through the nightmare of arm-twisting, intimidation and threats by the Conservative Whips will now have cause to ponder the con tricks to which they have been subjected.
  My main point is that, clearly, the Liberal Democrats have been party to the elaborate con trick that has been played on Conservative Members. I am sure that some facility could he made to the lone Liberal Democrat Member in the House to explain the exact role that the Liberal Democrats have played in the matter.
  Mr. Alan Williams rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the right hon. Gentleman intends to raise the same point of order, I have already dealt with it and I shall deal with it no further.
  Mr. Williams: On a different point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: If it is a different point I shall take it.
  Mr. Williams: As you will appreciate, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if what we have heard is true, it constitutes a grave contempt of the House and of the Chair. I realise that we cannot embroil you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, al this stage in wrangling between the parties, and that it is not for you to comment on the contempt that the Cabinet has shown to Conservative Back Benchers, but it would be
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  appropriate if we asked, through you, whether between now and 9 o'clock the Leader of the House can come here to explain what is being furtively explained at the moment behind closed doors to journalists.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That was a similar point of order, even though I had informed the right hon. Member that I had dealt with it.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If hon. Members are rising on the same point of order, I shall not accept it, as I have dealt with the matter.
  Dr. Norman A. Godman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Is it a different point of order?
  Dr. Godman: Yes. Could I remind you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that Madam Speaker and her predecessor expressed the utmost concern about statements of that import being made at press conferences and not from the Dispatch Box. It is a scandalous state of affairs, especially where Back Benchers are concerned.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have taken note. I call Mr. Robert Ainsworth.
  7.11 pm
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth: I hesitate to correct you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but it is Peter.
  The hon. Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) told us that Opposition Members intend to vote against the Bill on Third Reading, for reasons which have nothing to do with the Bill. That seems to be becoming a habit with Opposition Members. Last night, they voted against a motion for reasons which had nothing to do with the substantive motion. If Opposition Members spent more time focusing on the substance of what was under discussion and less time making party political points, they might do themselves and the House a service.
  The Bill is a small and largely technical piece of legislation, although the Opposition seem to have vested it with a sinister significance which is wholly out of place. Having said that, the Bill is important, because at its heart lies the Government's commitment to creating a public service which truly, effectively and with the maximum attention to cost-efficiency meets the demands of the people—its customers.
  We can justifiably be proud of our civil service, which in many respects is the envy of the world. As the hon. Member for Redcar suggested, it has formed the model adopted by much of the developed and developing world for the way in which they conduct their affairs.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has paid a tribute to the integrity and impartiality of the civil service. Those qualities are clearly recognised on both sides of the House, and are not in dispute.
  I am sorry that some hon. Members seem to mistake this inoffensive Bill for an attack on the civil service, or an attempt to undermine its excellent work. The reverse is true. The Bill seeks to enable the civil service to develop management structures which will assist its undertakings.
  As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said, the key to the proposals is delegation, which means devolving authority from centrally controlled personnel offices to departments and agencies.

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  I do not suppose that it is widely known outside Whitehall that the power to determine terms and conditions for civil servants, who operate across the vast spectrum of our national life in many different parts of the country, rests solely with the Treasury and with the Under-Secretary of State for the Civil Service. Decisions which affect the working lives and conditions of more than 0·5 million civil servants rests with two central Government Departments.
  The measures contained in the Bill are designed to give Departments and agencies control over those matters, and that seems to be welcome. The Bill will enable—most importantly, it will not compel—the Treasury and the Minister with responsibility for the civil service to devolve authority for personnel matters to Departments, where that is appropriate.
  Hon. Members who have spent time in commercial life know that people operate at their best when the lines of communication are clear and close to home. That fosters self-confidence and personal motivation. Increasingly, with the development of "next steps" agencies, senior managers in Government Departments are taking on responsibilities which were previously the preserve of the mandarins and that is right.
  Nothing breeds responsibility like responsibility and nothing fosters enthusiasm and diligence more than trust. The Bill underpins the trust that we are increasingly conferring upon senior managers in the civil service. There is no responsibility without trust, and it works both ways. It is no good making people accountable if they do not have the freedom to back up their own judgment.
  On a wider level, the Bill will encourage greater flexibility in the provision of public services, which is both needed and welcome. I say that it is welcome in the knowledge that the House may shortly have to consider some measures which are most certainly needed but which may not be entirely welcome. It is therefore a pleasure to be able to speak in favour of the Bill, although no one should doubt the willingness of Conservative Members to support difficult measures when they are necessary.
  I am sorry that Opposition Members seem to think that the Bill is more difficult to accept than it really is. One should never underestimate the ability of some people to make scare stories out of good news.
  When it was first announced that the Bill would come before the House, newspaper headlines screamed about the "privatisation of the civil service". Not for the first time, Opposition Members seem to be unable to distinguish truth from the fiction of their own creation.
  The hon. Member for Redcar described the Bill as insidious and a threat to jobs. We must make it clear that the Bill in no way changes the terms and conditions of any civil servant. It does not affect the normal rights of staff or the usual consultation procedures, and it in no way affects the legitimate rights of trade unions.
  I fear that the Opposition's attitude to the Bill has betrayed the fact that, once again, their commitment to reform and to improving the civil service is half-hearted at best. They pay lip service to it, but time after time they show that they are not really interested. Instead, they show a commitment to the public sector unions—I suppose that that is not surprising in view of their close relationship
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  —which too often give precedence to their own sectional interests over the interests of the people they are there to serve.
  Ms. Mowlam: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that Sir Robin Butler, in his Redcliffe-Maude memorial lecture, talked about the new generation of civil service trade union leaders being forward-looking and
  "less dogmatic about retaining traditional and uniform patterns of management where change can be clearly shown to be in the interests of their members and the public they serve"?
  That is the view not just of Labour Members but of Sir Robin Butler, ex-head of the civil service.
  Mr. Ainsworth: Had the hon. Lady listened to an earlier part of my speech she would have heard me pay tribute to our civil servants and the work that they do. However, there is no denying that there remain areas of activity where sectional trade union interests still come before the interests of the public. Many of the Government's reforms in recent years have gone a long way towards improving that situation.
  Mr. Wilson: The hon. Gentleman has made an important statement in firm and bold terms. I am sure that he is well loaded with examples. Perhaps he can just give us one.
  Mr. Ainsworth: I am talking about a general attitude, which is well known to Conservative Members and will be widely recognised in the country. I speak as someone who has served for some years on a local council in central London. I am only too familiar with the attitude of the public sector unions and the precedence that, not always but all too often, they place on their own interests at the expense of members of the public. Hon. Members recognise that well, and the country knows about it.
  Mr. Quentin Davies: Does my hon. Friend agree that there have been considerable differences in the attitudes taken by different trade unions, and that some have been a great deal more positive than others about the changes in the public service during the past few years? Therefore, any generalisation of the kind just made by the hon. Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) does not fit the facts.
  Mr. Ainsworth: I agree with my hon. Friend. It would be wrong if my remarks were interpreted in a generalised way, because I am talking about incidents and tendencies of which we are well aware.
  Mr. Donald Dewar: I am genuinely curious. The hon. Gentleman now protests that it would be wrong to take his attitude as a general one but, when challenged to give a specific example, he said that he was referring to a general approach.
  Mr. Ainsworth: That was on a different point. If the hon. Gentleman does not yet understand the point that I have been trying to make, I do not think that he ever will.
  Sadly, the attitude of which I have been speaking goes hand in hand with a tendency towards centralisation. Therefore, it is not surprising, though perhaps somewhat depressing, that Opposition Members appear to deride the idea of delegation that lies at the heart of the Bill.
  Mr. Garrett: The hon. Gentleman may know something about the government of inner London, but he

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  knows nothing about the civil service. Is he aware that the agency concept, the idea that Departments should be broken up into budget and responsibility centres, originated on the Labour Benches?
  Mr. Ainsworth: In that case, I am surprised at Labour Members' attitude tonight.
  I am pleased to say that the confusion displayed by Opposition Members did not extend to their colleagues in another place. As has been pointed out, the noble Baroness Turner supported the principle at the heart of the Bill and made it clear that she did not regard it as a blueprint for privatisation. I am sorry to find that Opposition Members in this House seem to disagree.
  The Bill is not about privatisation. Here, I quickly suppress any comment about Treasury forecasters, and merely say that the idea that the Bill will result in a wholesale abandonment of bowler hats and furled umbrellas for designer suits and white socks is utter nonsense.
  As my right hon. Friend said, the Bill in no way alters the fundamental accountability of Ministers and civil servants to Parliament. The Bill clearly enables Departments to set whatever conditions they may think appropriate to the delegation that they extend to those responsible for carrying out public duties. I hope that those conditions are not set too tightly, so that the business of encouraging devolved responsibility, with the attendant benefits to which I have referred, may progress apace, although proper monitoring, which is ensured by the Bill, will continue to be vital.
  Contrary to what the hon. Member for Redcar said, real benefits from the Government's reforms of public services are becoming clear. Since 1979, more than £2 billion has been saved by cutting waste and improving efficiency.
  Earlier today, I was fortunate enough to attend an impressive presentation by the National Audit Office. I am only sorry that more hon. Members could not find the time to listen to what it had to say. It is doing an excellent job in bringing cost-effectiveness to our public services and institutions.
  Mr. Garrett: There is something else that the hon. Gentleman does not know. The Government fought bitterly against the establishment of the National Audit Office. I was a sponsor of the National Audit Act 1983 and I know the extent to which the Government tried to stop it. A cross-party alliance of Back Benchers got that Act through.
  Mr. Ainsworth: I am talking not about history but about what is happening today. I was most impressed by what the National Audit Office had to say today about its work. It gave specific examples of the real-costs benefits which are accruing from its work. I applaud its efforts and wish it well.
  There is a new spirit of accountability abroad in our public departments. Opposition Members continue to deride the development of that spirit, not least through the citizens charter.
  Mr. Donald Anderson: Would the hon. Gentleman care to relate that new spirit of accountability to the experience which he may have had, and which most of us have had, with the Benefits Agency?
  Mr. Ainsworth: I should be delighted to spend a great deal of time discussing the new spirit of accountability in Wandsworth council, on which I served for six years, where it is applied to enormously beneficial effect. The Benefits Agency has been dealt with by hon. Members at great length.
  It is becoming increasingly clear that Opposition Members have no serious commitment to improving the quality of public services in Britain. That has been fairly obvious for some time. Their attitude tonight simply confirms their negative approach. Unfortunately, they have mistaken the Bill's true purpose and, in common with recent practices, are seeking to make party political points out of a perfectly innocuous piece of legislation. It is, however, legislation which forms an integral part of our commitment to ensure that the British people get the best from our public services, which is what they deserve.
  7.30 pm
  Mr. Doug Hoyle: Hon. Members will not be surprised to hear that I shall not be following the hon. Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Ainsworth) down the path, whatever it was, that he trod. My hon. Friends' interruptions showed that he does not have any real knowledge of civil servants or the civil service.
  I regret that the Secretary of State so hastily left the Chamber after delivering an inadequate speech, remembering that many of the problems associated with the Bill lie at his door. Much uncertainty has been spread by his refusal to consult the civil service trade unions. My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) pointed out that they met him one day and he did not even inform them that the Bill would be introduced in the other place the following day. It is hardly surprising that suspicion should abound when that type of treatment is meted out.
  Hon. Members have referred to some remarks made in the other place by Baroness Turner. We should be clear about exactly what she said and did not say, and I shall quote from her speech. After referring to the poor handling—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member cannot do that. He can only paraphase a speech made in another place.
  Mr. Hoyle: The point of my noble Friend's speech was that it was the ultimate intention of the Government to bring about the privatisation of the civil service, even though this might not be the Bill by which that would be achieved. That flies in the face of everything that the Secretary of State has said. No wonder civil servants are alarmed.
  Let us not forget that the Whitley committees will be destroyed. They have represented a wonderful system of negotiation for over 70 years. They have provided a forum not only for good industrial relations in the civil service but for achieving understanding and consultation. At present, employment conditions in the civil service are the responsibility of the Treasury and the Cabinet Office.
  I suppose we should not be surprised at the Bill being presented because, since the Conservatives came to power in 1979, the civil service has been messed about with in one way or another. On taking office, Mrs. Thatcher set Lord Rayner to work. We were told that the exercise was designed to increase efficiency, and we are now told that

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  this measure represents another step down that road. Without seeing much sign of greater efficiency, many jobs have been lost.
  It is claimed that the Bill is necessary because of the citizens charter. We are told that this is a small technical measure, but those with experience of such matters know that we must dig deeper and consider the enabling legislation that will result from it. Despite what the Secretary of State said, the Bill allows responsibility to be delegated away from the Treasury and Cabinet Office, which, as I say, have previously been responsible for civil servants' conditions.
  Ministers will no longer need to obtain the agreement of the civil service unions even over the terms and conditions that are being delegated—a point that my hon. Friends and I are anxious to stress. Any individual agencies that are established under the measure can vary the terms and conditions of the service for which a delegated authority exists. That, too, can be done without the agreement of the Treasury, and certainly without the agreement of the civil service unions. No wonder civil servants are alarmed over what is termed a small technical Bill.
  The spectre of privatization—unfortunately, we cannot discuss that tonight—was raised by the actions of the Secretary of State. We recall his speech on 1 June last, in which he referred to competitive tendering. He made it clear that the process that had been imposed on local councils for blue collar jobs such as refuse collection would be extended to central Government, with white collar jobs being affected. He went on to talk about law, accounting, engineering, architecture and science. He was not referring to a small number of civil servants, for about 130,000 jobs could be put at risk.
  No wonder there is alarm and despondency in the civil service. The Secretary of State claims to be a great admirer of the civil service, but he has not been particularly helpful to the service in his past actions.
  As I explained, the Bill will allow the Government or any delegated representative to vary conditions of service without the agreement of the Treasury or the unions, the only exceptions being areas regulated by law. The only such part of the employment conditions is the principal civil service pension scheme. Clearly, there are many matters about which civil servants are right to be alarmed.
  For example, we are right to ask about equal opportunities. What about the possibility of sex and race discrimination? There are numerous issues to be considered, including pay, leave and hours of service. All could be swept away. They will all be subject to change as a result of the Bill. All agreements reached centrally through Whitley between the Treasury and the unions could be overturned without recourse once the measure becomes law. Yet it is described as a small technical Bill.
  There will be no need for the Minister to specify to whom a delegation is being made, yet the civil service unions are having difficulty trying to obtain information about the way in which the measure will be implemented. The Minister may be able to withhold authority for certain functions from the person to whom he has delegated matters. Nor is it clear whether it will all be within public knowledge or be done by private arrangement.
  Many problems have resulted from the attitude of the Secretary of State. After all, the right hon. Gentleman had
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  no consultation with the unions before the Bill was introduced in the other place. Only pressure brought by the unions and my hon. Friends has resulted in any consultation. Much remains to be explained to those who work in what even Conservative Members agree is our great civil service.
  It is a vague Bill. The future of many people is at stake, and their conditions of employment are under threat. They should be consulted, because many of them are saying that, instead of, "Yes, Minister," they should be asking, "What are you hiding, Minister?" Much alarm has been spread because of the lack of consultation. It is wrong that suspicion and despair are being caused in the civil service by the Government's refusal to show the whole of their hand in this matter.
  The trade unions are showing a responsible attitude and asking reasonable questions, such as what functions will be delegated. That is a fair question, given the promises that have been made to them. I have a list that has been compiled, but we are not in a position to know whether it is a full and final list. Another important question is, to whom will those functions be delegated? Not only those who work in the civil service but all of us who may have to use the agencies need to know. When and over what period will that delegation take place? What conditions will be established by or in the agencies?
  Another point that has not been satisfactorily explained by the Secretary of State is why those moves are being undertaken. Surely there should not only be consultation but a time limit should be set for those consultations. We would all feel much easier if the Secretary of State could assure us tonight about what monitoring of the delegated authority will take place.
  Differing views have been expressed on both sides of the House. Opposition Members have asked about the agencies that have already been set up and about the inadequacies of those agencies. Again, the Secretary of State did not reply properly. It would help civil servants to know what formal review, if any, will be undertaken to see whether value for money is being obtained for the public. Should not a regulatory authority also look at the work of those agencies?
  One of my hon. Friends has already said that what is happening is the break up of our national civil service, which is the envy of the rest of the world and to which we owe so much. I ask the Government not to hide their real intent behind a technical Bill. The Government's ultimate aim came to light in the other place. Although it may not be in the Bill, it will be achieved in other ways. It can cause only despair and a lowering of morale when we are told that the Government's ultimate aim is complete privatisation.
  7.43 pm
  Mr. Nirj Joseph Deva: I have listened carefully to the arguments presented by the hon. Members for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) and for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle), who made some constructive points, which I have been thinking about. Although the hon. Lady's points are well informed, I am none the wiser about why she objects in principle to the Bill and intends to vote against it.
  The Bill ensures better management of the civil service by allowing different parts of it to develop their own strategies on matters such as pay, grading and general

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  conditions of service. Surely that is a laudable objective. The Bill neither changes the terms or conditions of existing civil servants' pay, grading or structure, nor does it contain new powers to privatise or contract out.
  It is the job of Government to ensure that the civil service is best organised and managed to deliver a better quality and value of services to the public. From the tone of the debate so far, it would appear that only the Conservative Government have had the courage to tackle barriers that impede better value and services. The creation of the "next steps" agencies—now 75 in all—is a remarkable progression towards better services for consumers. In a previous incarnation I served on the National Consumer Council and I have had a great deal of interest in protecting consumer services.
  If we take the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency as an example, much has changed—and for the better. The days are long gone when Joe public had to wait months for his driving licence. Now customers come first. All DVLA staff go on customer care courses. They now sort out their own mistakes and deal with their customers directly, rather than allocating them to a complaints committee, using vast amounts of paper. They have abolished an elaborate and inefficient structure of working parties, which they have dismantled in favour of decision-making by line managers. Buggins' turn is out and promotion is now on merit. Managers have clear targets. For example, it was recently specified that 90 per cent. of driving licences must be issued within 13 days. Last year they took 16 days and before it became an agency it took months.
  Opposition Members understand that old-style civil service staff management is giving way to flexibility. Staff can now be hired on a variety of part-time arrangements, giving work opportunities to, for example, working mothers and people with other family commitments to work part time rather than on an eight-hour shift. The Bill will enable those people to find new opportunities for work.
  The Efficiency Unit was set up in 1979. I understand from what I have read that more than 750 scrutinies have saved more than £2 billion—I cannot prove it—by reducing waste within the civil service.
  The Government are also determined to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy. We should look at the record. We have now eliminated unnecessary form filling—27,000 forms have been scrapped and a further 41,000 revised. One begins to wonder how many forms exist. Will my hon. Friend the Minister let me know at some point?
  Improved management is a keystone of the Government's policy. The Opposition cannot and should not object to civil service managers, as good managers, having a clearer idea of their objectives and responsibilities and much greater freedom to recruit their own staff to achieve those. We all believe that better quality services will be delivered to the public only if the management structures and demands are driven upwards from the customer to relate to customer demand, rather than downwards from senior managers at Whitehall issuing edicts saying what is best for us.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has reassured us that the Bill is about efficiency and localised rather than centralised control of personnel, and nothing whatever to do with privatisation, about which the Opposition are concerned. We do not want a highly centralised system of control which, as we all know, helps to perpetuate the old-boy network.
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  While protecting the existing terms and conditions of the civil service, the Bill gives local managers greater flexibility to offer better pay, grading regimes, working hours and disciplinary arrangements, and leaves Ministers and Parliament accountable under the new powers of delegation specified in the Bill.
  Performance-related pay is a key feature of the citizens charter. Some 95 per cent. of civil service pay is now covered by performance-related criteria. Therefore, productivity improvements, speedier delivery of service and improvements in unit cost performance are vital targets. The Bill enables Ministers to delegate and ask for more local accountability, thereby removing a current legal impediment to greater accountability, productivity and performance. It is well worth supporting.
  7.51 pm
  Mr. John Garrett: On a superficial level the Bill is simple enough: it allows the delegation of civil service personnel management from central Departments—the Treasury and the Minister with responsibility for the civil service in the Cabinet Office—to departments and agencies. It was introduced with such confusion and lack of consultation in the House of Lords that it led to a chaotic debate. The Lords who spoke for the Government appeared to have only the most tenuous grip of the subject. There was confusion throughout their Lordships' House, where the legislation was seen as a privatisation measure. In fact, it has nothing to do with privatization—Government organisations can and have been privatised without the legislation.
  However, the Bill raises important issues. It involves the delegation of personnel management to agencies. Although the Government say that power will be delegated to departments and agencies, it will move to agencies. It is unlikely that the Treasury or the Minister with responsibility for the civil service will allow delegation to a central Whitehall Department. The Bill tries to establish the autonomy of agencies in order to enable the agency chief executives to depart from national civil service rules of employment, and terms and conditions of service.
  As agencies cover more of the civil service—the late-lamented project manager for setting up the "next-steps" agencies forecast that 90 per cent. of the civil service would be covered by agencies within a decade—the Bill will mean the end of a national civil service. That is at the heart of the debate. Most Crown servants will join an agency, not the civil service or a national service. They will be employed within the rules of the agency, not national civil service rules. The Bill's ultimate objective is to have Government services in a conglomeration of agencies, all with their own terms and conditions.
  I cannot see why the agency concept requires that fragmentation. In a large corporation there can be profit centres and subsidiaries, but employees can still be on common terms and conditions. I have worked for large multinational companies that had a multiplicity of profit centres and subsidiaries with common terms and conditions, and a common grading system. The virtue of such corporations is that they ensure a common corporate identity and ease of movement from one part of the business to another. A collection of agencies—which is

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  what our civil service will become—will not have a public service identity or ethic, which will cause substantial problems.
  The result would be a Government consisting of a number of separate businesses. I must confess that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) and I first proposed the agency concept in a 1972 Fabian tract "Administrative Reform—the Next Steps"—and I am glad that the agencies are called "next steps" agencies. However, we were fresh from the Fulton committee, which developed the idea of delegation within departments to responsibility and budget centres. It was a natural progression for the two of us to extend the concept to a Department that was a collection of agencies. But the crucial point was that it was still a Department. We envisaged departmental agencies within Departments, operating on the personnel and management system of the parent Department, with career opportunities for moving from the agency into the central, policy-making divisions of a Department.
  The problem with the agency concept as developed by the Government is that it separates technical and executive grades in an agency from the mandarin administrators in the policy divisions. That policy flies in the face of all the experience gained since the Fulton committee. The separation of mandarins from managers is the biggest single problem in our civil service—and always has been. The Fulton committee put its finger on that problem, which has never been addressed.
  The losers will be the staff. An agency management can tear up national agreements with trade unions and impose its own. There will be no obligation on agency management to consult the staff on changes in terms and conditions or business plans. Agencies already exist that do not consult trade unions on business plans or forecasts. There will be no public service standard for the treatment or development of staff. It will mean the end of the civil service as a model employer.
  Under the Bill, all civil service-wide conditions and guarantees could be swept aside—pay, leave, hours and equal opportunities. There would be no guarantee of consultation on aspects such as recruitment arrangements, and training or promotion procedures. Those matters will be delegated to chief executives, who are paid performance pay to cut costs. It is a crucial factor that the chief executives who are paid to cut costs will take the money out of the quality of terms and conditions of the agency employees.
  I have not heard a Minister address the fact that there is now a fundamental contradiction within the Government policies on agencies—agency chief executives are beginning to say so. The Bill embodies the principle of chief executives having greater autonomy. However, compulsory market testing and contracting out, as outlined in the "Competing for Quality" White Paper, contradict the responsibilities of those chief executives. A chief executive has no autonomy if he or she is made to contract out a major part of the agency's activities.
  The Government override the autonomous powers of agency chief executives by demanding that some of the agency's functions must be contracted out. Agency chief
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  executives will find themselves running a rump of services. The concept of the executive agency will be negated if the executive functions are compulsorily contracted out.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Eight hon. Members hope to catch my eye and I understand that the Front-Bench teams wish to start their winding-up speeches at 9.20 pm. If hon. Members co-operate by limiting the length of their speeches, I may be able to call all those wishing to speak.
  7.58 pm
  Dr. John G. Blackburn: The debate has been enhanced by the speech of the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett). That is particularly true of his opening remarks, stating in clear and honest terms that the Bill was not about privatisation. He is absolutely right. He continued to describe how the Bill legislated on an agency basis. I have no difficulty in agreeing with the hon. Gentleman's concept of the Bill.
  I pay a warm and generous tribute to civil service staff. There is not one hon. Member who does not owe them a great debt for the work that they do on our behalf, as we in turn work for our constituents. In 1979 the civil service employed more than 730,000 people. By November last year, that figure had been reduced to 553,000. I do not applaud that, in itself. With staff reductions on that scale, anyone in public or political life would want certain quality criteria to be met as a result. I suppose that we would all say that we want a good service—there is no dispute about that. I also happen to believe that we are getting a good service.
  I have spent a lot of my life searching for value for money—indeed, I even wrote a book about it. I am a dedicated disciple of the idea. I think that the civil service bears wonderful testimony to value for money in the public sector. I can say as firmly and as surely as I have ever said anything that the savings resulting from these exercises have amounted to more than £2 billion. I am sure that all hon. Members have their own ideas about how we might use that money in our constituencies—on health, and so on. I value those savings immensely.
  Three times this evening I have heard Opposition Members say that, as a by-product of this Bill, contracts would be torn up and conditions of employment abandoned. I want Ministers to know that the allegations that I have heard three times this evening—that holidays will be abandoned and that sick pay will be taken away from civil servants in these agencies—are intolerable. In Committee and on Third Reading, I want to hear an absolutely positive statement from the Government that none of this will happen.
  Several hon. Members have mentioned Earl Howe's speech in another place. Interestingly enough, having looked through it, I did not find that he said that this was a tiny, technical Bill. I will check again in the next 24 hours, but I have read his speech, delivered on 29 October and reported at column 1298 of the House of Lords Hansard. When Members read it at their leisure, they will find that he did not say the words that they have attributed to him.
  I believe that the service given to the public by the civil service has been a success story. I am quite happy to shout that out loud and clear. It came about because of a new spirit in the civil service. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) that morale in the service is at an all-time low. On the contrary, a fine

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  spirit is alive in it. It was encouraged by the introduction of the citizens charter, and management techniques have also improved. Clause 1(2) is all about management procedures.
  The civil service can only be as good as the managers who run it. A great many secondments take place now; managers go and learn in the private sector from national corporations like those that the hon. Member for Norwich, South mentioned. There, they obtain new skills for their jobs and become better managers. I am sure that agencies will provide a better service. I may be accused of prophesying here, and I confess that I do not know whether what I have said will come true, but I sincerely trust that it will.
  My next point will be of interest to all Members of this honourable House who represent constituencies in the provinces. Along with the delegation of powers and improved management techniques, we want more and more of the civil service to be located outside the metropolis. Four out of five civil servants are already employed outside it. With the grace of God and a fair wind, quite a number of them are coming to heaven—by which I mean the black country. A further 700 civil servants have just arrived, with a newly-equipped centre.
  I am not here only as a representative of my constituency; I am also here to tell the truth. The truth is that I am angry about a letter that I received from the Home Secretary, dated 3 November. I have been fighting a battle to have the prison service headquarters relocated to Derby, but it has not happened. Nevertheless, we shall continue to seek the relocation of civil servants and their managers to our area.
  I believe in private enterprise, in market forces and in value for money. I am very pleased, for instance, that the meteorological office has at last started to believe in those things too. In the past two years it has generated 17 per cent. more revenue by selling its services. That is marvelous— [HON. MEMBERS: "Selling more weather?"] Certainly.
  Time and again I have had dealings with the passport offices because constituents have had difficulties getting their passports, but I am pleased to note that the Peterborough office which serves my constituency can now deal with applications in only seven days.
  The Bill is worthy of consideration and of being passed. If we approach its few clauses in the right spirit in Committee and on Third Reading, I believe that it will improve the civil service in ways of which the House will be proud. I commend the Bill to the House.
  8.9 pm
  Mr. Matthew Taylor: The hon. Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Blackburn) suggested that some of the Government changes to the civil service are responsible for the weather. If that is the case, Conservative Members in Cornwall and other tourist areas should be worried about the weather last summer. However, I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman's claim will stand up to much scrutiny. The Bill is unlikely to have such far-reaching consequences.
  I have some sympathy for Ministers who say that some of the concerns expressed by Labour Members have been outside the scope of the Bill. The Bill's scope is narrow but I understand why Labour Members have raised issues such as the management and future of the civil service, because
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  the Bill inevitably raises such questions. The Minister failed to give adequate assurance about the Government's intentions on how the Bill should be used. I hope that at the end of the debate we shall hear more about what change the Government envisage.
  The hon. Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) said that the Labour party was in favour of decentralisation and that the Bill paved the way for the break up of the civil service as we know it, but the hon. Lady cannot have it both ways. Decentralisation of the civil service and the delegation of management powers is a move away from the present centralised structure. That is the choice confronting hon. Members. Some Labour Back Benchers clearly said where they stand on that choice but the hon. Lady did not make clear where the Labour party stands.
  The Liberal Democrats in the other place and in this House have always made it clear that we support the principle of decentralisation contained in the Bill. It is ironic that the Government should lay so much stress on decentralisation when so much of what they do in other areas is centralisation. The Minister should blush when he speaks about the Government's commitment to decentralisation. We welcome the delegation of powers. That change in the public and private sector reflects modern ideas about how people work best and how organisations are best managed. In an organisation as large as the civil service that is especially relevant.
  Mr. Wilson: Being in favour of decentralisation is rather like being in favour of good weather. Is the hon. Gentleman also in favour of fragmenting pay, grading, holiday arrangements and conditions of service within the present national civil service? In line with recent events I expect that he is in favour.
  Mr. Taylor: Decentralised power has to include pay and conditions. We have made that clear in our policies and some Labour Members have attacked us for it, but one assumes from some of Labour's policies, not least its devolution policy, that it holds the same view. Labour's position on that must seem peculiar to Scottish Labour Members. Labour attacks those who argue for decentralisation and devolution of power and attack us for admitting the logical conclusion, that decisions on pay arid other structures will be taken at local level. It is hard for Labour to argue its measures for Scotland and Wales and, ultimately, for the regions of England while at the same time maintaining a monolithic structure for delivering those measures. That is peculiar and does not seem to make sense.
  I hope that the Minister will address some of the concerns that are raised by the Bill. Some of them were addressed in the other place, not least as a result of Lord Russell's contribution. Changes welcomed by the civil service unions have been made and the legislation has been clarified. It is deeply ironic that the Minister charged with responsibility for the citizens charter should introduce a Bill with so little notice and consultation because that is wholly contrary to the principles that he is in office to espouse. The trade unions and the staffs involved have some justification for making that complaint. Ministers acknowledge that, because we understand that in the other place and in dealing with the representatives of those staffs they have accepted that the matter was not well handled.

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  I hope that lessons will be learned from that. If the Government paid more attention to what their rhetoric means that mistake would not have occurred.
  We need detailed reassurance from the Minister about the role of the recognised unions in the Government's plans. Will local management have to deal, as it should, with the recognised union representatives? The Bill does not mention that but refers to staff and representatives, although one would expect reference to recognised trade unions. There is some concern that the rights of representation will be changed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) knows, the Government's record on GCHQ has not been good.
  Mr. Nigel Jones: I represent many thousands of civil servants at GCHQ. They are magnificent people at management level and throughout the structure. I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that the banning of trade unions at GCHQ remains a scar on the Government that should be removed at the earliest opportunity.
  Mr. Taylor: I agree, but I had better not pursue the matter or I shall be called out of order.
  The Government's plans about representation are not clear and there is no reference in the Bill to recognised trade unions. I hope that the Minister will reassure us about that because if he does not the concerns will be much greater. How will consultation be managed? How will the staff know what is being proposed, the time scale and the scale of the measures, and how and in what form will the staff affected be able to present their point of view and make sure it is taken into account?
  I should like to ask the Minister about accountability to the House. Many hon. Members hold the view that the changes to the executive agencies and the way in which hon. Members can hold Ministers to account for what is happening in their Departments has not worked effectively. It is not just a matter of putting on record the replies from executive agencies. Constituents often raise issues that go to the root of policy and its effective implementation, but my letters to Ministers have been referred to the executive agency for reply as a matter of day to day management. I have often felt that that was not right—that the issues that I was raising were issues for the Minister. It also creates complications for any Member of Parliament who is trying to deal successfully with his constituents' problems. I think that the process should be reviewed.
  I do not see why Ministers should not seek advice about what is happening from those who are responsible, but I feel that they should be aware of the problems and of the response to those problems, and should draw some conclusion about whether their general policy guidance and the decisions that they have made are being applied effectively.
  The Liberal Democrats have no difficulty with the principles espoused in the Bill. We agree with the proposals for decentralisation in what the Minister has described—and I agree with him—as a limited piece of legislation. Nevertheless, I feel that it is incumbent on the Minister to go into more detail about the changes that are envisaged, and the effect that they will have. It is scarcely conceivable that Ministers have—as they claim—put in
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  hand the assumption of a power without having any plans, views or even notions about where that power will apply, whom it will affect and how those people will be affected.
  8.21 pm
  Mr. Bernard Jenkin: It does not surprise any Conservative Member that the official Opposition have chosen to oppose the Bill. Inherent in every Labour speech that we have heard is the fact that the party does not understand the concept of producer dominance—the concept that a service can be ruined by the fact that it is dominated by the producers, rather than by the customers or clients. At the risk of deviating from Government policy, I rather welcome Labour's opposition to the Bill; it gives new boys like me an opportunity to have a go, and thus provides Labour Members with the chance of a little sport.
  I approved very much of the speech made by the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor). I am delighted that he and his hon. Friends are again riding to the Government's rescue. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman must make an effort to reveal some daylight between his colleagues and Conservative Members. I therefore appreciate his point about timing and consultation. Let us be practical, however. The Bill does not change the pay or the conditions of employment of one civil service employee; it merely delegates certain authorities in respect of those matters. The idea of embarking on a long period of consultation with trade unions exemplifies what is currently wrong with the civil service; it is impossible to decide anything, or to make the service respond quickly to the changing circumstances of the modern world.
  Mr. Wilson: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the legislation which led to compulsory competitive tendering in local authorities did not change the conditions of even one employee, but led to the present circumstances in which tens of thousands of people throughout the country —people who formerly worked in low-paid jobs in relatively secure conditions—now work for slave labour rates, enjoying very few conditions of that kind? Does the hon. Gentleman welcome that development?
  Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman should be ashamed of himself. He knows that competitive tendering in the health service and in local authorities has saved millions of pounds.
  When I fought the 1987 general election, one of the problems experienced by the Conservative party in Scotland—particularly in Glasgow, Central—was the fact that, although a huge amount of competitive tendering had proved very beneficial for English voters, competitive tendering had not begun in Scotland. It was thus very difficult to explain its benefits to the Scottish people. Since 1987, competitive tendering has been widely introduced in Scotland, saving millions of pounds, and I am pleased to say that at the last election we started to win back Scottish seats. [Interruption.] I should be interested to know whether the Opposition are suggesting that it was ever possible for the Conservatives to win Glasgow, Central, but that is a separate point.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Bill is not about competitive tendering.
  Mr. Jenkin: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

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  The philosophy behind the Bill is surely about better enabling the best practices of business and the private sector to be brought to bear on the problems of the public service. The civil service—by no means all of it, as was suggested earlier, but the generality of it—used to offer only three real perks: virtually total job security, complete anonymity and protection from the customer, and an index-linked pension at the end. In exchange, employees used to accept low status, low pay, poor morale and the dissatisfaction involved in providing a relatively poor service. In contrast, the private sector, when successful, demonstrates freewheeling dynamism instead of bureaucratic sclerosis. I pay tribute to those who work hard in the civil service, and who provide a good service. Nevertheless, when I hear people say that our great civil service is what has made the United Kingdom such a great country, I sometimes wonder whether they are aware of the irony of what they are saying.
  The philosophy behind the Bill is concerned with transforming public services: first, by increasing efficiency; secondly, by improving accountability; and, thirdly, by enhancing cost control. I do not apologise for that last item. Running an efficient civil service is all about effective cost control. It is extraordinary that some Opposition Members should complain that the whole exercise is aimed at reducing costs, as though that were a sin.
  To achieve efficiency, we must first accept the reality that Ministers cannot possibly be accountable and manage everything for which their Departments are responsible. The Bill accepts that reality. Good managers manage mostly by exception; that is what allows Ministers to decide overall strategy, and to target specific areas of concern. The Bill enhances that capability. Ultimately, management is about finding the right people, not just about making strategic decisions. It is about deciding priorities, allocating resources and leading, motivating and inspiring. That is what is so often lacking in public services. The key ingredient in its achievement is the delegation of responsibility. Whatever job is involved, the higher the degree of self-motivataion that is required for that job, the more satisfying it will be when it is done well.
  Managers often fail to recognise that the best talents for a task are usually just waiting to be discovered in the person who is already doing the job. That is the philosophy that the Bill seeks to apply, not just to the formal top structure of the civil service but right to the grass roots. It seeks to establish, in place of management accountable to the lowest common denominator of talent or intelligence, management which raises motivation, expectations and aspirations to bring out the natural talents of employees at every level. That can be found in any really successful business. Such businesses contain people whose work enhances their own sense of well-being and purpose.
  Although the Bill is not about privatisation, Conservative Members should not be bashful. We have seen a dramatic transformation of management and efficiency in privatised companies such as British Telecom, British Gas and the water companies. We need the same cultural change in parts of the public service which cannot be privatised. Again, the private sector provides the experience and examples on which the public sector should draw in terms of accountability.
  This is not to be dogmatic. There is a huge variety of examples and experience in the private sector. For example, a company for which I worked—Ford—is a
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  unitary single generic product company, in contrast with Hanson Trust, where there is a huge variety of subsidiaries achieving a multiplicity of things. The scope and nature of delegation remain very important in both circumstances, but accountability in both cases is in doubt. Good government of both companies rests in the hands of the directors, just as good government of Government Departments and all their responsibilities rests in the hands of Ministers.
  Setting the hare running on such matters as the dilution of the Carltona principle or the exact detail of pay negotiating machinery misses the point entirely. We want accountability which is flexible and effective and which works—accountability as much to service users, clients and customers, as ultimately to Ministers and Parliament.
  Hon. Members have complained about the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, for example, but we are now light years ahead of the chaos and inefficiency of that agency. So we have efficiency and accountability, both leading to better cost control. The Audit Commission and the Public Accounts Committee will still be able to expose the inefficiency where services fall short of the required standard.
  With such a beneficial transformation of public services in progress, the only possible complaint can be that the Bill does not go far enough. What about those hoary old red chestnuts, Labour's notorious local authorities—it would be too boring to name them—which have become bywords for extravagance, waste and ineptitude? How can we frame different legislation to tackle the inefficiencies there? No wonder so much cynicism regarding this measure is expressed from the Opposition Benches. They pick away at the sawdust in our eyes because of the motes in their own. One would take their criticisms more seriously if they appeared to care one jot.
  8.32 pm
  Mr. Donald Anderson: The hon. Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) has said that we are light years away from the inefficiency at the DVLA, or DVLC, which is within my constituency. That sentiment puts him at odds with his own Front Bench Members, who are ever ready to compliment the centre on the quality and efficiency of its work.
  Mr. Jenkin: The agency status of DVLC in Swansea has transformed the management, and I totally agree with what the hon. Gentleman says. But it is the agency status that has achieved that.
  Mr. Anderson: The agency status came into being in April of last year. No one can seriously claim that there has been any increase or decrease in the quality of the product since that time. There were teething problems in the 1970s, but the quality of the product has been very high -indeed since the mid-1970s.
  One other matter that puts the hon. Gentleman at odds with his Front Bench is his suggestion that the philosophy behind the Bill is the transformation of the public service. Surely the whole essence of the selling of this Bill by those on the Government Front Bench is that it is really a rather unimportant Bill. I noticed that the Secretary of State, in opening, called it a "poor little Bill". He talked about "a technical Bill of limited scope", not the transforming Bill which the hon. Gentleman suggests.

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  In another place, it was suggested that the Bill was an exercise in good management and delegation, an exercise in decentralization—hardly the hallmark of this Government's policies, certainly if we look at local authorities.
  There has clearly been a wish on the part of the Government to down-sell this Bill as technical and of little consequence. Indeed, one wonders why they found it worth while to bring this so little, so poor Bill before the House at all. On the other hand, we on the Opposition side and those in the other place see that this Bill could pave the way for privatisation.
  One reason why we are a little alarmed and suspicious is that, on 1 June, the very day before the Bill was introduced in the other place, the Secretary of State gave what is known as The Sunday Times speech, in which he talked about a revolution in the organisation and delivery of our public services, a revolution that would affect both users and their providers. That was the context within which the Bill was introduced. Perhaps it is simply the practice of this Government, as was seen so dramatically over the Maastricht Bill, to speak to different audiences with different tongues. So the Government can hardly be surprised that we are suspicious of the motives behind the Bill.
  We note, for example, that the Efficiency Unit envisages not less than a quarter of our civil service being privatised. We know that there has been little debate on this, but I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has given an undertaking to the House that he will put pressure on his own business managers to ensure an adequate debate in the House on that theme.
  So what is the true interpretation? Is it a little Bill, a Bill of little consequence, the Minister's "poor little Bill", or is it something which, although technically on the strict reading of the words is indeed that, has much larger implications? We clearly have much scope for suspicion about the motives of the Government, and they have only themselves to blame because of the nature of their rhetoric —the bonfire of controls, the rolling back of the frontiers of the state, and so on. As they press on dogmatically against the public service with an unchecked wish to destroy the public service as we know it today, they can hardly be surprised if we seek to oppose them.
  I make no apology for seeking to illustrate the dangers created by this Bill by taking an example in my constituency, the DVLA, because I am confident that, as I hope to show the House, a number of lessons can be learnt about the dangers of setting off along this route.
  Last Friday, for example, I, together with all my colleagues from West Glamorgan, including my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell), who is present now, and two of my colleagues from Dyfed, attended a remarkable meeting called by the civil service unions over the future of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in my constituency. There were more than 600 civil servants there, all anxious about their jobs and the clear threat to their jobs provided by the Government's proposals.
  The Government now seek to put a gloss on a leaked document from the chief executive saying that it was all part of a routine exercise and perhaps should not be taken too seriously; that it was one of several options and it was
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  premature to criticise it; and indeed that Ministers had not yet made a decision on it. The effect of the position envisaged in that document—the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) will know how important this agency is to the employment structure of an area of high unemployment—would be the loss of more than 3,000 jobs. He and the House will understand the anxieties of the work force there because of the uncertainties raised.
  Mr. Nigel Evans: I fully appreciate what the hon. Gentleman has said about the DVLA, and, having lived in that area for many years, I realise that the loss of the DVLA from his constituency would greatly increase unemployment. But I believe that the hon. Gentleman has clarified the position by saying that there is no Government proposal to do what he has stated. There is a continuing policy of looking at various agencies and Departments and, as has been said, far more civil servants have moved from London to the various districts than the other way round.
  Mr. Anderson: I invite the hon. Gentleman to read the document, and to note its terms and tone. If the proposal is adopted, and as the chief executive has properly admitted that there is no way in which jobs would remain in Swansea following contractorisation, it would mean a complete reversal of the policy of dispersal of civil service jobs to areas of high unemployment. There would be no way in which the Government could have control over the siting of those jobs once they had been put out to the private sector. That is the stark reality of the effect of the Government's proposals.
  Let me briefly cover some of the broader issues that arise from the chief executive's proposals. I invite the House to consider the tone of the document. We are talking not about someone setting out options but about the clear advocacy by the chief executive of a particular solution—contractorisation—which can lead to one outcome alone: the moving from Swansea of the 3,000 jobs. The social effects are mentioned only in a rather sad aside— something to be considered for a public relations exercise rather than to be treated as fundamental. When I give the Minister a copy of the document, he will no doubt see the reason for the profound anxiety to which it gives rise.
  The Bill can be seen as a step along the road towards privatisation, just as the internal reorganisation of Government Departments towards company status is a step in that direction. Matters of considerable constitutional and legislative importance and of accountability arise. I invite hon. Members to consider examples such as the vehicles inspectorate, the very integrity of whose system is under threat. If the testing of heavy goods vehicles were taken away from the civil service, something of much value would be destroyed.
  The chief executive's document considers how best to avoid legislation—and, in effect, parliamentary scrutiny —by keeping a residue of perhaps 150 jobs at the centre and sending the rest to the private sector; who knows where?
  The threat to a unified public service has already been referred to, and I shall not develop the arguments advanced by my hon. Friends on that subject.
  Standards of pay—regional pay and the downgrading of pay in areas such as mine where market forces are less

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  strong—are also a cause for concern. The whole pay structure may be downgraded in Northern Ireland, for example.
  Another worry is the politicisation of the civil service as a result of the process. The chief executive's document is not the product of a neutral civil service. We are talking here about civil servants who have adopted the Thatcherite political culture and who know that, if they dance to the tune of their political masters, they will get what they want. In their eyes, that is the way to promotion. I make no apology for criticising Stephen Curtis, the director of the DVLA, because, in writing the document, he stepped outside the civil service and became a quasi-politician, thus laying himself open to the criticism to which all politicians are subject.
  There is a conflict with social objectives. The Secretary of State for Wales was unaware of the contents of the document. As happened with the mines, he will be brought in after the event even though the matter is so important to the Welsh economy.
  Finally, the document is in profound conflict with the dispersal policy of previous Governments. The DVLA was sited at Swansea by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris), who was then in a Labour Government, precisely to bring a major job creator to an area that had become an area of high unemployment because of the pit closures. If, as is envisaged in the document, those jobs go to the private sector, they cannot and will not be kept in Swansea, as is readily acknowledged. They will go we know not where —probably to an area which does not need them quite as badly as Swansea. The proposals drive a coach and horses through the proper view of Government that such jobs should be dispersed.
  That is the nature of the anxiety affecting the city of Swansea. I hope that the Prime Minister will allay that anxiety by repudiating the document, even though it is very much the product of the philosophy that has wreaked such damage in the country as a whole. I hope that 'we shall have a debate on the document, which shows the extent to which the Government are out of touch. I believe that we have every reason for being suspicious of the Bill. In line with their previous record, the Government are fattening the service for market. The Bill is a step along the road to privatisation and away from the unified public service that has served the country so magnificently over the years.
  8.45 pm
  Mr. David Trimble: Time is short, so I shall confine my remarks to two matters of concern and one point of complaint.
  The first matter of concern is accountability. We are told that the Bill relates largely to "next steps" agencies and, as the Minister knows, our experience of those agencies' accountability has not been good. I hope that the situation will improve. The Bill facilitates the delegation by Ministers of certain functions to the heads of agencies and further down the structure. Clearly, we should be concerned about the degree of accountability to the House not just as regards fiscal rectitude but on policy matters. How will that accountability be secured and what steps will be taken to ensure that the House is fully informed about the agreements and arrangements that are made below ministerial level by the chief executives of the agencies?
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  The second matter of concern is that, although the Bill facilitates the delegation of certain functions, we are not told exactly what functions may be delegated. A number of functions were mentioned in another place. I believe that arrangements for performance pay and starting salaries of new staff were referred to. It is clear that a large range of functions can be delegated, excluding only pensions and so on.
  As the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) said, the Bill opens the way for the break up of the unified civil service. If full advantage is taken of the scope of the Bill, it will result in the break up of the unified civil service. It will lead to a structure whereby different agencies deal with different functions and operate as almost self-sufficient units with different terms and conditions of employment.
  That will give rise to regional variation, and to my hon. Friends, my constituents and me that is a very sore point. As the Minister knows, Northern Ireland has the highest unemployment in the United Kingdom. We have a low-wage economy. We are the poorest part of the United Kingdom and, relatively speaking, we have been getting poorer. The Bill opens up an appalling vista. The extent to which we have been relatively disadvantaged under the present Government will now be used as a basis on which to disadvantage us yet further through regional agreements that will reduce the pay of a significant number of people in the public service. That is a matter of very great concern. I ask the Minister to tell the House whether the Government intend to use the Bill as a way of moving towards regional rates of pay. When he has dealt specifically with that, I should like him to address further the question of accountability to ensure that new arrangements for terms and conditions made by persons to whom the Bill enables delegation to be made can be raised and debated in the House.
  That brings me to my point of complaint. It relates to clause 3, which authorises legislation for Northern Ireland by negative resolution. As the Minister knows, that means that the Order in Council, which will be the Northern Ireland equivalent of this Bill, will not be debated in the House at all.
  Strictly speaking, Mr. Deputy Speaker was very kind to me: the comments that I made earlier about Northern Ireland were not in order, since the Bill does not itself make changes in regard to Northern Ireland. So one is not in a position, strictly speaking, to debate the detailed effect of the Bill, because it does not affect Northern Ireland; it is a question of the Order in Council, which is not only unamendable but undebatable. It is a shoddy way of legislating, and the Minister ought to be ashamed of himself for having any part of it. It degrades the House.
  I would have liked to take up some specific matters with regard to Northern Ireland, but obviously the Minister cannot reply. I cannot complain about that, because I know that Northern Ireland Office Ministers had intended to be on the Front Bench this evening but were unavoidably prevented from being here.
  8.50 pm
  Mr. John McAllion: Given the nature of the Bill before the House, I must declare an interest as parliamentary adviser to the National Union of Civil and Public Servants. Since the Minister looks interested, I ought also to explain to him that the very reasonable fee

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  that the union pays for my services is donated in its entirety to the Dundee Labour party, so I have no personal gain whatever from my relationship with NUCAPS. I wish that were the case with every hon. Member.
  No one on the Opposition Benches has been in the least convinced by the arguments from the Government Benches that this is an inoffensive Bill or simply a technical one with a relatively restricted scope, because it is only one piece of a much larger jigsaw that the Government are steadily putting together—a jigsaw that includes market testing, contractorisation and, as the Minister admitted, full-blown privatisation.
  It is important that the House sees the Bill in the context of all these other measures—that it does not simply shrug the Bill through but sees it for what it is: another important step on the road to the privatisation of the civil service. Although the Bill may not say that directly itself, it is part of a move in that direction.
  I listened carefully to the Minister when he introduced the debate but he did not really set out the Government's case for bringing the measure forward. If one wants to find out the Government's case, one must look at the record of the debate in the other place, particularly in Committee, when the Government spokesperson explained why the Government believed the Bill to be necessary.
  It was explained that there is, for example, no existing statutory authority for transferring functions or responsibilities from Ministers down to heads of Departments or agency chief executives, and that the Bill now creates the statutory authority for that transfer of responsibility and functions to take place.
  It was pointed out that the Government had identified a need to delegate selectively, either by function or by Department or indeed by agency. It was explained that so many of these transfers will be taking place in future that the existing transfer of functions orders would be unable to cope, so there was a need for a statutory basis on which transfers could take place.
  It was also pointed out in the other place that Ministers' existing discretion partially to pass power down the line does not properly decentralise responsibility, because always in the end there is a need to refer back to the Minister for the Civil Service or to the Treasury; the Bill means that, in the delegated areas, there will now be no need to refer back either to the Minister for the Civil Service or to the Treasury, and the chief executives in agencies and departmental heads will be free to get on with it—free to manage, as the Government describe it, when what they really mean in delegated areas is that they will be free from accountability through Ministers to the House. —
  There has been some debate over which functions are to be delegated, but according to the Government's own notes on clauses, these are the functions relating to the management of the civil service. The notes on clauses go on to explain that these management functions will now be delegated to the extent, and subject to the conditions, thought appropriate by the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service.
  The Minister said tonight that powers to determine manpower levels would not be delegated, but we have only his word for that, because the Bill says that they may be delegated to the extent and subject to the conditions which
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  are thought appropriate by the Minister and by the Treasury. So if some Minister in the future decides that it will be appropriate to delegate the determination of manpower levels in the civil service, the Bill will give him the right to do it.
  There is no point in Ministers giving us assurances from the Dispatch Box about what they will and will not do; even a paper like the Tory Daily Telegraph says that it can no longer take what the Government say at its face value, because there is always a U-turn the next day and the Government do something different from what they said originally.
  So it is not good enough to have assurances from the Dispatch Box. If it is not written into the Bill that certain powers cannot be delegated, we must assume that all powers can be delegated if Ministers feel it worth while doing so.
  There will be no debate about which functions will be delegated immediately: they relate to recruitment, pay, working hours, holidays and so on. Once responsibility for those areas is delegated, certain consequences are inevitable. The Minister claimed at one point that none of this would change the terms and conditions of civil servants in any way, but those national agreements which have previously been arrived at between Ministers and the civil service unions are now completely undermined. Individual Departments and agencies will be able to vary any condition of service for which a delegated authority exists without the agreement of the Treasury or the civil service unions. That must inevitably affect recruitment, promotion, pay and any other conditions of service outside pensions.
  If the Bill becomes law, Ministers are giving themselves the power to tear up national agreements which they have previously reached with the civil service unions.
  In the other place, fears were expressed that the Bill was a privatisation measure, and the answer was that this was not so, because the Government had only changed the way in which staff were managed. It was explained that, although the terms and conditions of staff in Departments and agencies might increasingly differ from some abstract civil service norm, they would still remain civil servants. But one can still be a civil servant and work under very different terms and conditions from those one enjoyed previously under a national agreement in a national civil service.
  The Government are driving towards the breaking up of the national civil service and agreements arrived at, and ensuring that there is a reduction in pay and conditions for many individuals.
  The Minister has said that chief executives and departmental heads have no powers to change the terms outwith normal procedures; he stressed that the normal procedures included the national agreements which made provision for consultation with unions, and he assured us that, before anything changed, the unions would be consulted.
  The two Liberal Democrat Members who took part earlier in the debate staged a touching scene between them. One of them asked whether banning the unions was not a scar on the record of the Government. I agree with him that it is, in the way in which they have banned trade unions at GCHQ. But equally, what the Liberal Democrats are supporting in the Bill, along with the Government, undermines trade unions throughout the civil service.

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  It is not enough to consult trade unions about local agreements; they are national unions, which seek national agreements for all their members wherever they happen to work, and the Bill completely undermines this. So it was a case of crocodile tears by the Liberal Democrats to say how much they cared for trade unions when they support a Bill which undermines the position of the unions in the civil service.
  We are also told that the Bill has no direct connection with contracting out. It may have no direct connection, but the indirect connection is obvious. The management of departments and agencies has been delegated down to chief executives. The responsibility for recruitment, appointments and terms and conditions of service has been transferred from Ministers to chief executives. National agreements with trade unions have been torn up. One does not need to be Sherlock Holmes to discover what will happen next because it is already happening in the "next steps" agencies in the civil service.
  I will be writing to the Minister about the situation in the Central Office of Information, where the chief executive has recently taken up the market testing initiative. He put the print section office in Lambeth out to tender. Eight bids were received, the lowest from a company called Williams Lea, which was duly awarded the contract. The unions insisted that, under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 and the acquired rights directive, their members must transfer to the new employer on existing pay and conditions.
  The COI took legal advice and had to agree with the trade unions. The new employer was informed, but its reaction was astonishing. The new employer agreed to pay the existing wages and observe the conditions, but only if it was allowed to increase by a significant amount the bid which had won the contract. Even more astonishing was the fact that the chief executive agreed to that proposition, and the company was allowed to up its low bid and add on significant sums to meet the requirements of the European directive on wages and conditions for workers.
  That is an absolute scandal. If that sort of thing happened under a local authority, the officials would be sacked and the councillors thrown out of office and surcharged. However, no one is doing anything about the situation in the COI. The chief executives in "next steps" agencies should be subject to even greater parliamentary scrutiny, not less, as will happen under the Bill. That is why it is very important that we consider such matters.
  9 pm
  Mr. Terry Davis: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion), I am a parliamentary adviser to a civil service trade union. In my case, it is the Inland Revenue Staff Federation. Like my hon. Friend, I derive no personal benefit from that work, but the IRSF contributes to the salary of my secretary at the House of Commons.
  I am also a member of the Public Accounts Committee. I was very interested to hear tributes to the work of the National Audit Office from no fewer than four Conservative Members. I wish that they had been present during our debate last week about the work of the PAC. However, they paid handsome tributes this evening to the work of the NAO.
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  I must make three points, the first of which has already been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett). He reminded the House that the National Audit Act 1983, which created the NAO, was opposed by the Conservative Government. Secondly, I must point out that the NAO is not an agency. The NAO, which has done sterling work in making savings for the taxpayer, is a department of the House and has nothing to do with "next steps" agencies. Finally, the fact that the NAO can point to savings of £2 billion is a measure of the Government's waste of taxpayers' money.
  The NAO is much less enthusiastic about "next steps" agencies than are some Government supporters. If Conservative Members want proof of that, they need only look at the NAO report on the vehicle inspectorate, the first "next steps" agency, and examine the proceedings of the PAC earlier this year on that subject.
  The hon. Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) and Government spokesmen have told the House that the Bill does not change pay or conditions for civil servants. Frankly, that is disingenuous. If it is not the purpose of the Bill to change the pay and conditions of civil servants, what is its purpose? The Bill is obviously intended to do that, and that is the reason for delegating the authority to chief executives and other managers in agencies and possibly in Government Departments.
  The Minister was anxious to assure the House that the Bill is not concerned with privatisation or market testing. It is not a question of what is in and what is not in the Bill. What is important is what is behind the Bill. What is behind the Bill is the Government's policy of market testing and privatisation. That is accepted and understood by civil servants.
  The Bill is a paving measure for market testing. The Minister said that we can have a debate on a date as yet unknown. He also said that we have already had a day's debate on the issue in the debates on the Queen's Speech. He is being disingenuous again. A debate on the Queen's Speech is a debate about the Government's policy for the coming year. It is no substitute for a debate on a particular policy, any more than it is a substitute for a Second Reading debate.
  I would have expected the Government to arrange a debate in Government time about their policy of market testing before they proceeded with it, but they are proceeding with it anyway. There is already a drive towards market testing without any debate or authority from the House. Only last week The Times carried an advertisement inviting tenders for typing, secretarial and office support services in the Inland Revenue. That is happening without hon. Members being given any opportunity to debate the very important policy considerations that are involved in that advertisement. There has been no opportunity to debate the effect on the confidentiality of taxpayers' records of the privatising of the Inland Revenue's typing services. Indeed, there has been no opportunity to draw to the attention of the Government the noose into which they are putting their own heads.
  I represent Birmingham, Hodge Hill. Adjacent to my constituency is Solihull. There are several Inland Revenue offices in Solihull, including the office where staff do typing for policy reviews, and the office—some of my constituents might be employed there—in which they type press releases in advance of the Budget. If those press releases

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  are typed by the employees of private companies, how can the Chancellor of the Exchequer guarantee the total confidentiality that is given to Budget contents?
  Not long ago, a Chancellor of the Exchequer was forced to resign as a result of a leak of Budget contents, yet the Government are now going to privatise that essential typing service. I do not think that they realise what they are doing, but they have not given Opposition Members who understand what they are doing an opportunity to tell them before tonight, and it will be too late when they arrange a debate at some unknown date in future.
  Mr. Nigel Evans: The hon. Gentleman is saying that if each agency is privatised we will have to watch out for leaks, but in the same breath he says that leaks are already happening. I do not understand.
  Mr. Davis: The hon. Gentleman is probably too young to remember that, in the 1940s, a Chancellor of the Exchequer gave an inadvertent leak to a journalist which was printed and which led to his resignation. It had nothing to do with civil servants; he was a Member of the House—a Minister. I am drawing attention to the opportunity in future for leaks, because the essential service of typing and secretarial support services will be privatised.
  I listened to the contribution from the Liberal Democrats with great interest. I was not aware that their policy of devolution involved breaking up the civil service —by devolution, decentralization—or that they plan to have local departments of social security, local tax gatherers, local customs and excise, and, no doubt, local rates for VAT. They tell us that it is all going to be local and there will be local pay and conditions to go with it. I must tell the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) that if we have local pay and conditions for civil servants in Devon and Cornwall, experience does not tell us that they will get higher wages; experience tells us that there will be lower wages. The Northern Ireland spokesman, the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), was absolutely right to draw attention to the effect on civil servants in the Province if the Government are allowed to go ahead with the Bill.
  The Bill will break up the civil service, as many of my hon. Friends have said. It is designed to ensure not only delegation to departments and chief executive agencies but local pay arrangements. Local pay arrangements will inevitably mean a drive to reduce wages and introduce worse conditions for civil servants not only in Ulster but in Scotland, Wales and the regions of England. It will be a case of driving down the wages at a local level of civil servants who, at the moment, enjoy higher wages as a result of the solidarity and unity that come from being members of a progressive trade union.
  The Bill is about doing to clerical jobs in the civil service what the Government have already done to dirty jobs in the health service.
  9.7 pm
  Mr. Ian Davidson: I shall raise several small points, as many major points have been covered by my colleagues. The Minister stressed the difference between policy and strategy on the one hand and implementation on the other hand. Of course, it is not
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  quite so simple as that. Very often, implementation creates policy. Because of new technology, many of the activities of the civil service are essentially footloose and could effectively be located anywhere. I am not sure whether it is intended to delegate to chief officers of agencies the power to decide a location—not necessarily the location of an entire unit, but the balance of staffing between locations.
  Hon. Members heard that it is not intended to allow chief executives of agencies to determine staffing levels, but presumably it will be left to them to determine the location of staff. That could run counter to the dispersal policy followed by Governments, although insufficiently vigorously, over the years. It would be helpful to have clarification of the balance to be struck between that policy, regional policy and this new policy.
  The Minister said that it was possible for any conditions that the Government saw fit to be imposed on any delegation. To allay the anxieties that we have been assured are unfounded, it would be helpful if the Minister could outline the conditions that he intends to impose on any delegation to agencies. Delegation can be extremely creative and helpful in liberating the talents and abilities of staff.
  However, there is a danger that delegation will not liberate. Labour Members are anxious that the Bill is simply a cost-cutting exercise. If terms and conditions are to be addressed, there will be a great temptation simply to seek the cheapest possible alternative. I should like to know whether the Government intend directors of agencies to be genuinely free to strike their own deals. I and many of my hon. Friends have been lobbied today by representatives of the universities, which were under the impression that they were free to strike wage deals with their staff. However, when the universities struck a deal that they could afford they were told by the Government that it was not acceptable. We must be told whether chief executives will have freedom in such circumstances.
  I have also been told by some national health service staff in Scotland that if they get trust status they will not be obliged to put services out to competitive tender; they will be able to retain them in-house. Will chief executives of agencies be free to decide not to contract out some elements of their activities? Again, we should have some knowledge of the Government's intention.
  The logic of delegating implementation is that chief executives will be free to construct their own reward systems. If they construct their own reward systems, there is an obvious logic in allowing separate cultures to develop. If agencies are allowed to develop their own cultural systems, that will inevitably lead to the break up of the ethos of the civil service.
  It is accepted by the Opposition, though the Government seem to be unwilling to accept it, that there is a difference between the ethos of a privatised organisation and that of a centrally directed civil service. I should like to see some changes in the civil service. There is an over-cautious element to the civil service ethos, but the civil service values service above economy. The balance between equity and economy will need to be addressed by the Government and by directors of agencies. At present it is not clear how the Government want that balance to be struck.
  Presumably, the Government want to give directors of agencies the power to determine their own structures. That could lead to the abolition of existing hierarchies and

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  systems of promotion. It would diminish the extent to which staff can be transferred between departments and would change the comparability of area-based systems.
  Moving to a completely decentralised subcontractual system is an interesting idea. I am not sure whether that move is the Government's intention, but it was certainly suggested by some Conservative Members tonight.
  I do not want to give the impression that Opposition Members are dominated solely by the producer interest. I do not believe that the civil service exists simply to employ people, but many people in the civil service are genuinely worried about the future and the direction in which the Government are moving. Creating anxiety is not the best way to encourage good results.
  The Government must clarify the extent to which decentralisation and deregulation will go. We are dealing with the potential destruction of a unified civil service. Part of the strength of the civil service is the commonality and shared culture of its members. I seek clarification from the Under-Secretary of State about the extent to which there will be abdication of responsibility, as distinct from decentralisation. I should be keen to hear the shopping list of activities to which the Bill is intended to apply. Until we know that, it is difficult to judge how far the Government intend to take it and how far we ought to react.
  Finally, I want clarification of the parameters within which delegation is to be exercised. The difference between delegation and abdication is that the former gives powers downwards, within a clear framework. It is not clear from the Bill what that framework will be and whether there will be any rules. The Chancellor of the Duchy said that he had proposals in mind. I should like to hear what they are.
  9.15 pm
  Mr. Brian Wilson: My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) complained about the absence of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from the Front Bench. I must make it clear that the right hon. Gentleman informed us that he would have to leave early to take part in "Question Time", and I assure the House that the Opposition are delighted that the right hon. Gentleman is representing Conservative party interests on "Question Time" tonight.
  Equally, I have no complaints about the fact that the Liberal Benches have been gloriously deserted for some time. I understand that they have gone back to their constituencies to prepare for crucifixion.
  Another matter may need to be clarified. There have been references to the Earl Howe, and I could see some puzzled brows as hon. Members wondered whether the dead sheep had made a comeback. The Earl Howe is Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in the House of Lords. It is something of a puzzle why the Bill, which impinges on many subjects but not on agriculture and fisheries, should have been in the hands of that Minister. I can only think that it is because he is probably the best-qualified Minister to sell a pig in a poke, or a wolf in sheep's clothing.
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster referred to the view taken by Baroness Turner, our colleague in the House of Lords who dealt with the Bill. He shamelessly misrepresented what she said. Our little exchange earlier apart, it is important to put it firmly on the record that she said that she accepted
  "that the Bill itself it not a vehicle for privatisation"—
  I would put in parentheses, "in itself" but she added:
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  "we still object to the manner in which … it is intended—
  I put the emphasis on the word "is"—
  "to hive-off Civil Service functions to the market."
  She rightly said that "We"—the Opposition—
  "do not believe that … the functions will be any better performed—on the contrary."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 29 October 1992; Vol. 539, c. 1299.]
  I hope that that puts beyond any doubt what Baroness
  Turner did and did not say on the matter.
  I recommend hon. Members to read the speeches in the Lords by Lord Houghton of Sowerby, whose experience was most impressively brought to bear. I do not think that anyone who reads the debates, or who considers what underlies the legislation, could for one moment accept the dismissive and almost self-deprecating tone of the Chancellor of the Duchy, who told us what a pathetic little measure this is. I do not know whether we were supposed to feel sorry for him because he has been left to mop up legislative trivia, after having been in charge of great affairs of state. When Tories are self-deprecating they are often at their most devious.
  What ever else it is, the Bill is not a modest technical measure; it is fundamental to the operation of the civil service and therefore of Government. The Earl Howe—it sounds a bit like an American jazz singer—was rather more lucid in spelling out what the Bill was about. He said:
  "But the time is past when it was right, if it ever was, for the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service to regulate in detail the personnel arrangements ("—
  he probably said "open brackets"—
  "pay, grading, recruitment ages and qualifications, holidays, hours of work, appraisal systems and so on) for half-a-million civil servants. This Bill will enable the central departments to delegate that responsibility to others who are, in relation to their individual businesses,"—
  "businesses" is an interesting choice of word—
  "better placed to take such decisions."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 June 1992; Vol. 538, c. 12.]
  Earl Howe was spelling out how, as a result of the Bill, pay, grading and conditions would no longer be negotiated—an important point—far less apply on a national basis, but would be broken down into the individual businesses. There is nothing modest or technical about that move. It is deeply fundamental.
  Lord Houghton of Sowerby immediately identified the seriousness of the matter. He said:
  "The Government are proposing reforms which are equal in significance and importance to those made over 100 years ago in an entirely opposite direction by Sir Stafford Northcote. That was then the basis: centralisation, uniformity, standardised recruitment, stopping log-rolling and all that kind of thing. The Civil Service has been built on the traditions that were then laid down. Now the Government believe that there is an opportunity, and probably a need in certan ways, to do something drastic in order to try to revitalise, if you like … What the Government are doing is so indefinite and imprecise, yet full of potential threats to jobs, that your Lordships' House cannot expect those of us who are deeply concerned with the Civil Service"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 July 1992; Vol. 538, e. 1064.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should not be quoting from speeches made in the other place other than those of Ministers.
  Mr. Wilson: I need not pursue the point. Lord Houghton of Sowerby, with his tremendous experience in this area and as a former holder of the position held by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, recognised the fundamental nature of the Bill and was deeply offended by it. Moreover, he was deeply offended by the fact that a Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, which I understand

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  is historically a non-political position in terms of controversial legislation, should be putting such a measure through.
  I find it offensive that a deception should be practised on Parliament by a Minister telling us that something as basic as this is a modest technical measure, a poor little thing of a Bill. It is not. I might accept it if it came from the used-car wing of the Conservative party, because they have no understanding of history or historical precedent within the civil service or of traditions that go back 100 or 150 years, but I do not believe for one moment that the toff wing, represented by the Chancellor, suffers from any such delusions. If he does not suffer from such delusions, what he told the House was an intended deception.
  Mr. Waldegrave: That is a little bit out of order and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw it. We can have a perfectly legitimate argument about this, but no one is attempting to deceive anyone else.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that, on reflection, the hon. Gentleman will wish to withdraw that.
  Mr. Wilson: I shall, with pleasure, withdraw it. I hope that the Minister and you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will find it acceptable if I say that to call it a poor little thing and a modest technical measure is a misrepresentation of the Bill. It is neither of those things.
  What problem does the Bill seek to address? Is there some great wave of corruption in the civil service or some terrible ill within it that needs something as drastic and fundamental as this? The Earl Howe told us quite the contrary. He said that there is no political jobbery and that the Civil Service Commissioners ensure that appointments are won on merit. He reassures us about all the standards of the civil service in which all of us would want to believe. Therefore, there is no problem of that nature for the Bill to address.
  The problem is to match the "next steps" agency with administrative devolution. Again, none of my hon. Friends finds a great problem with that concept. As my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) and others have clearly said, not only do we not oppose fundamentally, but we have had much involvement with and responsibility for, the concept of the devolution of the civil service into agencies and to the whole "next steps" programme.
  To achieve administrative devolution, which is what is nominally intended, there is no need to break up the national civil service. We do not have to destroy Whitley council terms of pay and conditions. The reasons for doing that are to fragment, compartmentalise, isolate and break down the civil service into free-standing businesses—the phrase used in the other place—and we know what the next step is from that accomplishment.
  The next step is precisely what is happening now at the DVLA in Swansea. Let us not be disingenuous about it. Written on the face of the Bill are the precise consequences that can flow from what is in the measure. It cannot privatise, it cannot contractorise and it cannot of itself produce market testing. But as my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) and others rightly pointed out, the Bill is a necessary part of the jigsaw. It is the forerunner of various other measures and the sort of thing that is now happening in Swansea.
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  Let us examine the Swansea situation. In my experience, relatively limited though it is, I have never seen a document such as the one before us about Swansea. We are used to treachery, to thousands of jobs just being cast aside and to the hidden agendas that result in closure announcements. But the concept of a man who is responsible for the employment of 4,600 people sitting down and putting pencil to paper in such terms is monstrous.
  Let us first define the problem that calls for such a draconian solution for the DVLA in Swansea. Above the name and a not very striking photograph of Mr. Stephen Curtis we are told of the success of 1991–92 by the public sector DVLA:
  "We broke new ground by winning the contract to licence small ships against fierce competition from the private sector",
  he claims. In a tribute, he goes on:
  "Meeting our customers' needs could not be achieved without the committed efforts of our staff."
  They should put that on the walls as a testimonial to their efforts and as an interesting commentary on Mr. Curtis's concept of loyalty.
  The document is required reading for this debate and to know what underlies the legislation. Mr. Curtis was then charged with the task of setting out the future framework for the DVLA. It is done with astonishing crudity, even if it was not meant for other eyes. The idea that anyone in that position could write such material and not believe that, even at levels of senior management, people would make sure that it reached the public domain is as naive as it is contemptuous of the people who work in that establishment.
  Having outlined the virtues or joys of contractorisation —one of which is that it does not need legislation, as opposed to privatisation—Mr. Curtis concludes:
  "It would therefore be necessary to make most staff at DVLA redundant."
  He goes on to give the costs of doing that and adds:
  "In addition to these costs, the Swansea buildings would be likely to become a white elephant."
  Mr. Donald Anderson: My hon. Friend might care to ask how a man who so lightly penned such a document, envisaging the destruction of 3,000 jobs, could hope to retain the loyalty of the work force.
  Mr. Wilson: My hon. Friend's question is rhetorical. The views of the work force are probably unprintable. I shall not try to describe them.
  Mr. Curtis goes on to find that there remains a role for Government, the Secretary of State will be pleased to hear. That role is to pay indemnity money to the contractors for the costs that they would incur in making 3,000-odd people redundant.
  Mr. Rod Richards: Has the hon. Gentleman ever visited the DVLA in Swansea? I come from the area and recall the time when it was the DVLC under a previous Labour Government. In those days, the carpets were stripped out every two years and new carpets put in when they were not needed. The building was decorated when that was not needed. Does the hon. Gentleman know—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Interventions should be brief and to the point. They should not be speeches.
  Mr. Wilson: I am sorry that we did not hear the end of the story. I am sure that it was good news for the carpet manufacturing industry in its day. The account that the chief executive gave in his foreword to this year's annual report scarcely squares with the horror stories detailed by the hon. Gentleman. I must admit that I have not visited the DVLA, but I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman, who is obviously deeply concerned about those matters, has managed to visit the debate at 9.30 at night. With his interest and awareness, he must have known of the topicality of the Swansea issue, which has been discussed by hon. Members throughout the debate.
  The Government are to engage in indemnity for redundancy costs under the programme envisaged by the chief executive of that agency. At this point, we come to the Secretary of State's role as Minister with responsibility for open government. Mr. Curtis, chief executive of the DVLA, has strong views on open government. He says:
  "For the present, while we are considering the issues … there is little we could say to unions and staff that would be helpful. Uncertainty … is a strong stimulant to unease and industrial action. Also"—
  this is classic—
  "given the close links between unions at DVLC and local MPs, it would be likely to lead to Parliamentary Questions and requests to meet Ministers."
  Mr. Donald Anderson: Let there be no doubt that there are close links. There must be if we are to guard our people against wishes of people like that chief executive and the dangers that will flow from Government policies.
  Mr. Wilson: Again, I am grateful to my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Curtis therefore recommended that the whole exercise should remain confidential. Were it not for some public spirited public servant ensuring that the document did not remain confidential, nobody in the DVLA, the House, the media or south Wales—certainly not the Secretary of State for Wales—would have had any idea what was going on.
  The Minister must comment tonight not only on the content of that document, the fate of 3,000 people in Swansea and the whole concept of regional policy as opposed to the privatisation programme. He must comment again on the attitude underlined in the document and the contempt for any apology, for open government or for consultation with those affected. That is what is at stake in the document and the Minister should say tonight, without further consultation or messing about, that the uncertainty for those people and their families' lives and for the south Wales economy should be ended now. The document should be consigned to exactly where it belongs —the bin—and Mr. Curtis should be sent along to put it there in person.
  The document is supremely arrogant, written by a man who believes that he is licensed to make such proposals. That is the direct link between the Bill and that document. If those freestanding businesses are established, with the power to negotiate wages and conditions of staff down to the last jot and tittle, and if, as the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) so rightly said, they are entitled to discriminate on a regional basis to achieve the lowest common denominator of wages, we are entitled to believe that they will also have the powers mentioned in the document to close down, strip bare, asset-strip, privatise, and flog off to their friends in the private sector. That is the document's significance in the context of the Bill.
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  It is not a purely Welsh matter, although it is obviously mainly a Welsh issue, and a deeply important one. I shall not take the time of the House by reading the list of other jobs affected. However, jobs are affected in smaller but significant numbers as follows: 44 in Birmingham, 47 in Chelmsford, 150 in London, 46 in Manchester and about 100 in Scotland. Many other Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency centres throughout the country will be affected. In all those places the duplicity of the chief executive of the DVLA towards his own staff has implications and ramifications.
  There have been some good contributions to the debate and some illuminating ones—not least from the hon. Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin). He informed us that in a previous parliamentary foray he had been the Tory candidate in Glasgow, Central. It must be a relief for him to have ended up in Colchester, North, where there are 35,213 Tory votes, which must provide a contrast with his last electoral outing.
  He was able to be frank on the subject. He said, in a self-effacing way, that we should not be bashful and that the legislation was about privatisation. Of course, the legislation is a move towards privatisation. I read in "Dod" that the hon. Gentleman is indeed as precocious as he sounds—it says that he was born in 1959 and was president of the Cambridge Union in 1962. He has been progressing ever since, via Glasgow, Central.
  The hon. Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Blackburn) made an interesting speech. He rightly said that it was not a technical Bill, but contained something much more substantial. He said that if it meant interfering in the wages, conditions and the reasonable expectations of civil servants, he would object to it. That is to his credit.
  I strongly agree with the hon. Member for Upper Bann on both regional pay rates and the treatment of Northern Ireland in the legislation. As a Member with a Scottish constituency, I often take exception to the way that Scottish business is treated in the House, but we are well treated compared with the way in which Northern Ireland legislation is handled, which is a disgrace. As there is a separate Northern Ireland civil service and separate legislation, for the issue to be lumped in a clause in the Bill without any opportunity to debate it is wrong. That is no way to treat the jobs, careers and structure of government in Northern Ireland.
  We shall oppose the Bill, although not tonight, as we shall give the Government the opportunity to answer some of our objections to it. We shall work on it in Committee and explore not merely what is on the face of the Bill, but what underlies it. If no improvements have been made by Third Reading, we shall oppose it.
  I think it fair to ask the Minister to deal specifically, firmly and in plain language with the points raised about Swansea. That is a fair request in the light of the importance of the subject in today's deliberations. On top of everything else that is happening in this country, the idea of holding the axe over the heads of such a large number of people in a part of the country that has suffered so much economic recession, depression and loss of jobs is intolerable. The document is in the public domain and the Minister has the opportunity tonight to say that it has, and will have, no standing in Government eyes.
  9.38 pm
  The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of Public Service and Science (Mr. Robert Jackson): It is not often that the House has the opportunity to debate the civil service, and today we have had a vigorous and wide-ranging debate. On behalf of the Government, I am grateful for that, and I shall try to respond as briefly as possible to the wide range of issues raised by colleagues.
  It has emerged clearly from the debate that there is common ground on our commitment to an effective and efficient civil service. We all believe that to be of great importance. We all stand on the constitutional ground —the need for a professional civil service serving all Governments with the same dedication. That is fundamental to the British system of administration, and experience of other countries and other times shows that we cannot take it for granted. The Government, like all parties in the House, are wholly committed to continuing that tradition. I welcome the words of my hon. Friends the Members for Surrey, East (Mr. Ainsworth) and for Dudley, West (Dr. Blackburn) in support of that commitment and I congratulate them both on their excellent speeches.
  We cannot and must not be complacent about the civil service, however. It employs a great many people and costs a lot of money. That is a simple matter of fact, not a criticism. Provision for the civil service in 1992–93 was about £19·4 billion. It is the duty of the Government and this House—through, for instance, the Public Accounts Committee, and I see the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis) in his place—to ensure that we get the best possible value for money from this expenditure and the best possible quality of service for our constituents who use the services provided by the public service.
  I should like to take this opportunity, since I have been given the information, to answer the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mr. Deva) about forms. His question was perhaps rhetorical, but I have the answer: the total number of forms in the main Departments in 1989 was 86,982. That sounds an awful lot, but there was a reduction of 36,004 between 1982 and 1989, so a great deal has been achieved. Nevertheless, we are still an active and perhaps sometimes intrusive organisation.
  The Government have a clear agenda for the public service. There is certainly no hidden agenda for public service reform. The Chancellor of the Duchy gave a full explanation of the Bill in his speech. The Government are just as open on other matters—on our view of "next steps", on the citizens charter, on market testing, and on contracting out. It is the worst-hidden agenda in history. The Opposition may not like some of the ideas that we propose, but they are being broadcast loud and clear.
  Some reference was made to my right hon. Friend's speech to The Sunday Times conference. It offered a clear exposition of the Government's policy, but the Bill has nothing to do with privatisation or contracting out. It is about delegation within the public service, not outside it. It builds on the great success of the "next steps" initiative, which has enjoyed welcome bipartisan support.
  I was delighted, as was the whole House, to learn of the claim to authorship of the "next steps" concept by the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett). He certainly seems to have used the language before anyone else. We have had good reports from the Treasury and Civil Service
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  Select Committee. In addition, I should like to quote the words of the Leader of the Opposition, delivered when he was shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am grateful to the hon. Members for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) and for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Davidson) for reinforcing what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said at that time. He said that it is
  "obviously very much in the public interest that"
  the delivery of public services
  "is carried out with the greatest efficiency and effectiveness".
  Next comes an important sentence, the truth of which I am glad that the hon. Member for Govan acknowledged again today:
  "It should certainly be our priority to ensure that services are run in the interests of consumers and that any injection of public resources results in a commensurate improvement in the service to the customer".
  That stress on the importance of the customer is fundamental, and it is good to hear that it is common ground.
  In the same speech, the Leader of the Opposition talked about continuing with "next steps":
  "I do not think there would be merit in a new Government seeking to uproot all the plants in the garden … and then expect them to grow well" —
  so the Opposition endorse the "next steps" agency concept.
  I think that the House recognises the limited scope of this Bill. It was explicitly affirmed by the hon. Member for Norwich, South, who has told me that he could not stay for the wind-up speeches. He speaks with great experience of these matters, and this is indeed a Bill of limited scope, as was recognised in the other place.
  Our position on market testing and contracting out is controversial, but it is accepted that this Bill is a technical measure with no direct impact on such policies. I hope and believe that good management is not a partisan issue.
  The hon. Members for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam), for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) and for Truro (Mr. Taylor) spoke about consultation with staff on the Bill. They exaggerated the importance of what did or did not happen. However, in retrospect we regret that we did not discuss the Bill more fully with staff before it was introduced in the other place. In mitigation, may I say that we have always seen the Bill as highly technical and limited, although I think that in retrospect we underestimated the scope for misunderstanding.
  I emphasise that strong steps have been taken and that we have frequent and exhaustive consultation on the matter. There have been detailed written replies to twenty-two questions asked by the unions. There were two long, late-night meetings in the interval between Second Reading and Committee in the other place, and another high-level meeting in the interval between Committee and Report. We have provided additional written information to the unions, a further meeting is planned on 13 November, and officials have responded to every point raised by the unions, which have recognised and appreciated the steps that we have taken.
  Before dealing with larger questions about pay discretions and accountability, I should like to deal with the matter of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. We all respect the constituency concern of the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) and it was appropriate that he should raise the matter. I repeat what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy said—that all possible options for the future of the DVLA have to be examined

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  as a normal part of reviewing its framework document, which expires in April 1993. The trade unions will be invited to give their views on the matter. It is worth bearing in mind—this is perhaps a new point—that a similar process was undertaken before the DVLA became an agency and the current framework document, with all that it implies, was agreed. No decision has been taken; consultation will, of course, take place before any decisions are made; and local employment conditions will naturally be a relevant consideration in reaching decisions.
  Mr. Donald Anderson: This is not an academic exercise because in the document the chief executive advocates, in effect, the closure of the centre with the loss of about 3,000 jobs. To avoid uncertainty and anxiety, will the Minister give a clear undertaking that the chief executive's conclusion will not be implemented and that those jobs will remain at the centre in Swansea?
  Mr. Jackson: It is appropriate for the Government and the agency to look at all the possible options for its future. Any anxiety and distress is attributable to those who leaked the document. It is perfectly appropriate for such matters to be considered and it is right that they should be considered confidentially until it is appropriate for people to be consulted about the proposals.
  Mr. Wilson: It is rather sad that the Minister blames the people who leaked the document rather than the person who wrote it. Has he any comment about the person who wrote it and, more particularly, about the terms in which it was written? Will he address the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Mr. Anderson) that the document is not a neutral appraisal but contains a degree of advocacy, that it is deeply disturbing and that it casts a shadow over the jobs? Does the Minister feel any responsibility to give any reassurance to the thousands of families in south Wales who are deeply worried?
  Mr. Jackson: It is appropriate that there should be a careful look at all possible options for the future of the DVLA and other organisations. I repeat assurances that my right hon. Friend and I have given, that no decisions have yet been taken, that consultations will take place before any decisions are made, and that local employment will be a relevant consideration in reaching decisions.
  Dr. Kim Howells: Does the Minister understand that those of us on the Public Accounts Committee understand that the new London police computer will be programmed in either the Philippines or Indonesia because it is much cheaper to do it that way? We are not debating options, but the removal of huge sections of civil service work to countries where there is cheap labour. That is not just a qualitative but a quantitative change in the amount of available work.
  Mr. Jackson: I must press on. I cannot comment on what the hon. Gentleman has said, because I am not informed about it, but I feel that he should bear in mind the importance of achieving a balance between value for the taxpayer's money and the effectiveness of the service.
  The hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) raised a point about the use of the negative resolution procedure. The orders in question will be used as a technical and enabling measure, like the Bill itself. In itself, the procedure will have no direct effect on the terms and conditions of staff. The principles will be discussed fully
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  during the Bill's passage, and the orders must conform to the powers contained in the Bill. The operation of all delegations which take place in Northern Ireland will be subject to consultation with the relevant staff interests.
  Pay discretions have been a central issue, raised by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion), for Norwich, South, for Warrington, North and for Redcar. All of them supposed that the Bill would make a difference to the pay and conditions of staff. Let me tell them—and the hon. Member for Hodge Hill, who spoke especially strongly—that the Bill is not needed to implement discretions on pay, a number of which are already in place. What it allows is the formal delegation of authority to determine pay.
  It has long been Government policy to give Departments and agencies more responsibility for pay when that is cost-effective. My hon. Friends the Members for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) and for Surrey, East were especially strong on that point, and stated the underlying philosophy very well. The Bill will not affect the rate at which the process takes place.
  The hon. Member for Warrington, North was wrong in what he said about the position of the trade unions under the new arrangements. All the new long-term pay agreements that are concluded with the civil service unions contain provisions for consultation and negotiation on the introduction of alternative pay arrangements, and those arrangements will continue under delegation.
  Mr. Hoyle: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Jackson: I will, but I am running out of time.
  Mr. Hoyle: I interrupt the Minister only because he referred to something that I said. Is he now saying that the conditions negotiated centrally under Whitley will continue?
  Mr. Jackson: I am saying that national agreements will continue in force, but some of those agreements already provide for local negotiations between the agency chief executives and the trade unions. Many terms and conditions are not subject to national agreements at all. That has long been the case, and I think that it must be right to ensure that the details of pay and conditions fit the needs of what have been described as businesses—that is, I think, appropriate language for what are often very business-like organisations—and enable them to deliver services effectively to users, while providing value for money.
  Staff are already aware at all times of who settles terms and conditions. That is already done with discretions, and it will be the same with delegations. At national level, we shall inform the unions of proposed delegations and give them an opportunity to comment; at local level, we shall consult departmental trade unions on the use of any delegated power to change terms and conditions. Nothing in the Bill will directly affect the terms and conditions of civil servants. Delegating has no effect on the legal rights of staff or, indeed, on the normal processes of consultation. This is a Bill that enables, not a Bill that determines.
  Let me deal briefly with the issue of market testing which, although it is not directly raised by the Bill, has been raised by a number of hon. Members. Market testing is outside the scope of the Bill, but we do not see it as an ogre sent to destroy the civil service, as some Opposition

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  Members seem to—at least, that is what their language implied. It is part of the Government's duty to ensure that the citizen and the taxpayer receive the best value for money, and the highest quality of service. That need not be a partisan point, and I am sorry that it has to an extent become one today.
  I quote from a speech made by Councillor Jeremy Beecham, the Labour leader of Newcastle city council. This is what he said about the experience of market testing and compulsory competitive tendering in local government:
  "The purchaser-provider split and the development of service level agreements between the provider of central services within authorities and client departments have caused a re-examination of performance, with generally beneficial results."
  He said in the same speech:
  "Local government has to recognise that the public is not intrinsically interested in who is providing a service but in what kind of service they receive."
  Those are very wise words from the leader of Newcastle city council. They are in the spirit of what was said by the Leader of the Opposition in his Royal Institute of Public Administration lecture about the importance of always maintaining a clear eye on the consumer-customer perspective. Those points were well made by those people and also by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North.
  The question of accountability has been an important theme in this debate. It was raised especially by the hon. Members for Redcar, for Norwich, South, for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) and for Upper Bann.
  I think that the hon. Member for Redcar slightly misunderstood the position. For the "next steps" agencies there are two channels of accountability. First, there is the channel of the agency chief executive to the Minister and, through the Minister, to the House of Commons. I have direct personal experience of that from my previous job in the Department of Employment, where I was the Minister responsible for the Employment Service. I very often met hon. Members from all parts of the House to talk about the business of the Employment Service and to exercise that parliamentary accountability for the activities of the service. The other channel is that of the accounting officer—where appropriate, the agency chief executive—to the Public Accounts Committee.
  The hon. Lady seemed to think—perhaps I misunderstood her—that the effect of these developments is that only the latter channel remains. That is not correct; both channels will remain. On the broad issue of accountability, I believe—I speak with some personal experience in this—that the "next steps" agency programme will help to enhance accountability. That point was well recognised by the hon. Member for Truro, speaking from the Liberal Benches.
  The hon. Member for Norwich, South evoked—but did not, I think, support—the old monolithic concept of the civil service: the idea of a uniform, unified organisation
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  employing hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of people all on the same pay and conditions arrangements, with strong central control driven on the one hand by the Treasury and on the other by the idea of the accountability of Ministers to Parliament for everything, including, in Bevan's words, the fall of the bedpan in the hospital.
  We are bringing forward a new concept of public service which I think is generally supported. The hon. Member for Truro was speaking in that sense. That concept recognises the diverse nature of the many functions—the many businesses—which exist within the civil service, breaking those down into functional units, delegating responsibility as close as possible to the customer and enabling relocation to take place. That point was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, West, and the hon. Member for Govan. Delegation, to answer the latter's specific point, tends to lead to relocation. Delegation of responsibilities, bringing things closer to the public and then setting the relationship between the centre and the agencies within the terms of a contract, a framework agreement, monitoring, annual reports to Parliament, I believe will in practice strengthen the accountability to the House of those institutions and organisations in the civil service.
  The hon. Member for Truro raised a point about the boundary between policy matters and operational matters and I want to take up the specific details of what he said. There has been some debate about whether the shift from the monolithic concept to the devolved concept constitutes the break up of the civil service. Many hon. Members stressed this point. To pick up the phrase used by the hon. Member for Norwich, South, I do not believe that the civil service identity depends upon uniformity of pay and conditions across the whole of the service. The hon. Member for Truro said some sensible things about that. The hon. Member for Swansea, East, on the contrary, used some rather over-heated language. It is not merely a uniform set of terms and conditions of service which defines the civil service. The civil service is bound together by the nature of its work in support of the Government of the day and by professional and behavioural standards and duties which derive from the nature of its business as a Crown service. Nothing in the Bill detracts from that fact. The guiding principle is ministerial accountability to Parliament, and that remains. We shall, of course, publish details of delegation for the benefit of the House.
  We have had a useful debate, which has afforded us a rare opportunity to consider the future of the civil service. I hope that there will be further opportunities. The Bill is a technical enabling measure and, although there may continue to be differences of opinion about the broad question of the future of the civil service, I believe that there is, and should continue to be, common ground as regards the details of the Bill.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

  Unemployment (Jarrow)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Robert G. Hughes.]
  10 pm
  Mr. Don Dixon: I am grateful for this opportunity to draw the attention of the House to the intolerably high unemployment in my constituency, which is getting worse daily.
  I was born and bred in Jarrow and have lived there all my life, and I am proud to represent that constituency. As I said in my maiden speech in 1979, Jarrow is a proud constituency, populated by honest, hard-working people: miners, not millionaires; shipbuilders, not shipowners; builders, not bankers; and engineers, not racketeers.
  It is 56 years almost to the day since 200 proud men and Ellen Wilkinson, our then Member of Parliament, left Jarrow to go on their historic crusade to London demanding the right to work. I was born—and later educated at an elementary school—within 200 yd of the start of that march. Those men marched to London not for an extra slice of bread or bowl of soup but for the right to work and the dignity of a pay packet. If one good thing has come of the savage cuts in the mining industry, it is that it has focused the nation's attention on the plight of the unemployed—as the Jarrow march did in 1936.
  The town of Jarrow was destroyed. Ellen Wilkinson wrote a book entitled "The town that was murdered". Such is the scourge of unemployment in Britain that people throughout the country could write similar books about their own communities. Month after month, we hear of increases in the unemployment figures, and it makes my blood boil when Ministers shed crocodile tears at the Dispatch Box.
  I speak with some knowledge about unemployment. I have been unemployed on numerous occasions. I have had to stand in a queue at Victoria road, Hebburn, and sign the book with a one and a half inch pencil tied to a 2 ft piece of string so that no one could steal it. I have known the indignity of being on the dole, and I get very annoyed when I hear statements from the now discredited Chancellor of the Exchequer to the effect that unemployment is "a price worth paying". The Government just do not know how unemployed people feel. They do not know what misery they are causing.
  Since 1979, the last pit in my constituency has closed. The last coking works have closed at Monkton and Hebburn. The last steelworks has closed in Jarrow. The last shipyard and ship repair yard has closed, and on the site of the shipyard where my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, North (Mr. Evans) and I were chairman and secretary of the shop stewards committee there is now a housing estate. The biggest dry dock on the east coast of England—Palmers dock in Hebburn—lies dormant.
  Many of the miners in my constituency who have finished work at Boldon colliery and Monkton coking works have transferred to Westoe and Wearmouth, where the pits are now threatened with closure.
  Mr. John Cummings: Is my hon. Friend aware that, for all the assurances given by the President of the Board of Trade to the House and for all the evidence given to the Select Committee by the chairman of British Coal, British Coal is today dismantling the winding apparatus at the colliery where the coal-raising shaft for
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  Vane Tempest is situated? By subterfuge and deceit, it is working towards the inevitable closure of Vane Tempest and the sacking of 900 workers, many of whom no doubt come from my hon. Friend's constituency.
  Mr. Dixon: I fully endorse the comments of my hon. Friend, and I wish to refer to that later in my speech. Incidentally, Madam Speaker, although I forgot, I had every intention at the beginning of my speech, since this is the first opportunity I have had since you were elected Speaker of the House, of congratulating you. You know how pleased I was when you were given that position, but this is the first time that I have spoken in the House since then.
  I would also like to talk about shipyard workers. Many of them who worked in Jarrow and Hebburn were transferred to Swan Hunter. What has happened now? Swan Hunter is going to shed 1,400 jobs. During the Falklands dispute, workers in the shipyards on the River Tyne toiled around the clock to get the task force finished. But as soon as the Falklands dispute was finished, they were finished too.
  It is a repeat of what happened in 1936 after the Jarrow march. My father worked in Palmers yard at Jarrow. He was paid off, sacked in 1934 when the yard was closed and did not get another job until the second world war, when he was taken back into the shipyard. Then men were fined if they did not work overtime. That is the sort of situation that the workers on the Tyne feel prevails today.
  If the Government do not assist the shipyards, there will be no shipbuilding industry in this country. I hope that the Minister will take note of the representations being made by my hon. Friends the Members for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) and for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Brown), who are to meet him next week. I hope that the Government will place that order for the helicopter landing ship as early as possible and perhaps save some of those shipyard workers' jobs.
  It is rather a coincidence—the Minister kindly reminded me of this before the debate—that six years ago I had an Adjournment debate on this very night, when it was the 50th anniversary of the Jarrow march. I referred then to the shipyard workers and suggested that orders for the type 23 and the second AOR should be placed at Swan's as early as possible.
  For the first time in living memory, no ships are being built on the south side of the River Tyne. We are the only maritime nation in the world that has no maritime policy, and the way things are going, we will be the only island nation in the world that has no shipbuilding industry.
  Mr. Bill Etherington: I represent an adjoining constituency which is very similar to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon). We now have no shipbuilding industry whatever in Sunderland, North. The remaining colliery, which my hon. Friend referred to earlier, is now the largest employer in the constituency, and it is under threat. The situation in the north-east, as I am sure the whole House is aware, is the worst in mainland Britain. If Wearmouth colliery closes, the largest employer in Sunderland, North will be the police station. That is the way things are.
  I am quite sure that my hon. Friend will agree with me that what we are looking for is not various development agencies or fine words from Ministers. We would like the President of the Board of Trade to tell us in the north-east

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  that he will bring forward policies which will take us back to the prosperity that we had in 1979, when the present Government inherited a good area in the north-east, which they have completely destroyed.
  I find it appalling that all we keep being told is that we are going to be given small amounts of money through various development agencies which are doing nothing whatever to improve the situation in the north-east in the context of a failed national policy.
  Mr. Dixon: I fully endorse the comments of my hon. Friend. Indeed, I worked at Pickersgills, Bartons and Thompsons, and the other yards that are no longer there. There is no shipbuilding at all in the Sunderland area. Not only are no ships being built on the south bank of the River Tyne, but if Westoe, Wearmouth, Easington and Vane Tempest collieries were to be closed, for the first time in history there will be no coal mined in county Durham. That is the situation today.
  Mr. Alan Meale (Mansfield): My hon. Friend will recall that people from Jarrow and throughout the Durham coalfield travelled south to Mansfield and the area that I represent. As a result of the Government's latest announcement, thousands of them face redundancy and losing their homes once again. Will my hon. Friend address that point and the fact that those people will have to move again to find work, when there are more than 3 million unemployed people in Britain?
  Mr. Dixon: I will address that point if there are no more interventions. I agree with my hon. Friend. The experience in Ellen Wilkinson's famous book, "The town that was murdered" can be repeated throughout the country.
  Almost 5,000 men and women are out of work in Jarrow at the moment. That is 22 per cent., but percentages do not count. Someone who is out of work is 100 per cent. unemployed. Percentages make no difference to people who are on the dole. South Tyneside district comprises my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark). More than 10,200 men and women are out of work in that area, and to that we can add another 3,750 who have been removed from the official unemployment count by the Government's massaging of the unemployment figures. The unemployment figure in south Tyneside is more than 25 per cent.
  Westoe colliery, which is threatened with closure in South Shields, is the fourth largest employer on south Tyneside. If it closes, 1,200 more men will be thrown on to the unemployment register. If we add that figure to jobs in related industries, we are talking about more than 2,000 more people being made unemployed. Of those who are out of work, almost one third have been out of work for more than 12 months. That is the size of the problem in our area.
  On Saturday 24 October, I attended a conference called "Working together against unemployment in Jarrow", organised by Roy Merrin and the Churches of Jarrow. Each of the major denominations in the town was well represented, along with Dr. David Jenkins, the Bishop of Durham, the Rev. John Nicholson, the Baptist Union's area superintendent, and Bishop Ambrose Griffiths of the Hexham and Newcastle diocese of the Roman Catholic Church.
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  During that conference, four unemployed people gave personal testimony to show how unemployment was affecting them. They all spoke of the growing sense of isolation, loss of self-confidence and inability to make choices in many aspects of their daily lives. Two of them told of how they had become so depressed at being without paid employment that they required hospital treatment. Two also spoke of their feelings of guilt and frustration at having to sponge off members of their family for basic necessities of life.
  Another contribution was made by a woman whose shipyard worker husband experienced regular bouts of unemployment. Even in the shipyards that are working at the moment, men are often made redundant for periods. She told how the uncertainty of her situation had created budgetary problems which caused tensions in the family.
  The contributions of those five people had a moving effect on the conference. I only wish that a Minister had been present to hear them speak. Those people know what it is like to be out of work. If a Minister had been present, we might not hear nonsensical statements about unemployment being a price worth paying. Similarly, we would not hear Lord Tebbit talking about people getting on their bikes. The Government should be aware that the young and active get on their bikes to look for work. They do not take with them the parks, libraries, community centres and old people's homes. They are left behind, and there is an imbalance in the population.
  Half the population of the borough of South Tyneside is wholly or mainly dependent on welfare benefits. Forty-one thousand poll tax payers qualify for rebates. There is serious disability in 15,000 households where attendance allowances or serious disability allowances are received. There are thousands on the disabled registers at jobcentres. There are 5,000 people on the long-term sick register. There are 11,000 widows, and 22,000 people are claiming income benefit. Approximately 2,000 families receive family income supplement. One third of the children on the school rolls receive free meals. Those are the people the Government hit when they talk about public expenditure cuts. Those people have nothing at the moment, and they must rely on state benefits. It is about time the Government realised that.
  I do not want to be too critical. The Minister has drawn the short straw in having to reply to a debate on unemployment. I honestly believe that the best long-term policy would have been for a few more Conservative Members to vote with us on the confidence motion last night, followed by a general election in a month, and a Government who will deal with unemployment. However, that did not happen. Many Conservative Members chickened out and we are left with the present Government. The Liberal Democrat Benches are as full tonight as they usually are for such debates.
  I shall give the Minister some short-term measures to provide immediate help for my constituents. I have discussed this matter with the leader of South Tyneside council, Councillor Albert Elliott, and the deputy leader, Councillor Stephen Hepburn. In South Shields, there is a business enterprise zone, and it has to be replaced. Tedco presently operates a 140-unit business enterprise centre in South Shields. More than 50 firms currently occupy 122 units on the site and employ about 200 people. The freehold of the premises was sold by Plessey to Interconnection Systems Ltd. in 1991. ISL is the most

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  successful manufacturer of printed circuit boards in the United Kingdom. That shows how shipyard workers can be retrained for that industry.
  To meet ISL's expansion plans, it requires the rest of the site which at present is occupied by Tedco. To facilitate that extension and the possible creation of 300 jobs, Tedco has applied for Department of Trade and Industry assistance to build a new business enterprise centre on a 4·5 acre site at the Viking industrial park in Jarrow. The new 5,000 sq ft centre will include 111 managed workshop units and space for Tedco's support and training activities, and will create another 150 jobs on top of the 200 that would be transferred from South Shields.
  The Government could give resources to a business development programme which would identify job opportunities and retention within the existing business community. The Government could introduce enterprise status for the Boldon business park, which is where Boldon colliery used to be, a highly successful park which is capable of development, and also for the Monk ton site of the now derelict cokeworks which requires reclamation. That could be made into an enterprise zone to attract jobs and workshops. The Government could give resources to the Viking industrial park on the site of the old Jarrow steelworks along the riverside.
  The Government could give assistance to the community-based training enterprise network, which would deal with long-term unemployment. That would follow the example of the Low Simonside initiative, but it would be a mobile service. It would be aimed at providing advice and assistance for the long-term unemployed such as mature adults who have not worked since the shipyards and steelworks closed during the early 1980s. It would assist women who gave up employment after marriage and might wish to rejoin the work force. It would provide assistance to youngsters who have never experienced a working environment. Those groups require assistance.
  The final and simplest way in which the Government can assist in the short term relates to housing. Hundreds of construction workers in south Tyneside do not have jobs. The council has 9,741 applicants on the housing waiting list and 4,600 on the housing transfer list. It has £22 million in the bank from the sale of council houses. House building is the most labour-intensive industry. We have the need—thousands of people waiting for houses and thousands of people wanting to be transferred to other houses, £22 million in the bank, and hundreds of people unemployed. The simple solution is to allow the council to spend the money, let construction workers go back to work, and let people go into the houses that they require. It does not take a mathematical genius to work that out. There are people in the Cabinet who can split an atom but cannot boil a kettle.
  When I was chairman of South Tyneside housing committee, we were building 800 houses a year. This year, the council is building none. Council house building has been brought to a halt. The only houses that are being built are a couple of bungalows, and they are being built by apprentices. When I was chairman of the housing committee in 1979, the housing investment programme allocation was £30 million in 1992 values. This year it is £5 million, which is one sixth of what was allocated for building and modernising council houses in 1979.
  I shall conclude now, because I want to give the Minister the opportunity to answer the points that I and my hon. Friends made. My hon. Friends the Members for
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  Mansfield (Mr. Meale), for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), for Ogmore (Mr. Powell), for Easington (Mr. Cummings), for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) and for Sunderland, North (Mr. Etherington) have been present for the debate, and it is good to see them here. I hope that the Minister will be as constructive as I have been in the points that I have made in this Adjournment debate.
  10.20 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Patrick McLoughlin): I congratulate the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) on securing this debate. He rightly pointed out that six years ago to the very night, 5 November 1986, he opened an Adjournment debate on the same subject and made the same points that he made tonight. I should like to remind him of a few points that he made in that debate. He looked forward to the possibility of a general election. Things do not change too much. On that occasion he said:
  "The first opportunity to go to the polls after the Jarrow crusade of 1936 was in 1945, when a Labour Government were swept in with an overwhelming majority. It is to be hoped that after the 1986 march, when we go to the polls next year or the year after, the people will do the same as in 1945." —[Official Report, 5 November 1986; Vol. 103, c. 1061.]
  We have had two general elections since then. Tonight the hon. Gentleman looked forward to another general election. If there is another general election in the next few years the result will be the same as that of the previous two general elections. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will yet again receive the overwhelming endorsement of the British people.
  Mr. Dixon: Not in Jarrow.
  Mr McLoughlin: Perhaps not in Jarrow. I accept that that might be hoping for a little too much, but I assure the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends that we would put up a spirited fight.
  I may not have time to respond to all the points that hon. Members made. The hon. Member for Jarrow obviously commanded the support of his colleagues in his speech. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman in due course about any points that I do not have a chance to cover tonight. As he rightly pointed out, there will be a meeting next week between my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and representatives from the local community. Some of the points raised tonight will be addressed at that meeting.
  As the hon. Gentleman said, the town of Jarrow has been associated with high levels of unemployment. The Government accept that unemployment in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and in the south Tyneside travel-to-work area is higher than any of us would wish. I am especially conscious that for too many years south Tyneside has been in the unenviable position of having the highest or near-highest unemployment rate in Great Britain.
  However, without wishing to minimise the problem, I note that, despite the increases in unemployment that have occurred generally since the early 1990s, there are 3,000 fewer unemployed people in Jarrow constituency than there were six years ago to the night, when the hon. Gentleman last raised the issue on the Adjournment. It is also noteworthy that the northern region as a whole has shown remarkable resilience in the current recession, with

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  unemployment having risen by about 33 per cent. compared with 78 per cent. in the United Kingdom nationally.
  Rises in unemployment are of course regrettable, but long-term job security depends on success in controlling inflation. Had interest rates not risen when they did, and had the Government allowed inflation to rip, that would have been far more damaging to jobs in the long run. Our success in controlling inflation and interest rates—both now at their lowest since 1988—is a prelude to a resumption of soundly based, non-inflationary growth and a revival of employment prospects.
  We can all fully understand the hon. Gentleman's anxiety about the possible closure of Westoe pit and other collieries. I am sure that, like the other 20 pits subject to the full Government review, its future will be examined meticulously against the background of energy policy generally.
  The hon. Member has referred to an action plan in response to the closure of Westoe colliery, which I understand has been drawn up by the South Tyneside Regeneration Group. I congratulate the group on reacting so quickly to the possible closures, which I stress again are subject to the review announced by the Government.
  The plan contains some interesting proposals, including, as the hon. Gentleman outlined, some relating to training and involving Tyneside training and enterprise council, and I understand that Tyneside TEC is closely associated with the regeneration group. As the hon. Member may be aware, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment has asked all the TECs covering areas that might experience pit closures, including Tyneside TEC, to draw up contingency plans. Those plans are to be based on a package of special measures and extra resources, which I shall outline later.
  I am sure that the training proposals in the regeneration group's plan will be taken on board by the TEC in its contingency plan for the area, and will in due course be considered sympathetically by my Department, when all the contingency plans in other areas involved are considered.
  The regeneration group's plan also contains some proposals outside the responsibility of my Department, including a possible business centre, an enterprise zone, and recommendations for clearing derelict land. All those seem to be very practical suggestions, and I know that such initiatives have played a valuable part in regenerating other areas of industrial decline. I am sure that the Departments of Trade and Industry and of the Environment will give the regeneration group's proposals careful consideration in the context of the measures announced by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.
  It would not be proper for me to speculate on the outcome of the energies review. However, in case at the end of the day Westoe colliery is scheduled for closure, the hon. Member will be interested to hear about the contingency measures that have been put in place by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment.
  In the case of closure, all unemployed people in targeted areas, to be defined by the TECs, will be eligible for a full assessment of the options open to them and of the help they need; those assessments will be of up to five days per
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  individual. Every unemployed person in the targeted areas will also be given immediate priority access to a range of help, including employment training; support in setting up their own business; temporary work; participation in voluntary activities; job clubs; travel-to-interview grants and, where appropriate, removal costs. For young people in the affected areas there will be a guarantee of the continuation of apprenticeships and of youth training programmes.
  My right hon. Friend recently met the chairmen of the TECs covering the coal closure areas and, as I mentioned earlier, has asked them to prepare contingency plans for each of their areas, incorporating the employment and training measures I have just outlined. The TECs concerned, including Tyneside TEC, are drawing up such plans, in collaboration with British Coal Enterprise, the Employment Service, the local authorities and other local agencies and voluntary groups. Up to £75 million in this financial year and the next will be made available to the TECs for the implementation of these plans, should they be needed.
  I thought it proper to outline in some detail the steps taken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, but I must also mention, if only briefly, the important measures to help regenerate the coal closure areas announced by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. Those include enhanced assisted-area status for some areas, possible enterprise zones, and provision of premises and infrastructure. Some of those measures were outlined and requested by the hon. Gentleman. There is obviously a determination to consider those proposals.
  I recognise that any closure would not have an impact simply on those losing their jobs, or even just on their families, but would affect the whole community. That is why both my right hon. Friends have laid great stress on the importance of all the agencies in the local areas concerned being actively involved and working together.
  Despite the high level of unemployment in the area, and the possibility of the closure of Westoe, it would be wrong to assume that it is all doom and gloom in the south Tyneside area—far from it. As I am sure the hon. Member is well aware, there are many successful companies in the area, making a wide variety of products.
  Inward investment has also been attracted from the far east. A substantial amount has ended up in the south Tyneside area.
  Recent good news includes the winning of contracts by NEI for the construction of a network of 13 electricity substations in Malaysia, and for the complete design-and-build responsibility for a major sub-station in Cardiff. Over the past year this company has won orders in excess of £65 million.
  Last month Press Offshore purchased the Mercantile docks in the hon. Member's constituency. The company intends to use the site to build units for the offshore industry and 100 local jobs should be created at about the turn of the year.
  I should also like to highlight the work of the Tyne and Wear development corporation in bringing new investment to the area; and since its designation in 1987 it has invested some £31 million in south Tyneside. Two of the corporation's major projects are the Viking industrial park in Jarrow, which has long-term potential for 1,500 jobs.

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  The matters that I have outlined show movement in the right direction. I will not have time to cover the other points.
  The motion having been made at Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MADAM SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.